Conformity? To hell with that!
As you get older you attain some balls
finally. You can ditch that fearful need to conform and bray your
opinions without fear that you may be...oh Jesus...judged! Ah, I
didn't say anything that shocking like, “Let's Kill All the
Bankers” but I was opining on music with my friend tonight, rather
loudly.
There's a nice little pub in Mansfield
called Casey O'Connors and I can feel at home in there. Why? Because
the place is stuffed with other prematurely white-haired Irish guys
who are bandy legged as well. I go there on my bi-monthly visit to
M. to see how he's doing. Our conversations run the gamut while I
drink my pisswater Budweiser and he drinks his God awful bitter IPA
beers. Tonight the subject was music.
I think we blew a good two hours on the
topic. Actually, it was due to his loaning me his book that got me
thinking about how music has changed and that the “Kids of today
listen to shit.” “Where's the harmonies? Where's the layering?
Why are there no great lead guitars anymore?” I went on and on.
There came a point when, I was braying
about the fact that there's no longer any real movements in music
anymore, I was poking my finger into the bar to make the point. As I
was doing this, it made an audible “click, click click” sound as
my sort of long fingernail tapped out my disgust.
The bartender comes over with, “Is
there a problem?” I say, “Yeah, today's music sucks! When was the
last time you heard a band grow and evolve their music? I swear the
last great ones were before 1990!”
The bartender then realizes I wasn't
pissed off at M. but bitching to hammer down my argument.
Next to us, some 20 somethings just
looked away real quick when I shot a look at them.
Wind me up and let me go...
Besides that I heard some nice stories
about how a plow team nearly brained a Director of a trauma center up
somewhere in Massachusetts with a piece of pipe. During that
blizzard we had in early February the team had done 40 hours straight
and wanted to crash in the hospital lounge area. The Director said
no. The team leader said yes. And you see where that was going to
end up. Even guys with plows have tempers that'll blow after you pull
a 40 hour shift.
Tomorrow I have to get up on the roof
and fix that damned antenna I've left hanging since that blizzard. I
also ought to fix the gate that got ripped off it's hinges during the
same storm. I'm not too keen on climbing a 45 degree angle roof.
It's a great way to excite the fear of heights in me. Odd, as a
younger guy, I could tap dance all over that roof. I guess the fear
of falling knowing I'll land on my face sort of makes me cautious
now. Hell....I'm cautious about everything now.
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