nirvana, hanson and my people

I walked past the magazine rack a few minutes ago and Kurt Cobain was on the cover of Spin. Apparently it's their Nevermind "20th anniversary issue." Obviously it blows blows blows my mind that Nevermind is 20 years old. Everybody my age plus or minus five years thinks that.

What really really bugged me though is that I wasn't a Nevermind fan -- or even a hater of it. Nevermind was what I determined "young" people were listening to at the time (even though they were my age). I liked to think it wasn't as cool as whatever I was into (which isn't really defined very well unfortunately).

What I'm trying to get at is it's been more than 20 years since I've matured just a little. All my other ne'er do wells are thinking "man, can you believe it's been 20 years since Nevermind?" I'm thinking "man, it's been 20 years since I couldn't believe that Nirvana was getting so much more press than INXS!"

It gets really bad as the pop culture goes by. I meet some 18 year old who listens to Hanson and then a couple of years later she's married, she has a kid and she's talking about and doing important things. I'd think at the beginning, here's someone I can lecture about all I know about life and philosophy and my way of thinking and all that -- and then I realize I may be super bald and old-looking, but I'm far less developed than whatever she's become. She grows up in a couple of years -- but I've stayed the exact same for the last 20.

I remember (I've never said this) one time my mission president said to everybody "I hope you figure it out on your mission, because I've found that if you don't figure it out on your mission -- chances are you'll never figure it out." I remember feeling too embarrassed to raise my hand and ask "Figure what out, exactly?"

I purposely used the band Hanson two paragraphs ago because I saw on the way home that Hanson is coming to the Depot in September. I find that very weird. There is something I'm missing here. Who in the world would go to a Hanson show? I don't ask that to be insulting. I'm just wondering what their demographic could possibly be. I hate using words like "demographic" because it makes me sound business-y. I don't hate business, but I do hate using business words when speaking about anything artistic. If I'm not promoting something myself, I don't see why I shouldn't discuss anything other than the art itself.

BUT SERIOUSLY! Full disclosure. I don't think "Mmmm Bop" is a lousy song. Not. At. All. It's great. I can totally admit that. In fact I have a ton of respect for Hanson. I've seen them maligned by fellow snobs hundreds of times, but I don't think Hanson deserves to be in the slightest. What, because they had enough talent to write a great pop song ten years before they were supposed to they need to be made fun of? No. If anything, they deserve to be praised and popular.

BUT! Even as someone who admits to respect them, I'm not planning on seeing them live. I don't even know any other music they have. Who is? The tweens and teens who listened to "Mmmm Bop" 15 years ago couldn't possibly still be keeping up with Hanson's career. Nevertheless, someone must be going to Hanson shows. Someone, perhaps like myself, must acknowledge that these kids who recorded an infections pop song a lifetime ago have enough live musical chops that (I assume) people will unironically fill the Depot to a mild capacity. I suppose there is a chance that they would fill it ironically, but I don't think that's possible. Why put forth the effort to be ironic when nobody's even heard of Hanson for like a decade?

I wonder if Hanson is now just about the most underground band that's out right now.

I wonder how old I sound right now.

I hope Hanson gets Nelson to be the opening act.

I will seriously consider going to the Hanson show.

I wonder if the Hanson show is where I'll find my people. I've been thinking a lot lately about my friends and how awesome they are and that (like pretty much everyone else who has friends) they are only my friends because of chance circumstance. Classmates, neighbors, workmates -- these are our friends. Usually we don't make friends. Friendships make themselves out of circumstance. We're little and we're influenced by those around us. Collectively sometimes we start liking the same things. If we threw different people in there (instead of the ones who were geographically close by) we'd be influenced by different opinions, we'd have a different group collective, we'd like different music and ultimately we'd be different people. These life-altering developments didn't happen through people we chose to be with. These are the people who grew up across the street from us, who sat behind us in biology or were at our bus stop. They're great people, but they weren't our people from the beginning.

We'll never choose our friends now. It's too late. How do I know who my true people are when I've spent 30 years being influenced by whomever just happened to be around me?

All you people who have happened to be around me -- you're okay btw.