You said that irony was the shackles of youth, and other Guilty Pleasures
A short time ago I got in a small quarrel on the facebooks, somewhere along a thread about ‘guilty pleasures’ in music listening. I know, it sounds impossible, but it happened, I feel bad, and this essay is a way to work through where (I think) it went awry.
The moment the game or concept of guilty pleasures hit me was pretty epic, in a nerd sort of way. I was maybe 14–15, and had been an intern at a Denver classical radio station for just about a year. Everybody kept to themselves, very quiet, felt just like a library, and mostly I just tried to stay out of the way of the 4 or 5 guys that ran the place — honoured to be there among all of that music.
The guys were gruff, but they warmed over time. My school year had just ended, and they asked if I wanted to come over for a barbecue. Of course I was stoked, but totally nervous — what the hell was I going to say to these encyclopedias? Sure enough, there was someone there talking about wine, two other cats playing chess — it was nerd heaven. But the music wasn’t western classical, they were listening to solo electric piano jazz — Herbie Hancock. And people were drinking. Out back there was a kiddie pool and a bunch of nasty sofas, people were smokin’ . . .
And this is the epic moment I remember soooo well: Terry, the most serious of the whole crew (I honestly don’t think I saw him smile twice in the first year I knew him), and kind of an asshole, comes out on the back porch, with a KISS album cover in his hand and bellows:
GUUUUUUIILTY PLEEEEAASURES!!
And sure enough, he timed the needle drop perfectly, and the shit got real with a crazy ass KISS lick raging from the ginormous state-of-the-art audiophile hi-fi system in the living room. And then the party really started. There was a crate of albums labeled Guilty Pleasures, and everyone played various wacky stuff. It was fun and funny, and for me a life-defining moment. These were my people. Serious, but not self-serious.
Thinking through all of this made me curious about the variety of forms of guilt there are. From genuine, mind-bending, you actually did something wrong and feel horrible about it kind of guilt (I’m being vague so as not to trigger anyone) — to the other side of the spectrum where you were born with Original Sin and so you SHOULD FEEL GUILTY BECAUSE JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED FOR YOUR SINS JUST BECAUSE YOU WERE BORN. That kind of, like, super silly Catholic guilt. That shit is whack.
But there’s so much in-between stuff. Like McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches. Objectively speaking, they’re evil. But the pleasure they effectuate in your mouth: fuck it. I eat one of those maybe 4–6 times a year. I feel guilty as shit, but not for the three minutes it takes to stuff in my face. That is pleasure. The entire process is 100% Guilty Pleasure. It’s a metaphor for being an American.
Baseball is my other guiltiest pleasure. Financially and emotionally, it is a waste of time. Spiritually, it’s essentially stupid. Ethically, professional sports are a joke; it’s offensive to mention them in the same paragraph as ethics. But baseball is a beautiful game. And those blokes can play it. So, Guilty Pleasure numero uno — whaddaya gonna do?
With regards to music criticism, consumption, and taste . . . this is where that facebook thread went off the rails. In music consumption, the only guilt one should feel is that Catholic kind of guilt. A guilt that is completely in your head. Manufactured. An absurd lie. In some ways, that’s what makes it fun, but in all ways, that’s what makes it funny. It’s a comic exercise in laughing at yourself, laughing with yourself, laughing at and with others, and just laughing. Laughing is good. Feeling silly is good. At least that’s how it is in my moral universe — love, laughter, and music.
I have to back up a few steps and tell you how I got onto this facebook music page. Last year I went on a vacation trip with a dear friend’s family. The way things shook out, I got to room with my friend’s son. Our connection point was going to be music; despite the 27 year age difference, we were going to have plenty to talk about. And boy was that true. This kid was amazing. Intelligence off the charts, sincere, polite, kind, thoughtful, passionate, and clearly possessed by the spirit of music. (At one point he got down on himself, because he hadn’t carved out enough time to really listen to the new Bjork album. If that’s not the coolest thing I’ve ever heard . . . ). We had a great vacation, and I was really happy to get to know him and the rest of the family.
A bit later, this young man friended me on FB and added me to a page of, ostensibly, his peers dedicated to discussing music of all sorts. I hesitated at first, but at a glance you could see they were all over the place, really positive and supportive, and many folks were carrying on about genres I’ve never had time to explore — so I thought what the heck.
I engaged a few times early on, innocuously, but as people started to really express their opinions, it was super clear that a significant sort of generational gap existed — their view of music history, genre evolution, what was important, what wasn’t . . . was very different from how I saw things. And so I backed away.
But one night, someone put up a “Guilty Pleasures?” post, and I happened to spot it, so I dropped in to take a look and see what these folks considered to fall into their GP zone. Things were moving along with some gems, when all of a sudden my young friend chimes in:
I don’t have any guilty pleasures.
Now, I wish I could take this back — I had no idea how badly it would piss this guy off. But I am writing this essay because it still makes zero sense to me why this isn’t funny. My response (in seconds) was,
Then you have no conscience.
In my world, it is patently absurd to correlate a moral conscience with one’s musical taste — and thus, it is ironic. Absurd. Funny. The opposite of real.
But, my friend took me literally, and much madness ensued in the next few frames of the thread. I will always feel bad for making someone unnecessarily mad (especially in an absurd context like Facebook about an absurd topic like Guilty Pleasures), but thinking this through simply leads me to conclude that this misunderstanding is due to a fundamental difference in how we see the world. I can’t speak for my young friend, all I know is that he doesn’t think this shit is funny, and I’m writing this essay to convince him otherwise.
What are your Guilty Pleasures?!
