The 1920's invented the teenager. With the increased popularity of automobiles, older kids began socializing away from home, in turn sparking a flame in the economic marketplace with which we now know as "nightlife." Parents would give them an allowance to spend at restaurants, shows, events. Sporadic bolts of sexual hormones combined with relative privacy popularized "dates", "boyfriends", "girlfriends", and many sex sessions inside a car on the top of a hill somewhere.
Cars gave children a small taste of adulthood - an illusion of independence. "I can drive away from home and hang out with my friends. I'm a big boy now."
When I listen to "Scary Monsters and Shiny Sprites" I taste the desolation of a wide and half-empty street, the taste of Orlando's expansive sky, and an angry and ever so beautiful girl shouting obscenities and crying while driving her father's car. My mind also shuffles portraits of Mountain View's disgustingly normal 4pm life.
Do I regret moving to Portland? Abandoning my best friends in carcinogenic California, or discarding the beautiful Orlando lights and blonde sky imprinted with my name on the ribcage? Not for a single second.
Absolutely everything that I have acquired has been through my own hard work. I was never granted the gift of a car, and by extension, the illusion of independence that so many like to cling to as if it was their personal Jesus. No - I created my own independence, not settling for a mere hologram, and carved my own niche for "lo que dios no te de, te tienes que robar."
Closing this year in a magnificent paradise, I can safely say that I am overneath the path of misery.
