Subtraction by subtraction...

Ok, so pancake breakfast. It's a staple in the fund-raising arsenal of every self respecting school, church congreagation, boy scout troop, not for profit community theater group and secret paramilitary organization. The boy's school went to that well this weekend, and part of the deal is, well, other than pancakes, there's got to be entertainment. Because let's face it, you're not raking in the 5 dollar ticket money hand over fist with a package of Bisquick and the Log Cabin Republicans (Argh, I meant "Log Cabin" brand syrup. This computer has the strangest Auto-Correct.)

So where was I? Right, entertainment. The boy sang in the choir, who neatly toed the separation of church and state line with some fine spiritual work, which ok, whatever, I can't work up a rant about that considering the school is named after a preacher. Something about getting what you pay for. Then came the school's rock ensemble, and that's where our story begins (yes, two whole paragraphs in. Deal with it).

First up was a passable version of something modern and terrible, I couldn't tell you for the life of me which Coldplay wannabes originally did it, including maybe Coldplay. Then came the fun part. The guitar riff that launched a million plaid flannel shirts, Smells Like Teen Spirit. The 8th grader singing it did a passable, if a bit screechy, Cobain and the 11 year old on guitar held his own nicely, considering. Then a vague "what led them to pick that?" from the wife did it to me. The math. You don't want to know the math. But me, I'm cursed with doing the math without thinking.

Nevermind came out in 1991. That's 19 years ago, which is pretty freaking pathetic to start with. Chuck Klosterman sometimes does this thing where he says "ok, so that was x number of years ago. Count back that same number of years again, and to that person this is like whatever happened then..."which he totally stole from me, except of course he didn't because it's obvious for people whose brains work a certain way. So you do that, and you get 1972, which means you get "Stairway to Heaven," which oh my god (yes, I know that actually came out in 1971, but 1972 is all "Nights in White Satin" and "Baby Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me," which is secretly an awesome song. Mac Davis was so underrated). But that doesn't even prove the real point, all that does is prove that "...Teen Spirit" is now an old song, but exactly half as old as "Stairway to Heaven."

Here's the actual thing. The kids in that band were in 7th and 8th grade. If you're reading this (and you must be), then chances are you were in 7th or 8th grade in or around 1983. So a group of your (my) peers standing up there at the pancake breakfast would be singing...Beatles. And not cool White Album era Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" head-bobbing, not-quite-available-in-the-US-era Beatles.

Most people, I think, get stuck on an era when it comes to music. Baby Boomers got stuck on the so-called "Classic Rock" era (I say "so-called" because the term Classic automatically implies a certain standard of quality, and let's face it, a lot of it is just simplistic crap that we've all agreed over time to like because we've heard it so many times and so many other people seem to like it. It's also less embarrassing to like that than it is to admit that you can't tell the difference between Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend, or god forbid that you actually like new stuff too, except you're actually afraid that the stuff you like is the dorky new stuff, not the cool new stuff. I have no idea where this parenthetical statement is going, so I'm just going to go back to the other point). The hell was I talking about? Oh right, stuck on an era. Boomers-Classic Rock. Well, for me and many of my contemporaries, it was Nevermind that got us stuck. That was when music was somehow exciting and awesome, not like this twee corporate garbage they make now (that last part is mostly my contemporaries, I actually like Vampire Weekend...oh crap, they're the dorky one, right? Uh...Zepplin Rules!!!1!!) But seriously, that was the last time I felt like I knew something about contemporary music, and now 8th graders are playing it the same way I heard "Love Me Do" in junior high when the unreformed hippie music teacher played it for us with this look of "this, my children, is when music was real and righteous and cool" and we looked at him all like "yeah, sure thing gramps, it was a real wild time, we get it." And there, at the pancake breakfast, was that guy, leading the rock ensemble, goatee and short-sleeve-t-shirt -over-long-sleeve-shirt slacker casual, looking like Jason Bateman in Juno, thinking "this is when music was awesome and kicked serious ass," and he is me, sort of, and I sigh deeply.

I'd write more, but Cee Lo Green is rocking a completely outrageous David Byrne in Stop Making Sense level bright red suit on Letterman, and I've never heard this song before, and it's called what now? Oh my...