Month: March 2015

I was at Five Guys burger joint this weekend, here where I live now, in New Jersey, in a strip mall. As I sat down and began to unwrap my sandwich and pile of french fries the Sex Pistols begin to play Anarchy for the UK over the speakers. In The queue at the counter is a woman and her biker boyfriend. She turns to him, poking a finger in his chest and says, “Hey, it’s the Sex Pistols.” He shrugs. I turn to Sheila, and she smiles back at me and we sing along, nodding our heads, sodas in hand. Our daughter asks who’s playing and I say out loud, “the Sex Pistols,” and she blushes. “Really, that’s their name?” I say, here, let me show you some pictures and I do a search on my phone. Then I get a little sad. Realizing I’m at a Five Guys in a strip mall and not being very punk rock. I think back to when I thought I was punk rock and all I can think is that the earth has spun so many times into the future that punk rock has caught up with burger joints. That the swirling of eras has blended into layers on layers of context and meaning and I’m getting all existential about meaningfulness and reality. I begin to wonder what if, what if. At that moment my daughter flips my phone around to show me a picture of Sid Vicious. She says, “Who’s that? He’s super cute.”