The little girl laughed and giggled as she danced with her father to a song about fucking tranny prostitutes.
Ah, rebellion.
Last weekend, with the sun in the sky and a helmet on my head, I biked to Wrigleyville for the Lake View Music Festival. The festival, in the shade of the ballpark itself, had everything I expected -- booths with crafts, goods from stores like yuppie mainstay The Alley (pre-approved revolution for the trendy Northsider) and more corporate sponsorship than a college bowl game.
It also had great food, people enjoying life and some pretty decent cover bands. The fun was contagious, I thought as I leaned against Wrigley Field, eating my pizza slice and watching happy parents dance with happy children.
The song was "Basket Case" by Green Day.
In 1994, that song was my song. I would watch MTV waiting for the video to come on. It would play, I would flip and then I would wait to see it again.
I was 14 and angry all the time. I was neurotic, freaked out, stressed and worried. And somehow, Green Day made it OK. They yelled about the things I didn't whisper. They got on MTV flaunting what I was ashamed of.
I hid as much as I could; they screamed it.
God bless that video and all the "Brazil" knock-off babyfreak mental patients in it.
Brazil: Movie, 1985
Basket Case: Music video, 1994
Green Day was an important band for me. It was gateway punk. A few years and some green hair dye later and I was ear-deep in the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Dead Kennedys, Dead Milkmen, the Dead Boys, Deady Deady Dead Dead and the Deads.
OK, so I made the last one up.
My hair's stayed the same color for the last eight years, but I'm still a freak about music. I'm just getting into The Dictators and I just picked up a 5.6.7.8.'s b-sides compilation I can't stop listening to.
And now I see a little girl and her daddy dancing in Wrigleyville to my song of rebellion, my gateway song. He flipped her a few times, the first flip coinciding with the word "whore" in the line "I went to a whore, he said my life's a bore so quit my whining cuz it's bringing her down."
Song by song, the band ripped through my life. Weezer, Modest Mouse, The Killers. All the bands of different eras of my past, the band played until I realized, "Yes. Yes, they have always just been pop songs."
I will love these songs always for what they are and what they meant in my life. But they are, always have been and always will be just pop songs, not concentrated rebellion meant only for angry ears. Little girls and daddies love them too.
It made me feel good. It made me happy. And this summer of Wayne Coyne and Verdi would not have existed without the song that touched me when I was an angry 14 year old who thought I was too crazy inside for anyone else to understand.
Thanks, "Basket Case."
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Paul Dailing
Paul Dailing (pictured standing in front of the World's Largest Boot), now has a different haircut. He's also lost a bit of weight since that picture was taken, but not as much as he likes to think. More
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