A story of a kid’s deceptive imagination, and his time as a rock star

I was recently stopped at a red light next to a minivan and when I looked over,  it was like looking back in time at myself. The kid in the backseat, probably around 12, had his headphones in and was absolutely losing his mind. He was air drumming, air guitaring, head banging, etc. JAMMING THE FUCK OUT! …Poor bastard.

When I was 11, a friend and I walked to a Guitar Center near my house. I plucked a guitar from the wall and plugged it into the biggest amplifier in the store. This drew the kind of attention black people normally receive in department stores. I had no earthly idea what I was doing, but it felt great. “Distortion” sounded hardcore so I hit that button and started jamming. It probably sounded like a wounded cat because I was asked to stop immediately. So we got kicked out left, but I had the bug. Needless to say my next birthday gift was a guitar and I was sent off for lessons.

“First you’ll need to learn all of these scales” my instructor said. “Once you’ve gotten used to that, then you can start going through this chord chart and learning some of those.” Piss on that thing! I didn’t want to limp dick my way through ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, I wanted to learn guitar so I can play Metallica’s ‘Battery’ and rock my fucking balls off! Dimebag Darrell says you just have to shoot from the hip, turn it up to 10 and you’ll blaze your fingers off, so GO TO HELL!! He insisted that learning ‘Battery’ in one day for somebody who has never played is impossible but I wasn’t having that bullshit, so I cut the cord. Turns out he was kind of right. I spent the next few months playing every now and then but not much came of it. I eventually did something stupid and was sentenced to one week’s hard time – Grounded. With nothing else to do, I spent that time feverishly trying to learn the song I’ve wanted to learn since that day I got kicked out of left Guitar Center. I got the tablature for Battery and went to work. (In case you’re unaware, tablature is like cliff notes for people who never learned to read sheet music. Every snooty, snobby, pretentious dickhole will tell you that real musicians read REAL sheet music, but that’s because they’re jealous and probably play the flute or something gay like that). Amazingly I ended up figuring it out after a while, and was able to play pretty damn well. For whatever reason I just took to the guitar, it came relatively easy to me. At this point I was drunk with musical prowess and began drifting off into my far-reaching and disastrous imagination.

I was going to learn every awesome song ever! I would be jumping off my bed and kicking through my closet door all while gunning through the ‘Domination’ solo. It would be so loud that the neighbors would come over, not to complain, but to fucking MOSH! Even Rose, our elderly next-door neighbor would be there throwing up the devil horns and ruling the pit. Eventually my prodigious talent would catapult me into a world of fame. We would tour the world on our way to becoming the greatest metal band of all time. My dad would be the drummer so it would be like a family band but we wouldn’t be a bunch of pussies like the Partridge Family or Hanson. Bands like the Jonas Brothers would be afraid of us because we’d probably just fuck with them CONSTANTLY. None of your tour bus tires are safe around me, douchebags!! We would trash hotel rooms, light stuff on fire, dominate the arena circuit and headline Donington – breaking the attendance record. I would quickly top the charts, melt the faces off the crowd at the Grammys and single handedly prevent pop artists like Lady Gaga and Kesha from ever existing. Eventually my time would come to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so Dimebag Darrell, Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen and Kirk Hammet would induct me with the most epic heavy metal instrumental ever played. Albums of long lost tracks would go triple platinum even after I’m gone – like 2Pac, but way better. One day that employee who kicked me out of Guitar Center would be publicly shamed for fear that he may have impeded my ability to surpass my already staggering lifetime musical achievements. Instead I sit in a cubicle in rural Wisconsin listening to the 90′s on 9 or whatever god awful station happens to be on Sirius. My guitar collects dust and hasn’t been touched in well over 2 years. It’s a shame because I was damn good too. In a way this set me up for a lifetime of disappointment. My imagination is my worst enemy and my over-confidence likely stems from the fact that, for some reason, I had some insane knack to play the guitar. (And yes, I WILL boast about it. I’m good at like 3 things so I’m gonna grab my nuts a little about this one). From that point on I approached most situations like I did with guitar lessons. “Fuck that, your method sucks, I got this.” Most times it worked well for me, other times I was left looking like an asshole. It’s also probably the reason that I’m never satisfied with anything. Nothing will ever live up to the way I have it built in my stupid brain.

So here I stand. The kid who wanted to play ‘Battery’, and god dammit, learned how to play ‘Battery’ can not figure out how in the hell I ended up shrinking my wife’s sweater. Whites go with whites and darks go with darks, but what about my white shirt with the black writing on it? I’m ROLLING THE DICE on this one. In with the whites you go bitch, fingers crossed. The dish washer can go straight to hell too. I’ve washed already-cleaned dishes and put away dirty ones because there’s a rule that before you can wash the dishes in the dishwasher you have to wash the dishes. It’s FUCKING RETARDED and makes no sense whatsoever. Making the bed is like a scene reminiscent of the Battle of Thermopylae and no matter how many times I vacuum the carpet it looks like I didn’t do a god damn thing. My rock star self was a hell of a lot more intriguing.

Growing up sucks, especially when every pleasant experience causes your brain to splooge all over the inside of your skull and run away with ideas that are so incredibly far-fetched and inconceivable that it results in a strong cycle of emotional peaks and valleys: Extreme happiness, disappointment when reality is realized, repeat. So when I saw that kid losing his shit over his favorite song doing his best Yngwie Malmsteen impression, I felt bad for him. He likely has an imagination like mine, I just hope he has the wherewithal later in life to make sure his cups are dishwasher safe.

Tagged as: comedy, guitar, heavy metal, imagination, metallica, music, pantera, sarcasm