One very apparent conclusion from this year’s annual personal assessment is that it turns out I do an awful lot of things I swore up and down I’d never do. I was vehement, ages ago, that I’d never use the ubiquitous phrase “because I said so” as a parental fallback. Little did I know there are very compelling reasons nearly everyone shocks themselves by uttering it sooner or later.

At one time or another, every parent makes a decree for which there are suitable, or even better, alternative actions, and your children will lobby for one of them. It takes effort, though, to break out the old debate club sweater for a back-and-forth on the finer points of said decree with your precious child, and he or she has more energy, stamina, and often, persistence than you do. Also, you can’t win a debate without judges, and there typically aren’t any handy at bath time. Except grandparents, of course, but they make shitty judges; they always side with the kids. Eventually, then, every parent realizes that the only way to end negotiation, short of threatening to send one or more offspring to lunar orbit without benefit of a rocket, is to break down and issue that senseless, reviled phrase.

So, yes, it’s bad. I’ve sullied myself with that one once or twice. It’s not the worst of it, I’m afraid; far more damning examples exist where I’ve broken a solemn vow to myself. One of the most painful among them is that I’ve become Mr. Middle-Aged Musical Anachronism.

Mr. Middle-Aged Musical Anachronism is, simply put, the guy that predominantly listens to the same music he was listening to back in his Glory Days. Every dude has them, golden memories of a time, 20 years, ago that he still clings to and on occasion rolls out for full-blown nostalgia after a few beers. Those memories will buzz forth into his consciousness while he plunges his second toilet of the night, or labors overs his dying, crunchy lawn in the dog days of August. The memories have a soundtrack, and Mr. Middle-Aged Musical Anachronism is stuck on it.

That’s not to say, of course, that I’m exclusive to 45’s of Elton John in the “Birdman” days. It’s just that my CD collection and iTunes Library is decidedly mid-to-late 90s, and I’m OK with that. Sure, I’ll put up with some Breaking Benjamin, Puddle of Mudd, etc., if that’s all I can find on the abysmal excuse for radio options here in this part of the world. But you get me in my Mom Van, the dearly beloved Odyssey, with all the options XM Radio has to offer, and I promise you I’ll be listening to either Lithium, which is mostly 90’s Alternative, the 80’s channel, or the 90’s channel.

I promised myself I’d always stay current with the music of the day, but that was before I realized that the music industry was mostly going to circle the porcelain bowel and slide right down into the plumbing. I suppose I should have expected these dark times, where they give singers/musicians/bands a contract based on boob diameter, skill at wearing a Catholic school girl uniform, a lack of artistic inclination whatsoever, or a nationwide vote on a TV show. Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler, Iggy Pop, and Bob Marley, are names of icons that would never have gotten a record contract in this day and age. That’s a sad fact.

Kurt Cobain remains largely right, more than a decade and half later: Corporate Rock Still Sucks. But that’s OK, I’m contentedly stuck in the past anyway.

pud’n