dog will hunt: the cheese comes home to roost

most parents quickly dismiss their kids' music as obnoxious. it is too loud, too vulgar, too dissonant, too fast, too unfamiliar, too grating, too cacophonous, too jarring, too offensive, too repetitive, too nasty, and too dissimilar from their own tastes. but how do you respond when they're playing your songs?

my tastes have always been eclectic, so i enjoy most of what's cranked by son (everything from dead to hardcore) and daughter (mostly superlunged vocal power pop). there are, of course, exceptions.

lately the lad's blown the dust off my disks in search of new old sounds -- and he's turned my own music against me! when i wasn't in the office this weekend, i was subject to a virtually continuous loop of primus' sailing the seas of cheese. an impulse purchase about 15 years ago, i played it a couple times and left it alone when it failed to move me.

perhaps through some bizarre imprinting process that occurred during those few spins in his infancy, my bass-poppin' lad begs to differ. he's taken a major liking to primus bassist les claypool's virtuosity and sensibility. while i was tempted to dismiss this development, one does not lightly discard any point of connection with a fifteen year-old. ever since the kids were born in madison, i've had the foreboding sense that they'd be leaving "soon." at this point, it breaks my heart to know i'll only have the big man around for three more years. so, i plunged back into the cheesepool.

after exhaustive youtube research on seas of cheese and mr. claypool, i've (re)cultivated a taste for at least some parts of his work. yesterday, i was moved to pick up one of the many basses littering the house to attempt the line from jerry was a race car driver while watching the live video. impossible. mr. claypool can play. or, as he might put it, dog will hunt.

as for the kids' tastes, my advice is the same that andy gave barney with regard to aunt bea's nasty pickles: learn to love 'em. judging from his facial expressions and vocal delivery, mr. claypool has likely eaten a few kerosene cucumbers his own self.