Raised in the Era of Heroes and Cons
THE STATIC AGE
I'll have to admit. Gloria was pretty okay.
For someone who totally fucked up my family.
She helped me through the Twins and she did it much more calmly than I'm pretty sure anyone could've. She let me smoke, she let me swear, she let me speak my mind as much as I wanted to.
She even wanted to year about my tattoos. Where I got them, why I placed them where they were, the stories behind them. Admittedly, most didn't have stories, but they all held a little place in my heart.
She was probably the coolest thirty-eight year old I knew.
It's like she wanted to get to know me as much as possible within the few hours we had before morning. I didn't really have a problem with that. It was like having a long lost sister who just suddenly scooped you off of the street.
Towards five, she turned on the stereo and started blaring some top 40 station. I found myself grinding my teeth as the pop beats filled the room. I thought Gloria was cooler than this. She was best friends with Christian fucking Elliot for Christ's sake!
She noticed me staring down her radio and turned down the volume.
"I can change the channel if you want."
"Oh God, please do."
She grinned and flipped through the channels, waiting for my approval. I finally gave up as she hit some college station.
"Just turn it off, it's all just static."
She gave me a look like I was crazier than I already was. "Addie, this here is something we like to call music."
"It's not music, it's bullshit. All of the artists today don't get it. Music is about the message, not the craving to put cash in your pocket or to score hot chicks or whatever. None of the music today has the message, and the music videos are just slut-fests, one after the other, over and over again."
I looked at her, expecting an understanding nod or a look of hey, this girl gets it, but all I got was a demeaning chuckle as she rooted around in a bowl for what I assumed were keys.
"Why are you laughing?"
"I grew up in the Eighties, Addie, which is probably a lot of what you listen to, and you're wrong."
That threw me for a loop. "What?"
"The music of the Eighties didn't have much of a message beyond 'get high, get drunk, get fucked, and live.' That's not much of a message, Addie."
"No, it didn't-"
"Trust me. I was marinated in the stuff. Only towards the end and they were getting sober did the realization come."
"But what about Slow Down or Burn Up?"
"Chris lived the rock n' roll life style. That was part of the reason why I hated him for about three months."
"But what about-"
"'Know Your Enemy?' That was about keeping away from people who got in the way of your lifestyle, not about keeping the music with 'the message'"-- she waved her hands in the air to emphasize how apparently dull I was --"playing through 'the bullshit.' People these days just misconstrue it and make it seem like it's the deepest song on the fucking planet."
I gaped at her as she continued to move around the apartment, stepping into her room for a brief moment to change her clothes and throw spare garments at me before handing me a cup of coffee and telling me to change. I walked like a zombie into the bathroom and barely even noticed that she had thrown me the oldest and most awesomely cut Sex Pistols shirt I had possibly ever seen and the most wonderfully fitting jeans I had ever pulled over my ass.
She didn't agree with me.
She was this cool and she didn't agree with me.
Something was obviously wrong with this picture.
She must be getting old. That must be it. Why else would she not see things my way?
I mean, all radio had to offer today was bullshit and advertisements, both of which made me want to scream in frustration. There were too many warnings on the air waves, and there were too many ideals. How could she not see this?
As I shuffled out of the bathroom I noticed she was putting shoes on. That was enough to pull me out of my funk for a moment.
"What are you doing?"
"Putting shoes on."
"Obviously. But why?"
"I have to go choreograph one of those 'slut-fests' today."
I practically choked on the mouthful of coffee I had just consumed.
"I'm not pissed or anything, I don't like them either. It's not like I do it for fun. When I'm not dancing in shows, I don't get paid, that's how it works. I need to pay the bills on this place as well as my apartment in Paris. Anyways, get your shoes on."
"Why?"
"I'm not leaving a teenager I barely know unsupervised in my apartment. You're coming to work with me."
Can you hear the sound
Of the static noise
BLASTING OUT IN STEREO
Cater to the class and the paranoid
Music to my nervous system
Advertising love and religion
..............Murder on the airwaves
Slogans on the brink of corruption
Vision of blasphemy, war and peace
SCREAMING AT YOU
I can't see a thing in the video
I can't hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the Static Age
Billboard on the rise
In the dawn's landscape
Working your insanity
Tragic a la madness and concrete
Coca Cola execution
................Conscious on a cross and
................Your hearts in a vice
Squeezing out your state of mind
Are what you own that you cannot buy
What I fucking tragedy, strategy
SCREAMING AT YOU
HEY HEY It's the Static Age
This is how the West was won
HEY HEY It's the Static Age
................Millenium
................All I want to know
Is a God damned thing
NOT WHAT'S IN THE MEDICINE
All I want to do is
I want to breathe
BATTERIES ARE NOT INCLUDED
What's the latest way
That a man can die
SCREAMING HALLELUJAH?
.................SINGING OUT
"THE DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT"
The Silence of the Rotten
..................FORGOTTEN
SCREAMING AT YOU
I can't see a thing in the video
I can't hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the Static Age
For someone who totally fucked up my family.
She helped me through the Twins and she did it much more calmly than I'm pretty sure anyone could've. She let me smoke, she let me swear, she let me speak my mind as much as I wanted to.
She even wanted to year about my tattoos. Where I got them, why I placed them where they were, the stories behind them. Admittedly, most didn't have stories, but they all held a little place in my heart.
She was probably the coolest thirty-eight year old I knew.
It's like she wanted to get to know me as much as possible within the few hours we had before morning. I didn't really have a problem with that. It was like having a long lost sister who just suddenly scooped you off of the street.
Towards five, she turned on the stereo and started blaring some top 40 station. I found myself grinding my teeth as the pop beats filled the room. I thought Gloria was cooler than this. She was best friends with Christian fucking Elliot for Christ's sake!
She noticed me staring down her radio and turned down the volume.
"I can change the channel if you want."
"Oh God, please do."
She grinned and flipped through the channels, waiting for my approval. I finally gave up as she hit some college station.
"Just turn it off, it's all just static."
She gave me a look like I was crazier than I already was. "Addie, this here is something we like to call music."
"It's not music, it's bullshit. All of the artists today don't get it. Music is about the message, not the craving to put cash in your pocket or to score hot chicks or whatever. None of the music today has the message, and the music videos are just slut-fests, one after the other, over and over again."
I looked at her, expecting an understanding nod or a look of hey, this girl gets it, but all I got was a demeaning chuckle as she rooted around in a bowl for what I assumed were keys.
"Why are you laughing?"
"I grew up in the Eighties, Addie, which is probably a lot of what you listen to, and you're wrong."
That threw me for a loop. "What?"
"The music of the Eighties didn't have much of a message beyond 'get high, get drunk, get fucked, and live.' That's not much of a message, Addie."
"No, it didn't-"
"Trust me. I was marinated in the stuff. Only towards the end and they were getting sober did the realization come."
"But what about Slow Down or Burn Up?"
"Chris lived the rock n' roll life style. That was part of the reason why I hated him for about three months."
"But what about-"
"'Know Your Enemy?' That was about keeping away from people who got in the way of your lifestyle, not about keeping the music with 'the message'"-- she waved her hands in the air to emphasize how apparently dull I was --"playing through 'the bullshit.' People these days just misconstrue it and make it seem like it's the deepest song on the fucking planet."
I gaped at her as she continued to move around the apartment, stepping into her room for a brief moment to change her clothes and throw spare garments at me before handing me a cup of coffee and telling me to change. I walked like a zombie into the bathroom and barely even noticed that she had thrown me the oldest and most awesomely cut Sex Pistols shirt I had possibly ever seen and the most wonderfully fitting jeans I had ever pulled over my ass.
She didn't agree with me.
She was this cool and she didn't agree with me.
Something was obviously wrong with this picture.
She must be getting old. That must be it. Why else would she not see things my way?
I mean, all radio had to offer today was bullshit and advertisements, both of which made me want to scream in frustration. There were too many warnings on the air waves, and there were too many ideals. How could she not see this?
As I shuffled out of the bathroom I noticed she was putting shoes on. That was enough to pull me out of my funk for a moment.
"What are you doing?"
"Putting shoes on."
"Obviously. But why?"
"I have to go choreograph one of those 'slut-fests' today."
I practically choked on the mouthful of coffee I had just consumed.
"I'm not pissed or anything, I don't like them either. It's not like I do it for fun. When I'm not dancing in shows, I don't get paid, that's how it works. I need to pay the bills on this place as well as my apartment in Paris. Anyways, get your shoes on."
"Why?"
"I'm not leaving a teenager I barely know unsupervised in my apartment. You're coming to work with me."
Can you hear the sound
Of the static noise
BLASTING OUT IN STEREO
Cater to the class and the paranoid
Music to my nervous system
Advertising love and religion
..............Murder on the airwaves
Slogans on the brink of corruption
Vision of blasphemy, war and peace
SCREAMING AT YOU
I can't see a thing in the video
I can't hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the Static Age
Billboard on the rise
In the dawn's landscape
Working your insanity
Tragic a la madness and concrete
Coca Cola execution
................Conscious on a cross and
................Your hearts in a vice
Squeezing out your state of mind
Are what you own that you cannot buy
What I fucking tragedy, strategy
SCREAMING AT YOU
HEY HEY It's the Static Age
This is how the West was won
HEY HEY It's the Static Age
................Millenium
................All I want to know
Is a God damned thing
NOT WHAT'S IN THE MEDICINE
All I want to do is
I want to breathe
BATTERIES ARE NOT INCLUDED
What's the latest way
That a man can die
SCREAMING HALLELUJAH?
.................SINGING OUT
"THE DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT"
The Silence of the Rotten
..................FORGOTTEN
SCREAMING AT YOU
I can't see a thing in the video
I can't hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the Static Age
♠ ♠ ♠
FINALLY. JESUS LORD IT'S TAKEN ME FOREVER TO WRITE THIS.I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY.
21 GUNS WILL HOPEFULLY BE UP WITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS. OTHERWISE YOU CAN SHOOT ME IN THE FACE OR SOMETHING.