I spent my 13th year alone, in seclusion. I blew off my few friends, stopped talking to my family (they didn’t notice...), stopped showering, ate too much; my skin a minefield of bad teen living. I did think about girls...but being an utter mess and fairly self aware of it, I figured that would be some other decade.
It was a conscious decision. I didn’t need friends or sunlight any more. I didn’t need vitamins or conversation or kissing or any of that low rent crap. I discovered Black Sabbath's 'Volume 4'.
It was a match made in teen heaven. Me, being a curious, dark and fat lil monster, albeit a bright one, I read obsessively, usually dark fat lil books about the Paranormal, ESP, UFO, as well as some classic Anglo (The Black Arrow, Beowulf and Ivanhoe come to mind). My mind was a jock, nimble, quick, good for short distances and long. My body, on the other hand, was a wreck.
Which didn’t matter anymore. I discovered Black Sabbath. That year made me what I am....
That's the thing the 'cool kids' don't get about metal; It’s a flag, it’s a place. Zeppelin's Valhalla, Deep Purple's Montreux, Black Sabbaths' Candle Lit Graveyard. It’s all a place to us, it’s a place of salvation, sanctuary. It’s where the geeks are muscle-bound and scoring chicks by the yardarm. Where a girl a little too big, in a dress a little too small, can be hooted at and wolf whistled at from the top rows of the New Haven Coliseum (RIP). It’s where you could scream things you never could say, and be joined in unison from the rabble around you.
It’s the biggest gang on the f*****g earth.
Punk is for college. Indie is for magazine writers. Rock is dead.
Metal perseveres, because there are always gonna be 13 year old boys. In seclusion, and a bit too bright for their own good
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