Even though I had been nowhere near the Good Ship Lollipop, I awoke on Monday with a tummy ache. I just assumed that since I had eaten some delicious, smelly, Greek food for dinner the previous evening and then topped it off with some tacos about ten minutes before I went to bed, my stomach was rebelling. This hurt me deeply, because neither of those foods had ever turned on me before.
Over the course of my day at work, I started to feel crappier and crappier, and on the one hand I was annoyed that I was getting sick, but on the other hand, I was glad it wasn't the fault of my two tasty meals. I ended my day with some nasty stiffness in the bones, and since I hadn't been camping for Audioslave tickets, I took it to mean I had contracted malaria.
Remember in Little House On The Prairie (the book, not the TV series) when the entire Ingalls family had achy bones? Turned out, the entire Ingalls family had malaria, so you can see how I came to my conclusion. One could point out that I am not a pioneer living in Oklahoma in the 1800s, so my chances of malaria are poor. One could further point out that any mosquito attempting to survive March in Minnesota would not survive, therefore, I don't have malaria. Fine. Be cynical.
Anyway, I was lying in bed yesterday, trying to summon enough strength to get out of bed and go to the garden center, because I had decided that I needed a few more houseplants, when I heard some rock and roll blaring from the living room. But it wasn't very good rock and roll. A minute later, my mom hollered for me.
Mom: "What's Alec's last name?"
Me: (Alex? Who is Alex?) "What?"
Mom: "Alec from Bon Jovi! What is his last name?"
Me: "It's Alec John Such."
Mom: "I could remember all the rest of their names, just not him."
Me: "He's not even in the band anymore!"
Mom: "I was wondering why he looked so good. He was looking young."
Me: "That's because it isn't him."
Mom: "Bon Jovi is the only rock and roll I have listened to since the disco era."
What? Why would you say that to me? Never say that to me, especially when I am in bed with malaria. How could she do that? How could she say, with no qualms whatsoever, that the only rock and roll she has listened to in over twenty years is Bon Jovi?
My quarrel here is not with the Bon Jovi part, although it could be. My quarrel is with the fact that she could broadly dismiss an entire genre of music. A fairly large genre of music. Although I shouldn't have been surprised, because I have it on good authority from my aunt that one time my mom decreed, "If it's not country, it's crap."
This horrified my aunt, who is around sixty years old, and equally enjoys things like singing Renaissance-era choral music and singing Kyle's Mom's A Bitch from South Park. She also likes rock music and whatever current project her son (my cousin) the techno DJ is working on. I was appalled when she gave me that piece of info about my mom. This is the kind of attitude that hurts me very much. You've heard them all before.
"I like everything but country."
"He only listens to metal and classical."
"Jazz is the only true music."
(Although I gotta say, the jazz people always put forth a pretty good argument.)
"Rap is just a bunch of noise."
Et cetera.
I realize that the slogan of this very site claims that everyone else has bad taste in music, but now I wonder if it's just that everyone else has a bad attitude about music. How can you write off a whole category of music just because? Rejecting country means rejecting Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. Those guys kick ass! I don't understand rap, but I don't reject it. I just wait for some rap that I do understand to come along.
When I was originally trying to come up with a name for the site, my first choice was Musicsnobs, because I didn't want to be limited to rock. Musicsnobs was taken, and I decided that was just as well, because my knowledge of jazz and classical are fairly limited. I do okay, just from the time spent working in record stores, but I couldn't go up against a jazz fan with any real authority. And in spite of the Rocksnobs name, I'm not limited to rock, because I get to make the rules.
In fact, I am going to make a rule right now. The fourth Rocksnobs Rule Of Etiquette is as follows:
Rocksnobs should not make blanket generalizations about genres of music, such as "I like everything but country," because people who make those statements are jackasses.
I recognize that it may be possible that you have never heard any country that you like, but that is no reason to write it off. Knowing more about music is never a bad thing, so keep listening to previously undiscovered records. Your favorite record could be by George Jones, but you won't even know unless you try.