Over the Hump
  I just turned 30, which was pretty much a non-event. In the past, it seemed like it would be a bigger deal. I remember seeing the movie '2001' when I was around 10 and thinking to myself "good lord! I'll be 30 when we have finally found a way to launch all of this ugly furniture into space as they have in this prophetic movie!" I thought 21 and 18 were big events too, but the weren't I couldn't even get anyone to card me when I turned 21.
  Being involved with the punk scene and being 30 is rare. I haven't seen any specials on "punks over 30" in zines for the last few years. I bet they have to wait at least five years between those sorts of features, since there are so few of us that the list would be exactly the same as last time.
  I like being 30 a whole lot more than being a teenager. I feel so much more confident at this age than I did when I was a dorky 18 year old. I look back at the decisions I made when I was even 25, and they seem idiotic. I can finally use so many of the skills I've learned over the years: I can fix cars and know what I'm doing, play guitar better than before, read and understand literature in ways I never could when I was 20 and on…
  There are over-thirty punks that have calcified, certainly. A zine editor from the midwest recently told me that he was 34 so he doesn't really "go to shows or know what's going on with the kids anymore." First of all, he sort of disqualifies himself from being an effective editor with that statement, secondly, there are plenty of 16-year-olds who are just as eagerly jaded and ready to give up on the unknown.
  Right now, I'm in a band with other 30-year-olds (OK, Scott isn't thirty, he can continue to date 16-year-olds) and it's really good. People who are older know what it means to be in a band, and what sacrifices you have to make, so there are no surprises. So many bands dissolve when someone is offered a job for the first time in their lives or gets married. Their lives change, and creative expression no longer has a place in their new, normal lives.
  That's what growing old is to me. It's not a measure of your age, it's a measure of the life left in your soul. I consider myself to be much younger than the 22-year-old who has just graduated from college and thinks that it's OK to trade 40 hours a week in a cubicle for $40,000 dollars. That's growing old. The less you are open to new ideas, to new experiences, the older you are. There are too many elderly 16-year-olds out there. Maybe they'll wise up when they get to be as old as me.