Hi dudes, I haven't been around in ages since I'm in medical school now, but I do think of you once in a while. Especially lately because I was reminiscing about the past. I'll tell you what I was thinking; maybe some of you will appreciate it (and if not, writing it will be cathartic anyway).

I miss metal; that's a given. But it's not just the actual music that I miss. I miss the feeling metal gives me. Thinking about and listening to those hard rock bands of the late 80s and early 90s take me back to an age when I didn't know how complicated the world was... when my older brother was the coolest mortal in the world... and when, needless to say, my favorite rock stars were more than mortals - they were gods.

Everything made sense to me when I was 13 years old. I didn't know that there were Real Big Problems in the world; I didn't know that there was anybody in this world who thought differently than me or might dislike me, and I liked it that way. Ah, innocence.

I'll tell you a story that I don't know if I've ever told anyone before. It's a 'coming of age' story in a certain way; for me it marked a transition of sorts and it essentially epitomizes the six years of my life before I entered college.

It was the first day of junior high school. Everyone in my class had to fill out a brief 'questionnaire' which would be read aloud by the teacher and everyone'd have to guess who each person was. The idea was to get to know everyone in the class.

One of the questions, of course, was 'what kind of music do you like?' And, of course, I wrote down 'heavy metal'. I was excited; after all, I knew all the cool kids loved hard rock/metal, right? I knew this was my ticket to an instant badass reputation and instant popularity as soon as everyone found out I was a headbanger.

So they went through the questionnaires, and people's favorite music was invariably R&B, or country, or what have you. Inside my head I laughed evilly at all those uncool people who didn't like metal. Finally they read out my answers.

'favorite music: heavy metal.'

I waited for the crowd to look around in awe and wonder who this cool dude was.

But instead.... they laughed. They laughed.

I simply didn't know what to make of it. Why are they laughing? I genuinely didn't get it. I didn't get that at my school, metal was no longer 'cool'. After all, how could that be when I knew that bands like Metallica, Gn'R and Skid Row were really the only things that mattered in the whole world?

Well, as I said, it was a defining moment for me. As a matter of fact, I became unpopular throughout junior high and high school, and I never did meet many people at all who loved metal; by that time alternative was the big new thing. (My brother's age group were the last of the die-hard 80s metal fans, at least in my area.)

I don't want to give the impression that I'm 'bitter' or 'jaded' about all this, because I'm not. But I don't mind admitting that I do, well, regret, I guess, the fact that I never got to be part of a Wayne's World-like circle of friends that were all into metal and had a lot of good times throughout high school (like my brother in fact did).

So there you are. I miss metal for the music. But I also miss it because I miss the feeling of being 13 and living in a black-and-white world... knowing that everything in the world makes sense. Listening to my favorite old 80s metal bands is one thing that can bring that feeling back to me.

Ah, well. I'm gonna chill out tonight, have a beer and listen to metal.

Bobashotmace wrote:

Or another time when I met a GN'R "fan" and I mentioned the time I talked to Slash and they didn't know who that was.

Conversely, there was the chick I heard about - she was a teacher - whose grade-school kids knew Slash from Velvet Revolver, but had never heard of Gn'R.

To be fair, though, it kinda reminds me of when I discovered Aerosmith around '90 and didn't know about their old stuff.

Anyway, good to see you guys again. (Val, you thought I was dead, eh? )