Marc Spitz

Those who have been to this blog more than once or twice for the past month that it’s been in existence might have already detected a theme: the passing of time. It’s a borrowed theme. It’s Morrissey’s theme. Most every Smiths and solo song hits on it at some point. I am obsessed with the passing of time. But I am making an attempt to curb it. Another one of those sit on the bed and examine what you don’t like about yourself moments that Bowie claimed to have plenty of. “What don’t I like about myself?” Well first of all, I’m about 20 years older in my head than I actually am. My ex-girlfriend says that I have been preparing to get old and stooped and crabby since she met me (which was seven years ago, when I was 33). Maybe it’s a reaction to rock n’ roll, which I sort of make a living writing about, and which as we know, worships youth. It was a way to delineate myself, in my head anyway. A way to rebel… to old myself up. I read an interview, or maybe listened to an interview with Tom Waits a few weeks ago where he said that when he was a kid, he could not wait to be an old man. He’d wear old man hats and clothes and I guess that formed what would later become Jarmusch-chic. Why there are vintage stores today, in part, I’m sure. I think I was one of those people who couldn’t wait to be old in part because I never thought it would happen. When I was a teenager, I simply couldn’t conceive of it. And when I was in my 20s, I figured I’d die of a drug overdose before I had to reckon with it. I didn’t die of an overdose, and I can conceive of it now so where does that leave me? With a resolution, I think. I am abandoning my borrowed theme. Giving it back to Morrissey, to possess exclusively. I will leave said theme with one thought: Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions turns 25 next month. You know you are old when the beloved records of your youth hit that quarter century mark. How the fuck did Rattlesnakes turn 25? And more importantly, how did I not grow up to be Lloyd Cole? I was supposed to… at 15.

I guess this is the rock writer equivalent of realizing you are never going to pitch for the Yankees.