I’ve just decided that one of my favorite things about sitting down Sunday morning with a cup of tea and the latest additions of the Willamette Week, the Portland Mercury, and Just Out is reading the names of bands playing at different venues around town. It’s something that, every week, gives me a sort of strange hope and weird connection with the younger set, who always have something to say, even if they themselves don’t always know what that is.

For example… this morning, in perusing the Portland Mercury, I saw bands with names like The Bugs of Lightening, Filthy White Trash, You Maginificent Bastards, The American Black Lung, Rotten Cadaver, Electric Sheep, and Hot For Teacher. Interesting names all, though I wonder… where did they come from? I think… man, who are these people? Were they sitting around in their various garages making ethereal tunes for hours all the while dreaming of the perfect name for themselves… when a member suddenly, in a moment of either complete and utter madness, or possibly a drug induced stupor, said… I’ve got it! Let’s call ourselves Rotten Cadaver. Personally, when I picture what the members of a band called Rotten Cadaver look like I conjure up images of pale and emaciated youths with a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of Jack in the other, and a tournaquet still wrapped around their skinny white arms post heroine injection. But then… that’s just me. In all reality, they are probably pretty fun, peppy, artistic types who just thought a name like that would catch some attention. Who knows. If that is the case… It worked. I noticed.

I read these names while sort of shaking my head, I laugh, I wonder about them and then it occurs to me… damn… I’ve nearly crossed over. I’m perched precariously on the edge of being one of… da da da dummmm… them. You know who they are… the old people. I console myself by saying… OK, the names might be out there, but I do actually like some of them… You Maginificent Bastards and The Bugs of Lightening as examples. And in saying this, there’s still hope for me. And anyway, when I was younger we had bands with names like Black Sabbath, Molly Hatchet, The Greatful Dead, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Jane’s Addiction, The Doors, and The Byrds. Yeah, we were cool, we were happenin’, we were… younger.

I still feel young, like I’m in touch, and I tell myself I’m still fairly hip. I mean, come on… I love music, just as much as I always have, evidenced by the fact that I’m constantly seeking out new sounds to download to my ipod (just owning one helps on the hip scale). And, like these youngsters making music with those strange and unusual names, I have something to say. I might not have given myself too odd a name by calling myself Token Hippy Girl (actually someone else gave it to me), but I obviously have a lot to say (after all, you’re reading my blog). So, in that sense, I have a connection with those young music makers. I know the drive to create. And every Sunday, as I look through these papers, seeing all those names, I smile. Even if I don’t always understand how they decide on the names they give themselves, I sort of understand them. Which, in turn, makes me feel connected to the larger world. A sort of Band-Age to the progress of time. Now… it’s time to flip on the music and get a little Delerium playing. Gotta love em. And maybe, later… I’ll try to download a bit of Rotten Cadaver, if I can. Who knows… I might like em.