Happy Father's Day from Weezer... not

The day after Father's Day, Jill sorta gave me my own father's day on my day off by taking me to the record store- my favorite place. Two Amoeba Records gift certificates were burning a hole in my pocket. Why the gift certificates? Well, my appetite for collecting records does not match my income bracket, so there are two times a year (Christmas and the end of the school year) when gift certificates from my students to big-box book stores and local record stores allow me to indulge... and yes, I spend my book store gift cards on CDs.

Anyway, one of the discs I planned to purchase at Amoeba was Weezer's new "Red Album". I've been a huge fan ever since their first single hit alternative radio (didn't radio used to be so different?). I've collected everything they have- singles, eps, deluxe editions. When we got there, I went straight to the W's and found a special edition digi-pack with bonus tracks. Then I sensed a disturbance in the force. Really terrible music was being played over the PA system and wafted into my ears like stink into a nose. And when I honed in to identify it (a gift I have), I realized it was the very album I was holding. Still, I kept it with me as I looked for how to use the remainder of my gift certificates, hoping that song was just a fluke. But song after song fell flat. I was almost embarrassed for them. I was willing to overlook the cover art I could only describe as weak sauce, but these songs were silly, ill-conceived, adolescent, overly tongue-in-cheek, and every note of it betrayed the way we felt when we listened to "In the Garage" from our own garages in highschool.

My eyes met Jill's from across the record store the way that two strangers do in the movies, when their eyes lock for the very first time and they know it's love. Except this time, the way I knew it was love is that we both mouthed the words, "This is terrible!" at the same time.

I put it back on the rack, feeling the way Wendy must have felt when she left Peter Pan behind. Sorry guys. I've grown up and you haven't.