neverbeencool

My stepson turned 13 earlier this year. Clearly, he’s a man now. Unfortunately, our society won’t let us celebrate this milestone the traditional way: by buying him a woman (isn’t what they do at Bar Mitzvahs?). What prudes we’ve become.

Since soliciting prostitutes for a minor was out of the question, I decided instead to begin his musical education. Would hate for him to make the same kind of mistake I did when I bought my first album with my own money. That’s what happens when boys are raised without a male role model (other than William Shatner and Gil Gerard, that is).

When we were driving around the other day, I popped a Clash CD in. Conversation that followed went something like this:

OUR HERO
Listen closely, boy. You’re thirteen. Time to become a Man and learn what real music sounds like.

BOY
Whatever.
(Translation: Shut up, old man. I’m a teenager and don’t need to listen to you. But I’ll humor you for now because I’m still a few years away from getting my license and still need you to chauffeur me to Game Crazy. Just know that I’m putting you in a home some day. The cheap one, too.)

OUR HERO (Puts in Clash CD)
Ok, the lesson begins now. Do you know The Clash? No? Here, I’ll skip to a song that might sound familiar. Then we’ll get to the good stuff.
(Queues up “Rock the Casbah”)

BOY (Laughing)
What kind of music is this? Disco?
(Translation: You’re old and the music you like is irrelevant. Now, either turn on the radio so I can listen to something I already like or let’s just sit here in silence until we get home.)

OUR HERO (Flabbergasted)
Disco? Disco?!? This is THE CLASH, boy! The Only Band That Matters! One of the seminal punk bands! Predecessor to, and influencer of, any rock music released in the past 30 years worth a damn!!! Don’t you know what ‘punk’ is?

BOY
Um, that’s like Metallica, right?
(Translation: Don’t know, don’t care.)

OUR HERO
You’re dead to me.

I never took the CD out after that ordeal, so for the past few days I’ve been listening to nothing but The Clash. While that’s normally not a bad thing, listening to punk music tends to, well, affect me. I get angry. I want to smash things/people. I want to tear down The Man. Not good for someone holding down a 9-5 job. Or for driving around in morning rush hour traffic…

Traffic like this morning. I live less than a mile from the Interstate, so it shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to pop onto I-5 and start heading toward my park-and-ride in the morning. Shouldn’t, except for the fact that Vancouver city planners didn’t plan out the city well, and decided to route dozens of trucks through the center of downtown every morning, right to that same onramp I’m supposed to hit every AM.

So my < 1 mile drive took 20 minutes this morning. And I’m seeing Special People everywhere, cutting others off who’ve been waiting patiently in line. Listening to The Clash. Getting ANGRY. Wishing I had some kind of telekinesis or pyrokinesis or AIDS or some other way to lay my vengeance upon them.

Finally, I got to the park-and-ride, ran to my train, and found a seat. I settled in, started to breath, and let The Clash start to flow out of me.

Then other people got on and fucked it all up for me, and I could feel The Clash start boiling in my veins again.

There I was, minding my own business, trying to finally read Sula because I’ve never read any Toni Morrison and my wife’s a big fan and I trust her book judgment (even though I am not now, nor have I ever been, a black woman, and I worry that I won’t possibly relate to anything in her novels).

First, a morning PTCPTL takes the seat in front of me.  Joy.  Pretty sure I made my feelings about those people clear yesterday.

Then, one of my other favorite train buddies sits next to me:  Person Who Has Loud Conversation With Companion Across the Aisle. She pins me in next to the window, then proceeds to blab loudly with her friend sitting across from her.

Apparently, neither can hear their own inane chatter over the inane chatter of the other, so they continually get louder and louder over the course of the trip.  Nothing like a Loud Talking Arms Race between a PTCPTL and a PWHLCWCATA to make your morning.

Urge to kill…  rising.

Then PWHLCWCATA takes out some sort of phone or camera from her purse to share some idiotic video with her friend across the aisle.  Of course, she doesn’t have headphones and doesn’t feel like handing said device to her friend, so she instead kicks the volume up to 11 so she can hear.

Again, The Clash is calling me.  White Riot is coursing through my veins.  I feel the urge to reenact the cover of London Calling, only with her phone and head instead of a guitar and stage.  If I had those super powers or super AIDS,  I totally wouldst have smited them.  Smote them.  Whatever.

I think Ren’s next music lesson will involve Sinatra.