Audioslave

Well, last week's post title was made out of song lyrics, evidence of the 12-year-old MySpace girl that I actually am inside. It's not a state of being I'm ashamed of in any way, let's be clear. Back in the day, the 12-year-old MySpace girls were the ones loudly announcing themselves, forging a new culture with the force of their personalities and the weight of their shared interests, braving the perilous, uncharted landscape of creepy adult men and, even scarier, the judgment of other 12-year-old MySpace girls. It really should have been clear to us from the very beginning that ultimately the Big Bad Evil Guy was always going to be advertising and corporate money, ready to kill an entire burgeoning culture in its crib after they had already turned all the hippies into popped-collar James Spader characters 10-15 years before that.

What I didn't know at the time is that one week later I'd be getting ready to go see the quoted band, New Zealand indie-pop outfit the Beths, in LA this very night after spontaneously spending way too much on seats in the secondary market. But also as my last-week's post evidenced, I'm going through some shit. Sometimes music, normally a pleasant background thing for me while driving mostly, suddenly becomes the most important thing ever when suddenly the parts of your brain susceptible to finding meaning in things that exist without regard to you in any way very urgently apply to the fundamental ways your human soul functions. I'm just glad it's in slightly emo song lyrics about feelings and not in underground message boards about the undeniable link between Freemasons and lizard-people, or whatever it is they talk about on Fox News.

The band is touring around as an opening act for a larger show but then taking headlining gigs in smaller venues in between. I'd looked into it before, but they sold out quickly and I kind of let it go. Plus I had to go to Michigan to watch my father die, so logistically and financially, I got a little tied up.

This past week though, I decided I definitely needed something outside of myself in order to re-center, to escape the thump and screech inside my head. I've decided to do that by finding a group of people willing to make a thumpy-screechy racket outside of my head for a little bit. Maybe they'll cancel out, is the reasoning.

Reader, I will tell you, I paid way too much for a standing-room show in Highland Park, but priorities are priorities. And by "way too much," please understand I'm not talking Taylor Swift or Beyoncé levels of outlay, but it's definitely more than my budget would normally allow. But by my math, I've saved SO much money for tens of months by choosing over and over again not to spend $220 on a Squier Telecaster, no matter how many times I visited the Guitar Center, if you add all of that up, really I'm ahead of the game.

The good(?) people at StubHub guarantee my ticket is legit, but I'm still skeptical. And because it's last minute I had to run down a long list of people who might have gone with me but were otherwise busy doing something not including visiting Highland Park to see a band they've never heard of and don't care about. But this is why you don't stop at two children, because my third one, that was the one who broke and agreed to accompany me in exchange for the small price of some Indian food. I don't see who loses there.

So I'm out of here now, this draft is going to have to be as good as it gets this week. Join me here next week when I talk about how easy it is to spend your way out of regret and ennui with little to no recrimination. I can't see this going any other way.