A Letter to Action Bronson

I’ve had Ready To Die, Stop Making Sense, and Operation Doomsday in my three-CD changer for nine years. I listen to these disks and sports radio and I drive a fair amount, 120 mile round trip twice a week. I took out the Talking Heads last week. I put in Dr. Lecter.

Here’s the thing—I love this disk more than pretty much anything in the last ten years. Bronson sounds like Ghostface if Ghostface was a chef and a little bit more clever and used more internal rhymes. The beats are all good—none of that fast sixteenth note bullshit—but steady two-four, all layered over jazz rifts. The shit makes me happy.

And that’s something I don’t feel all that much listening to music or really anywhere else. Happy. Excited. Like my life isn’t one boring fucking montage minus the drama. Like I’m not getting older and holding down two jobs and playing house with my wife and pets and air conditioning that I can’t figure out how to get below 83 degrees.

So here’s to you Action Bronson.

Here’s to you for not being fucking horrible and for teaching me the word “scunt.” It works, because sometimes cunt just doesn’t get the job done.

And here’s to you for letting me feel like it’s okay to be overweight and white and still be cool, for you telling me that one’s late twenties aren’t too late to make something of yourself, for letting me know that certain people can bypass the fade of skinny clothes and still be rad.

But really, this is me thanking you allowing me to do that shit I did in my teens—walking around a city with my backpack and headphones, your music playing, positive I’m being filmed by somebody, making up narratives, smiling at hookers and guys who probably want to suck my dick, doesn’t matter, esteem either way, thinking that there’s a reason to this all, that something has to come of it, that I’m not just another motherfucker getting older with thinning hair, each and every day distancing myself from that potential teachers and parents always assured me I had.