Dude.

Okay. I have something D&Dish to write about today...but first:

Most of the time, I don't feel old. I really don't. I "joke" about being an "old man" (especially with my kids) and my brother has referred to me as "grandpa" for at least the last ten years. And there's a certain amount of pride I take in being a curmudgeon about my tastes in various "stuffs" (RPGs, rock music, etc.). But despite the thinning hair, the (slight) gut, and post-40 year old wrinkles around the eyes (oh, and a couple-four minor aches and pains that were absent in my 20s), I really don't feel much different than I ever have.  Usually, my perspective is one of everyone else getting younger, rather than me getting older.

Then, today, I heard something on the radio about the #1 radio song the day of your 14th birthday being some sort of profound statement about your life...which is bullshit, of course, but me being me, I had to hop on the internet and check it out (Tiffany's remake of the Beatles' I Think We're Alone Now just in case anyone's wondering). And since I had found this handy-dandy web site that could search #1 songs by date (in categories of US, UK, dance, and "alt rock") and being in a time-wasting mood, I started just checking the various songs that had hit #1 on my birthday over the years. And I found, at a certain point that I simply had no idea who many of the artists were. Like, I might as well have dropped out of the culture sometime in the 2000s. Some artist names (Rhianna or Adele, for example) are certainly familiar...others were a complete f'ing mystery. And most of the "top music" of the last many years I can't remember ever hearing.

Not that this is terribly surprising. I've never been one to listen to pop music radio stations (not since I was 12 or 13 anyway), and not knowing the latest Kanye West song makes me feel the same as not knowing the latest Mariah Carey song made me feel a quarter-century ago: it had zero effect on me. 'Who cares,' in other words. Sometimes a pop tune will catch my attention (I like a few of Lady Gaga's songs), and can bob my head appreciatively if it comes on when my wife is controlling the radio dial in the car. Most of the time, I just tolerate it (like Imagine Dragons' song "Thunder") waiting till the damn thing is over so I can flip back to my classic rock station without the kids complaining in the back seat. I was the same way long before I had children, or before the music of my youth had become "classic rock."

But THEN I finally got to the #1 song from last year's birthday (2017) and got to the song rockstar but Post Malone. Who the fuck was this guy? It wasn't the video that grabbed me...it was the dude and his music that piqued my curiosity.

So I spent some time researching him. Ended up watching half a dozen of his videos. I'm not much of a hip hop fan (probably NWA's Straight Outa Compton was the last album I owned in the genre...and that was on cassette), and I find much (most?) of it disconcerting, if not downright offensive most of the time. But this cat's music, his whole vibe...somehow it intrigued me to dig at who is this guy? I mean, damn, he's only 22 years old?

And then I watched a couple interviews he gave, expecting to find...I don't know. An asshole, I guess. And instead, here's this man, not a kid, who just comes off as sweet, and nice, and down-to-earth, and humble, and appreciative, and mature...despite his youth, despite his rocket-rise to fame and (presumably...who knows these days) fortune. And he's just making music, really beautiful music (even if the hip hop lyrics are still problematic), and working with bonafide stars of the industry and just having fun, and enjoying being a "rockstar," but still just wanting to make music...

I couldn't have done it. I would have been a total asshole. A poser or something...I would have hid behind a facade of my own construction, at the least. That's what I did at that age. Took me years of work to try to break my own ego down to something manageable. Hell, I'm still working on it.

Years.

And then it hit me. It's not really "everyone else" getting younger. It's me getting older. There are plenty of young men and women who are mature adults, who are literally half my age, and yet have already developed into constructive members of society. Mr. Austin Post (his real name) is just an illustrative example, one from a particular business which (too often) we judge based on its hype.

I've spent a lot of time...maybe too much...with people who are older than me, members of the elite, the "rich and powerful" of society. Some are good, some are...not, some are trying to do right but going about it in really dumb or shitty ways that aren't helping. Regardless, I've often felt like I was the "coming generation," part of the wave that would be eventually taking the reins, helping to steer the world for the "kids" who were coming after me.

The kids are already here. I am the system. I am the institutions. I am the establishment. The torch of the revolutionaries has already been passed, and it's passed me by (or I failed to take it)...I just never really saw that till now.

Dude. Lame. *sigh*