THE FUTURE IS STUPID

So, I was thinking about the statement I made in my last post, “I was ‘with it’ for approximately two years in the early ’00s,” and, you know, it’s really true.

Growing up, I was raised on classy shit. Musically (and cinematically and televisionically) I had limited exposure to what was modern and popular. I listened to the Beatles and the Monkees as a child, as well as Springsteen, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, the Police — all of which were technically popular and, some, modern — but none of them were what most kids were listening to in the late ’80s.

In the ’90s, my musical intake was limited to the radio (which I listened to obsessively) and some “Christian rock.” My parents kept a tight lid on what entertainment I was allowed to ingest, for better or worse. Then they bought me Collective Soul’s self-titled album(!) on cassette(!) for one of my late-’90s birthdays. The musical world slowly began to open up.

In 1999 and 2000, a couple of new friends from church blew my mind wide open by introducing me to Weezer’s first two albums and the Pixies. They were revelations. I started writing lyrics (badly). I became involved in the Weezer fan community. And that, right there, sometime between 2001 and 2004, is when I was “with it.”

I started listening to the likes of Stephen Malkmus, Cat Power, Ash, Of Montreal (very briefly), Nada Surf, Arcade Fire, and a multitude of other indie-type artists that I can no longer remember because OLD. This particular Weezer community was pretentious, off-color, elitist — i.e., right up my alley. I’d found my first Internet home in a post-America Online world.

Thanks to that community, I was with it, downloading music illegally on Soulseek and putting it on my Dell DJ mp3 player. I was cool, man.

Then, the forum’s cool kids decided I was creepy and annoying (fair enough, really). I was harassed. I left. I came back on a new account. I got banned.

I stopped being with it.

Since then, Weezer and Nada Surf went to shit, Ash fell apart, I stopped being able to tolerate Arcade Fire, and no matter how hard I try to like the current crop of indie sensations (your Mumfords and your Bon Ivers and your Vampire Weekends) I just can’t do it. It is an alien language that my brain is not meant to decipher.

But, for a couple of years back there, I knew what was up. Mmm. Yeah.