AND SPEAKING OF TEEN ANGST...

I bought the Artic Monkeys album this week, and I think it’s fantastic.

It has occurred to me that I’m getting a bit old for music like this. All 4 Monkeys were scarcely born when I graduated from high school, and they sing songs of teen alienation and dissatisfaction. They’re from Sheffield and the theme of their album is, “Sheffield sucks and we’ll do anything to get out of here.”

I’m not from Sheffield, I’m a 30-something homeowner with a pair of kids on the way and a pretty great life. I just moved to Oregon a few months ago and I love it, I’m not really interested in escaping this place any time soon.

Yet somehow the Artic Monkeys’ new album resonates with me. It communicates with the surly teenager inside me that grew up in a town he considered to be a crappy hick town. (It was Rochester, New York, a city of about a half million people and considered quite nice by many people… teenagers are stupid.) I walked the halls of my high school with a half concealed sneer, thinking, “You guys just don’t get it, do you?” (The image becomes more amusing when you realize I didn’t dress like a goth kid in high school, but instead I was clad in excessively preppy Izod and Polo shirts.) All I wanted to do was get out of town and leave Rochester behind.

And eventually I did. I moved all over the US and eventually settled in LA for many years and had all sorts of fun adventures. Then I grew up (somewhat) and found a career and a happy domestic life. Case closed, right?

So what is that surly teenager even doing deep down in my psyche? Why do songs of sad, angry youngsters still connect with me? I thought I lowered Nasty Teen Matt into a deep grave once I got married. Yet here he is, insisting I hit “repeat” on “A Certain Romance.”

Why do I feel compelled to sing along with lyrics like, “They’ll never listen/ because their minds are made up/ and of course it’s all ok/ to carry on that way”? I’m on the news, people actually do listen to me (well…sometimes). My wife listens to me. Lots of people listen to me. Really.

For all the years of running from it, I guess, in some odd way, I’m still just a lonely teenager trying to get out of Rochester. Perhaps one day that mop-topped fellow will get his hands on a map and realize that he actually succeeded.