My Mother’s Mistake

November 20th, 1985

I will try to keep this brief, the mistake my mother made. I know she’d had dreams of me being a doctor, or perhaps a lawyer like my beloved brother. Then at the very least I’d have a stable job, a stable life. I have neither. I’ve less. Or more. My mother wanted what many thirtysomething mothers in the suburbs of California wanted for their sons: “the best.” My father certainly wanted the best for me as well, though I’d caught his eyes sparkle for my dark petals as they began to unfold. My tenth birthday present had hand-planted potent seeds of distaste for the quotidian within my heart. They’ve bloomed and bloomed.

On November 20th, 1985, my parents gave me a subscription to Thrasher Magazine. It changed my life. Yes, the aforementioned histrionic seeds had already spread through the anemochory of what MTV I could access, the affinities of high-tasted teen babysitters, short-lived radio stations, and well-chosen rock tees brandished by older students on Catholic school free dress days. However, Thrasher allowed them to take root. The fearless, irreverent, and wryly satanic skateboarder magazine gave me a glimpse into a world I dreamt of being part of. In ‘97 it printed a glowing review of Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes: one of AFI’s highest accolades.

The November 1985 issue of Thrasher was ceremoniously gifted to me to commence my first subscription. In it, I first read of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I first learned of Bad Brains, of Pushead, of Skate Rock. Only months later Glenn Danzig’s Samhain-era visage would loom out from the June cover. If you can get your hands on an issue of this era, you must flip through the newsprint. It’s transportive. And you may see me forming of its pages—of its slimy Santa Cruz ads, its illicit subculture columns, its Friedman photos. Through those images I felt the Alva anti-gravity, tasted the Dogtown nosebleed. I heard the Guerrero grind demo’ing the mundane, Dr. Know’s feedback doing the same. They were the shrieking howl of the lost calling out to my shredding ten-year-old soul.

If my mom had heard the cry at the time, the folks may have confiscated every issue of my cherished mag. Today, if she could go back, she would get me a lifetime subscription.

I think of this now, having read all of your birthday wishes. They are deeply warming. Thank you for ever howling back.