The cloths you wear

The power of music amazes me each time.
It is a large part of many people's lives. At a certain range of ages it is downright the defining element of their lives.
For many many years fashion and attitude was an inseparable part of one's musical preferences. The hippies and yuppies. Are you a punk? are you a rocker? rapper?
Today you can be Indie, or Emo; or are you Goth?
People dress, wear their hair and makeup, and speak the part of the musical fan of their particular genre of choice.
A girl asked me the other day: what do I consider myself. It took me a while to understand what she meant, and then I realized that she still thinks I'm young enough to care.
Eclectic Punk, I told her, and as far as I know I'm the only one in the world. In fact, the moment anyone, anywhere, will say that they, too, are eclectic punks I will automatically cease to be one.
But what does that mean, she asked.
Well, I said, eclectic because I like many many types of music. I like garage punk. I like some of the indie bands that pop up every now and then. I enjoy the big bands like U2 and REM. There is a host of 80s music that I love. I love Garbage. I like that new song by Rihanna (SOS Rescue Me with the Tainted Love base line). I'm addicted to Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Queens of the Stone Age. I'll hurt anyone who says anything bad about Fiona Apple.
Punk is because I will kick the ass of anyone who tries to put in me in a box because of the music I listen to!
I hate that. I was into heavy metal in high-school. Nobody could understand why I wear my hair short. I was into grunge in uni, and everybody wondered why I don't have any plaid flannel shirts.
Now I jump from side to side in my respectable, adult car listening to the new Metric CD I got (which is great, by the way) and look at me funny, like I shouldn't, being my age.
I ought to wear a three piece suit for the next rock concert I go to, just to make a point.
Although I probably wont.
I just don't own one.