Wednesday, 30 April 2008

• Currently Listening Brotherhood Creed By The Brotherhood Creed see related

  Los Cerritos

  I download music and I don’t pay for it.  Regardless of what the music industry thinks (this includes artists, producers, and executives), I don’t consider it stealing.  It’s not stealing because I’m not taking anything physical.  In terms of the science of downloading music, the extent of my knowledge is that a downloaded music file makes a little etch on my hard drive, and I hardly consider that physical property.  Therefore, I’m not stealing anything.  Music industry “experts”, middle-aged Metallica drummers, and non-critical thinkers argue that I am stealing “intellectual property”.  This is a bunch of baloney.  This is akin to saying that Lars Ulrich can sue anyone who overhears one of his conversations, because that person wasn’t given permission to listen to Mr. Ulrich, who obviously has intellectual property coming out of his ears.  And it’s not like I don’t buy CDs or records.  I buy CDs and vinyl because I keep a CD and record collection (not a music collection).  I think that people should pay money if they want a CD collection (and I spend lots of money on my CD collection), but I don’t think people should pay to listen to music.  Listening to music isn’t a crime.  I expect few people to agree with me.  I don’t really care.  I just want to listen to music!

  I recently downloaded a bunch of dance/pop songs from the 1990s.  I don’t really know why I did this.  Though I’ve heard these songs before, I’ve never really listened to any of them.  I was never into dance music, especially when I was a teenager in the 1990s.  Back then I was like every other rebellious kid and listening to what could probably be considered late 20^th century emo: hardcore rap.  I also don’t know why, out of all the songs I downloaded (which included music from Snap, Deee-Light, Technotronic, and Planet Soul), I couldn’t stop listening to The Sign by the Swedish pop band Ace of Base.  This song has no historical context for me whatsoever.  I know it came out sometime in the early 1990s, and it may or may not have been popular.  I don’t ever remember listening to this song to any extent back in high school, so there’s no possibility that this could have been one of my favorite songs.  I don’t know why I didn’t like it, or even notice it, back then, because it is a good enough song.  It’s happy and pleasant and makes me want to smile, and that’s probably what compelled me to listen to this song 83 consecutive times on a Sunday morning.    But most of all, it made me nostalgic.  (And interestingly, it made me want to buy cheap, unassembled furniture from gigantic chain furniture stores.)

  On that same afternoon I found myself at my parents’ house in Cerritos, California, which is a small suburban city in southeastern Los Angeles County.  I lived the first 18 years of my life in Cerritos, and my parents still store a lot of my junk in various boxes in the garage and my old bedroom.  My father asked me to move some of the boxes around in the garage to make more room, and I found myself going through my old stuff.  I apparently kept all of my old letters, pictures, cassettes, and other keepsakes from high school, and I sat in the garage and went through everything.  The stuff I found was embarrassing.  I was reminded of all my old heart breaks, and all my silly crushes.  I was reminded of the innocence, and loss of innocence, of high school.  I was reminded that high school was both lame and awesome at the same time.  (One girl consistently addressed me as “Wrex” in her letters, which is both lame and awesome.)  After going through all my old stuff, I couldn’t help but wonder who I used to be and who I am now.

  I once read a quote on the side of a Starbucks coffee cup that said, “You are what you can’t let go of.”  I don’t know who said this, but the fact that it was on a Starbucks coffee cup makes it somewhat valid in terms of postmodern quasi-philosophy.  (This is absolutely true.  You cannot deny the control that Starbucks has on our morality.)  It was hard for me to believe that I was the person I apparently was when I was a teenager.  Who I am today just doesn’t seem like a natural extension of the person from all that junk.  But I suppose that’s all part of growing up.  The biggest realization I had on that day was that it’s easy to not appreciate what you have.  Reading all those letters impressed on me that high school was all about shits and giggles, but I don’t remember it being all that fun.  Maybe I took things for granted.  Maybe I didn’t notice what was around me.  Maybe that’s why I didn’t appreciate great music from Swedish pop bands until 2008.

  I suppose going back home has this affect on most people.  Amidst all my old junk, I took a mental tour around Cerritos.  I thought about riding my bike along Coyote Creek, and watching a football game at Rants Stadium.  I thought about studying at the library, and playing basketball at Liberty Park.  I thought about meeting girls at the mall, and watching a movie at the Towne Center.  It’s surprising how a small town off of the Artesia Freeway has a huge effect on me. It's transcendent how your old hometown can make you realize something new about yourself.

  And on my way home I listened to music that I’d never listened to before.

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