Brutal Youth

In The Days of Future Past and all That Jazz . . .

Yesterday I wrote something entitled, “All I Need To Know About You I Learned From Your CD Shelf” but I figured I would lose friends and influence enemies. Suffice it to say that it was something about how the things we choose to display, CDs, books, movies, actually help define us to strangers. That someone like me would be more likely to talk to a stranger in a bar who makes a sly reference to Cornelius’ “Fantasma” than I would, say, someone who said “Lamal’s theme song for The Neverending Story was the greatest song ever recorded.”

But that’s neither here nor there. Seriously. I deleted it. It doesn’t exist, so for once the expression rings true.

Last night we took Matilda to pick out her very first pair of glasses. She was very mature about the whole process. In fact, she has been looking forward to getting glasses. When she came home from finding out she said, “Now I can look like a geek too!”

At least when I die I’ll be able to know that my kids thought I made wearing glasses cool. So, you know, I’ve got that going for me.

But Matilda went in knowing what she wanted. She had a color and a basic idea of how the glasses should look on her. Rather than rushing through the process or feigning indifference she considered each possible frame thoughtfully and picked her favorite pair, despite the fact that I was pushing child-sized Elvis Costello glasses on her.

Meanwhile, the baby and I were off looking at TVs. I’m training her to throw tantrums whenever she sees a plasma. She kicks her feet and screams, “Please plasma! Need a plasma! My life will not be complete without the beauty, clarity and HD capabilities of an anamorphic, 16X9, wall-mountable plasma screen with stunning digital imagery. Imagine the beauty of The Wiggles on that screen.”

I’m working on her response to Mommy’s “No”. Right now she’s learning, “But won’t the extra-special edition of The Two Towers look amazing on it?” That should convince mommy.

Afterward we went to my sisters to pick up my past. That is to say, that my sister has been housing a bunch of boxes for me for the last seven or eight years. So I ended up spending the evening looking at a bunch of crap I should have thrown out years ago. And I did throw a lot of stuff out. Do I really need a notebook that proclaims, perhaps a hundred times, how much I loved whatever current girlfriend I had in high school? No. I say, no. Those are gone. There’s no need to remember how pathetic I was, is there? I mean, I can just look at myself now. Bad hair, ugly shirts, pasty white legs. I look like Ward Cleaver on a bender.

But a rush of names came flooding back to me like a bunch of evil little gnomes with hatchets. Old girlfriends like Lisa, Amy, Tracy. I had forgotten about most of those old girlfriends and our intense high school relationships that consisted of notes written in the heat of math class that proclaimed our undying love (or at least until fourth period). What’s funny is I’m hard-pressed to remember what they looked like. Sorry girls. I’m sure you’re heartbroken as you think, “And Gary is . . .” But, hell, that was almost fifteen years ago. In the time I’ve forgotten your faces, I’ve replaced those memories with thousands of great songs, hundreds of books, movies and the three beautiful girls I’m spending my life with.

It seems apropos to quote Robert Plant when I think about my current and past lives:

Sitting around singing songs 'til the night turns into day
Used to sing on the mountains but the mountains washed away
Now I'm singing all my songs to the girl who won my heart
She is only three years old and it's a real fine way to start

There are other names that came flooding back. Mostly the time I spent with Patrick Rebmann and Paul McClung as some sort of strange trio. Patrick and I used to stage fake sword duels, complete with mock-Shakespearean blank verse, around a mock-piazza at a local dining/shopping area. Paul and I used to sit in his room and discuss the many layers of the song “Comfortably Numb” and retire to his balcony to smoke cigarettes and talk about death.

We thought we were so damn cool back then. In 1988-1990. And, in retrospect, I guess we were cool. We were some of the only teens who used to sit in McDonalds waiting for a movie to start and discussing the significance of the rise and fall of the Third Reich and wondering how far those waves of effect would carry (they’re still waving, by the way). We used to quote Dante (or what we could of Dante) to each other. And of course, we’d dream about girls. Sigh. Good old girls. Our obsessions ran from girls to music and back to girls. The two most significant things in the world.

It’s funny how the past sometimes comes out of the smoky haze to tempt you with memories. You revel in those memories for a while, good and bad, and let them drift back into the smoky haze again. If you’re smart, you’ll let them stay in the smoky haze until needed. After all, the past is merely a ghost that has a strange need for exhibition.

I’m sure Patrick and Paul are still cool. I’m a geek. These things happen. Their moms let them get Van Halen airbrushed on the backs of their jeans jackets and now I’m sitting here listening to Olivia Tremor Control and realizing that, outside of my wife and one other person I know (who introduced them to me), no one else I know is aware of them.

Oh well, as Elvis Costello once said,

Now there's a tragic waste of brutal youth
Strip and polish this unvarnished truth
The tricky door that gapes beneath the ragged noose
The crippled verdict begs again for the lamest excuse

Or something like that. Maybe I meant to say:

My science fiction twin
Escorted by his lovely nieces
Filled up his purse dictating verse
While painting masterpieces
His almost universal excellence
Is starting to disturb me
They asked how in the world he does all these things
And he answered "Superbly"
He's trapped in his own parallel dimension
That's why I'm so forgiving
But how could I possibly forget to mention those fifty-foot women
Who put the fascination back into my science fiction twin

Discuss Stuff and Things