[LEMONS] 10.29.2003
Please Don't Let Me Be That Guy
I needed notecards.I have things to write and send via the United States mail, and I do no wish to write them and send them on the girlie notecards we have about the casa. I needed something masculine. Something featuring photography of raptors, architecture, or barren landscapes. Perhaps something with Chinese or Korean characters, quoting Sun Tzu or Mao. Something without flowers or snuggly creatures.
But I am a busy soldier of the truth. Believe it or not, I have things to do.
Things!
To do!
So rather than venture out into the traffic and madness of downtown or Hayes Valley, I decided to shop at home. I decided to walk to Haight Street. Now, here's the thing. If you live in the Haight, Lord knows the last thing you want your friends and neighbors to see you doing is shopping on the Haight. I mean, sure, Amoeba, totally fine. Same goes for the Anarchist Collective Bookstore or Goodwill or any of the unchain
Nonetheless, I needed notecards. And so into Positively Whatever* I ducked. It was to be the first of three such stores into which I would duck. (Goose!) I was hoping, assuming, that they would have notecards with, you know, like, black and white pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, and stuff. This is what I told my wife before I left , in fact. "I guess I'm going to go to Positively Whatever. I think, I mean I assume, they'll have notecards with, you know, like, black and white pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, and stuff." And all of the sudden there I was. Doing a quick loop through the store. And without really intending to, listening in on a conversation, if you could call it that. It was really just this guy in tights and bike gloves (though he had no bike, I saw him on the street) with a bulky backpack and a Howard Dean button boring the woman behind the counter who, because she worked there, was politely listening and muttering "uh-huh, um-hm" at the end of each of his sentences, which were:
"Yeah, I went to every new years eve show for ten years."
...
"Yeah, I was backstage at all those shows."
...
"Yeah I knew all those guys. Jerry. All of them."
...
"Yeah it was great."
I used to be so enamored of people in bands. And then I met a few. And then I got to know a few. And, moreover, I began to see the hangers-on around bands. The sycophants and vampires and vultures having no life of their own but feeding off of what others do. (Much like those bastards in the press!) What in the Jebus would posses one to hang around a tourist trap bragging to the bored sixteen year-old who works there (and detests you! fucking detests you!)--not because she's the Hippie Queen but because it's a job--about what good friends you were with That Band. How fucking needy do you have to be? This is just bizarre behavior, yet I can see myself doing the same thing. I mean, let's face it, there's nothing new under the sun, I'm 31, and that great new little indie band I love is made up entirely of guys who need annual prostrate exams. Nothing is lamer in this day and age than being a hippie, true. (And I say that fully aware of the fact that many people might characterize me as a hippie.) But every other form of adopted lifestyle is equally lame and hypocritical. Authenticity, at least in the Gen Xer ideal, is impossible in our society for those of my generation and education and social station.
I'm done trying. I don't care. I'm lame. Whatever. As long as it means I can listen to Led Zeppelin and AC/DC unabashedly and unironically I could give a damn.
But please, please, please, please, please. Whatever else happens. I don't want to end up like that. Prattling on about the time I was in the front row of the Nirvana show in the middle of some retro-grunge smaltzy nostalgia factory in Seattle. It wasn't great. It is great. It is great. I want to be caught up in my life, not somebody else's. I want to write my own songs and stories, and when I don't I want to talk about what others' songs and stories mean to me, not about the people who wrote them and how well I knew them.
In any case. I got my notecards. They feature the outstanding nature photography of Mr. Art Wolfe. He's a close personal friend of mine.**
*not the actual name of the establishment.
**this is just untrue.
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