idk

            I would love to spend my 500 words discussing my time at O’Bryant again, but this time literally all I did during this session was data entry. I sat in the same couch spot, putting numbers onto an excel spreadsheet based off of a giant pile of surveys that students took. To be fair, I was a machine though. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I am a computer science major, and I stare at pages of meaningless characters for hours all the time anyways, and just grew accustomed to it, but I did so many over the course of those two hours. Heather actually said she was impressed by the end and she called me her most industrial volunteer. At least I got to listen to music while working. I played through the full lengths of two separate albums. The first was “First Ditch Effort” by a hardcore punk rock band called NOFX. The second album I listened to was called “Teens of Denial” by experimental indie rock/pop group (that’s really one guy) called Car Seat Headrest.

            Since I don’t know what to discuss for the rest of these five hundred words, and since I just brought it up anyways, I will explain my love for hardcore punk rock. The thing with this genre of music, is that I don’t truly understand what about it I love. It is such an acquired taste, and seemingly so meaninglessly noisy that on paper I could see why so few people like it. Yet, the minute I first heard “Milo goes to College” by the Descendants, I knew that I have found a new love.

            The instrumentation is psychotic, the yelling is indiscernible and full of slurs, and the music needs to played at deafeningly loud volumes to be enjoyed. Naturally, I am quiet kid, privileged to be raised in an upper class family, went to a preppy school, and yet here I am screaming along to skin heads from the underground eighty’s hardcore scene.

            Something about the speed at which they play, the energy that comes through the members, and the sense of just pure freedom. I’ve read a couple books of bands that went through that era from that scene and it just intrigues me so much. A punk rock club in LA in the eighties sounded like the most chaotic and yet beautiful images in my head. Not because I necessarily want to be a part of it, that is just terrifying with all the beating up and crazy drugs, but I feel like there’s a sense of beauty in that freedom. I can’t think of another example of that much pure freedom and energy appearing in one place during our modern civilization. It was dangerous, so don’t get me wrong, but there is something beautiful about that crowd.