I'm A Rocker

I'm rockin' some black Chucks these days.  I've loved and worn Converse sneakers for years, but always in other colors. I've gone through a few pairs of my beloved burgundy, have some gray with pink accents that are getting pretty tired, and bought a bright aqua pair last spring.  But black...oh, I've never felt quite hard-core and worthy enough for black.  Until now. (It's not that I'm any more cool. Maybe it's that I don't even care if anybody else thinks it's cool, or tired, or even appropriate, for an over-40 mom to be sporting black sneakers.) 

Black chucks are for rockers, for the skinny jeans and black leather set. I feel like I should be muttering, “Gabba Gabba Hey,” under my breath, a la The Ramones. (By the way, Gabba Gabba Hey is NOT the same as Yo Gabba Gabba, which is still pretty rock n' roll too, for kids programming.)  Am I rocker? Hells yeah.  At least I've thought of myself as such for a long, long time.  (Granted, it didn't kick in until the passing of a certain obsession, #3 on this list.) 

I don't know what kind of credentials I can pull out to prove my true rocker-status, except that I could show you a small photo album, filled with tickets stubs from rock concerts that testify to how I spent the majority of my time and money in my late teens/early 20s.  I didn't attend college immediately after high school. Instead, I worked at a series of small office jobs, after putting in a year at a chain record store (anybody remember The Warehouse?).  I was broke a lot, spending my paychecks on used records,  new cassettes, used books, and lots of black clothing. (But not black Chucks!)  And concert tickets. Lots and lots of concert tickets.  When I was really broke, I'd take some of my lesser favorite albums and cassettes and sell them back to the cool record store in my neighborhood. 

My husband and I both share a deep love of music (not always the same music) and find it pretty integral to daily life. I talk a little more about his (and our kids) current music taste here.  We own a LOT of music, and except for the really old “standards” stuff (Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc.), I think most of the music we own could be classified as rockin'.  Because in my book, Waylon Jennings rocked as hard and lived the lifestyle just as much as say, Ozzy did, back when he was snorting ants up his nose, along with cocaine. 

I don't see very many live shows anymore.  Tickets in general are just so, so much more expensive these days. And living out here in the sticks, it's hard to see a good live show without traveling into either San Diego or L.A., which in turn leads to questions on who/how/what to do with the children, and yadda to the yadda.  Considerations that are NOT very rock n' roll at all. But because I grew up in L.A. county, I've seen shows at just about every major venue in the area. (First concert ever: Supertramp's farewell tour, at the The Forum. A friend's older brother had tickets.  First concert where I paid for my own ticket: The Cult, at the Palladium in Hollywood.) 

I don't smoke Marlboro 100's any more, don't hang out in scrappy dives playing (bad) pool any more. It's been years and years since I sidled up to some strange guy at the bar and flirted for a dollar, so I could play some good tunes on the jukebox (yes, yes I did that).   If I went to a concert tomorrow, I don't even HAVE a lighter that I could hold aloft during “the slow, moving song.”  ("FREE BIRD!")

But damn, I've got me some black sneakers.  I'm hoping that sometime this year, I can attend a live show and hear some loud guitars and feel that drum beat pounding through my body, and get some beer spilled on my Chucks.  Because it's important to have goals, y'all.