Commenting on comments

Super made some good comments on my post last night, some of which I need to agree with and some that I feel that I should try to make my point a little clearer. Plus, I’ve got a couple other comments from the Social D show that I need to make.

It probably is pretty punk of me to go to a punk show looking the absolute opposite of what someone would expect at that show. It’s definitely cool that I am one of those “fast track executive types” during the week and on the weekend I’m drinking and listening to music that has my ears ringing for days afterwards. I guess in that case I am pretty confident in my own skin since I was dead certain that no one was going to start any trouble with me (as opposed to the Big Head Todd show where I almost ended up in a fight. You don’t tell me to throw out your beer bottle as long as both of your legs are working.)

And as much as I bitch about it, I’ll readily admit that my life is pretty cool. I do have anything that I could ever want at my fingertips with the knowledge that I earned all of it. I own everything and it’s because of a lot of hard work and effort and late nights in the office. As a result I am now at the point in my life that I could literally do anything that I want to with no concerns or worries in the world. And that is actually the problem…

See, I’ve always worked on five year plans since I was 16 years old. I had my goals for college and my goals for my first job and my goals for business school. Everything was organized and structured and I knew that I was going to work my ass off to accomplish them but I pulled it off. Including ones that I never thought could happen, like being a published writer by the time I was 21. Now I’m really at a loss when it comes to my goals and my direction. Actually, it is more like I know what I want to be and I still have to figure out how to get there.

That’s why the dude with the sideburns impresses me. Sure his life is probably a lot worse than what I imagined it to be Saturday night but you have to admit that it does take courage to grow out sideburns that everyone is going to notice. There is just this ability to say, “This is who I am and screw you if you don’t like it” that I really admire. I do that at times but I hide it. I’ve taken risks but they are all part of what most people would consider a standard life. I’ve never really stepped out on the edge and I’m at a point in my life now where that is what I really, really have to do. And there is a bit of courage that I need to build up to accomplish that little feat.

Again, though I will bitch in the blog (mainly because I think my best writing comes when I am at my most cynical) I am blessed in so many ways it is not even funny. I just want to fill in the missing pieces of my life and get back to the way I was feeling a year and a half ago.

Ok, a few more random comments from Social D

1) One of the opening acts was the Backyard Babies, “The best rock and roll band out of Sweden.” That’s not much of an accomplishment, given that your competition is ABBA. It’s like when the Sugarcubes were called the best band out of Iceland. It is only slightly better than being called the only band out of Iceland.
2) There were a couple of ten year old boys in the crowd. I’m not kidding, they were that young. And crowd surfing. These parents now enter my fabled “They’re either the coolest parents in the world or the absolute worst parents in the world” category.
3) They weren’t even the coolest kids in the crowd. There was a girl sitting at a table by me who was maybe twelve. Wearing glasses and a Ramones T-shirt. If you saw this girl you would immediately think, “This girl is the smartest girl in her class.” And when they played Ramones songs between sets she was singing along with the rest of the crowd. To songs that even I didn’t know. Talk about being cool at an extremely young age. The kids in her class probably don’t even get how cool she is.
4) Ok ladies, I’m not horribly opposed to the tattoo across the small of your back. But “Bon Bon” is probably not going to look that good 40 years and 20 pounds from now. Just a thought.
5) Oh and I heard the best lyrics from a band out of Lawrence ever last night. “You’ve got to get the fuck out of Kansas. You’ve got to make your way to LA. Because you might be the king of this here bar but here is where you are going to stay.” Have to give props to OK Jones for writing that one.

(Oh wait, and since it is February 14 and no one gave me any suggestions. “I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside.” I’ll avoid the seven years bad luck this time around, though.)