Because You Can't, You Won't and You Don't Stop

I like watching high school TV shows and movies about rebels. I love identifying with rebellious characters because my high school experiences included no rebellion. Once I stayed out past midnight without asking my parents. And that was like, whoa. The girls I was friends with at my all girls high school … we were nice girls. We were a little boring. One girl, the most “anti-establishment (big quotes around that) didn’t shave her legs for a year and for a while dyed her red hair blue.

In an effort to pull me to the dark side, or maybe just to save me from the crap music I was listening to, this girls gave me two mix tapes. They were full of nothing but Beastie Boys and I was in love. I listened to License to Ill every. single. day. on the way to high school. I played the tapes for kids when I was babysitting. (Potentially a questionably choice.)

Nowadays, I flirt with membership in the hipster, indie rock crowd, staying safely on the outskirts but wholly able to hold my own in music conversations. I attribute that to when I was 16, sitting in my 1985 Honda Civic hatchback listening to Paul’s Boutique. (Wonder Boy has had a great deal of influence on my music tastes in more recent years.)

Sitting in my doctor’s office waiting room today, I saw on my phone a message about the death of Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch. I wasn’t sure what to do with the informaton … how to process it. On my way home, a local radio station announced the death and then played No Sleep till Brooklyn and Sabotage. I did the only acceptable thing. I rolled down my windows and turned up the volume, just like 16-year-old me would have done.

I am grateful for the music MCA helped create and which I will enjoy for many, many more years to come. And thank you for getting me out of a phase that involved way too much bubblegum pop.