"Get the Fuck Up."

Well, here we are. I feel that it's better that I don't post videos and memories in this blog in chronological order. I need a big, explosive first entry. And there wasn't a big, dumb explosion quite like the one this video set off.

Limp Bizkit |MTV Music

Trends Spotted: Backwards baseball caps, sick goatee, random breakdancing.

It was 1999. Limp Bizkit's Faith set it off. It was Fred Durst's over-the-top dry heave howl that set loose an avalanche of shit and Yankees hats over MTV.
At the time I was in the 5th grade. My friend Nathaniel and I had been going to the Berkeley JCC after school program together for two years. Our parents thought up the plan to save some money and just hire a babysitter to watch the two of us after school and help us with homework. The kid they hired was Daniel. A 15 year old skater dude without a care in the world. I don't ever remember doing a page of homework with him beyond the first week of knowing him. Under Daniel's eye, I played more video games, watched more TRL, made more prank phone calls, and got into more pussy slapfights with Nathaniel than at any other point in my life. Daniel was one hell of an enabler when it came to acting like an all around shitty kid. I remember the three of us going to the park near Nathaniel's house to set paper towels on fire with Daniel's lighter. At that point he was probably the coolest kid we knew.
So anyway, it's 1999 at Nathaniel's house, and Carson introduces the Faith video. Did I pump my fist, happy to see a video on MTV that wasn't some boy band? Did I start singing along? Did I get up and start a mosh pit in Nathaniel's living room?
Nope. Early on, I decided that I wasn't going to like Limp Bizkit. It was like a superhero and his arch nemesis being best friends before growing up to destory each other, only in reverse.
Daniel liked Nu-Metal. He had all of Korn's albums before they hit it big on MTV.
"Well why don't you like it?" He asked.
Back then, I was kind of afraid of it. I categorized all loud, aggressive rock with a Marilyn Manson video I had seen and it made me nervous. I have never been seriously religious or spiritual, but I remember telling Daniel that my reasoning for not liking Limp Bizkit was something along the lines of "Well I just don't like all of the loud 'ruh ruh ruh I hate God' thing going on."
"Hate God?"
Daniel pointed at the TV. "He's wearing a CROSS!"
Quick reminder, I'm Jewish. Barely Jewish.
But something clicked. How foolish of me! Fred Durst didn't hate a god that I didn't even believe in, and that made it okay to like his music.
A week later Nathaniel and I would be practicing that weird jump Fred Durst does 45 seconds into the video in my driveway, waiting for Daniel to skate to my house.
Thanks, Daniel.