Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

My musical tastes have swung radically over the last few years. As a youth, teen, and young adult I was an unapologetic connoisseur of rock music. In high school it was a lot of punk, maybe some East Cost hardcore, and some other stuff thrown in. My early 20s were even thrashier, with scream core and screamo (we all have phases, alright?). Later on in my mid and late 20s, I reverted to 90’s grunge and a lot of ‘80s glam metal.

But then something weird happened in my 30s: my tastes changed and I started to branch out. Lots of blues, and not just modern blues (although I still love Joe Bonamassa and Gary Clark). Old Delta Blues. And something ever weirder happened: I started listening to country. Not anything new, mind you; I still don’t listen to any country recorded after my birth year (1982).

Nowadays, my tastes are all over the map. In the span of a single morning I’ll go from Cali Reggae vibes to George Jones and Charlie Rich, and I might even listen to Bach or Beethoven followed by Facelift or Jar of Flies.

What does my schizoid listening habits have to do with anything at all?

A lot.

You don’t have any idea who you are or what you are all about when you are young, and it’s simply because you haven’t done enough living to figure it out. Thank God I did a lot of living, and experienced some really interesting things and places along the way.

I have a fundamental disagreement with very young writers. Not to say that don’t have talent, but they don’t have experience, and experience is what shapes a writer. There are lots of youthful people who do all kinds of things better than I do. They are crypto bros and AI gurus and all sorts of other things. DOGE is showing us all not to second guess the kids. But despite their massive brainpans, the DOGE team are still just a bunch of kids.

Writing is a complex art, best mastered by people who have mastered all sorts of other things in life, and who figured out who they were. They didn’t have to abide by only one set of rules because they earned the right to live by their own rules. We see this in Cormac McCarthy and Hemingway’s unique and distinctive writing styles. They earned the right to write any damn way they pleased because they focused on living before they started writing.

If you’re young and reading this, focus on going out and living your life. If you are older (30s+) and have done some living, then maybe it’s time for you to pick up a pen and put it all down on paper.

P.s.- I stole the headline from the late, great PJ O’Rourke. RIP dude, your books were hilarious.