"Disarm you with a smile..."

Despite all the grunge hoopla in '92 and '93 (and I bought into it, just a bit; I never did the flannel shirt or unwashed hair thing and although I enjoyed the movie Singles, I appreciate it more as an artifact of the early '90's than any kind of Graduate or Breakfast Club generational statement), the band that came out of that time period that meant the most to me was the Smashing Pumpkins. Nirvana was great and Nine Inch Nails articulated a good bit of my angst (although, like the previous post, Rumours, I didn't truly appreciate Trent Reznor's lyrics until I was around 30, not 23), but the Pumpkins, at least with Dream and Mellon Collie, made me feel that this was the band that I would have founded, if I had learned how to play guitar or drums, write music, and convinced others to play in a band.

It was, in a nutshell, how someone felt when, after 4 or 5 years after escaping high school, they still haven't quite gotten over the trauma. I wasn't really picked on (I was 6'3" and about 220 in 11th grade; the principal was more mad about the fact that I wouldn't play football or basketball than he was about my long hair and suspect friends), nor did I not have any friends. I guess that I engaged in a internalized Theater of Class Warfare from seventh grade until I graduated from college. Whatever the ruling class was (Preppies, Jocks, Frat Boys, Bowheads (what My Crowd called sorority chicks in the early '90's, because they all wore color-coordinated ribbons tied in a bow in their hair), I hated it and refused to play the game. Not that they seemed to miss my company, anyway. I most certainily was not Klebold and Harris (although I did wear a black trenchcoat 10 years before they made it verboten to wear to school; however, my inspiration was Ralph Macchio from Teachers and Bender from The Breakfast Club, not mass murder or Sting from WCW), but I made sure that everyone knew that I hated the caste system in school.

Anyway, nevermind my hang-ups, here's the Pumpkins...






"Who wants that honey?"