Where Have You Gone, Matt Pinfield?

At my age, you'd think it would really stand out that I had plans to go out to Los Angeles on consecutive Thursdays to go see live music. Most Thursdays are punctuated by the high water marks of going to a Starbucks after work and then doing blogs before falling asleep to YouTube videos of people playing Civilization VI. So it's not that going out again like I did last week didn't register, it's just that the other part of being a middle-aged man decided to take precedence: I forgot.

I know "I forgot" is at the center of a lot of men's weaponized incompetence, but I think I should point out that a) I haven't been in a relationship in a long time, so there's no put-upon partner here to exploit or manipulate, and b) even back when I was married, I was a stay-at-home parent, so I was the only barrier between three helpless, hapless human children and certain death by misadventure. There wasn't a lot of room to play to dopey ne're-do-well manchild, unless I was comfortable with one of them losing an eye for the cause.

I'm happy to report there are six working eyeballs amongst my three children. I've never been confounded by a washing machine or a lawnmower or accidentally bought a JetSki with the college fund. I've been determined for a long time not to live my life like a sitcom trope, though I will admit I still do sometimes pause long enough between lines of dialogue for the laugh track to clear.

I blame my enthusiasm for the Beths last week (a great show I'm spiritually and existentially thrilled I got to see) for darkening the memory of today's long-planned show with my cousin at the Wiltern tonight to see the Breeders and Belly playing together. These are 1990s acts that haven't carried a lot of cultural weight or relevance since 120 Minutes was a thing on MTV. To be clear, this is not the start of a "back in my day, they played music on Music Television!" Boomer-ass revanchist rant against something as personally galling as the forward flow of time. The minute YouTube became a thing, MTV was not just obsolete, but entirely culturally irrelevant and probably deserves to be so. Whatever the rump of it has devolved into, if they can make money that way, god bless them and whatever multinational private equity portfolio of assets they are currently affiliated with. Nostalgia is poison and brand loyalty is for born suckers.

These are sentiments arguing against going to see Belly (I only have one of their albums, the eponymous one) and the Breeders (I can name all of one song, the same one you can), but it wasn't my idea. The invitation came from someone I love who wanted to hang out with me, which is a rare and spectacular thing in this phase of life dominated (for most) by the spinning, scattering forces of obligation, familial and otherwise. So I'm doing it, going to two shows in the space of a week, in an absurd simulacrum of a life with an active social aspect. I don't have any active interest into trying to fool anyone with it, so I guess the joke will have to be on me Friday morning when I'm trying to wake up for my work day.

The predictable part is now that the moment to brave traffic and find parking are upon me, I'm questioning whether any of this is merited by the required bother. But I'm old enough to know that a live kick-drum to the chest is enough to shake a lot of those cobwebs from their mooring points. And at some point it will dawn on me that I'm in the same room as Tanya Donelly, a force of musical good I've been reckoning with since Throwing Muses, and it'll all seem worth it. Probably even through most of the long drive home.