A Life Lesson from N*Sync

When I have to drive long distances (Pasadena to Santa Monica, for example), I like to put my iPod on shuffle-mode. Not only does this typically pass the time quickly, but it makes me feel good about myself to know that I can remember all the words to songs in many genres, from Coolio’s “1, 2, 3, 4,” to “Seasons of Love” from Rent, to anything released by Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, or Britney Spears between 2000 and 2004. This knowledge might make some people actually feel pretty crappy (especially if these gems made up the majority of their 995 songs) but no, I am a self-professed Top 40s junkie and I don’t care who knows it.

Driving home last night from my fabulous writing group, and belting out every word to “Bringin’ Da Noise,” a little known N*Sync song from their No Strings Attached album (Classic.), I realized I was on track to turn in to my dad. No, no he doesn’t listen to boy bands. But, like me, his musical taste hasn’t changed much since he was in high school. As a kid, a teenager, and, yeah, two weeks ago when I went to visit him, I have made so much fun of my dad for his CD collection, which I was habitually subjected to within the confines of his white Suburban before I turned sixteen. The guy is stuck in the 80s. “8675309.” “Stray Cat Strut.” “Angel in the Centerfold.” And the 70s. “More than a Feeling.” “American Pie.” And I guess in the 60s too with “Wipe Out” and “California Dreaming.”

I am willing to bet money that if I was super-pumped when N*Sync came on expectedly last night, making my 110 crawl a full-on one-person dance party, I’m still going to love it, and the rest of my shitty music, when I too am a parent. Like my father before me, I will thoroughly embarrass my kids, not with the white-man overbite, which he has perfected over the years, but with my fierce white-girl fist maracas. I’ll know every disgusting lyric of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre’s hits, inflicting upon my flesh and blood not only acute humiliation but my one-armed roof-raises and up-and-down chin juts, complete with what I like to call my signature puffed-out lip pout. So gangsta.

But, I’m ok with it. Embarrassing one’s children through music is a parent’s right. And now I’m actually kinda stoked about having kids some day.

***I just realized I actually have unwillingly subjected someone to my terrible music. Zach Maher, I am so sorry for that best of 1996 stalker-jams mix tape I made you the summer between 6th and 7th grades before you moved to Cincinnati. I hope you didn't think you would really, "Always Be My Baby," which I believe was track 9 or 10.