Beethoven Was Rebellious Once

It's been a rough couple of weeks, my baby cries and cries, my wife is sleep deprived and worn out, I have been out of town working, and on top of it all I am getting over a miserable cold, which is why I have not written in a couple weeks. Hopefully with some witty quips and insights I can make up for the tender moments we have surely lost.


     People seem to have strong and poignant feelings in regard to their music preferences.  I am going to divulge a secret about me; a deep, dark, horrifying secret.  A secret so horrifying that in so sharing I may ostracize myself from family, friends and acquaintances, I like rap.  Though my brother in law (who is 12) told me rap is an acronym for retards attempting poetry, don't judge me to harshly. I'm not into snoop dog, and eminem, I enjoy the subtle sounds and smilies of groups such as the argyle pimps, ugly duckling, jurassic five and the like, you have never heard of them have you?  I knew it, just look them up on myspace, who knows I may change your attitude on this so called hip hop.
     Kids go through phases of music I have noticed, often they will start with top 40 garbage, whatever is on the radio and constantly resonating in their hollow heads.  Around junior high school something happens, I can't quit explain, but somehow the pyschadelic sounds of the seventies seem to infiltrate theirs souls.  Don't believe me?  Ask any 14 to 17 year old what music they dig and likely his answer will be "Led zeppelin and Pink Floyd.  I like classic rock."  I feel I need to add that all my experience is as a middle class white kid so this may not be applicable in all areas. After that comes the "radio sucks" phase, where it becomes much less than cool to listen to anything on the radio, youngsters turn to the internet to find whatever is too obscure and possibly too profane to find  on the radio.
    Obviously everyone has their own opinion as to what musical talent is.  I like to have the argument, it's funny because I don't really care, I think it is all opinion. However for many people the topic is poignant and important.  I believe talent in music is simply stated making music people want to listen to.  My dad will say classical and the like is the only type of music that takes talent.  He, however, enjoys the beatles, emerson lake and palmer which are only a few among the many bands that my grandparents hate and call no talent rock.  They would prefer something along the lines of Engelbert Humperdink, which their parents thought was the devils music.  There must have been a time when a youngster was bangin his head to some chopin and his dad yelled "turn that crap off!"  I wonder what it was like when kids would whip out their harpsichord and jam to the latest tunes only to have be grounded from the instrument until they have gathered enough firewood to warm the house.  I wonder what they rocked to in the stone age.  Point is parents will always hate what their kids listen to, with the exception of that classic rock stage.  They can get on the same page at least for a couple years.
     Singer/songwriter acoustic rock has become popular in the last few years.  Acoustic music has destroyed campfires.  Tough, brave men used to gather around a campfire reciting mighty tales of trapping beavers, fighting grizzly bears, and sharing a peace pipe with Indians.  However with the popularity of acoustic music there is always one person who whips out an acoustic guitar and plays the two Jack Johnson songs he knows incessantly diverting all attention away from manliness.  Without fail if a fire is started in a pit an acoustic guitar will appear, like magic. I swear someone just pulls it out of the black of night, You could be talking about a shelter fashioned by your bare hands from some leaves a branches and next thing you know a person is strumming three chords and singing about bubbly toes.
    I think the last phase is talk radio.  Instead of listening to pathetic poets spout on about messages that have no real meaning, you hear pundits slander and argue points until they are so worked up their microphone is covered in spit and anger.  Pretty much the same as the pathetic poets just their sentences don't rhyme and there is no background music.