Monday – How Do Juggalos, and the VMAs Still Exist, But Ultimate Warrior Doesn’t?
I don’t think that anything makes me feel more old than my perpetually widening disconnect from pop culture. I’m like eight months away from doing the jitterbug and talking about how I remember when The Great Gatsby was released.
Evidently the VMAS were last night. I wouldn’t have known any better if it weren’t for the fact that Kanye West went and acted the fool again. Who could have suspected that? People were all OMFG, that’s so disrespectful to Taylor Swift. And I was like, “What’s a Taylor Swift?” Another Disney machination? A new American Idol abortion? Apparently she emerged from somewhere, another Happy Meal for public gorging.
But people were blown away by this corporate-package on corporate-package hate, and I wasn’t even aware who one of the parties were. I’m floating further and further into the real of the Out of Touch. It’s a frightening feeling, since all you do during your teenage years is say to yourself, I’M NOT GOING TO BE MY FATHER.
Yesterday I was walking around the mall, gazing at the storefronts. You know the shitty mannequins schilling the specific store’s slop. Pimping the wares.
Walking past Hot Topic, I was shocked. It wasn’t the shitty t-shirts and caps that blew off my skull cap. It was the fact that these pieces of crap belonged to the Insane Clown Posse.
The fucking Juggalos still live? I had no god damn idea. I thought that all the Faygo-pounding toolsheds had been put out to pasture. Just what the fuck was going on?! Had I slipped into some alternate dimension? All my friends who used to wear JNCO jeans and sport Jugga-faces have long since disavowed their face-paintery.
What the fuck! What the fuck am I missing?
I am destined to be another nerdy dad. I can see my kid now:
This is my Dad! He eats Cheetos after Mom goes to bed and makes me promise to tell her that he ate celery. He’s not mad when he’s screaming, he’s talking to his Guild. I don’t know what a Guild is. Dad, this is Kyle.
Hi, Kyle! How is it hanging?
Uh…Dad, can Kyle and I interface with the latest Perennial Menstruation Throb concert? It’s streaming live on the WiFidelity Network!
Sure! Don’t mosh too hard! [far too enthusiastic of a laugh] You’ll hurt your neck! Why, I remember my first Megadeth concert…
Thanks Dad!
Your Dad is a funny guy…
No Kyle, he’s a fag.
I’m only 26, but I still feel like it was just my high school graduation. Time is evidently bleeding through into years and decades that I’m no longer living in. Every time I realize that the Nintendo 64 is thirteen years-old, I shit my pants.
My friends and I watched Wrestlemania VI over the weekend. Hogan against the Ultimate Warrior, bitches! What a beautiful shining relic of my childhood. It still feels like last week I was begging my parents to order the Pay-Per-View, showing them frantically how important it was in my WWF magazine. Which I obviously subscribed to. Duh.
The fight was as epic and homoerotic as I remembered. Two greasy dudes groaning and grappling with each other. Every homosexual inclination I have is probably based on the fact that my entire childhood was spent watching bronzed men slide around on one another, and then eventually embrace. I owe the WWF, big time.
As I was watching this childhood memory replay, I turned to my friend Bags. And I said to him, “You know what the best part of this match is, dude? It’s nineteen years old.
Holy shit.