The Dharma Bum

By Jaysen Buterin

"I can resist anything but temptation" - Oscar Wilde

Sometimes you have to marvel at the sheer surreality of the situation you're in. As if what you're experiencing seems more like you're watching it happen on television, instead of being ensconced in the midst of it. In my case, everything is usually touched with enough drama it feels like I'm in some sort of Aaron Spelling show and I can't find the remote control. For instance, I never envisioned myself in St. Louis with my friends Mandy and Cory, riding in Cory's truck (elegantly named "Tammy"), blasting AC/DC as we head to the strip clubs. Now, being the dedicated columnist that I am, I will go through great lengths to keep my 4 readers glued with ooey-blooey to each issue of Off, and I agreed to go on the adventure, for purely academic interests of course. So amidst Cory's passionate back-up vocals to songs like "I Can't Drive 55", Mandy's wryly snickering comments about going to see boobs, and my own barrage of air-drum solos, something occured to me that I'd like to share with you. (No I'm not going to write about the strip club...well, not yet.)

If you remember back to my first column, I made no admonitions about my constantly derailing train of thought. It happened as we were heading to the clubs of debauchery (that's a fun word to say), because I started to think about how fun it is to scream along to bands like AC/DC and Journey, which led me to thinking about the contemporary state of music that exists today, which led me to become confused, because folks, I just don't get some of it. Not that bands like AC/DC or Bon Jovi, or better yet, the Crue were the avant garde musical geniuses of my generation, but at least you could understand their words as you screamed along to them in your acid-washed Levi's, feathered hair, and your Run DMC style Adidas with no laces. See. that's what makes me wonder...am I getting old? Do I begin that vacillatory questioning of one's own mortality, starting off diatribes and conversations with phrases like, "Back in my day". Here are two examples of what caused me to question some of the contemporary music scene:

Kid Rock: "Bawitdaba" - Okay, I've tried to forget that this song exists but entities like MTV and radio won't let it die. My biggest problem is with the title, "Bawitdaba" - what the hell does that mean? Is it secret spy talk like "Eep Opp Ork Ah-ah"? At least that meant "I love you". I don't know, that's example #1.

Master P: "Insert song title here" - I was shooting billiards a couple of weeks ago when I heard a song by Master P in which the chorus consisted of this, "UUUUNNNNNNNHHHHHHHHHH". That's it. So I began to ask myself if that's what it takes to make it in music nowadays, a chorus of gesticulative grunting noises. If so, look for my first hit single, "AAAAAGGGGGGHHHH", off my multi-platinum album, "ENNNNNNGGGGGGG-OOOOOOOOOO-UUUUGGGHHHHH".

Now these are just two examples amidst a sea of really good music out there right now, as well as the darker waters of adolescent corporately manufactured bubble gum pop girl and boy bands. Which is not to deny that the progeny of the 80's didn't have their own pubescent iconoclasts, I remember Tiffany and NKOTB, but I don't remember them being as annoying....wait, yes I do.

I don't know if it's a sense of territorial identification with certain bands or kinds of music. It isn't really that I find the songs of arena rock to be intellectually stimulating, or that the lyrical prose of such bands as the illustrious Journey whip me into a verbal frenzy, but at least they used real words. Perhaps it is simply the generational conflict of times revered as opposed to the very timelessness of music such as swing, or motown, classical, or rock.

Indeed I may have answered my own question, am I getting old? Do I simply not know what's "cool" anymore, or do I take sentient comfort in what the members of that lovely sobriquet, "Generation X" have declared as the staples of our maturation. I think perhaps the latter, because I love "the rock". My video game technology peaked with Super Mario Brothers - on the old-school Nintendo whose controllers had two buttons, A & B, it was real easy. I can name all 5 pilots of the Voltron lions, and most of the Autobots and Decepticons as well. I still have my Tony Hawk skateboard and my Airwalk tennis shoes. I sent into orbit countless Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures with bottle rockets. I still have a Pogo Ball somewhere, probably next to my "Where's the Beef" t-shirt and my Gotcha jams. (Remember jams - those exacerbatively loud coloured things that weren't shorts, but they weren't pants either?) I used to love my Swatch, and had a myriad of Trapper Keeper folders decorated with various themes such as Garbage Pail Kids, or better yet, the Thunder Cats! For I treasure all these things, well maybe not the jams, but definitely everything else.

See, I told you my train of thought derails. I started off talking about strip clubs and end up talking about the when the video killed the radio star (remember when MTV used to show videos?). So next time, I'll try that concept I heard about called coherency, although the thing about coherency is..........

So tune in next time superfriends, same bat time, same bat channel. As the sun sets in the West, I bid you a fond farewell, from my big neon-splattered bean bag, amidst a sea of "Original" Coke cans, and McDonalds fish sandwiches in the styrofoam containers while He-Man is on tv, and Journey pontificates how, "Any way you want it, that's the way you need it".