November 2/13

Holy shit!

I just saw this tweet:

This boy is 22 years old. If you know who he is then you are officially old pic.twitter.com/ist7QjWN5D
— Frank Paul (@Mad) November 1, 2013

And I know now that I am officially old.

For those who may be a smidge older than me and not in the know, this boy man was once the baby swimming after a dollar bill on the cover of Nirvana's MONSTER debut album, Nevermind, the second studio album of the band, and by far one of the biggest albums of my generation.  I first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit in Amanda Dei's basement on MuchMusic, and it blew my fucking 12 year old mind.  That's right...I wasn't even 13.  And there was this awesome music that we thrashed around to wildly, shouting the nonsense lyrics...I had no idea what they meant, and to be honest, I didn't care. 
That album was a turning point for me...in almost an instant I outgrew the bubble gum pop (though not totally abandoning it), and the flannel shirt craze that Seattle grunge exported to the world gave me a place to hide my skin-and-bone frame.  The insecure, awkward, skinny, ugly, little duckling in me felt a little more okay about myself because here was this band, this music, this album that said 'FUCK YOU' to the cutesy, California blonde establishment that had no time or place for people like me.


And now that chubby little cherub symbol of my generation is all grown up and has a biggest album of his generation, though as an old fuddy-duddy, I'm at a loss as to what that might be.

Time marches on...

...Wish you were here.