Japandroids and Youth Paralysis
You’re free! You’re in college! No more curfews, or parental restriction, or anything unfun EVER! You can go and get drunk before teatime on a Tuesday, on a TUESDAY! You guys! There’s parties, there’s more girls (probably), there are more people with different tastes and opinions than you’ll likely have encountered in your teenage years unless you’re the child of a diplomat or some such. There’s alcohol, drugs, experimentation, music, art, travel, fucking, insight, introspection, and all manner of opportunities. And you’ve got to make sure every choice is absolutely fucking perfect or you will spend the rest of your youth making up for it and trying to catch up to the path that you’re supposed to be on because once you’re on course you can stop worrying and nobody can say anything to you because you’ve proven you’re worthy of what you have and you can rest and as long as all of this is tied up in a neat bundle before you’re 30 then you can concentrate on finding a partner and settling down and having kids. You’ve got no time to waste and you better not make any mistakes.
That was as exhausting to type as it was to think about as it was to live through. See, here’s the thing, I wish nobody had told me to not worry about that stuff in my early 20’s. It would not have made a lick of difference. If you are anything like me you have to live through your struggles with status anxiety and measuring yourself against others you don’t care for in the acquisition of things you don’t care about. What would have helped is a reinforcement of these truths from a much earlier age. By your 20’s it’s too late, you’ve got to figure that shit out by yourself. For the sake of transparency, I’ll wager that most of us are told to be ourselves but more often than not it’s in between breaths gathered after “tidy your room” and before “do your homework.” It’s an idle endorsement delivered with the same fastidiousness as requests to take part in order maintaining rituals that are absolutely no measure of your character. However, some of the greatest people I know are slobs, some of the smartest did fucking terribly in school. Meanwhile I always made my bed and did my homework and I’m a borderline sociopath.
Many of our parents lacked the tools to nurture us beyond a basic level and we shouldn’t even think of blaming them. My parents grew up in a third world theocracy masquerading as democracy; a place where institutional abuse was overlooked for decades, mental illness was a cause of shame, ridicule and isolation and homosexuality was considered a form of mental illness. Now, now we know a little better. Regardless of what we want from our lives, we are hopefully in a position to be unashamed of that desire, to not measure ourselves by another’s gold standard we deem to be pyrite. What’s done is done; we only have our now and crucially, everyone’s “now” is different. What’s more, once you come to these conclusions in your own sweet time it’s also important to debunk the narrative desire. That’s where I strive to place the event that has taken place—be it a break-up, a new collaboration, a hangover, or a five pound weight gain—within an overall context. That time when my first band broke up when I was 21 was like that bit in Refused Are Fucking Dead… when I broke up with my first serious girlfriend when I was 22 was like 500 Days of Summer… that time I couldn’t have been bothered to go running? I was so Hannah Horvath that day. It’s comforting to compartmentalize and it’s so easy to do, it mythologizes the most insignificant minutiae as chapters and asides leading up to a totally reliable crescendo that will happen at a very fitting time. This event, you see, is actually a very powerful metaphor… only, it’s not. Failure or feelings of insignificance, or anger, or bitterness, or hope and success and joy and aspirations for continued peace and serenity are not indicative of anything beyond what they are. The difficulty you’re facing is not a “test”, it just “is.” These things have, do and always fucking will happen and have no bearing on you other than they are the things that happened to you at various points. That’s it. Your triumphs are not a manifestation of karma or proof of good outweighing bad in the universe; it’s a fortunate accumulation of molecules at a random place in an indifferent universe. You were just lucky enough to be present at that point in said universe where these molecules accumulated and it meant something positive to you.
This is not an attempt to piss on happiness from a great height or to bemoan misfortune from the darkest depths—although the desire to do both is one of the surest indicators of our humanity—it’s a request, no not even a request, but a suggestion to consider two things.
Who do you want to be and 2.) failing on your own terms…
I’ve recently been feeling Japandroids’ sophomore record Celebration Rock in a big way. There’s an intriguing narrative running through the record, especially when viewed in the context of its’ predecessor, Post Nothing. Songs informed by adolescent flippancy have given way to big, largely unnamed anxieties. They know what they dislike and do not want but the counteraction against these is a bigger stumbling block than the ones they feel to be holding them down. There are laments for dwindling youth, a proclivity towards alcohol yet also grand, sweeping assertions about seizing the day and professions of hope for love. The songs are ragged and beautiful, all Husker Du power and Replacements sensitivity delivered with a hinted sneer. They don’t offer any answers and they’re under absolutely no obligation to, but the placelessness of the frustration on the record is very telling.
Your time is now, you have the energy, you’re still young and you’ve experienced just enough to where you have a decent feeling about what you do and do not want in your life. But, the feelings only decent and there’s so much work to do to get towards something you only think you might want, and what if things change? What if you don’t really care about this thing? Have you just idealized it to the point where it has none of its’ own agency and is instead an inert symbol of something that you think connotates another “thing” like happiness or success? Listening to Japandroids always fills me with a mix of emotions ranging from joy to frustration, to hope, to sadness. All the sweeping statements and big chords ring through with that uncertain place inside me. The place where the not-quite-so-young-anymore me wonders about what he can do with himself, looks at the range of options before him and is paralyzed by a cluelessness about where to start and instead wonders if it’s too early to go have a drink somewhere.
That place is the central hub for me assigning unwarranted value to a situation or a relationship that distracts from elsewhere in my head and in my life where there are issues that need to be dealt with. “I don’t have a job, but if I could get a few articles published or shared I might get picked up…which articles should I send? Who should I send them to? Fuck it, I’m checking Facebook.” “If we could just find a drummer who is as into music as we are, I would be able to finally pursue this music ‘thing’ properly and have no regrets about it. Hmmm, you’re not quite what I was expecting, the universe is not going to be handed to me here. God, this seems like it might be more trouble than it’s worth. Hey, Buzzfeed!” “If we had just been a bit more up-front with each other, if we both hadn’t been so fucking proud and trying to get the upper hand on each other all of the fucking time…what did I throw away? Was I just afraid to work on things? You didn’t trust me, but you had reason not to. You did a lot of drugs, but did you really? We could have changed—in a good way—for each other couldn’t we?”
But my thoughts are less lonely with Japandroids.
Just think about what you want, and I mean really fucking want, even if that conversation starts with identifying what you don't want. Spring-clean those cluttered thoughts and be mindful of how it may not happen for you but you tried, you really tried.
I thought I saw you—us, actually—walking through Brooklyn Heights together. We hadn’t spoken in nearly a month at this stage and I was still comforting myself with the back-of-the-mind thought that maybe we’d get back in touch and that maybe things would rekindle. We were a bit older, this us walking through the brownstones. You were wearing a sundress and espadrilles—a departure from your usual Doc Marten’s or ankle boots, indicative of being slightly older, a more sensible wardrobe choice in acquiescence to the warmer weather. I was a bit stockier, bordering on portly but with the comportment of a father. I was pushing a three-wheeled stroller (you definitely picked that out, no longer concerned about what made you look “bougie”) with our toddler son in it; the son you probably aborted but will never tell me about.
Love comes back, hope comes back, but you are not coming back. We will likely never speak again. One moment we are walking your dog through Prospect Park or in your huge bed in Bushwick and the next, our time is completely over. The time in my life with you was altogether—but in the long run, probably thankfully—too short. I hold my ideal of you in my heart. I am passionate about moments that I’ve taken out of context. I remember a look, or a touch, or a sound, or a scent; I have taken the few good times we had and rendered a mental collage that tricks me into thinking that what we had was so good and how could I have been so stupid to throw it away. That’s why I got so emotional when I saw what I projected as us walking their child through Brooklyn Heights that weekend at the beginning of May. I was listening to Japandroids and simultaneously running through a mental simulation of what the next 10 or so years would look like.
You earned enough money to be the primary breadwinner, I pieced together as much as I could to help out but I was busy with the band for a long time. We put out five records that we were very proud of and when we finally disbanded we’d made enough of a ripple that some people seemed to care that we were gone. Now I’m a stay-at-home dad who free-lances as a music writer, occasionally scores independent films and tends bar once in a blue moon. You’re on Wall Street now; you’re sought after because you have a way with dealing with clients that keeps everyone satisfied. It’s a little ironic to me because outside of our son and occasionally me, you don’t really seem to care for many other people. There’s a professional personable distance you’ve perfected and occasionally, you bring it home with you. You’ve probably cheated on me a few times with some alpha male trader types, maybe after doing your first line in nearly six years on a business trip to Hong Kong. Then again, you think I did the same to you when I was on the road for the better part of a decade; I probably did too. All of that doesn’t matter when you get to brass tacks, though.
You bought me a beautiful old Triumph bike last Christmas. I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that you’re always going to be able to lavish me with more expensive gifts. But it’s for us both, this gift of yours. I am reminded of a youthful freedom I never really had in my actual youth when I ride by myself. When I bring you out with me and I feel your arms around my torso and your hot breath on my neck when we’re waiting at a light, I am reminded of just how on fire with passion you were when we first became intimate. The way you’d bite my neck, or wrap your arms around me, throw your head back and cackle, Jesus, I had never experienced that kind of vitality before. There’s a comfort in our distance from one another. We’ve led very different lives together: there’s an acceptance of that difference and an unspoken acknowledgement of mutual mental recesses that one will never be able to penetrate in the other. It’s enough, you keep telling yourself. Things are comfortable and there’s a lot at stake if you were to upset this balance, this stasis. It’s never been the most natural thing in the world to hold your hand except when we’re having sex. It’s a little funny how that’s not changed even though we now have a child. I worry about how it will affect his perceptions of supposedly intimate relationships.
I can’t even hold onto my own daydream anymore. I walked past the couple who were not—and never shall be—us and got to the end of the block. I realized I was going the wrong way. I looked for where I needed to go. I turned back.