“Where have all the good times gone?” A letter to a long lost friend
Indeed, the question is “Where has all the fun gone” period, but for our discussion, the greater question is ‘What the heck happened to rock and roll?”
Yes, it’s been a long time since we sat and chewed the fat on the subject. To the best on my recollection, before the flannel clad, unshaven Generation X brats embraced Nirvana and Pearl Jam and deemed that Cobain kid as the “Next Spokesman for His Generation” and watched as the thorny crown they placed on his head shattered in a shotgun blast. Is that too harsh? Maybe. But the kid didn’t have it in him to be an emotional recluse like Dylan or larger than life like Springsteen or even hide behind an “alcoholic boob” façade like my beloved Paul Westerberg. I mean I feel for the guy in that he was the “lonely kid who suffered so much for what he did” as Robbie Robertson once wrote [Stage Fright], but his band wasn’t what everyone claimed; they weren’t punk, they weren’t the ‘saviors of rock and roll’ [though selling six million and kicking the door open for a bunch of other flannel clad navel gazer bands probably kept the ‘Music Industry’ from drying up for five years there]… I’m not sure what they were. I’m not sure at 25 that I was supposed to ‘get it.’ Black Sabbath sounding bands, I could get; not Nirvana.
Oh, rock and roll was dying [again] was going before them. We were tired of the party all the time hairspray bands and it was pretty clear critical college radio darlings were not going to sell the tons of records needed to keep the music industry giants alive unless they polished their apples and played fairly mainstream, like REM chose to do. Matter of fact I recall ‘The Music Industry’ holding its breath for another Guns ‘N Roses record that turned out to be the sprawling unfocused Use Your Illusion records. The rise of the Seattle sound, heavy swirling Black Sabbath influenced bands like Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, the criminally unheard Gruntruck and Soundgrarden along with Pearl Jam’s raging against the machine effectively and mercifully killed the ‘hairspray bands’ [except Bon Jovi and Def Leppard], but they also sucked all the fun out of rock and roll. What’s the last song you can think of with ‘party’ or even ‘rock’ in the title? One just popped into my mind: You’ve Got Me Rocking by the Rolling Stones [1996], but they’re a hold over band [see Cheap Trick, below].
Don’t get me wrong, songs like I Wanna Rock [Twisted Sister] , Nothin’ But A Good Time’[Poison], Rock and Roll All Night [Kiss] and Rock and Roll Party in the Streets [Axe?] were mindless and stupid, but they were harmless. Even when Rush, Genesis, Yes, ELP, et al were trying to bore us [although I think with enough drugs some of that could sound interesting, but that would take about ½ the tea in China] to death with 12 minute songs like ‘Opus to the Grandeur of the Electric Triangle,’ there was still fun, mindless and harmless rock and roll being made like Cheap Trick. The fact that Cheap Trick is STILL making mostly harmless [but only half good] records is not the point here; they are holdovers from another era. Same as the Kinks and the Rolling Stones. Aerosmith, however, has seen fit to join the other side. They’re making unapologetically commercial records. They’re being seen at the Super Bowl with Brittany and Justin and Nelly. They won’t quit playing Walk This Way. For some reason I was encouraged by the single Jaded. It sounded fresh and it looked like the band could do something more than they did. That’s the frustrating part: You know what they can do, what they’re capable of, but they’re slaves to the Corporate Master now. And it’s killed a once great band. But I also think Joe Perry could be a man and stand up to Steven Tyler and tell him to shut up once in a while, to really BE the Keith Richards to Tyler’s Jagger.
I’ve been dabbling in country music recently. There’s something happening there now that they’ve decided that electric guitars are here to stay. But they’re getting stuck in the same ‘pretty boy’ rut that’s gumming up pop music. The Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith are pretty good and there’s a bunch of Texans keeping things interesting, folks like Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green and Cross Canadian Ragweed [well, they’re Okies, but they’re okay]. Plus I am finding the old school outlaw country guys like Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Hank Jr. and Billy Joe Shaver. But my problem now is that I am more interested in good songs, which I am finding on Wilco and Paul Westerberg and re-issues of the Uncle Tupelo and Elvis Costello catalogs. [What a TREASURE I have found in Elvis! I wonder now why I didn’t have all these records before, but I wonder if I could appreciate them then as I can now.]
So what is the current state of rock and roll? Is it dead and buried or is it out of town and the kids are having a big old party? What I can stand to hear of today’s music is all bass… all the guitars are tuned down, the bass drum is all electronic THOOM DOOM that the rappers all like [don’t even get me started on M&M and all that crap, although if the idea is ‘this is gonna drive your parents nuts and define a generation gap,’ well it succeeds in SPADES]. This used to be the kick drum, but who uses real drums anymore besides the third wave of garage bands like the Strokes [who have one or two really good songs that they somehow turned into a whole album, but they need to learn another chord REAL FAST], Hives, White Stripes… none of whom have impressed me. Or it’s pretty boys and girls in tight clothes or various states of undress. Hmm, now that I think about it, that is vapid, mindless, stupid and harmless… I may have just shot my own argument in the foot.
On the other hand, rock and roll seems to be cyclical thing, every so often it turns and devours itself. Usually about the time one generation quits buying music CDs so they can pay the mortgage, ‘The Industry’ comes up with the next big thing or scene to capture the interest of the 16 year old. The interesting thing about this period is the emergence of the Internet as a viable tool for exposing people to new music, allowing an incredibly diverse universe of artists [not all musicians are artists and vice-versa] to be consumed. But ‘The Music Industry’ doesn’t want the masses to have this tool because it goes completely against the way the industry is set up. TMI will no longer be able to set the trends and control the spin to garner large dollars for their greedy stockholders. Don’t believe for a SECOND that the RIAA suing people over ‘copyright violations’ has ANYTHING to do with protecting ‘The Artist’ or ‘The Artist’s Work.’ It is all about protecting the music industry recouping the dollars they put into ‘Artist Development’ which they don’t do anymore because they buy artists from the indie labels. It is about keeping a dinosaur system that has all ready devoured its own from becoming an extinct dinosaur. The small independents are probably right where they need to be for Internet sales and allowing samples and all that and being in the right place for the future. But the Big 5 [3, depending on how you count] aren’t in position for Internet sales, in spite of Apple’s iTunes selling 10 million downloads at a buck a pop. [This is now being held back from PC owners as the Beatles Apple Corps suing Apple Computers over the name Apple, stating iTunes is violating a 1991 agreement that allowed Apple Computers to use the name Apple as long as Apple did not get into the ‘music business.’] And anyway, the Big 5/3 are only interested in selling yesterday’s hits re-remastered so you can own it a fourth time and they make easy money on something all ready long paid for.
Anyway, getting back to the original question: “What happened to rock and roll?” This was a puzzling question until I had a talk with Holey Mikey the Amazing Pierced Boy. Creep popped out with “It’s been destroyed by the commercialization and idolization perpetrated by the music industry. Kids today want shock rock, they want rap-rock, they want pseudo-punk; they don’t LIKE [what used to be known as] rock.” He also blamed the record companies for forcing bands down on people and “as soon as the flavor of the week band starts losing popularity, they have someone ready to take their place. That’s what’s on the radio and MTV, it must be good.”
Mikey went on to explain that part of this comes from the kids being taught from day one not to be emotional. Their parents are both off working and that emotional people are weak. But they have these emotions and they don’t have an outlet. And he played me some tunes. I asked what the answer was. It’s one thing to say “I feel like you do” but another to offer an answer or an idea. “We need some garage bands with guitars and drums,” he told me. Well, that’s going on, sort of. But what I find missing from this whole thing is that lightning rod, shake up the world band, the great unifying IT like the Beatles.
And maybe that’s it. We discussed where this splintering began and I think we have narrowed the period down to 1986/87, with the rise of Run DMC, Anthrax’s crossing the rap-metal barrier and the rise of the Beastie Boys. Now everything is so pigeon holed there is no real ‘Rock’ anymore. You’ve got the Emo bands like Good Charlotte and Jimmy Eats World, but they lack the introspection of the Replacements. Westerberg learned to put his heart out on his sleeve around the time of Let It Be. Is there anyone out there who could throw out “look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re satisfied’ [Unsatisfied]? ANGER, yes. Remember Fionna Apple and Alanis Morisette and how pissed off they were? John Lydon once quipped ‘Anger is an energy,’ but he’s notorious for not offering any answers either. Anger we have, but not introspection or answers. Have the kids today gotten to the point of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, afraid to be “caught red handed showing feelings”?
Mike mentioned Woodstock 99 and those people destroying everything. I tried to tell him that people went to Woodstock looking for something they were missing, to make a connection with some MAGIC THING or Ghost of Protests Past that would make their lives have meaning or point them at an answer. And when all they got was $ 5 water and $ 10 hamburgers, they realized they had been duped. Which does not excuse people for burning and looting. But it does show that there are some people looking for answers instead of sinking into a dope induced, Play Station fed stupor.
I asked, “Who cares anymore Mike? The kids don’t want to know ‘the ones we love the best/ are the ones we’ll lay to rest/ and visit their graves on holidays at best/ the ones who love us least/ are the one’s we’ll die to please/ if it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them’. [‘Bastards of Young’ – Replacements]” Mike, being a fairly intelligent individual in spite of appearances, said, “Someone should keep reminding people that it’s there. Someone has to keep telling the kids about real music.”
I don’t know anymore. I still have some hope because there are bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, Foo Fighters, Dallas band Nope and my friend Nate who still play it like the Stones, Faces and the ‘Mats did. I know there’s an untapped underground of people who still listen to Cheap Trick, the Smithereens, the Black Crowes and AC/DC and wonder why there are no bands like that anymore. Then again, there is the crowd that listens to ‘The Bone’ and sing along with Sammy Hagar, Van Halen, Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Boston, Billy Squier, etc and think they are still rockin’. The same dudes who wear their Van Halen 1984 or Hagar Kicks Ass ’85 tour jerseys changing the oil in their driveway on Saturday morning in Burleson. Which raises an interesting connundrum. I saw X last winter at Trees, a small club about the size of a high school gym [all four originals touring for the first time since 1985] and they played great, but they played so loud my ears literally rang for three days. It was way TOO loud. And if it was too loud, does that make me ‘too old?’
I took Mikey to CD Warehouse so I could pick up my latest Elvis re-issue, Trust, and he was asking the counter guy about ordering something called Day Glo Abortions and ragging me for buying Train. But then we were discussing punk with the counter guy, as I was considering a Damned double CD [decided against, really Damned Damned Damned is their best and I own that] and Mikey was able to discuss the Ramones, the Clash and Fear, so maybe I am having a positive impact [even though he rarely plays anything that good when I am in the car with him and he thinks Suicidal Tendencies are punk].
So I guess with Lester Bangs dead twenty years, but finally getting some respect and Joe Strummer recently deceased, that leaves ME to carry the torch for ‘Old School Rock and Roll’ and ‘Real Punk Rock.’
Friday, September 12, 2003
Looking Back Down Thunder Road
I was recently re-reading an old Musician magazine, as I am wont to do from time to time. Specifically, I got to reading an article on Bruce Springsteen and how he and Jon Landau put together the Live 1975-1985 set [aka THE Original Box Set] and how they struggled to get the songs in an order to tell a story of sorts, starting with that sparse take of ‘Thunder Road.’ [The truth, just for knowledge, is that Bruce was having a hard time getting the band arrangement down (he even felt like it wasn’t right on the record) so he was opening with just Roy Bittan on piano and Danny Federichi on glockenspiel.]
Now I have always felt a deep connection to ‘Thunder Road,’ more so than the dynamic but over hyped and overplayed ‘Born to Run.’ I think Bruce’s best line EVER is “Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet.” It seems to me to be about two real people [‘you ain’t no beauty but hey you’re all right”] and their beginning of a search for something after high school. It fits the mold of the first scene of a movie, maybe even perhaps even echoing James Dean’s Rebel Without A Cause [“It’s a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win” instead of “What are you rebelling against?”, “What have ya got?”]. And it’s so distinctly American Dream. “Gonna leave the nest and find my place in the world.”
It’s so opposite from my own life, maybe that’s why I connected so deeply with it. I came from [well, I GRADUATED in] a town full of losers, but I never left home. I just stumbled through a couple crappy jobs and struggled to pretend I was going to school still and ‘make something of myself.’ I didn’t discover myself until I was at the record store [my dream job] and hooked up with people older than me who gave me some guide posts. They also taught me to get drunk on weeknights and stumble in sweaty and reeking to do books at 800 the next morning after starting the day with a 16oz Coke and a bag of M&Ms to get a good sugar rush to get me through the day.
But even when I had found my path [I do not believe I have found my ‘calling’ though you kind people tell me I should be writing somewhere… but I HATE deadlines and I don’t have anything really interesting to say myself] I didn’t have that complete sense of freedom found in ‘Thunder Road.’ I don’t know if it’s just because I felt I never did anything, never went anyplace, didn’t take any chances… even looking back now, I know I was jealous of my friends who went off to college in exotic locales like Houston, Nashville and even Abilene.
They were off on their paths and pursuing what they wanted [or thought they wanted at the time]. I never have known what I want out of life. I mean beyond shelter and food and friends. I guess I realized early that I probably wasn’t going to be much beyond a working class Joe. And I probably wouldn’t do as well as my parents. My folks lucked into an area where good paying manufacturing jobs were being filled at that time. My dad went from managing McDonalds and Taco Bell and Red Lobster to making fighter jets. I didn’t want to build jets. I wanted to be Hunter Thompson or Ben Fong Torres and interview Mick Jagger. But I couldn’t or wouldn’t get myself though school. Where does one start? I had this conversation with a friend a few weeks ago about dream jobs. I really couldn’t think of my dream job. I said ‘beat writer for a hockey team.’ I would love to do that. Local music columnist, take Macolm Mayhew or Zac Crain’s jobs from them; record producer, sound man at Gypsy Tea Room… I could name a few now that I’ve had time to think it over.
Oh, I got sidetracked. Well, actually, maybe that’s what happened to me. I had an idea, but I got off the highway and never got back on. Had the dream job working in the record store at 19, fired at 21 and never got back on track. Even got back in school for a while after that, but got wiped out by Algebra again. I never even tried for the college paper or journalism classes. The irony was that I was in a depressed haze for a couple years after high school, writing an awful American Graffiti type screenplay and angry, lonesome free verse… always writing, but not what I should have been, eh? But I always was a late bloomer; I didn’t take journalism in high school until my junior year, so I spent all of half a year on the school paper [deadlines] and the yearbook; I think if Tatum had known what a pain I would be she would have said ‘No’ to journalism. On the other hand, we had some great rock and roll discussions. However, she doesn’t know how lucky she is that I never read Hunter Thompson or Lester Bangs until after high school.
Ah, back where I started: ‘Thunder Road.’ What does the world think of someone who has no dream to follow? Or doesn’t feel the ‘overwhelming call’ to chase a dream or to hit the road and find themselves or whatever? Does that make me an oddball? [Suppress comments, please, peanut gallery.] Burleson was no paradise in 1985. Surprises me every time I come back what’s been built, houses and restaurants and all. From a disconnected ‘bedroom town’ to the ‘south end of the Fort Worth/I-35W corridor’ I guess. Like Irving, Grand Prairie, Grapevine and Southlake, just added into the urban sprawl. But back then, it was just a little hick town and we weren’t even in the city. We were out on the rural route with the cows and the rednecks. I hated growing up out there before I got a car. There was just nothing to do. I was the oldest kid on my little street and the only other guy on the street was about 5 years younger than me. I guess that’s where I learned to entertain myself. But apparently as much as I hated being in the sticks and as much time as I spent in Arlington, I never moved on. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I didn’t do anything.
Springsteen’s characters at least got together and did something. They got out, got married, found out a lot of what the American Dream is based on was smoke and mirrors and things aren’t all wine and roses. But they got out and lived it, bitter day after bitter day [see Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River and Nebraska]. Of course Springsteen’s characters are distinctly colored with New Jersey [or at least Northeastern US] flavor. I was sitting here in the new ‘land of opportunity,’ where things were happening. I wasn’t suffering as steel mills and textile factories were closing, wondering where my next mortgage payment was coming from. Did I know at 20 that the American Dream had been shot, butchered and served up as steak to the Baby Boom Generation and all I was gonna get was hamburger?
It’s funny how things change on you. I thought I was going to write about how realizing that Mom and Dad didn’t know it all was a traumatic or defining moment, but I guess it wasn’t either of those things. It still makes a good sentence, but unfortunately it’s not really true. That wasn’t it. Realizing I had no deep driving ambition, maybe. Realizing that I was in charge of my own life and all my regrets were my own fault, definitely.
I said before that my parents weren’t really vocally supportive or doting or anything. It’s partially true. I have come to realize over the last few weeks how much help I may have had if I hadn’t had my big ol’ ego in the way. What else has not asking for help or not wanting to be a bother kept me from? What else has bad self image kept me from doing?
Anyway, that’s the book of my regrets for the day. I don’t feel like I got out and experienced the gypsy lifestyle I know is buried somewhere inside me, aside from runs up I 35 to Wichita. It’s really funny that I like driving because you can just pop in a tape and let the miles glide by and let your mind just unwind, hypnotized by the freeway hum. Of course you’re gonna run like a maniac when you get where you’re going and you’re going to be beat when you finally pull in your own driveway again, but Springsteen’s characters never mention that. They’re just getting out. Maybe they only make it to the next town or Philly or Pittsburgh or Dallas or Denver or maybe they make it all the way to California and find out that “no matter where you go, there you are.” [I am reminded of Gallagher talking about the old days, where “when you’re wagon broke down, you stayed. Do you think anyone sets out for Tulsa?” I am also reminded that there are a lot of ‘transitional towns’ where people end up for a couple years and move on, Wichita and Charleston W.Va. in my own experience. I mean I know a lot of people who have been through Wichita.]
Every kid growing up in a small town, be it Mellencamp’s Bloomfield, Indiana or Springsteen’s Asbury Park, New Jersey or Buddy Holly’s Lubbock, Texas wants to go somewhere where the action is. They want to blow their small burg and make it big. And they end up like my folks, making jets and building cars and two kids and a mortgage, worried about the economy and struggling through their own realizations that they didn’t ‘make it’ like they set out to [disappointments]. Most end up middle class, though some end up running away or hiding in the bottle or just desperate for something. Then their kids grow up ungrateful and blast “Bastards of Young” at them [“The ones who love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest/ and visit their graves on holidays at best/ the ones who love us least are the ones we’ll die to please…”]. Then they grow up, leave their burgs, get married, end up with even more ungrateful kids who blast Emenem back at them…
So here I am, an anomaly of the American Dream, looking back down Thunder Road. What happened to the idea of writing the great American novel, screenplay and finding the lost chord? How did I end up here, hopelessly lower middle class, still living paycheck to paycheck [and sometimes floating a week on the Visa], comfortable but not “happy.” My lucky break is that I can still pretty much starve myself to do something and only have to worry about me and the rent. Sounds silly, like a mid-life crisis, to just pack it all up, sell the CDs and start over at 36. But I could, if I wanted to.
I was recently re-reading an old Musician magazine, as I am wont to do from time to time. Specifically, I got to reading an article on Bruce Springsteen and how he and Jon Landau put together the Live 1975-1985 set [aka THE Original Box Set] and how they struggled to get the songs in an order to tell a story of sorts, starting with that sparse take of ‘Thunder Road.’ [The truth, just for knowledge, is that Bruce was having a hard time getting the band arrangement down (he even felt like it wasn’t right on the record) so he was opening with just Roy Bittan on piano and Danny Federichi on glockenspiel.]
Now I have always felt a deep connection to ‘Thunder Road,’ more so than the dynamic but over hyped and overplayed ‘Born to Run.’ I think Bruce’s best line EVER is “Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet.” It seems to me to be about two real people [‘you ain’t no beauty but hey you’re all right”] and their beginning of a search for something after high school. It fits the mold of the first scene of a movie, maybe even perhaps even echoing James Dean’s Rebel Without A Cause [“It’s a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win” instead of “What are you rebelling against?”, “What have ya got?”]. And it’s so distinctly American Dream. “Gonna leave the nest and find my place in the world.”
It’s so opposite from my own life, maybe that’s why I connected so deeply with it. I came from [well, I GRADUATED in] a town full of losers, but I never left home. I just stumbled through a couple crappy jobs and struggled to pretend I was going to school still and ‘make something of myself.’ I didn’t discover myself until I was at the record store [my dream job] and hooked up with people older than me who gave me some guide posts. They also taught me to get drunk on weeknights and stumble in sweaty and reeking to do books at 800 the next morning after starting the day with a 16oz Coke and a bag of M&Ms to get a good sugar rush to get me through the day.
But even when I had found my path [I do not believe I have found my ‘calling’ though you kind people tell me I should be writing somewhere… but I HATE deadlines and I don’t have anything really interesting to say myself] I didn’t have that complete sense of freedom found in ‘Thunder Road.’ I don’t know if it’s just because I felt I never did anything, never went anyplace, didn’t take any chances… even looking back now, I know I was jealous of my friends who went off to college in exotic locales like Houston, Nashville and even Abilene.
They were off on their paths and pursuing what they wanted [or thought they wanted at the time]. I never have known what I want out of life. I mean beyond shelter and food and friends. I guess I realized early that I probably wasn’t going to be much beyond a working class Joe. And I probably wouldn’t do as well as my parents. My folks lucked into an area where good paying manufacturing jobs were being filled at that time. My dad went from managing McDonalds and Taco Bell and Red Lobster to making fighter jets. I didn’t want to build jets. I wanted to be Hunter Thompson or Ben Fong Torres and interview Mick Jagger. But I couldn’t or wouldn’t get myself though school. Where does one start? I had this conversation with a friend a few weeks ago about dream jobs. I really couldn’t think of my dream job. I said ‘beat writer for a hockey team.’ I would love to do that. Local music columnist, take Macolm Mayhew or Zac Crain’s jobs from them; record producer, sound man at Gypsy Tea Room… I could name a few now that I’ve had time to think it over.
Oh, I got sidetracked. Well, actually, maybe that’s what happened to me. I had an idea, but I got off the highway and never got back on. Had the dream job working in the record store at 19, fired at 21 and never got back on track. Even got back in school for a while after that, but got wiped out by Algebra again. I never even tried for the college paper or journalism classes. The irony was that I was in a depressed haze for a couple years after high school, writing an awful American Graffiti type screenplay and angry, lonesome free verse… always writing, but not what I should have been, eh? But I always was a late bloomer; I didn’t take journalism in high school until my junior year, so I spent all of half a year on the school paper [deadlines] and the yearbook; I think if Tatum had known what a pain I would be she would have said ‘No’ to journalism. On the other hand, we had some great rock and roll discussions. However, she doesn’t know how lucky she is that I never read Hunter Thompson or Lester Bangs until after high school.
Ah, back where I started: ‘Thunder Road.’ What does the world think of someone who has no dream to follow? Or doesn’t feel the ‘overwhelming call’ to chase a dream or to hit the road and find themselves or whatever? Does that make me an oddball? [Suppress comments, please, peanut gallery.] Burleson was no paradise in 1985. Surprises me every time I come back what’s been built, houses and restaurants and all. From a disconnected ‘bedroom town’ to the ‘south end of the Fort Worth/I-35W corridor’ I guess. Like Irving, Grand Prairie, Grapevine and Southlake, just added into the urban sprawl. But back then, it was just a little hick town and we weren’t even in the city. We were out on the rural route with the cows and the rednecks. I hated growing up out there before I got a car. There was just nothing to do. I was the oldest kid on my little street and the only other guy on the street was about 5 years younger than me. I guess that’s where I learned to entertain myself. But apparently as much as I hated being in the sticks and as much time as I spent in Arlington, I never moved on. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I didn’t do anything.
Springsteen’s characters at least got together and did something. They got out, got married, found out a lot of what the American Dream is based on was smoke and mirrors and things aren’t all wine and roses. But they got out and lived it, bitter day after bitter day [see Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River and Nebraska]. Of course Springsteen’s characters are distinctly colored with New Jersey [or at least Northeastern US] flavor. I was sitting here in the new ‘land of opportunity,’ where things were happening. I wasn’t suffering as steel mills and textile factories were closing, wondering where my next mortgage payment was coming from. Did I know at 20 that the American Dream had been shot, butchered and served up as steak to the Baby Boom Generation and all I was gonna get was hamburger?
It’s funny how things change on you. I thought I was going to write about how realizing that Mom and Dad didn’t know it all was a traumatic or defining moment, but I guess it wasn’t either of those things. It still makes a good sentence, but unfortunately it’s not really true. That wasn’t it. Realizing I had no deep driving ambition, maybe. Realizing that I was in charge of my own life and all my regrets were my own fault, definitely.
I said before that my parents weren’t really vocally supportive or doting or anything. It’s partially true. I have come to realize over the last few weeks how much help I may have had if I hadn’t had my big ol’ ego in the way. What else has not asking for help or not wanting to be a bother kept me from? What else has bad self image kept me from doing?
Anyway, that’s the book of my regrets for the day. I don’t feel like I got out and experienced the gypsy lifestyle I know is buried somewhere inside me, aside from runs up I 35 to Wichita. It’s really funny that I like driving because you can just pop in a tape and let the miles glide by and let your mind just unwind, hypnotized by the freeway hum. Of course you’re gonna run like a maniac when you get where you’re going and you’re going to be beat when you finally pull in your own driveway again, but Springsteen’s characters never mention that. They’re just getting out. Maybe they only make it to the next town or Philly or Pittsburgh or Dallas or Denver or maybe they make it all the way to California and find out that “no matter where you go, there you are.” [I am reminded of Gallagher talking about the old days, where “when you’re wagon broke down, you stayed. Do you think anyone sets out for Tulsa?” I am also reminded that there are a lot of ‘transitional towns’ where people end up for a couple years and move on, Wichita and Charleston W.Va. in my own experience. I mean I know a lot of people who have been through Wichita.]
Every kid growing up in a small town, be it Mellencamp’s Bloomfield, Indiana or Springsteen’s Asbury Park, New Jersey or Buddy Holly’s Lubbock, Texas wants to go somewhere where the action is. They want to blow their small burg and make it big. And they end up like my folks, making jets and building cars and two kids and a mortgage, worried about the economy and struggling through their own realizations that they didn’t ‘make it’ like they set out to [disappointments]. Most end up middle class, though some end up running away or hiding in the bottle or just desperate for something. Then their kids grow up ungrateful and blast “Bastards of Young” at them [“The ones who love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest/ and visit their graves on holidays at best/ the ones who love us least are the ones we’ll die to please…”]. Then they grow up, leave their burgs, get married, end up with even more ungrateful kids who blast Emenem back at them…
So here I am, an anomaly of the American Dream, looking back down Thunder Road. What happened to the idea of writing the great American novel, screenplay and finding the lost chord? How did I end up here, hopelessly lower middle class, still living paycheck to paycheck [and sometimes floating a week on the Visa], comfortable but not “happy.” My lucky break is that I can still pretty much starve myself to do something and only have to worry about me and the rent. Sounds silly, like a mid-life crisis, to just pack it all up, sell the CDs and start over at 36. But I could, if I wanted to.
