True of False

It’s all false. Disney alums working their choreography and belting their lungs out through Autotune over someone else’s beat. The heavy metal bands might as well be playing jazz scales, their perfected rumblings as rebellious as a glass of chocolate milk, a heavy sludge manufactured angst. Punk rock is on Broadway. Dance music screams emptiness (why don’t they ever sample metal?) while freak folk agitates for the bathtub. The indie kids have gone so twee she envisions a string of tour dates cancelled due to nosebleeds. Rap’s a commercial for something she doesn’t want to buy, a bunch of neo-Toms trying to be street for a bunch of white eleven year old boys.

She gets what she can, from random sources. A mix, a commercial, a soundtrack, someone she heard on the street, the library. It’s all swirling in the mix.

At the thrift store she saw The Ks Can’t Get It Together sitting in with a bunch of CDs for $1.99. “I’m an old man’s fantasy,” she thought, and shoplifted it.

“I swear you’ll like it” I promise.

“Why?”

“Because it’s about the songs, but it’s not too tired, too sweet or too cynical to rock.”

“It sounds like an old punk band.”

“It does now. It changes. We mix it up.”

“It sounds old fashioned.”

“You’re starting to like old stuff now. I saw Leon Redbone on your iPod.”

“I don’t even know who he is, or how he got there. He’s false.”

“Maybe, but he’s fun. Check this stuff out.”

“I don’t think so. I think you’re false.”

“I think you’re fictional.”

“Fuck off.”

“Look, just give it a listen. These are worthwhile songs. I might be ‘false’ but these songs aren’t. I really believe in them.”

“Well I don’t know if that’s what I’m looking for.”

“Just listen to them, or I’ll just write it that you did.”

“Okay.”

So she listened to the album, and she actually liked it. She liked the songs, and when she gets depressed about how false and fictional it all is, she can still hum one of the songs. I’m not really sure what else she’s listening to, but I made sure she got into The Beatles, and some Micachu and the Shapes. I mean, it can’t all be oldie oldie stuff. She’s a kid. She’s a figment. But she’s got some fire, and she’s got some good songs, hook or crook.

Together we navigated an ad for The Ks record. I wish it could have been more real. I hope it gets more real.

--Dan Kilian

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