#88 How Classic…
What you are about to read is a true story about a very brief moment of personal insight that occurred at mile post 33 of Interstate Five in Oregon on my drive away from Portland, my foster home, and into California, my biological home.
Before I can explain my quasi-spiritual moment of self reflection, I must explain my background a bit: I am a twenty seven year old who figured for many years that he would be a full time, successful musician by my current age. But I’m not. I still compose music, record music, and I play a lot of music, but I long ago quit on my childhood desire to be a professional musician—I quit that dream in lieu of bigger things (read: drinking coffee and writing fiction, in that order).
But there was a time, which was not so long ago, when I wanted nothing more than to be a rich, sexy, successful, alcoholic drug-using rock star (insert “two out of five ‘aint half bad (it’s 3/5 bad) joke…here.)
Let’s travel back in time for a moment, shall we? It was in the spring of 1991 and I had just turned ten when I bought my first guitar.
The first and main reason that I bought a guitar when I was ten years old was that I wanted to be just like my brand new idol, one “Kurt Cobain” who was the singer and songwriter for an immensely popular rock band at the time, a band known as “Nirvana.”
The other reason that I bought a guitar is that I was probably vaguely aware by the age of ten about the association between rock and roll and sex, and even though it would be another half year or so before I actually had any relevant sense of what sex was about, and another five years before my desire for sex would outweigh my desire for anything else on Earth, some small part of me was already beginning to challenge my brains for control of every decision I make—luckily for me, the decision to buy a guitar was mutually beneficial to both my brains and my loins.
Okay, we’re now departing the station of 1991, and leaving behind all the flannel and the plaid and even King Bush I and his graceful “I puke in Japan” regime for the present day, it’s 2008 again, and you can resume worrying about things like the economy and who will be the next American Idol.
So there I was, whizzing down the highway and listening to FM radio on a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon, when I decided to flip stations, because I wasn’t feeling the current one, which was a remote station from Southern Oregon that featured seventy percent static and thirty percent over-produced shit. I guess I was hoping for more static.
I flipped the station and found myself in quite a happy place; for the song on the next station was none other than the marquee “sarcastic generation” slacker anthem; “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” by none other than Nirvana.
Naturally, I cranked up the volume in case any of the nearby squirrels hanging out in the trees along the road wanted to hear something more exciting than the sounds of acorns falling on dirt, and I proceeded to practically ruin my vocal chords by the end of the song, due to the fact that in order to keep pace with Mr. Cobain in this song, one must franticly yell the phrase “a denial” over and over again, at the top of their lungs until they feel like they’ve been suffering from Tuberculosis for five years.
Now here is the part of my tale in which things get a little weird! The song ends, and my heart begins to slow down to a normal pace when, what do you know? The next song that comes on is none other than “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey.
I’m not a huge fan of Journey, but I’d be lying if I said that I do not enjoy their powerful-poppy song about “a small town girl, living in a lonely world.” After all, it’s a fun tune to sing along to in its own right, and a total throwback to an era that I never experienced, because the song came out the same year I was born, in 1981.
So I finish my sing along with Journey, excited to hear what could possibly be coming up next on this crazy experimental rock-fusion station, when the “wacky” disc jockey (read: over-paid, over-friendly, and afraid to use his first amendment privilege to say anything remotely meaningful plastic drone) announces that “we have just finished another ten song, non-stop classic rock block.”
And this is the moment when I finally lost my shit. It didn’t happen during the “great cancer scare” of 1999, nor during the “my life is over I got hit by a car” mishap of Oh-Eight, no; Mike Oppenheim finally lost his shit because of a radio-driven epiphany that occurred on Interstate Five in Southern Oregon.
I’m not kidding around. There was no record playing, but I swear to whatever god you have faith in that I could hear the screech of an invisible needle as time froze for me, right then and there.
Call me spiritual, quasi-religious, or just plain crazy, but my entire life seriously came to a halt and then switched gears at that moment, and I am a happier man because of it.
I had this eye opening epiphany because I realized and accepted the fact that my childhood song is now considered classic rock.
But “Smells Like Teen Sprit” is not just a song. No, it’s more than that; it’s a song that was at one time the freshest, newest, and most radically different song to ever become mainstream—a song that was so different in style and mood that it officially sparked a promotional branding scheme which resulted in the birth of a new (albeit fake) genre called “Alternative Rock.”
But my epiphany did not occur in a smooth and comforting manner. Before I could accept the fact that the music of my adolescence is now considered classic, I had to deal with quite a few alarming facts. Here’s a brief replay of my inner monologue that occurred within moments of hearing the DJ label Nirvana as classic rock:
WAIT! BACK UP THE EFFING PAGE!!! Forget about Nirvana for a minute. When did Journey become classic rock? Classic rock? That’s a phrase specifically designated for the founding fathers of rock n’ roll. I mean, there are clear cut “classic” rock gods, and they compose an official panel consisting of The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix—and no one else is allowed to claim that title, not even Golden Earring and their stupid song about “Radar Love.”
And these classic rock gods, why, they even have an oversight committee known as The Truly Classic Rock Panel, and that panel has only three members: Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and whoever wrote “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” because it’s the single greatest song ever written (and if you disagree, then you may want to consider moving to Canada where they listen to bad music and look to the North Pole for 21st Century Imperialist real estate…pick a side.).
“Okay, okay,” I thought to myself. “I can accept Journey as classic rock, but Nirvana? Seriously? Nirvana is now considered Classic Rock?”
I’ll give you two water tight reasons why my idol and his band cannot be considered classic rock!
Reason Number One: Nirvana didn’t even form their band until 1988, which was only twenty years ago, and a car isn’t considered a classic until it’s 25 years old.
Reason Number Two: If Nirvana is classic and considered old, then that would mean that I too am now old; and, well, I don’t want to be old, I want to remain young and un-hip forever and ever, so there!
I hate it when I’m “confused by the facts of reality.” But it’s hard for me to ignore the truth: I am not young anymore, and the music of my youth is now classic, and this means that I’m…I’m done growing up, and I’m now growing old. Yikes!
Kurt Cobain has been my idol for most of my life, and deservedly so, for he was a brilliant musician who tried to use his popularity to make changes in a world he was not very fond of.
But he also killed himself when he was my current age. And maybe this means that it’s time I grow up a little, and pick a new role model, and focus on the next twenty seven years of my life, lest I become what I hate; someone who is so obsessed with the past they are no longer living in the present!
My epiphany pretty much ended there. I realized that I was at a fork in the road, and I had only one option if I wished to move forward with my life.
Realizing this, I thanked Kurt for all of the musical memories, and the angst, and for sharing his disillusionment with the powers that control us all, and most of all, I thanked him for giving me the courage to remain progressive in my refusal to personally give up on ideals that I think the corporate world lacks. I only hope that if there is an afterlife, Kurt is content knowing that his songs are now being played on the radio alongside the Beatles and Pink Floyd (Oh, and Dire Straits as well, god save us all.).
I finished thinking these thoughts in my head, and time and space once again joined their forces to bring me back into reality.
And I really did think that time had frozen for a minute there, that is until I realized that I had simply spaced out during a commercial break, which actually explains quite well how I could have mistakenly thought that time really had stopped. You see, advertising has become so idiotic that I reflexively lose my grip on reality whenever I come into contact with it, which is a normal response designed to prevent myself from going truly insane, which is what any prolonged exposure to advertising will do to you…
The music of my youth is now considered classic rock, and this means that I’m no longer a young guy…I’m not old and minutes away from death, like John McCain, but I am too old to still be focusing on what I will be “when I grow up.” Instead, I should continue to look ahead a little less, and enjoy where I actually am.
And fortunately for me and my I-5 Epiphany, I realize that I do enjoy my life and I am a very happy person. But how could I not be enjoying life? I mean, I can still hear all of my favorite teenage rock anthems on the radio; I just won’t find them on the modern rock station anymore; no, I’m a classic rock kind of guy now. But I’m alright with that, because everything becomes classic, eventually, if given enough time. Even you and me.
