We like noise, it's our choice!

Seventeen was a real fucking trip. I think foremost it was a learning experience. So I'll begin with a list.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED SINCE TURNING SEVENTEEN

• Family is paramount. Don't put them on the back burner for anyone.
• Don't let a girlfriend eat who you are and don't put everything down for one.
• Avoid people who do the above.
• If you feel fresh, don't change.
• Have a set of values and ideals and don't be afraid of having faith in something.
• Don't be cynical.
• Avoid people in school.
  
• Listen to a lot of music.
• WRITE.
• Stick to what interests you and what you do best.
• Don't make things any harder for yourself than they absolutely have to be.
• Don't be afraid to say exactly what you want to people.
• Don't push too hard.
• Winter sucks.
• Don't just give up things that you used to like a lot! In my case: riding my bike, listening to certain bands, going outside a lot, kicking balls and playing guitar.
• Kick it with friends that are wholly accepting and always engaging.
• Growing up probably isn't all it's cracked up to be so don't rush it by excess or otherwise.
  

Everything on that list sounds like a douche-bag or a coming of age novel or a teenage drama or a graduation speech... a cliche, but it's all totally true for the most part. These are things I just didn't understand before. Why exactly was seventeen so good? For one, I think two things made me realize that I have to get to living. I wasn't living enough before or, especially, during Taylor (lots of sitting indoors watching um, Martha Stewart) so I went to North Carolina for the twentieth time and had the best two weeks with my family and realized what it was really all about. I really began to seize things, though, in October after Joe's accident. It feels weird writing that. I kind of don't want to include that but it's there. So anyway after all that, I got to living and the next six months weren't like profound or life-affirming... which is awesome because, since I wasn't doing much growing/changing/thinking, I could just do things with abandon. Growing/changing/thinking are cool and all, but I think I did so much of that before, it just wasn't necessary anymore.

There are other reasons. Seventeen is really underrated. I've heard all too often in the last few months that seventeen is stupid. That so is not true! Stop treating it as the twelve months between milestone birthday three (a.k.a. 16; driver's license/permit, general sense of more freedom) and milestone birthday four (a.k.a. 18; "glory" and "freedom" provided by adulthood, ability to buy tobacco porn, entry into stripclubs, "mom and dad, you can't fucking tell me what to do!"). It's not some fucking jacknifed trailer on the highway of life, it is the highway. ("PDA" just came on and it feels amazing). As in it is the straightaway that allows you to put you life on speed control and just coast, baby. (WTF, Cat Power girl deleted me off Facebook. She can fuck off and die, go listen to Deerhunter you reluctant hipster/Pitchfork fiend).

Maybe I psyched myself up a lot and this is just contact enthusiasm. Allison Berger is someone slightly ahead of me in life (age and otherwise) and I listen to what she has to say. Last year, she dedicated a paragraph to me in one of her LJ entries (a true honor!): "he's about the have the best year of his entire life, i can tell. i am weirdly jealous. i think he appreciates the mixes i've made him more than anyone else ever has."

So maybe it's a weird need I have, to fulfill that. But I think she's right: I did have the best year of my entire life. The most things to talk about, the most good memories, the most wasted time, the most mistakes, the most tragedies, the best, best times with the best, best people and the most fitting soundtrack.

(For Personal Reference: The last things I was doing tonight were: Drinking a coke, eating baba ghanouj and pita bread and watching Juno which is good again and again.)

I want to keep it going. It doesn't have to stop. I'm not about to embrace eighteen or adulthood... I'm totally suspicious of both. It's not going to stop, no. I'm done growing. I decided what I wanted to do with my life in the eighth grade.

So I made a playlist:
Joe Gallagher's Standing on the Edge of Seventeen
1. Sleater - Kinney-"One Beat" (a perfect introduction and all the soaring sonics symbolize my erm feelings)
2. Rapture-"House of Jealous Lovers" (really was just stuck in my head today, but it's fun... and I had fun this year.)
3. Liars-"Plaster Casts of Everything" (the frustration of being trapped, then getting freed and the frustration of watching others that are trapped.)
4. Pavement-"Cut Your Hair" (materialism and boredom in youth culture, chasing girls, being satisfied.)
5. Blur-"Good Song" (a completely relaxed song free of worry or change)
6. Liz Phair-"Explain it to Me" (I realized that beautiful musicians who like to toy with boys are more my thing, but none of them are virgins. This album though helped ease a lot of, uh, tension, however.)
7. Pinhead Gunpowder-"My Boot In Your Face Is What Keeps Me Alive" (regret, chasing girls, youth, small towns, late nights, lists.)
8. Interpol-"PDA" (comfort, the occasional introspective look and, dare I get so cheesy: infinite moments.)
9. Polaris-"Coronado Ii" (looking back, watching Pete and Pete, being a badass, not being around at all the wrong times/urbanity.)
10. Green Day-"Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?" (holding onto youth, protecting youth, occasional confusion.)
11. Belle & Sebastian-"I Could Be Dreaming" (Isobel Campbell is reading from Rip Van Winkle to me at the very end... it's a fantasy I like to indulge in, haha.)
12. Los Campesinos!: "This Is How You Spell "Hahaha, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux Romantics" (staying away from cynics/cynicism, remaining pure, boy/girl harmonies, being a faux romantic myself.)
13. LCD Soundsystem-"Sound of Silver" (looking back, youth, teenagedom, squelching synths, dreaming.)
14. Tokyo Police Club-"Your English is Good" (one line in particular: "we don't need to change/the future's ours." Yes.)
15. Sex Pistols-"Seventeen" (being a badass, disrespecting the elderly.)
16. The Lemonheads-"Kitchen" (yearning for the early 90s, starting traditions with friends.)
17. Liz Phair-"Johnny Sunshine" (sometimes being fucked over but not caring about it.)
18. Le Tigre-"My My Metrocard" (being a master of navigation, city life, feminism.)
19. Against Me!-"Holy Shit" (anarchism, slight anger at the state of the world, selling out.)
20. Ben Kweller-"Commerce, Tx." (small town existence but loving it, sunshiney days with friends/youth, messy rooms, busted amps, loud music, cute neighbors.)
21. The Lemonheads-"You Can Take It With You" (taking my youth, blankie teddy bear and all, with me, trying to keep shit simple!)

So thanks to everyone that keeps me grounded, that talks to me, that talks shit on me, that listens to whatever I have to say, that wants to spite me by trying to go on a camping trip which there's no longer room for their involvement, that doesn't go to my school, that keeps it real. Thanks to people that really matter. Happy birthday to you too becuase I don't want to be insincere by wishing you a happy birthday just because Facebook or Myspace told me to... I know you wouldn't do that either.

Sincerely Yrs,
Joe

P.S. anyone who laughs at Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency and/or has a newfound fascination with the Balkan Peninsula and/or World War One... please, get at me.