Nobody Likes You When You’re 43
Recapturing our youth one dick joke at a time
90s/00s megastar pop punk band blink-182 is on tour again with the classic lineup1 of bassist Mark Hoppus, guitarist Tom DeLonge, and drummer extraordinaire Travis Barker for the first time since 2013. I saw them last week when they hit Washington, DC. My middle school self was screaming when I bought the tickets, achieving what I always wanted but could never have. I went to my first concert (Goo Goo Dolls, Sugar Ray, and Fastball) on the eve of my 13th birthday, and celebrated the turning of midnight in the car on the way home.2 My mother hated (and still hates) big crowds, so that left my father to take me to see my favorite artists when they came through town.3 My father was 56 when I turned 13 and he wasn’t about to take me to a show that involved a mosh pit, so alas, I never saw blink-182 during the height of their Enema of the State-era fame.
I was enamored with blink-182, as was almost everyone my age. I had not one but two posters of them up in my bedroom, the first one purchased at K-Mart and the second at Hot Topic in the mall. Their shirts were like a status symbol in my middle school; I recall having a bright blue one with their rabbit mascot wearing jeans and big sneakers dancing, maybe moshing alone, on the back. I felt much cooler wearing it, showing I was deep in the zeitgeist and part of the in-crowd.
Blink-182 was perhaps the gateway to my emo/punk era in high school, where I was dedicated to wearing black Hot Topic t-shirts with droll sayings4 on them, dark eyeliner, a thick ball chain around my neck, Chuck Taylors (I had quite a collection), and most horribly: JNCO jeans. Something about their music really hit my soul. The fast drums, the loud rhythmic guitar, the strumming bass felt like a salve to my newly teenage self, an ease of the emotional pain of going through puberty. I identified with the juvenile lyrics; they almost felt risqué to a 13-year-old. In one of their hit songs “What’s My Age Again,” the protagonist talks about being an immature 23-year-old5 still interested in prank phone calls and holding on tightly to youth. Their live album Mark, Tom & Travis Show featured a 36-second song called “Family Reunion” which was their take on George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words bit,6 ending with a melodic “I fucked your mom.” I loved it because it was so brazenly age-inappropriate. Or in another hit “All the Small Things” they loudly proclaim “Work sucks! I know.” At middle school dances we would all scream along as if we knew. We didn’t know. Oh how we didn’t know.
Looking at the lyrics as a 36-year-old, they seem like a time capsule to my past selves. They’re closer to pathetic than risqué, like a sense of unfortunate arrested development. “What’s My Age Again” almost feels like a lament of being unable to have intimacy or real friendships because of the protagonist’s dedication to being a teenager himself; the obstinate lyric “I never want to act my age” feels petulant. Many of their songs captured this vibe, full of lyrics about partying, dick jokes, hoping women will be slutty or viewing women as the ideal manic punk7 dream girl. To be clear, this way of life sounds hella fun, but it’s also limited, reserved for a certain period of your life when your priorities are focused on the here and now. But when you’ve moved past that phase—whenever it is—these songs are an ancient bug preserved in amber. Listening to their albums now makes me feel nostalgic for when the lyrics spoke to my daily life, but also a bit sad that this is what endures.
At their concert, I was feeling this progression of time. I had long given away the last semblances of my emo/punk wardrobe, and didn’t have something thematically-appropriate to wear. I can no longer wear my Chuck Taylors thanks to aging feet, so I went with Tevas (the woman sitting next to us admired my commitment to comfort). I don’t wear hard pants anymore so I went with black leggings; my shirt read “There’s Nothing More Punk Than the Public Library.”8 I carefully applied the brightest makeup I own. Walking around the arena, I saw plenty of other millennials in their vintage blink-182 shirts, women in fishnets and short skirts, women dressed as the nurse from the Enema of the State album, black t-shirts, worn Chuck Taylors, and ripped jeans. Almost all of us had a combination of back problems, mortgages, babysitters watching the kids at home, and a sense of joy of reconnecting with our younger selves.
We arrived midway through the second openers’ set, a hardcore punk band called Turnstile. As we neared our seats I lamented about not bringing ear plugs. Despite being on the fourth level my ears felt like they were going to bleed. I stopped listening to this style of punk music long ago, but I felt a spark within me, that recognition of the comfort in the fast drums, the loud rhythmic guitar, the strumming base. When blink-182 took the stage I was practically overflowing with excitement. Here she was, the 13-year-old me.
Tom and Mark’s on-stage persona matched their lyrics. Between songs there was a lot of banter with dick jokes, Tom declaring he’d fucked all of our moms, and weird bits you’d associate with 17-year-old boys who had been friends for most of their lives. It almost seemed like it was a show for themselves, the banter the way they connected with the audience, even though it often felt like we were outside the glass surrounding them. But this was all coming out of the mouths of middle-aged men (Tom and Travis being the youngest at 47). The vocals had been modulated a bit as Tom couldn’t hit the notes he used to, and he stuck to standing behind his mic. Mark moved around the stage but mostly just ambled back and forth, as if it was his effort to acknowledge all sides of the audience. Travis appeared tired after a few songs, but nevertheless slayed his drum set with the precision of a well-seasoned drummer, even keeping it up in the dark, once with his head obscured by a towel, and when his platform was raised in the air and turned side to side. These seemed to be their stunts, their efforts to show that yes, even they can do it, so you can too.
The people around me mostly stayed seated (which admittedly, I didn’t mind, see: aging feet.) It diluted some of the energy you could see from the super fans on the floor who danced and screamed to every song as if they were 13 again. But as the concert neared its end, my younger self pushed my body out of my seat, moving me side to side as I got to shout “Work sucks! I know!” This time I knew what that meant. They closed their show with their first hit, “Dammit” from their 1997 album Dude Ranch. The crashing drums, cacophonous chords, and distressed vocals about seeing an ex move on brought something primal out of me. Muscle memory kicked in and had such a deep hold of my body that I nearly started slam dancing right there in the aisle. Hampered by the narrow space between myself and the woman next to me I kept my movements small, but I wanted to run down the aisle and lose my mind, throwing punches in the air while stomping and bucking. It took me back to high school when I’d go to ska and punk shows, wearing a homemade Rudette shirt and clothes from Goodwill, get pushed around by other kids in black t-shirts and Chucks; of the Big D and the Kids Table show at the Boston Hatch Shell where I was in the circle mosh pit and my ankle gave out and the big dude behind me picked me up to save me from the stampede. I suddenly felt at peace, and I left the arena floating on air.
After the adrenaline wore off an hour or so later, I felt the warmth of nostalgia. Of feeling 13 again, but only for the delightful parts of losing yourself in music, not worried about a damn thing, and not for the angst, acne, and homework. Of feeling like I was able to close a part of my past self, as if this was a box unchecked. I guess that’s just what dick jokes from a 47-year-old can do.
Tom DeLonge left the band in 2015 to pursue his passion of proving the existence of aliens. This is not a joke.
We’d gotten delayed leaving as the car battery was dead and we had to wait around for security to give us a jump. The people who had sat in front of us on the lawn had coincidentally parked next to us and waited with us, sort of like a post-concert tailgate. I think they found me quaint.
I recall that once the flood gate broke on seeing concerts, my father took me to three or four in a month. He even took me to see Joey McIntyre (sans NKOTB), bless his heart.
Like “What if the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about?”
I was elated when I could finally sing the lyric “nobody likes you when you’re 23” as “13.” “Nobody likes you when you’re 12” just doesn’t work.
I didn’t get into George Carlin until about a year later, and was shocked that the words of the song I memorized and idolized had actually come from him.
These women aren’t pixies, they have dyed black hair, nose rings, wear Chuck Taylors, and are down to break the law, see: “The Rock Show.”
The DC Public Library Mt. Pleasant branch holds the archives documenting the epic and influential DC punk scene and the birthplace of emo and sell the shirts to benefit the library. You can get your own here.
Great read, Heather Marie! You always did combine a love of music with a delightful and quirky way of dressing, and accessorizing, even with items not generally thought of as clothing, footwear and accessories! Somewhere there are photos of you wearing a gigantic pair of boots, with a mesh garment bag on your head. You looked like a mini bee keeper! And you would always dance to all kinds of music!