Forever Young (Dylan...not Stewart)
Last night Beth and I were sitting around watching "I Love the '90s Part Deux" (why, you may ask? because those fucking nostalgia package shows are my guilty pleasure--I will know that I have truly made it in my chosen profession when I get asked to sit around for hours discussing the importance of babydoll dresses and proving that I sadly know all of the lyrics to "Baby Got Back.") and in 1994 they did a weird, off-putting tribute to Kurt Cobain. And I was reminded again of how young he was when he died. And also those jack offs who wear "To Young to Die" t-shirts with pictures of Janis and Jimi and Jim and Kurt on them. And I remembered that all those people died at 27. And I turned to Beth and said, "In five days I will be the same age as Kurt when he died."
When I think about all of the things that those famously dead rock stars did by the time they were 27 (including a lot of herion, for most of them) it makes me feel really, really unaccomplished. I mean, when I was going through my Jim Morrison faze at 14, 27 seemed old. It seemed like a lifetime of experience and fucking and getting fucked up. It was enough time to write and record like 5 hit records. And get married in a witch ceremony. And throw a tv through a window because your band sold your song to a commercial. No one would be making a movie out of my slightly neurotic 27 years. It would just include a lot of time spent in school, a fair portion of being fucked up, a lot of sleeping, and some terrible choices in men. I approach my 27th birthday with some trepidation, having not really done one damn thing with almost three decades of living. However, I take some solace in knowing that at least when people like Kurt and Jimi die at 27, it still called "dying young." It's not like being 50 and feeling like you haven't done anything. If you die then, you are just another middle aged person with blocked arteries and high cholesterol.
The other bright side to this slightly morbid realization is that it kind of makes turning 27 seem like an occasion. I mean, I though there were no more big birthdays after 21. You can drive at 16. You're a legal adult at 18. You can drink at 21. Maybe if you get jazzed about insurance rates, 25 is a big deal for you. But I really thought it was all just another number after that. Now I'm gonna celebrate that I made it Jim Morrison's age. And next year will really be a reason to celebrate. Cuz I'll have outlived him.
When I think about all of the things that those famously dead rock stars did by the time they were 27 (including a lot of herion, for most of them) it makes me feel really, really unaccomplished. I mean, when I was going through my Jim Morrison faze at 14, 27 seemed old. It seemed like a lifetime of experience and fucking and getting fucked up. It was enough time to write and record like 5 hit records. And get married in a witch ceremony. And throw a tv through a window because your band sold your song to a commercial. No one would be making a movie out of my slightly neurotic 27 years. It would just include a lot of time spent in school, a fair portion of being fucked up, a lot of sleeping, and some terrible choices in men. I approach my 27th birthday with some trepidation, having not really done one damn thing with almost three decades of living. However, I take some solace in knowing that at least when people like Kurt and Jimi die at 27, it still called "dying young." It's not like being 50 and feeling like you haven't done anything. If you die then, you are just another middle aged person with blocked arteries and high cholesterol.
The other bright side to this slightly morbid realization is that it kind of makes turning 27 seem like an occasion. I mean, I though there were no more big birthdays after 21. You can drive at 16. You're a legal adult at 18. You can drink at 21. Maybe if you get jazzed about insurance rates, 25 is a big deal for you. But I really thought it was all just another number after that. Now I'm gonna celebrate that I made it Jim Morrison's age. And next year will really be a reason to celebrate. Cuz I'll have outlived him.
1 Comments:
Here is a thought: in most mainstream entertainment, if you haven't made it by 30, you won't make it at all, so relative to their occupations, they did not in fact die young. I think many conflate a young age at time of death with "wasted talent", seeing that the intuition that talent was wasted would diminish considerably if the person referred to made it big, died a year later and also happened to be 70 at the time.
Here also is a controversial opinion: I doubt sincerely had Cobain lived that Nirvana would either 1) still be around, or 2) still be making exceptional music, and as such, his death stands as tragic only insofar as any death is tragic, no more, no less. Joplin, however, had the chops that could easily ensure a lengthy, illustrious career. Morrison, on the other hand, was a douche bag, and the only tragic portion of his death was that the massive quantities of drugs and alcohol he consumed before his death could have gone to worthier, less-douchey causes.
Christy
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home