Music in high school meant more to me than it does now. It was about the shaping of my life..and how I would view the world. Of course, along with this I was reading the Bible...how I would come to view my place in this world was created and though some things have changed, my ideals have not.
My family was very poor for much of my very tough childhood. In my school, like most, you were either a redneck, prep, or you didn't matter at all. Everyone wanted to be popular. Wanted to kiss the pretty girls and hold their hands. Wanted to be looked at...wanted to matter.
Right before high school my grandfather got in a wreck and my family came into some money. We moved to a nice house in a nice neighborhood and I started earning my own money which meant better clothes and living. Needless to say the popular kids started to let me into their little groups..
I found out that I could not stand to be around these people. The girls only wanted to get laid and the guys just stood around talking about all the girls they fucked. It was sex, drugs, and drinking and while I know you're supposed to have your fun times growing up..I found that I could do that without all of those things. See, my mom and dad did that, had me, and then abandoned my ass. I wasn't gonna knock up some chick and have to deal with those consequences at 16. I knew girls that had 2 or 3 abortions and while I agree that's their right, I did not want to have to cause something like that to happen.
Their lives angered me. I wanted to be them so bad and found out that I couldn't stand them. While all of this was going on a bit of a revolution started around music. People were singing and screaming and slamming against each other at shows. They didn't care what the mainstream wanted and they were telling everyone to fuck off. I was listening to Fugazi/Minor Threat, Nirvana, Drivin N Cryin, The Ramones, The Pixies, Pearl Jam, Ministry, Lush, Jesus and Mary Chain, Inspiral Carpets, My Bloody Valentine, Smashing Pumpkins, the list goes on and on...
A far jump from the country music going on at school. We embraced it. We dyed our hair and donned mohawks. We were different for a reason. And then something awful happened. Our rebellion got popular. Now, all the popular kids were buying clothes were getting at Goodwill, but they bought them at the gap for $75. My friends and I felt like our lives were being sold out to the highest bidder as "fake' bands started popping up everywhere and living off the success of Nirvana. You couldn't tell who was real or who was just using the music as a way to make some big bucks...
What's funny is how all of this changed me. I was mad. All the popular kids looked at us as some kind of revolutionary prophets and my friends...my brothers in arms...they jumped the fucking shark. Parties at my friends house that consisted of 15 or so geeks turned into 100 people with drugs and alcohol which we never seemed to need before...and I needed to find a way out...so I did. I did when one day my best friend in the world looked at me and said, "you know, I'd hang out with you more if you just would smoke pot." What? You mean I'm not cool unless I'm smoking pot? What the fuck happened to just being you and not being judged?
Then it hit me. That's what we'd been doing. We were judging all of these people we'd been rebelling against. We'd called them assholes and pricks. And this shame hit me in the face. I didn't want to be like that. People have their own decisions to make in life and who am I to judge them on that? At long last I finally found myself....
Today I listen to whatever music I like (and there's not much of it out there for me). I make friends with anyone who just seems genuine and have a little fun with people who don't, but even then I know that it's not right to judge cause we just aren't into the same things..
I miss going to concerts and feeling free of oppression and the class system. It's funny how you get older and that takes on new meanings and I find myself fighting with the repressed and the poor. Those who are lost...cause I'm not lost, but I stray off the path every now and then...
My family was very poor for much of my very tough childhood. In my school, like most, you were either a redneck, prep, or you didn't matter at all. Everyone wanted to be popular. Wanted to kiss the pretty girls and hold their hands. Wanted to be looked at...wanted to matter.
Right before high school my grandfather got in a wreck and my family came into some money. We moved to a nice house in a nice neighborhood and I started earning my own money which meant better clothes and living. Needless to say the popular kids started to let me into their little groups..
I found out that I could not stand to be around these people. The girls only wanted to get laid and the guys just stood around talking about all the girls they fucked. It was sex, drugs, and drinking and while I know you're supposed to have your fun times growing up..I found that I could do that without all of those things. See, my mom and dad did that, had me, and then abandoned my ass. I wasn't gonna knock up some chick and have to deal with those consequences at 16. I knew girls that had 2 or 3 abortions and while I agree that's their right, I did not want to have to cause something like that to happen.
Their lives angered me. I wanted to be them so bad and found out that I couldn't stand them. While all of this was going on a bit of a revolution started around music. People were singing and screaming and slamming against each other at shows. They didn't care what the mainstream wanted and they were telling everyone to fuck off. I was listening to Fugazi/Minor Threat, Nirvana, Drivin N Cryin, The Ramones, The Pixies, Pearl Jam, Ministry, Lush, Jesus and Mary Chain, Inspiral Carpets, My Bloody Valentine, Smashing Pumpkins, the list goes on and on...
A far jump from the country music going on at school. We embraced it. We dyed our hair and donned mohawks. We were different for a reason. And then something awful happened. Our rebellion got popular. Now, all the popular kids were buying clothes were getting at Goodwill, but they bought them at the gap for $75. My friends and I felt like our lives were being sold out to the highest bidder as "fake' bands started popping up everywhere and living off the success of Nirvana. You couldn't tell who was real or who was just using the music as a way to make some big bucks...
What's funny is how all of this changed me. I was mad. All the popular kids looked at us as some kind of revolutionary prophets and my friends...my brothers in arms...they jumped the fucking shark. Parties at my friends house that consisted of 15 or so geeks turned into 100 people with drugs and alcohol which we never seemed to need before...and I needed to find a way out...so I did. I did when one day my best friend in the world looked at me and said, "you know, I'd hang out with you more if you just would smoke pot." What? You mean I'm not cool unless I'm smoking pot? What the fuck happened to just being you and not being judged?
Then it hit me. That's what we'd been doing. We were judging all of these people we'd been rebelling against. We'd called them assholes and pricks. And this shame hit me in the face. I didn't want to be like that. People have their own decisions to make in life and who am I to judge them on that? At long last I finally found myself....
Today I listen to whatever music I like (and there's not much of it out there for me). I make friends with anyone who just seems genuine and have a little fun with people who don't, but even then I know that it's not right to judge cause we just aren't into the same things..
I miss going to concerts and feeling free of oppression and the class system. It's funny how you get older and that takes on new meanings and I find myself fighting with the repressed and the poor. Those who are lost...cause I'm not lost, but I stray off the path every now and then...
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