One of the few pieces of wisdom
imparted from my dad was this: “Getting old is mandatory, growing
up is not.” It's bizarre that as a young(ish) guy in my late 20s, I
often feel like an “elder” in the scene. Our life expectancy as
humans keeps getting longer, but our life expectancy as musicians is
the same as it was in the 10th century. So sayeth the bard
(by which I mean Bowie) “we live for just these 20 years / do we
have to die for 50 more?”
On my way out of Buffalo, Reactivi said
we should stop and visit this jazz pianist named Boyd Lee in his
nursing home if I wanted to meet a true Buffalo legend. Despite
having been around some of the greats (and apocryphally having
studied piano under Count Basie), Boyd never recorded until his 80's.
Now 87, he's warm, but stubborn. Wry, impish, and brilliant, he
actively refuses to play something the same way twice. He plays for
us for half an hour, before asking me to play for him. I tell him I'm
not much of a pianist, and I only know a few songs from memory. He
tells me he doesn't want to hear me play songs, he wants to hear me
play the piano. It takes a
little while for the distinction to set in. I promise that next time
I'm in Buffalo, I'll come back and actually play the piano
for him. Now I have a new goal. Men like Boyd Lee, and also Charles
Bradley, and hell even Danny Brown (who at 31 is nearly 10 years
older than any of hip-hop's other current rising stars...) are proof
that you can get older without losing the spark that inspired you in
the first place. Our culture of youth fetishization isn't actually
real, and creativity doesn't die on your 30th
birthday. Even though sometimes it can feel that way. This is Pen Pen
wondering how long before Jimmy Iovine starts hunting for the stars
of tomorrow here.
I made
it to the show in Berea that Wes from All Over the Place had set up.
He had been supposed to play the Acoustic Fest with me at the
Vatican't, but when that fell through, they cut their tour short and
headed back to Berea. Too bad, could have had another 48 hour
micro-tour! Most of the folks at the show were still in high school
or college freshmen or sophomores. I briefly felt suddenly very old.
“Are you done with school yet?” I'm asked. Yeah. I've been done
with school for a while.
But after the obligatory 15 minutes of feeling awkward and out of
place I began to feel very much at home. The real fact is that the
community of DIY artists is about ideas not age even if my youthful
obsession with Minor Threat had made it feel that way. This is Pen
Pen staring down his sworn enemy: the Lawn Gnome... “oh you take
pictures of your penguin in new places? Like a travel gnome?” “NO!
It's nothing like a travel gnome, it's a travel Penguin! David the
Gnome was boring and lame. But Chilly Willy the Penguin was dope. End
of debate.”
At the end of my
set I do my usual spiel “I have CDs and T-shirts for sale. I also
have a box of anti-capitalist zines for free, if anyone's interested
in smashing the system!” I head over to the picnic table set up for
merch, and the dudes from one of the bands walk over. “I'm very interested in the
anti-capitalist zines! How much are they?” “Free!” I say, “they
wouldn't be very anti-capitalist if I were selling them, would they?”
These are the moments when I'm OK with being old. In a weird way, I
am an “elder” in the scene. And I wouldn't be who I am now, had
other scene “elders” (now in their mid-30s...) not turned me on
to ideas about self-reliance and sustainable art when I was younger.
Being an elder might actually be a good thing, I think. This is Pen
Pen settling down for a feast of crackers, peanut butter, and Negro
Modello, two Lawn Gnomes watching warily in the background; that's
right Lawn Gnomes: be afraid, be very afraid.
This is a song I
wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your
friends.
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