Frontwards

Well, I've got style
Miles and miles
So much style that it's wasted

Where is style most wasted? Where is individualism crushed? A place with empty homes and plastic cones. Kids sitting on the curb at the 7-11 smoking the cigarettes they stole from their mother's purse. Discussions revolve around stolen hub caps and an endless dance around revealing anything real or personal. Patterns of generations broken in hopes continuing in a sterile, benign environment, free of crime (aside from stolen rims) and worry. A place where the biggest concern is the nightly weather report.

Yep. I'm talking about the suburbs. Any distinction between families, homes, personalities is squelched in the conformity of good schools, tract housing, and SUV's.

Unbeknown to those who escaped to the suburbs is how it kills their kids. Such a white-washed existence is absent any inspiration. Bored suburban kids make do with whatever they can get their hands and their parents' disposable incomes on in hopes of filling that creative void. There's a reason why you can get way more drugs in communities with street named for the trees they've cut down. Petty theft and date rape fills their time as they wait to become their parents.

Conversely, some of those kids use these dire situations as inspiration to get out, mentally and spiritually if not physically. They write or learn to play guitar. Some of them form bands and make a living at that. Thankfully, Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg hopped off their skateboards and returned from their studies out of state record a few songs.