“If you’re too loud, it’s probably awesome.” The expression goes something like that anyway. I’m not really much of one for splitting hairs when there are ear-drums to be busted. Like many people growing up in my generation, I too had dreams of shredding guitar solos and wooing millions with my amazing ability to rock so hard that the dead would shift in their graves to plug their ears holes with boney fingers. This probably had more to do with the glory and fame and the fact that all I had to do was whip out my wee willy winky as an onslaught of lusty airheads forgo the line rule and set to their stage dive of naughty all at once, thus never having to acquire a personality.

Sadly it turns out that I’m tone-deaf and was anything but a prodigy when I picked up my first electric guitar at the tender age of ‘yeah well I probably started too late.’ What it really came down to is that my time has always been divided up based on priority and it actually takes a good chunk of time to learn how to do anything correctly, especially when it comes to music. So I took a healthy dose of fuckital, chased it with piss-water that the trendy refer to as ‘lager’ and decided I’d be an opinionated prick instead. Turns out people seem to like that sort of thing.

It’s well known that where we fail in our hopes, dreams and goals, we attempt to live vicariously through our children, pushing them to succeed where we could never set foot. While I really don’t give two shits if my daughter grows up to be a world famous rock star, I do hope that she manages to break the hearts of every boy with the audacity to come onto her and becomes a famous astronaut, pioneering the universe in a starship made up entirely of women to explore far away worlds without a man in sight. …What was I talking about? Oh right. She’s more than welcome to become a rock star. It’s something that I’ll support, but certainly never push her towards.


For Christmas last year, mommy thought it would be fun to give what I consider to be her one and only taste of banging long sticks – a four-piece drum set. While she was tickled with the idea of making so much noise with so little effort, and I will admit that she’s got damned good rhythm for a three year old, I think she spent most of her time trying to ham up the audience. This finally leads us to the point I was trying to get at from the first paragraph.


I need to stop letting that kid watch unmarked video cassettes...

Rockband and Guitar Hero are the only time that the wifey or I will experience an opportunity to feel like rock gods. What this means to Booger is that she can be an active participant in a rock band that makes decent music as apposed to being a solo act and depending on mommy and daddy as a loyal fan base. Not saying her playing is bad, just saying that it loosens the meaning of the word, ‘music.’



For the time being, she doesn’t exactly seem to grasp the point. It’s not for lack of trying, but she wants to play the notes or hit the color when she wants to and doesn’t understand why she has to do it when the television tells her to. For that matter, she doesn’t understand why she has to do things when I tell her to either. I’ve learned its best not to try and explain the deeper meaning behind complex carbohydrates to a three year old and default to the standard, “Because they’re awesome!” Nobody said I was clever or creative, leave me alone.

Still, all of the confusion with the devices doesn’t seem to deter her from spying the guitars in daddy’s play corner and declaring, “I wanna rock out!” I give her mad props for continuing to try and I’m betting she’ll get it in the next couple of years. Until then, there’s always the drum set (now moved into her room) to give her a practice at whacking the crap out of things when she’s feeling energetic and doesn’t feel like leaping from the couch over the dog with a well-rehearsed war-cry. I’m glad that there are things out there like Rockband to give kids the chance to develop hand-eye coordination and expose them to the wonderful world of music, something that I feel life would be pretty bland about.



Oh and I’m totally kidding about the astronaut thing. She has my permission to date as soon as she turns 30.