Being the meandering ramblings of someone old enough to know better, but too young to surrender to the void. You know this thing called life? I'm all about living it.
I suppose the fact that I write my own blog is testament to the fact that I am a geek, which is second-cousin to the mighty nerd, so it was with delight that I stumbled across "Aural Text" on triple R this afternoon (http://www.tripler.org.au), and heard a hilarious interview with the creators of "Nerds Gone Wild!" magazine (http://www.nerdsgonewildmagazine.com).
Now, as any self-respecting person whom grew up in the era of the John Hughes teen flick, I am of course no stranger to, at the very least, the first "Revenge of the Nerds" film. Not that I remember much other than thinking that "Booger" wasn't that nerdish at the time. But then again, that probably says more about me than Booger, but anyways, my point is that Nerds were the anti-heroes of my day. I guess based on that I developed my whole sense of anti-cool, but that's a concept that requires more time & space, so we'll leave that as is. But suffice it to say, I am no stranger to the concept of nerd.
With all of that said, I checked out the "Nerds Gone Wild!" site, and downloaded the four issues available - the magazine is free, so put yourself on their mailing list, and you will have a hot-straight-from-the-oven copy in your inbox immediately upon release, and let's face it, if they're real nerds, that's a promise you know that they'll keep!
Anyways, I'll keep this short, as the magazine speaks for itself, so point your browser to their site, and do what I did - you won't be disappointed!
I remember back in 1989, which now seems like a lifetime ago, that I had a particularly obnoxious friend. If I found him obnoxious, was he really then a friend? Sure I had known him since high school, we'd had some good times, some bad times, and many drunken times, but what promoted this person to friend status? I guess that's irrelevant now, but at the time I considered this person to be one.
Now this guy was named Paul, and he was a dweeby, thin, not particularly tall guy, but what he lacked in stature, he made up in volume. He was also the front man of a semi-known punk rock disco band here in Melbourne, in the same ilk as Pop Will Eat Itself, or Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (God, remember them?) ie. it was punk rock with a drum machine. The band put out a couple of records, and toured Melbourne & Sydney quite a bit back then, and their shtick was just how obnoxious Paul's lyrics were. They covered Wire, Black Flag, Devo and had a bunch of their own ditties that had real potential, but I think the fear of success was the greatest obstacle Paul and his band mates faced. There's a sad by line to this story, but I won't go into the tragic details of his personal life, but it fuelled his bravado, and powered his biting, smart-arse tongue.
Paul also had an abundantly healthy taste for beer, specifically Melbourne Bitter, and it turned him from "this-guy-is-kind-of-irritating", to completely unacceptable. He had the ability to go from hero to zero in about three cans, and his brittle sobriety was always questionable given the volumes of alcohol we all seemed to knock back then, ie. shitloads.
Anyway, in 1989, some of our friends went to see Neil Young perform - I didn't really know Neil Young's stuff, he was just the old guy on MTV protesting about music videos becoming ads for beer. As far as I was concerned, he'd had some hits in the seventies, and was a favourite of aging hippies, and anyone over thirty whom still drove a Combi van. My peer group, of whom Paul was a large part, was as punk rock as all get out, so it was outrageous that a few of "us" would subject themselves to this, how did Paul put it? Oh yes, that's right.
Hippy drivel.
But attend they did, and love was what they experienced. Even the tour shirts my buddies had bought were tie-dyed, almost sealing the deal that they had sold their souls to the music Gods of the evil hippy drivel past. Whilst the majority of us came to respect the choices of our friends, Paul remained steadfast in his opinion that they were F.U.B.A.R. He was incensed that members of our group could possibly appreciate something that had never seen the light of day on his state-of-the-art hifi system, and in his impressive record collection (impressive if you collected the works of 4AD records, and found Laibach to be toe-tappin' dance hall favourites).
I brushed this off as being merely another symptom of Paul's acute assholism, and forgot about it, and then eventually lost contact with him, and then with most of the guys in our pack. I guess that's part of growing up, and growing apart. I started mixing with different people, replaced beers for joints & pills, and discovered a new world outside of Melbourne, and outside of my head.
A decade and three quarters have passed, and along the way, life has dealt me some tough but not unexpected hands. There's been plenty of joy in there too, but as Miles Davis would testify, of late I've been "Kind of Blue". It has been during this introspective period that I have discovered what my learned buddies had back in '89.
I had become familiar with Neil Young in the early nineties through his "Ragged Glory" phase with Crazy Horse, and through his tour with Sonic Youth, but had never looked too far back into his back catalogue. All of that changed when I came across a download of his "Decade" collection. It struck a really deep chord.
That chord struck hardest when I first heard "A Man Needs a Maid". It's so melancholy, and simple and beautiful, but I don't want to turn this into a fan piece about Neil Young, but more about returning to 1989, and defending the freedom of choice that my friends had displayed back then. Paul had been labelling Neil Old (as he had put it) as "Retrograde crap", so this is for you Paul. Youtube never fails me, and this clip is amazing in both the quality of the footage and sound, and also in the performance itself.
I miss Paul and those times, but I don't miss the vulgarity and mean-spirited nature that dominated my relationships at that stage. I missed many opportunities back then because of it, and it's time to make amends.
Ladies and gents, Neil Young - anything but retrograde...
