Where Did You Come From?

Kids in class who have an over-inflated sense of their self-awareness and experience remind me that, someday, there will be a payback and it will be a bitch.

Not that many years ago, my author-music-reviewer-daughter Holly, wrote a review of Bad Plus that included some pretty silly proclamations about the gap between her music knowledge and appreciation and mine. I was entertained. In a similar conversation earlier, she had said, "Dad, I'm a music reviewer" as a statement of superior expertise when we had a disagreement about what qualified as ‘good music” and what didn’t. There are few things on the planet musicians or artists of any sort despise and ignore more than reviewers.

Our other daughter once told me that "It is great being in a family that is so musical," in reference to her husband's family who are dedicated karaoke fans. My kids grew up in a house full of musical instruments, musicians, recording and live sound equipment, and with music of some sort happening all the time, but somehow none of that registered. With all of that background, the first time she held a cheap microphone and sang along with canned muzak in front of a crowd of drunks in a karaoke bar was her first “real musical experience.”

Holly's son is now 22 and is convinced that none of the adults in his family know squat about music. Holly has written one of the biggest selling music theory books ever, The Dummies Guide to Music Theory, and gets a buttload of free CDs in the mail every month from her history as a music reviewer. Not a credential in her son’s mind, because . . . I don’t know what. When I was paging through the weirdly disorganized music list on my car stereo, he had to ask, “Why do you have all of that crap in with your music?” I don’t even want to know what he calls “crap.” He is his mother’s son, with even sillier tastes, and my interest in educating or even talking about music with non-musicians is vanishing into nothingness.

No matter what you have done, your kids will think you have done nothing. Tony Hawk’s kids, apparently, think he is a loser. Of course, most likely the only thing Tony Hawk’s kids will be ever be known for is being Tony Hawk’s kids. So, there is that.