Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Adult Alternative

I think I'm officially an adult. I don't have kids, own a house or itemize my taxes, but I've taken a turn down a long, dark road and I forgot to leave bread crumbs (or crumpled up bits of punk rock discs, as the case may be) to find my way back. Somehow Adult Alternative music has seeped into my brain...and most disgusting of all I actually enjoy it. I consciously opt to listen to the Soft Rock HD radio channel at work and I switch between Singers and Standards, Adult Alternative and Alternative on my digital TV at home. Alternative only joins the rotation on the weekends and when I'm driving. The last thing I want to do when I get home from a long day at work is listen to kids thrashing around on their instruments like if they don't get all of their aggression out right NOW they will collapse and die (a). And to get my point across as to how far down this long dark road I have gone, when I was filling out my application for guitar lessons, I said that I would like to learn folksy adult alternative type music. Where did that come from???

For those of you who have known me for a long time, this probably comes as a shock. I've always loved punk, classic rock, alternative rock etc. The Warped Tour was my favorite concert in high school. I saw Blink 182 at the Paso Robles fair in the late 90's and was in heaven (b). And I still love rock music, but as I get older I also like soft rock, and that distresses me. Although to my credit, soft rock these days is like alternative from when I was growing up. It's no longer Kenny G or Peter Frampton siging about dragonflys in summer time (that one's for you Mom), so maybe it's not all that bad.

(a) On a side note Miles Davis after a long day of work does the same thing. I think my blood actually starts to boil.
(b) Another side note: I seriously hate fairs, be it Renaissance, Dickens or the good old fashioned kind with toothless operators of rusty death traps that people actually pay to ride. This will be my next poll...watch out for it.

3 comments:

Allyson said...

I am totally in the same place. I have XM and I listen at work...and it's on "The Blend" - music from the 80s, 90s, and today. It's great because every once in a while something by Chicago or Wilson Phillips comes on :) On, and the music from today is stuff like Kelly Clarkson (except they do play that "Hey There Delilah" song A LOT. Any real adult you talk to will say your 30s are the best years, and I think I'll agree with that. The 20s are so unsettled and everything is in transition...guess we'll find out in a few years if that's true!

Anonymous said...

When I was ten, my father said his thirties were his best years ever. When I was twenty, he said life begins at forty. When I was thirty, he told me he was enjoying life more than ever.

He may have had a point in there somewhere... but I could never figure it out.

Anonymous said...

Suggestion for your book club: The Logic of Life, by Tim Harford. The goofy, yet rational, economics of mankind in a seemingly irrational world. I've only gotten as far as the logic of drug addiction and gambling, but it's off-the-wall good so far.

Hasbrook would enjoy the detailed explanation of gaming theory math and how it helped "Jesus" Ferguson win the World Series of poker. (And, she would probably actually understand it.)