Anarchy In The Ga

I'm eating pumpkin pie for dinner. At my age, 40, and with my family situation, married with 3 daughters, that's akin to sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So we can make the leap into me thinking and blogging about rebellion. This morning, Bobina drove Tay, our 14 year old 9th grade daughter, to school. Bo called me to rave about how awesome Tay was because she was different. Tay wore a t-shirt, jeans, pony tail, and bad attitude to school, all with confidence. She got out of the car and said hello to several different groups of school friends. Those groups represented different high school cliques and dressed and accesorized typically. While our daughter rocked her own thing and did so with gusto. I agree with my wife, our daughter is awesome. The only problem I have is she does it all while listening to Taylor Swift. To take the concern even further, her riskiest personal trait is wanting to listen to R rated hip hop (referenced in a previous blog entry - http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/currency.html). I keep waiting for Tay to die her hair, play some really subversive music from her bedroom, or start babbling about some political cause. The thing is, I think Tay's real rebellious streak is her intelligence. She's beyond the cliches of contrarianism. I think her generation may be the same.

The last real protest record was 2004's American Idiot by Green Day. Now, it's a Broadway Musical, seen by the uppercrust of society at 200 dollars a ticket. The two records I listen to the most are Cage The Elephant and The Gaslight Anthem's American Slang. Both albums are straight forward American rock records about being yourself, taking life by the horns and never backing down from adversity. Neither band preaches anarchy. Neither band wants to change anything about the world. They just want to rock hard and be genuine. Sounds like my daughter, huh?

There's a really good article by a really good writer named Micheal Azzerad : http://michaelazerrad.typepad.com/you_and_what_army/2010/02/npr-rock.html talking about the death of protest music or rebellion rock. It's observations and conclusions are identical to mine and I think it's all ok in the end. If we can get individuality from our kids while also having them be good people, them that how the world can be a better place. All this being said, I'm going to rock Rage Against The Machine's Battle of Los Angeles tonight. I feel like dancing around with my fist in the air. Of course, at my age, I'll make sure I get it done before 10pm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w211KOQ5BMI