Retort to an Anort

Note: This was written as a response to "Grunge Isn't Dead" published in the February 4th Issue of the Commuter.

Why did the Greg cross the road? It didn't, because Greg refuses to move forward. My dear friend Gregory Dewar is a creature of habit, mired in the bog of perpetual inadaptability. He is the bison that gets pulled down first on those nature shows, limping behind his friends because he's too busy rocking out to terrible bands like Alice in chains to notice his liver just got torn out by a hyena. And he is being eaten alive, by society man.

The first time I met Greg his pronounced mannerisms and lagging sense of fashion was what struck me first, he is a time capsule of 90's one liners and smooth oldies, sporting flannel shirts he draws a remarkable likeness to the prehistoric 1996 guy from South Park; just on the cusp of closing that threshold between modern and days of yore I feel he too is the link to another age. The second thing I noticed about Greg is that he doesn't like anything, he probably won't like this article because it was made sometime in the last decade. Within the first two hours of being in the car with him I extrapolated his laundry list of things he hated, all drawn together by the common trait of being recent.

According to the Bible of Greg (In all likelihood his favorite book since most of it was written a few thousand years ago) a good video game, movie, and television show has not emerged for years. Why? Corporations, lack of creativity blah blah who cares of the elements that comprise this thinly guised prejudice for shiny things, I just know if it didn't hit the assembly line before Baldurs gate one he probably ain't all that into it.

As you may imagine there are some things Greg does love, Greg loves eating food out of other people's desks and telling us to not say anything. Greg loves Tacos, and Greg LOVES flannel. In his own words and I quote "It's warm and you don't have to change before going to bed." Bam! There you have it literate public, a modern day renaissance man not held down by convention and rudimentary hygienic practices.

I get it, I own a few checkered shirts that I wear in the forest where nobody can see me. I too once walked such heigths, stabbing my face relentlessly with piercings and rolling in grass seed to maintain my unkempt aloofness. But then I got a job and stopped being a filthy hippie. I mean would it kill you to wear a nice shirt every once an awhile? Really?! Would you explode into baby turtles if a tie got noosed around your neck for more than an hour?! I don't think it would Greg...I don't think it would.

And your argument about grunge is invalid, thanks a lot for Nickleback and Creed. You really opened some doors there instead of fostering a viable music movement. If we want to play the roots game I should probably thank slavery for all those sweet underground riffs that lent themselves as a fulcrum for blues. That is a can of worms that can be traced back to the dawn of man, but can you truly say music is better because of grunge? The late 90's were a cesspool of raspy heartless radio beats that collapsed the internal organs of the business at a time where music was already being threatened by waning sales.

Trust me there's nothing I would like better then for that dinosaur of an industry to come crashing down, and I have clocked countless hours screaming along in the truck to the choicest cuts of sound that were derived from the period but I cannot say with a definitive voice that music was improved by the emergence of grunge. What can be acknowledged and was consented to in your own article was that Grunge exists only in faded glory, further confirmed by your allegiance to it's tattered flag. Dead? Absolutely, if you want to argue relevance to the creation of today's music though I might need to borrow a flannel jacket because I'm moving to the country, and I anticipate Ill be eating a lot of peaches.