I've been home for maybe fifteen minutes. I went to a rock and roll show tonight.

When you reach a certain age you're supposed to stop breaking it down -- labels are to become less relevant and it's all pop music whether it's Bob Dylan or Prince or Black Sabbath or Outkast. It's not to be taken seriously anymore. That's what I hear from even the people who love it and let their lives revolve around it. Nick Hornby is the definition of obsession and he wrote a book that's main point was -- hey, in the end, they're all just pop songs and not to be taken seriously. I have a good friend who is trying to purge her pop tastes, her aesthetic leanings and especially her ability to be touched by it. "I'd rather be touched by literature," she says to me.

When I was fourteen years old I checked out three tapes from the Highland Public Library in Highland IN. Superunknown by Soundgarden, Too High To Die by the Meat Puppets, and Gentlemen by the Afghan Whigs. I liked Superunkown a lot but I fast-forwarded to "Spoonman" more often than not. I liked Too High To Die but I didn't really get it except for maybe "Backwater". I never returned that copy of Gentlemen. Look it up. Go to the Lake County Public Library system and look for a cassette copy of the Afghan Whigs record Gentlemen. Lost, it'll say, maybe stolen if they're cynics. May 1994 or so.

When you're fourteen music can change your life but when you're twenty-three you're the only person who can change your life. But music can inspire you to do it. I have every record that the Afghan Whigs ever recorded, dozens of bootlegs, every record that their singer Greg Dulli did a guest appearance on, both records from his new band the Twilight Singers, a handful of bootlegs from their live shows, the whole deal. When I become a fan I don't hold back. I commit wholeheartedly to anything I find myself into. I have nearly every comicbook Neil Gaiman has written. I have obscure Charles Bukowski chapbooks that he put out of his collaborations with Robert Crumb. I have upwards of twenty hours of Henry Rollins spoken word recordings. When i get into something I get into something.

So the Afghan Whigs are pretty much my favorite band ever and Greg Dulli is pretty much my favorite songwriter ever and the Twilight Singers are a part of that legacy. The difference is negligible, like seeing Dylan with the 1975 touring band instead of the 1968 touring band. Those songs say things to me that I don't hear anywhere else.

What my friend says, she says, "I'd rather be touched by literature", she's got a point. Don DeLillo will hit you in a spot that a record can't touch. And if you just strip down a song to its lyrics it don't matter if you're dealing with Leonard Cohen or Tupac Shakur, you're going to lose something. But there's a place for pop music and it's not just to bring us back to simpler times, to make us smile, to make us dance, to make us hum a catchy tune that gets stuck with us for days or weeks or years. There's a guy in Milwaukee who has had "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder stuck in his head since 1991 according to Guiness. In the Bible -- yeah, the fuckin' Bible -- they talk about how you say a prayer aloud and god hears it. You sing that motherfucker and he jumps. Dig? Delivery and intonation and phrasing and melody and rhythm coalesce and bring it all together and it's not just the words that do it to you and it's not just the music and it's not just the fact that you're moving to it -- it's all of that and it's something else too and I don't know what it's called but it's why I love rock and roll.

When I got that Afghan Whigs tape I was the shyest motherfucker in three zip codes. I didn't get much better with time either. When I was nineteen I was tired of it. I wanted to be a cross between Henry Rollins and Greg Dulli. Intense, mean, hard and tough -- but cool too. I didn't get there. I probably never will but it's all right cuz that ain't how I want to define myself so much anymore.

But when I'm trying. When I want to reinvent myself, to get out of my head, out of the shell I crawled into when I was probably in first grade and I was playing tag and this little girl I had a crush on was on the playground and I chased her down even though she wasn't playing and she turned around and yelled at me and I felt like the absolute worst person on earth -- when I want to get cool I think to myself -- no shit -- "how would I do this if I were in a Greg Dulli song"?

And tonight I went to a rock and roll show and Greg Dulli was the singer. And I got to hear it, feel it, see it, shake it like a polaroid picture -- I got to be there and it sounds dumb, dig, I know it sounds dumb but tonight I really felt like I didn't have to be the way I'd been. I could live like I was in one of those songs.

During "Annie Mae" some dude and his girlfriend pushed their way into the exact spot I was standing. I didn't get pissed and homeboy was friendly -- we both knew the words and were singing along and he put his arm around me and shouted "yeah!" really loud and then the song finished and I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "'scuse me, boss, can I have my spot back?" and he gave it to me and it's a small thing but I frankly usually just get pissed about shit like that and passive-aggressive. But the dude moved, high-fived me, and I got back to the vantage point I had where Greg Dulli was playing Twilight Singers songs or Afghan Whigs songs or Marvin Gaye songs or Kate Bush songs or whatever else he felt like playing and this girl, the kind I go for, red hair and glasses and tattoos of upside-down crosses like she has a shrine to Danzig somewhere in her apartment, she was in my line of sight and she was dancing and I felt good because she knew every word and I knew every word and that was enough. The band played two encores and finally left the stage two and a half hours later and I went up to that girl and I said, "hello, my name is Dan and I wanted to tell you that I have a crush on you. Have a good night." And then I left.

Because it's not about getting the spot back or whether or not the girl was flattered or confused or put-off. None of that mattered because pop music can inspire you to live better, to live differently, to push yourself into a new place you'd be scared to go to yourself. It can lift you up, elevate you, and turn you into a nine-year old Hindu boy. It can give you a new perspective through a melody and a rhythm and a growled vocal about a girl who walked in just like smoke with a little come-on come-on come-on in her walk. When you get that it's not just pop music. It's pop life.

Dig, I ain't got time for cynicism tonight. Was the show too long? Was the sound off? Was -- fuck, I don't care. I don't care. You can't live your life detached and unimpressed, waiting to be moved by something that you've decided beforehand is an acceptable impetus for movement. You can say you're not into pop music and just play Bach on your tape deck but you'll be driving home from work one day and while side two is rewinding you'll scan through the radio and "Communication Breakdown" will come on and you'll just think about all the time you denied yourself something great as a big waste of time.

It's not about the music except it is. It's not about telling some girl I never seen before something I never had the balls to tell a girl before and it's not about asserting myself to a guy who was being a dick except it is. It's about how maybe sometimes it takes an extra shove out the door to get there but when you black out the windows and it's well past twilight you can be any damn person you want.