We weren’t cool, but people would come to us to find out what was cool. To that end, we had a purpose. To have a purpose was to be needed, and to be needed was to be slightly protected. I would ride the back of the school bus with headphones on, attached to my Walkman, and people would talk to me because they knew I was listening to good music, and they’d want to know what music was good so that they could talk about it in their far cooler circles.
