Age is how you feel it

So, Max made some ado about his birthday yesterday. I can't help feeling that it came out of a conversation we started during the Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert.

But let's take a step back, see if I can put you in the scene. Pun intended.

I'm late to the concert for a variety of reasons, including an extra ticket that I can't sell or give away. I get into the show and get into line for a drink, a line which is ridiculously long. Long because it's the final break in between sets before the YYYs come on. I'm people watching, as you do, especially as you do when you come alone. I see a few faces I know & nod.

After waiting for twenty minutes in line, the band comes on and the area in front of the bar clears out. I grab my drink and look around to see if I can find a decent place to see the stage. I hear my name shouted, turn around, and see Max waving me over. He's in the back of a suddenly very short line, and standing with a couple of guys. He says, "Meet these guys. I'm buying them beer. This guy just turned 21."

I think that's where it started. Max started spinning yarns about seeing Morphine & other shows back in the day at Sokol. The kid starts talking about shoegaze, and I can see the generation gap. Max buys him a coke, and the other guy in line a beer, and we head over to where his wife and some other friends are.

We're watching from the fringe, stage left to be precise. We can see occasional glimpses of the band through the speakers, but we're really more just at the show rather than part of the crowd.
He says that he feels old. He points that we're watching the show from the edge rather than getting down in front and going berserk.

"But you could be," I said.

Max isn't one to shy away from the pit, from getting down to John Spencer, to Morphine, or Gwar, if memory serves me right. But I see what he means. We're the old guys in back, watching from the fringe. That's the rule, isn't it? That as you get older, the farther back you stand. That you're less a part of the frenzy, and more just there to watch.

I remember one of the first concerts I saw in high school, Soul Asylum at the Civic Auditorium. We started out up in the seats, but by the end all I wanted to do was be on the floor in the middle of it all. So, I went.

Nowadays, I'm as likely to be hanging back, enjoying an adult beverage, as I am to try to push to center stage in front of the band. Sure, catch me at a Faint show, and I'll be shaking my ass in the middle of the crowd, on the edge, wherever. Hell, I have friends older than me that are always pushing up as close as they can get.

But I don't think it was just the distance Max was talking about. He said that whenever he sees kids -- actual kids, high schoolers -- he just has to smile and pay respect to those days. He even gives props to the younger college kids, but it's the spirit of youth he's talking about. The getting silly drunk, having bad sex, and the most of your worries be about the test/exam this week.

Never mind that those of us pushing 30 -- some of us in less than a week -- have on our mind:  mortgages, day jobs, wives, husbands, children, dogs, whatever. As opposed to the blissful ignorance of school days, we've got plenty to keep us grounded.

On the other hand, Max did think that being a comic book artist was pretty cool. That it gave him a little more credibility than just wearing old school vans, or being the guy at the concert down front with the band's shirt on.

Personally, I like being this seasoned. [cough, old, cough] I think I've really got the best of both worlds. I can go to a show, and not wake up with a cheap beer hangover. I can be good at what I do, and not be so caught up in the identity crisis that is high school/college. I'm not just studying to be something. No disrespect to studying. I still study yoga as well as being a yoga teacher. The difference is in potential versus actuality. I will be someday versus I am.

I am a yoga teacher. I am an office manager. I am a guy with a house. I am a guy who goes to rock shows. And yes, I am almost 30.

I feel like I get the best of both worlds. I'm lucky to keep a few stars in my eyes, even if I'm a bit jaded around the edges. I'm not as concerned about what people think about me, what I wear in public, whether people are watching what I do and approving. Sure, I have to give the kids respect for their immortality, their blissful ignorance, and their own set of problems.

But I also have to give respect to us kids at heart. We're only the old guys, and we're only in back, when we choose to be.

Comments

[Holtmann]

You've got the right attitude, Ben.

Too many people our age worry about whether or not they're cool, as if our golden years were quietly receding into the distant past and turning to ash. Life isn't about being cool -- we're not defined by what music we listen to or what clothes we wear (to borrow from Fugazi, we are not what we own) -- the pursuit of coolness is a trivial and empty endeavor.

We should judge ourselves not by who we once were but by who we hope one day to be. I enjoyed being 18, but, just as you point out, there are countless things that are astonishing about being 30 (or being just shy of 30, by a little less than a week, ahem). We should celebrate the past -- there is honor in youth, in youthfulness -- but we must not surrender the present or our hopes for the future. There is nothing more pathetic than the people who, when contemplating their years in high school or college, tell me, "Those were the best years of my life." It's a failure of imagination. And I have no patience for it.

Besides, the same 18-year-old, whose spirit we so greatly admire, has no recollection of the Chernobyl disaster, for instance, since today marks 20 years since the devastation it wrought upon the former Soviet Union. What does the average 18-year-old know about longing, loss, tragedy, triumph? Perhaps the sound of Karen O's voice touches the void, but there is much more to life than the thrill of rock.

We are marked by the past, we are marked by history. It is our burden, but it is also our pride.

[lindsy Doucette]

OMG OMG I was totally at that Soul Asylum concert in highschool. The Alternative Nation tour? Yup, I was up in front. Five feet away from Dave Pirner. I even crowd surfed in my little doc martins. Man, was I cool.

Happy Twenty Ten Ben.

(P.S. I don't usually use the OMG but I'm obsessed with www.wonkette.com and they use OMG all the time. They're even respected journalists. Snarky ones at that.)

[Misty Reagin]

Rock ON! Nothing wrong with being the big 3-0. As I have already said, at least now we can still have fun, but have the money to do it with!

Oh, and I love the throwbacks to Gwar, Vans, Morphine and just the "show" atmosphere in general. Brings back high school days I am happy for, but so glad to leave behind!