a bad ass life for me & you.

i got the 25th anniversary edition of London Calling this week from the library,and even though i have listened to the Clash maybe more than any other band during my lifetime (tied with the Pixies, i'd say, for longevity), the feeling i have for their music has suddenly altered.
the first Clash song i ever heard was "Clampdown". my older brother put it on a mix tape for me when i was twelve or thirteen. at the time, that was the only way i was introduced to good music. there was no internet, no access to college radio, and because we lived so close to the Canada then, we only received their radio stations, which have to play 40% Canadian music. (glass tiger, anyone?) i got the mix tapes and played them endlessly on a little pink boombox with pastel-colored buttons, alone in my musty room with the walls covered floor-to-ceiling with images cut out from magazines. they were the best part of my life then, i realize now: i hated where we lived, i was at the age where i hadn't grown into my adult features and teeth and didn't know how to wear clothes, i was in the beginning stages of cigarette addiction and was always trying to steal/smoke/hide them.
at that time, i loved the song but i didn't really get it. i knew it kicked the ass of bryan adams, of course, partly because it was not mainstream and partly because it wasn't a love song.
listening to it at this time in my life, though, it upset me and inspired me. i know that i am not suburban and square and wearing office shoes, but i am not as punk as i once was ~ punk in the d.i.y. sense, not in the unwashed sense. i have felt, lately, a little torn between my true desires and the view of myself from the outside, and it's partly from waiting on people who have more money than i have. and i have been bolstered by this album AGAIN and by watching the "Afro-Punk" documentary and by riding my bike most places and from the sun shining and from being in therapy. i feel like i can do whatever i want. why shouldn't i? why shouldn't we all?
xoxo
p.s. i just killed week one of my marathon training: 18 miles. blisters are my little babies and the veins on my arms are standing out today like a man's.