I owe Chuck Klosterman a huge debt of gratitude.
Until this weekend, I only knew Klosterman as the guy who shows up on virtually every 80s music documentary I've ever seen. Having said this, I always found him entertaining in this context. He's about the only music journalist I've ever seen who doesn't have a strikingly obvious pretension about his craft. Like most of us who grew up in the 80s, we do look back at our "heritage music" with some degree of embarrassment. I bought a Winger album...I'm not proud of this mind you, but it happened.
OK...I won't lie within the first paragraph of my first blog entry...I COPIED a Winger album from the college radio station library I was a member of. Still, I once showed interest in Winger. Not my finest moment.
My best friend lent me a copy of Killing Yourself To Live a few days back, and I finally sat down to read it yesterday at 4pm. At 10pm I was still reading it, and laughing out loud. Not because of any particular passage, but because I HAVE ALSO LIVED THIS LIFE HE DESCRIBES. I guess that's about the best compliment you can give to a writer...he related to me on the most basic of levels. His opinion on punk in general, people who ride motorcycles, Sid & Nancy, dying as a career move, the countless failed - but strikingly similar - relationships, "car music", insanely large CD collections, etc. It was like reading the thoughts of a guy I had known all my life...because I DO know the guy. Not Chuck specifically, but this guy he represents. To a certain extent I am this guy, or at least used to be.
What struck me as I was reading this is that I do have a lifetime worth of anecdotes, ramblings, musings, rants and otherwise unimportant thoughts on unimportant subjects. But let's face it, the unimportant topics are also the ones we spend most of our cranial energy on. Sure, we can go to work and like our job, we can worry about bills, we can contemplate our future...but what we're really thinking about is how others perceive our taste in music, that first girl/guy we kissed and how they ended up screwing us over, why a grown adult would wear Crocs or Uggs, and why TV shows like Justified or Sons Of Anarchy get completely dismissed by numerous award shows and best-of lists. For some inconceivable reason, this stuff MATTERS to us. Moreover, we are looking for others who relate to our tilted perception of life.
We are programmed to want to BELONG. Even loners feel they belong to a subset of society...the group who don't belong to any subset of society. Figure that out. As Life Of Brian portrayed it, for every crowd of people chanting "we are all individuals", there will be one guy saying "I'm not". Like the scene, he's actually the only real individual in the group, but unlike the movie in the real world he's far from alone. In every group of "individuals" there is one true "different" person, and at the same time we feel different than others we also want others to relate to in our individual-ness. Or maybe it's just my own damaged psyche. :)
Where am I going with this? Who knows. My entire life has been based on knee-jerk reactions and top-of-mind decisions, so I guess it only makes sense that my writing style follows the same path. And before we go any further, I most certainly do understand that my "writing style" is, in actuality, no style at all. If my two-fingered typing could keep up with my insanely overactive mind, I might be able to provide you with a form that made more sense. Unfortunately, I feel the need to spit this stuff out as fast as possible lest it leaves my cerebrum as quickly as it entered. I blame this on a decade of lightweight debauchery from 16-25 years of age, but it's probably more likely that it's due to the fact that I think about everything at once, and nothing at all...and do so simultaneously.
Or maybe it's far more simple. I recently visited my 97-year old grandmother who, among other things, has lost a lot of her memory. In her prime she was as sharp as a tack, but it's quickly fading. I'm feeling the need to write my life experience down...partially to share my life experience with those who may relate, but also because I want somewhere to go to remember all these things that made me who I am, in case I'm lucky enough to live to a ripe old age but unlucky enough to forget the trip.
So there we are. Like a billion other blogs, this is about the perspective of one person. It's about everything, and nothing. You may relate. If so, feel free to come along for the ride.
Damn you, Chuck Klosterman. Now I have something else to think about.
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