when you can't go back, go forward

When I was a kid, I made a list of favorites.
Favorite bands, singers, dancers, painters, characters, writers, directors, etc.  I've been steadily adding to The List my whole life, and have never really edited it.  Everything and everyone on The List is untouchable, exempt from flaw, failure and disappointment.  It has recently been brought to my attention that this is unreasonable as well as sightly insane.

I went to see a band the other night.  I have been into these guys since their first record, which was released about two hundred years ago (to great critical acclaim, of course).  They pioneered a certain axe-murdering sound that hasn't been properly executed by anyone else since.  Like all good things, the project came to an end some years back, and that was that.  We all moved on.  A bunch of time passed, and now they're out on the road again, doing their part to spread the Good Word of Rock all across the land.  I thought, "Great! What's a hundred years between rock-outs?"  It's a hundred years, that's what.

I, like so many other misfits, ran right out and bought two tickets to The Past, with a big grin on my face. I put on my best dark eyeliner and stood in line.  I waited and I waited... And out came some grown-ass men, who showed every minute of the century that had gone by.  Don't get me wrong, the sound was incredible.  If you closed your eyes (which you couldn't, really, for fear that you might be stabbed to death by person with a tattooed face), you could almost pretend it was the Bad Ol' Days.  However, when you really got present (and, I got super present, friends), it was a special kind of awful.
There were unlimited sarcasms and resentments oozing off of the stage.
There were mismatched intentions among the players.
There were temper tantrums and childish antics.
Apparently, being able to have financial and creative mobility as a result of one giant moment of success in your career is an immeasurable burden.  I wouldn't know, but that's the word on the street.

I felt aged by the end of the night.  My expectations caught up with me, and there I was, in an ocean of misdirected angst and anger, bummed out.

I know that this sounds like a total drag, and it is, on some levels.  But, it was an educational moment for me.  People grow up. Bands get bad. And that's ok.  It also made me take a second to promise myself that if I ever do reach that point of notoriety where my lyrics make a dent in the collective psyche of my audience, I will be careful with that. And, I will be grateful.  While we don't know what goes on behind closed doors in other people's lives that might make them seem so unfriendly... I can sure as hell keep track of what goes on behind mine.

This is Buick Audra, reporting from Real Life, Today.
xoxo