“Who is this?”
“Phish. They are an American band, they have been together since I was a kid, fuck, maybe even older than that. My buddy’s older brother was into them. We used to listen to his tapes, if that tells you how long ago this was. I kinda lost interest and got into harder music, punk and that lot, then discovered pussy and pot and got way into reggae, then it turned funky, then blues, then I realized phish has a little bit of everything, so I came back to where I was when I was a kid.”
“Sounds kinda cute, I like the story,” she said.”I wish I had a band like that. I just went through the phases, usually pop or boy bands, then maybe some ballads if I was heartbroken or sad. Oh and I had a brief and very regrettable emo phase.”
“What? An Emo phase? No way? What provoked this?”
“Oh well, life I guess? Growing up in one of the richest countries with everything provided for, none of the hardships my parents faced, definitely none that my grandparents faced, yet anxious and angry. The older generations didn’t understand, school was stressful, the university entrance exam was part of a bullshit system blah blah blah, you know the usual whiny teanager shit.”
“But Emo, did you dress the part?” I smiled at the thought.
“Well as much as I could, make up was out of the question, it was really banned at school and my parents would have killed me. I had a uniform too, so no real expression there, but I adopted the perma frown and tried to get some black clothes. It was a big shift, I was into bubblegum J-pop before that. I think my parents thought I was crazy. “
“Or just going through a phase.”
“Well that part is true, I was. That was all it was, and I think all sides knew that. Or well all sides except me, I was emo for life for a few months there. “
“How old were you?”
“Oh 16 or so, something like that. Old enough to have a single cigarette and tell people you smoke, and old enough to try to buy beer. I’d drink some to look cool, all the while suppressing a gag cause how gross I thought it was. Actually towards the end I would just drink fruit juice and claim I put booze in it.”
“No way that worked.”
“Totally did. At the time I thought I was the slickest kid in the group, and everyone thought I was super cool for having cocktails when all they had was a beer or two to split. Looking back on it though, I kinda think everyone else was faking too, we were all pretending so much that all I needed was the illusion. The act alone was sufficient.”
“Perhaps, I think we all think that way in retrospect.”
“I think it shows that we really were just kids, just playing pretend. Just like we did with costumes in Kindergarten, now with fake booze in high school. “
“And delusions of grandeur as adults.”
“Here’s to that,” she said with a smile. “Perhaps we’ll look back at our 20’s though, with the benefit of hindsight, and see it as silly and childish as we see our emo highschool days. “
“Oh I hope so, that will be a great laugh.”
