LJ Idol Week #20b - Topic "Creeping Meatballism"

[prog_schlock]

This is one of my two entries for Week #20 of therealljidol.

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Well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days. ~ Bruce SpringsteenWe were kings of the beach. My cousin Jimmy and his crew looked like something out of a movie - long hair, cut-off jeans, aviator glasses and tone, tan teenage bodies. I was also

Comments

[whipchick]

I'm so glad he changed his life! What a cool journey!

"Sometimes people, like radio stations, never update their playlist." Love this! And this: "being a teenager means somebody else is bankrolling most of your shenanigans".

[prog_schlock]

I wrote like six different reflections on the topic of Creeping Meatballism but this is the one that I think comes closest to capturing part of the problem - its not always that we change that leads us to embrace Meatballism. Sometimes its that we refuse to change.

Anyhow, thank you for reading and commenting!

[phaedie]

Wasn't sure where this was going but the ending made me smile.

[prog_schlock]

You should have seen some of my earlier takes on this topic. I was in China and Elizabethan England and all over the place. Heh. This is the most focused take I wrote on the topic.

Meow!

[halfshellvenus]

Metal was never really my thing, so I didn't realize that there WAS a genre called "glam metal" (mostly what people refer to as "hair bands," I'm guessing). My radio was off pretty much from 1980 to almost 1993.

hyper-masculine screamers
There's an oxymoron if I ever heard one!

I loved the way you worked the ending back to the beginning, where Jimmy is King of the Beach for someone else now, but it's because he's her father and not because he's some effortlessly cool kid who then stagnated in that era for decades.

It sounds as if he's decided to grow up after all. :)

[prog_schlock]

Absolutely he decided to grow up. Now if I could only grow up, my whole generation of cousins will finally be adults. I'm slow. :D

Thank you for reading and commenting!

[bleodswean]

Such a time-honoured exploration - the boys of summer - and how some of us do get "stuck" and time drags us forward regardless, but you've added your usual individual flair to this and bringing the 80's and metal and hair bands into it really puts it into a personal perspective for those of us who lived through that. This line is flawless for its truth - Are you old enough to have listened to classic rock stations in the 80's? Do you know that many classic rock stations play the same songs now that they did back then? and no one believes me when I assert it. I am so happy Jimmy is having a different experience these summers now!

[prog_schlock]

Man, you know, when I visit my family and listen to the main commercial rock station I used to listen to back then, its the same 50 songs. They've maybe added some U2 and Nirvana to the playlist, but nothing past 1992 or so. But they clearly have an audience for it or they'd not be playing it.

A lot more ads for the AARP and fewer for car stereo services than in the 80's though...

Van Halen is at the top of my guilty pleasures list. I'm no longer ashamed of my love.

Thank you for reading, commenting and sharing that tune!

[murielle]

Aw! I'm all teary-eyed. It started out tres cool, then it got a little sad for a bit, and then--wonderful,

[prog_schlock]

Watching him play with his daughter was one of my big joys last Christmas. He's really been transformed by fatherhood. :D

Thank you for reading and commenting!