My kid started school this week, which is a weird thing to deal with. I, like probably every adult in the history of the world, consider myself to be much more ‘young at heart’ or whatever the dipshitty phrase is, than I actually am. In my mind I’m still a messy kid who won’t ever grow up and the ravages of time only serve to somewhat camouflage/highlight my whimsy/arrested development in the face of my aging exterior. The reality is that I just dress like an asshole and I’m not very good at some things that I thought that all adult men are good at. Like, I can’t fix a car or paint stuff well or really understand things like stocks and money and mortgages. This doesn’t mean I’ve retained any of my childlike youthful exuberance, it just means I’m kind of a moron in a lot of aspects of life and now it’s become kind of obvious that I’m not gonna just ‘grow into’ any sort of knowledge. If I want to (for example) fix the leaky radiator in my car, or examine my investment portfolio (whatever the fuck that means) well, I’m gonna have to really steer my life in the direction of learning that shit in order to do so. The notion that some day everything will all just come together is out the window at this point. I’m just kind of dumb, and being ‘forever young’ has nothing to do with it.
That’s obvious when I do things like go out to a bar and want to leave at eleven thirty because I’m exhausted or when I end up talking to a hot 22 year old girl and all I can think is “god, you’re stupid” or when I look at my skateboard and know for a fact that I’m not riding it anytime in the foreseeable future. I’ve maintained none of the trappings of youth (save creative output I guess, but that’s really not the domain of the young. It starts when you’re young, but people that are dull adults usually weren’t creative kids and lots of people who ARE creative adults weren’t creative as kids) and despite what I believe, deep down I know the truth, which is that this is it. Life is a big game of bullshit fakery and nobody has any fucking idea what’s going on or how they’re supposed to behave except for people between the ages of 20-32, who for a brief, fleeting moment in life may just have it all figured out.
Now, that’s not to say that I really mind being a grown up. I think it’s cool. I just find it crazy that I’m now the person picking up another person from their school, where they meet people and make friends and have a social life and I’m just one of the dull pods back at home that sits around doing work and reading the paper like THAT shit could possibly be even remotely interesting when there are overgrown vacant lots to run through and cases of beer to steal and bugs to squash and pretty girls to try to talk out of their bras and so on and so forth. It’s a little odd to realize that I’m firmly, two feet planted on the ‘adult parent’ side of things. But that’s what my kid going to school has really exemplified.
Although, it must be said that I’m a bit like the black-punk-rock kid in that the other parents don’t REALLY fully just accept me as one of their own, but I don’t have the time or energy to really run with the non-parents either. Not that I want to hang out with the dork parents of the shitty kids my kid is in class with, mind you. I could really give a fuck about that, but see, that’s disingenuous too because at some point if my kid wants to play with another kid, it’ll be nice if I can get along with the parents because (and this is the dick punch to eternally flatten all dicks) his friends’ parents are now my fucking acquaintances, and my last chance at new friends unless I somehow end up in some field with a high turnover and an open-floor office plan (not bloody likely).
Whatever. My kid seems to be handling school well. He’s apparently not really listening much and when I asked him what he did on his first day he sighed and said “dad, I didn’t do ANYTHING in school.” He says he doesn’t like his teacher’s face, which is mean, but a respectable position to have and he says that despite all that, he likes it there a lot. I mean, fuck. He goes three hours a day, three days a week. How fucking brutal could it be? I asked the teacher how he was on the first day and she sighed and said, ‘eh, he was pretty good.’ Pretty hilarious.
Anyway, tonight and tomorrow night I go back into the studio to sing and do some final percussion and guitar stuff and then this shit is getting shipped off to Colorado to be mixed. I’m fucking STOKED on how this shit is turning out. Lots of keyboards, actually. More than I had initially thought, but it’s really ending up cool. The rough mixes of Suffer the Children Come Unto Me and East St. Louis are really great so far. I can’t wait to hear how Covered In Flies turns out.
xoxoxoxoxox
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16 comments:
What I really love about Brendan Kelly aging is that there are about 20 years of music tracking the transformation from energetic, idealistic youth in Slapstick to the 'how do we deal with our fucked up selves in a fucked up world' of The Lawrence Arms. A few years behind you, and I've found myself walking the same progression. Are you going to make compelling music about the kid's first day at school? I'll need it some day.
This probably weirds me out more than anything as far as the prospect of having kids goes. The very idea that I'd be responsible for tiny human lives is absurd. I'm a photographer (it's right up there with musician in the land of "So when are you gonna get a real job?") I watch Futurama in my underwear all day.
It's kind of like the one day that you realize your parents used to be people. With interests, outside of your stupid kid bullshit that they have to be involved in.
Brendan, you've mentioned in a few posts about dealing with middle of the night panic attacks, i.e., waking up in a sheer panic and freaking out over inadequacies, the future, etc. I've had these episodes far too many times, so I can relate. Last night, however, was the worst. I was dreaming about mixing tracks (which is how I've been spending a lot of my time lately) and then all of a sudden an intense dread overcame me and next thing I know I'm awake, terrified, and practically paralyzed. The thought that grips me is that my light switch will flip any second and it'd be revealed to me that I'm in hell. Then visions of a monster enter my head and I'm convinced that it will emerge at the blink of an eye and lead me into hell. As this thought becomes more and more pervasive, I think that there's nothing I can do or no one I can call and a deeper sense of dread and loneliness washes over me at an unprecedented magnitude. I'm also conscious of how fucked up this feeling is and baffled that my mind can conjure up these terrifying thoughts, that my anxiety can manifest in such a frightening form. Being aware of how disturbing these thoughts are just compounds the dread because I think that I'm destined to end up in an insane asylum because if I'm having these thoughts now, what's keeping them from coming back?
I suddenly realize that I need to do something to get my mind thinking rationally. So, I write down exactly what I'm thinking and feeling and find that my fear slowly but surely dissipates. My mind calms down and I'm able to say, "Wow, that was completely fucked up. I never knew I had such darkness in me." Yeah, I know, it sounds really dramatic to say something like that, but it's true. It's amazing how much we don't know about ourselves, which I suppose has a lot to do with the unconscious mind. I'll admit that I can be an anxious person sometimes, but I never thought my anxiety could take such a disturbing form. When something like this happens, it hits you like a ton of bricks. I mean, I'm an agnostic and don't believe in hell or literal demons. My unconscious mind seems to think otherwise.
*Let me state for the record that I wasn't under the influence of any drugs during this episode. However, even if I was, it'd still be super fucked up.
I have high expectations for a song called "East St. Louis". I used to live next door.
Does the Rod Stewart song "Forever Young" come to mind for anyone else? Don't worry I can't fix my car either man. I always thought that was a given when growing up in Oregon. Guess we're all just kinda spit shining shit. "celebratin' my life at the bottom"
I love that! The not growing into it thing. I really think more people need to know and believe this. You have to learn in order to be knowledgeable!
I have no intentions of reproducing so I don't know that I'll ever experience this on a parental level, but my little brother is six and just started kindergarten. It's fucking weird. Even when my youngest siblings were born, I had to lead by example for them and kind of instill the hope in them that the world isn't a crazy fucked up mess and still try to be a kid in their presence at the same time.
It's a daunting task, really.
BK is the burrito I found on my floor this morning safe to eat. Please says yes I'm hungry
Beeex can you imagine how fucking devastated a vapid 5'8" 110 lb brunette hipster dodo burd would be to catch her guy gettin off to some beautiful-faced chubby/giant ass porn? Im thinkin Marie Kelly or maybe Carmella Bing at her heaviest or Flower Tucci if youre in the mood for a stupid geeoooooooorgia peeach hehe! Ahh it's a beautiful thought. Poor lil' Ingrid McInnes!
"The reductive poster" in the drawer will now point out Flower Tucci is not actually from Georgia, hehe! I know that, faggot. She has the look though!
"Marie Kelly"? I meant Kerry Marie. I was bein a straight retard yall! NOUN
Listen, yall, I cant say this conclusively or anything but I think 'Histrionic Personality Disorder' miiight be the funniest fucking thing on earth. What do you guys think. That wiki had me in stitches.
HPD female - 'firecracker'
HPD male - 'faggot'?
Cheesy contrived nicknames for histrionic personality disorder that would illicit guaranteed easy laughs at a drunken dinner party:
'fucking asshole disease'
'diva disorder'
'little lord fauntleroy syndrome'
'scarlett johansson malady'
'searching for bobby fischer affliction'
'jada pinkett pathosis'
For what it's worth dude, there's a lot of us out there that feel the same exact way. Shit, well atleast one more. My kid just started school too, and ya..I have no interest in hanging out with any new people who have kids the same age.
I had a weekend alone a couple weeks ago, was out at the bar with some friends, thought "shit I'm tired", looked at the clock and it was 9pm...wtf?
So anyways, I'm gonna keep rockin, you keep rockin. Eventually hopefully we can be the kind've dads that inspire our kids to be creative, open-minded adults who don't mind having a beer with their old dad's every once in a while.
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