I hate myself for loving you....
It’s weird how one’s taste develops. And I’m not talking about the weird coincidence of how both me and my sister hate eggs or how I’m weird about eating chicken on the bone (c’mon, people it’s very carnal and I just don’t like any reminder that my chicken was once a chicken!). I mean how we like or hate something. I wonder what it is that makes certain things resonate with us while others leave us flat. It’s no wonder this is of interest to me- after all, my chosen profession is all about getting paid to tell people what I like and hate.
Sometimes why I like something is totally visceral. I could write a long-winded explanation of why I think “Fuckin A,” the new Thermals record, is genius (polically charged songs, blah blah, wordy punk poetry, blah blah, urgent driving guitar chords, blah blah, Hutch Harris is my boyfriend…) but really I just heard one song and my mind was made up. It rocked and made me tap my foot and when I paid attention to the lyrics I thought they were smart and I couldn’t stop humming along. My mind was made up: I like this band. I am going to be there new biggest fan.
Once my mind is made up about stuff like that, it is very hard to change. This seems to go double for things that I hate. Now it’s not like I woke up one morning and just DECIDED to hate the Eagles or Seinfeld. No, they were things (in this case a shitty, highly rated tv show and possibly one of the biggest selling bands of all time- sad but true!) that pervaded my life and despite my attempts to block them out and ignore them fucking “Hotel California” kept coming on the radio and stupid Jerry kept laughing at his own jokes 3 times a night in syndication. I think that is what made up my mind about HATING them. If I could have just ignored them, they would have been just a band whose records I didn’t buy and I show I didn’t watch- God knows there are tons of others like them- but because of their overwhelming visibility I had to take it upon myself to become and active hater of these things.
It’s sort of the same reason that I refuse to ever see “Dances With Wolves” or “Braveheart” or “Unforgiven.” When you win every freakin’ Oscar, I’ve got to decide to hate you. (Ditto anything starring Kevin Costner or Mel Gibson) Now many of my cinephile friends have told me that it’s insane to have never seen “Braveheart,” but to them I simply said “I told you so about Mel Gibson” when this “Passion of the Christ” nonsense came out.
I bring this up because today Shaya forwarded me Bruce Springsteen’s Op/Ed from the New York Times (about Kerry and the Republicans etc.) and I remembered while reading it how much I used to hate the Boss. I just made up my mind that he was not for me. I think this happened to many of my generation who had to grow up with “Born in the USA” every fucking election year and Mike Seaver’s adoration of Bruce (which was only surpassed by Kirk Cameron’s adoration of the Lord). I think the proliferation of Bruce was especially bad if you grew up anywhere near New Jersey- which I did. And even though I grew up in, what felt like to me, a dead-end suburb, his music never spoke to me. It was too white, American and earnest for me. There is just nothing exciting or even remotely rock and roll about the kind of music he’s made in the last 20 years…. Tunnel of Love, anyone? Streets of Philadelphia….yawn!
But a couple years ago, when I was going through my I-wanna-be-Elizabeth-Wurtzel phase, I decided to give Springsteen another try. After all Ms. Prozac Nation kept quoting these lyrics in her books that I thought sounded kinda genius- more prolaterian than the poetry of Bob Dylan but less cheese dick, heartland facility than, say, John Cougar Mellencamp’s lyrics. So I went out and bought a collection of live performances of Bruce and the E Street Band that span 1975-1985 and you know what? I actually changed my mind about him. I put the hate away and gave myself over to lines like, “Well now I'm no hero that's understood. All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood.” Yeah sure, that’s what we expect from Bruce- tales of downtrodden girls who dream of getting away from the tilt-a-whirl and the greasy, Jersey men that love them- but instead of finding it trite, I now find it kind of thrilling, yet comforting. I think part of this is because I was able to discover Bruce on my own, separate from the “THE BOSS” that was shoved down my throat as a child listening to Philadelphia rock radio.
You know, my picky-eating little sister went to Hong Kong a couple summers ago and when she returned, she had a whole new repertoire of foods that she liked. She had always hated fish, now she loved it. She had never eaten her meat any other way but burnt through, now she likes it bloody. She had never touched a scallop or a mussel or a crab leg in her whole picky-eating life. Now she only wants to go to seafood restaurants. This was a huge change, for me, in the personality of my sister. Bruce Springsteen is the only thing I can ever remember changing my mind about like that. He’s like my scallop.
I hope the Eagles don’t get any ideas, though. I mean Leah still won’t eat eggs, just like always. I am committed to a lifetime of hating the Eagles.
Sometimes why I like something is totally visceral. I could write a long-winded explanation of why I think “Fuckin A,” the new Thermals record, is genius (polically charged songs, blah blah, wordy punk poetry, blah blah, urgent driving guitar chords, blah blah, Hutch Harris is my boyfriend…) but really I just heard one song and my mind was made up. It rocked and made me tap my foot and when I paid attention to the lyrics I thought they were smart and I couldn’t stop humming along. My mind was made up: I like this band. I am going to be there new biggest fan.
Once my mind is made up about stuff like that, it is very hard to change. This seems to go double for things that I hate. Now it’s not like I woke up one morning and just DECIDED to hate the Eagles or Seinfeld. No, they were things (in this case a shitty, highly rated tv show and possibly one of the biggest selling bands of all time- sad but true!) that pervaded my life and despite my attempts to block them out and ignore them fucking “Hotel California” kept coming on the radio and stupid Jerry kept laughing at his own jokes 3 times a night in syndication. I think that is what made up my mind about HATING them. If I could have just ignored them, they would have been just a band whose records I didn’t buy and I show I didn’t watch- God knows there are tons of others like them- but because of their overwhelming visibility I had to take it upon myself to become and active hater of these things.
It’s sort of the same reason that I refuse to ever see “Dances With Wolves” or “Braveheart” or “Unforgiven.” When you win every freakin’ Oscar, I’ve got to decide to hate you. (Ditto anything starring Kevin Costner or Mel Gibson) Now many of my cinephile friends have told me that it’s insane to have never seen “Braveheart,” but to them I simply said “I told you so about Mel Gibson” when this “Passion of the Christ” nonsense came out.
I bring this up because today Shaya forwarded me Bruce Springsteen’s Op/Ed from the New York Times (about Kerry and the Republicans etc.) and I remembered while reading it how much I used to hate the Boss. I just made up my mind that he was not for me. I think this happened to many of my generation who had to grow up with “Born in the USA” every fucking election year and Mike Seaver’s adoration of Bruce (which was only surpassed by Kirk Cameron’s adoration of the Lord). I think the proliferation of Bruce was especially bad if you grew up anywhere near New Jersey- which I did. And even though I grew up in, what felt like to me, a dead-end suburb, his music never spoke to me. It was too white, American and earnest for me. There is just nothing exciting or even remotely rock and roll about the kind of music he’s made in the last 20 years…. Tunnel of Love, anyone? Streets of Philadelphia….yawn!
But a couple years ago, when I was going through my I-wanna-be-Elizabeth-Wurtzel phase, I decided to give Springsteen another try. After all Ms. Prozac Nation kept quoting these lyrics in her books that I thought sounded kinda genius- more prolaterian than the poetry of Bob Dylan but less cheese dick, heartland facility than, say, John Cougar Mellencamp’s lyrics. So I went out and bought a collection of live performances of Bruce and the E Street Band that span 1975-1985 and you know what? I actually changed my mind about him. I put the hate away and gave myself over to lines like, “Well now I'm no hero that's understood. All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood.” Yeah sure, that’s what we expect from Bruce- tales of downtrodden girls who dream of getting away from the tilt-a-whirl and the greasy, Jersey men that love them- but instead of finding it trite, I now find it kind of thrilling, yet comforting. I think part of this is because I was able to discover Bruce on my own, separate from the “THE BOSS” that was shoved down my throat as a child listening to Philadelphia rock radio.
You know, my picky-eating little sister went to Hong Kong a couple summers ago and when she returned, she had a whole new repertoire of foods that she liked. She had always hated fish, now she loved it. She had never eaten her meat any other way but burnt through, now she likes it bloody. She had never touched a scallop or a mussel or a crab leg in her whole picky-eating life. Now she only wants to go to seafood restaurants. This was a huge change, for me, in the personality of my sister. Bruce Springsteen is the only thing I can ever remember changing my mind about like that. He’s like my scallop.
I hope the Eagles don’t get any ideas, though. I mean Leah still won’t eat eggs, just like always. I am committed to a lifetime of hating the Eagles.
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