Dead Drug Guys

Every parent, at some point, feels the need to express concern for their children's choices in media.

In addition to banning MTV, Saturday Night Live, Channel 5 News and The Davey and Goliath Show, Hal was quite prolific with his opinions about the music to which Ben and I listened.

A line must always be drawn in the sand. For Hal, that line looked like it had been drawn by somebody with ADD.

He would tell us that our music was noisy, but then, strangely, tell us to turn up the stereo when we were listening to songs like LAPD, by The Offspring. He'd say that we were damaging our ears with our music, but would blast Boston albums at full volume early on Saturday mornings.

There was a method to his madness I'm sure, but I think I need to take several courses in Advanced Physics or Applied Dementia before I'll ever understand it.

One example of my inability to understand his criteria is particularly telling.

A few months after the infamous demise of Kurt Kobain, Ben and I were listening to a tape of Nirvana and my dad grumbled into the room after a long afternoon of hitting things with hammers and deepening the ingrained sweat rings on his t-shirt. "What is the deal with you kids?" he asked, attempting to turn down the volume or, perhaps, destory the cassette. "All you wanna do is listen to a bunch of dead drug guys."

He then proceeded to flip on the oldies station and smiled broadly at the first sounds he heard. "Now this is music," he said, "nobody can play like Jimi Hendrix."