Image via Wikipedia
The battle of musical tastes continues between the 14 year old in the house and his older, wiser male role model. Score the last round to older and wiser. I've been hooked on Green Day's new release "21st Century Breakdown" since it came out on May 15th. It was downloaded on itunes and burned immediately so it could have near-permanent status in the CD player in my car. Much to the dismay of the younger male in the clan.
See, being an actor and the age that he is, it's difficult for him to have much rock-and-roll taste. I accept this. Around his peer group, he is constantly exposed to broadway tunes, sappy R & B, Disney tunes and and the latest in bubble gum rap, as I like to call it. He calls it hip-hop, but that's an argument for another time.
With his musical taste as a weapon. he has become one of the most annoying teenagers since Macaulay Culkin. Currently taking vocal lessons, he walks around the house and, without even realizing it, bursts loudly into song. Sometimes he sings actual lyrics. Sometimes he hums. Always it is loud. Usually it is some song I can't stand, or at the very least interrupts a good movie or hockey game.
For my part, I try to make sure that the time he spends in the car with me is quality time. We either discuss news stories on NPR or I expose him to real music. As you can imagine, much of his time is spent rolling his eyes during these excursions. Undeterred, I feel like it's my duty to develop his tastes and to make his eyes roll. It's really the fun part of being a dad. Of course, the best part is when I play a song and he says, "hey, that song is on my Guitar Hero game!" Or "that is a song by (insert sampling, bubble-gum rap artist here)" and I have to explain that (insert sampling, bubble-gum rap artist here) couldn't come up with a bass line that good so they ripped it off from The Who.
This brings us to yesterday. On the way home from his vocal lessons, I had the Green Day CD playing and he begged me to turn on NPR. That is all part of my master plan to increase his intelligence level. However, I was really rocking out to the Green Day, so I denied his request. He rolled his eyes all the way home, heaving sigh after sigh, in between complaints, of course. I was not aware he had the capability to multitask like that, but I learned something new.
After we got home and had dinner, he was cajoled into helping clean up the kitchen. While cleaning he had one his burst-into-song moments. He was humming the tune "21 Guns" ...from the Green Day album ...in front of me. I stopped and looked right at him. At first, he thought I was annoyed because he was humming loudly. Starting to laugh, I asked "What was THAT?"
Slowly a look of realization came over his face. He looked like he wanted to spit some foul tasting drink out of his mouth but had nowhere to spit it. He blurted out, "see what your crappy music has done to me?"
It may take years and cost thousands of lives but I will win.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Posts
Post a Comment