Last week, when linking to the Behind The Bastards on Dilbert Guy<\/a>, I went full Sylvia Plath and confessed this<\/a>: <\/p> Fun fact: I read God\u2019s Debris<\/em> senior year of high school, my big \u201cin real danger of becoming an irritating philosophy bro\u201d stage. Even then, The 18-Year-Old Version Of Chris Who Watched Fight Club <\/em>Too Much, even then<\/em> I thought God\u2019s Debris<\/em> was missing something. Later, I would write about Bill Watterson<\/a>. <\/p><\/blockquote> This was a mere two days after writing<\/a>:<\/p> When I talk about the music I listened to in high school, for instance, I am emphasize my love for goofballs and characters like Blink 182 or My Chemical Romance and de-emphasize my (lapsed) obsession with anti-abortion evangelical freaks like Slick Shoes<\/a> or Underoath.<\/p><\/blockquote> All of this comes as I\u2019m working on edits for a novel-in-stories that reflects a good deal on the positives and negatives of growing up around Bible Belt culture. So what gives? How did I not<\/em> turn out to be some Ben Shapiro-esque weasel, or even Kelvin Gemstone? <\/p> My kid is five and starting kindergarten. It\u2019s a year I personally don\u2019t remember much of, besides disliking my teacher and making one (1) friend, who would grow up to be excellent bassoon player and have a brother who drove a hearse, like not as a job, as his car. I turned out to have more friends, none of whom could play bassoon, and later, I\u2019d have nicer teachers. <\/p> My parents aren\u2019t evangelicals, and neither was the pastor I grew up with. Yet I was<\/em> going to Jesus Camp, I was immersed in manipulative praise and worship music and altar calls. It\u2019s repulsive, but I can pretty easily follow the logic of Christian Fascists. Somehow, the part of Christianity that ended up sticking with me were things like \u201cActs 4:32 endorses Socialism<\/a>\u201d or \u201cEcclesiastes tells us \u2018fuck it, Dude, let\u2019s go bowling<\/a>\u201d or \u201cthe reason the loaves and fishes miracle worked was because no one was wasteful.\u201d What was in my brain that tuned out the violent colonialist interpretation of \u201cgo forth and make disciples of all nations\u201d and instead latched on to \u201cJesus hung out with lowlifes?\u201d<\/p> Speaking of hanging out with lowlifes: the punk scene! I honestly can\u2019t remember where I read this stuff\u2014Myspace blogs? The liner notes of an album? The Fat Wreck Chords website?\u2014but it was impressed upon me early that the punk scene was anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-sexist, and pro-LGBTQ (don\u2019t, uh, look up what happened to Anti-Flag<\/a>. Or do!). NOFX was a guiding light in the Bush years, Rancid yelled anthems for a noble underground, Operation Ivy was so legendarily about unity and peace that I believed their lead singer left the band to become a holy man of some sort for a while. Of course, a scene never fully lives up to its values, and there\u2019s always going to be cringe amongst your elders\u2014Melvin\u2019s island accent on \u201cRadio\u201d is the easily the worst vocal performance on the NOFX\/Rancid BYO Split Series Volume III<\/em>, an impressive feat on an album that also features lead vocals from Lars Frederiksen and<\/em> Matt Freeman. But I did<\/em> get some sort of a values system from the guys who wrote \u201cMoron Bros.\u201d<\/p>![\"Kelvin](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/045a7529-e903-4ad5-afad-691e9d493dfd_630x945.jpeg\")
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