All dads just wanna be cool.

I have been reading Lee Renaldo's published journals from the 1980s (titled "jrnls80s", natch) and I came across this entry and it just stuck with me. Here it is in its entirety:

5 October 1988

Barcelona, 4 am

To Cody

Well Cody I don't know if there'll be any way to explain to you what kind of stuff it is yr dad does for his living. I'm sure that at the very least it's not like anything yr friend's dads do! Yr half-way across the globe, three and one half years old. Meanwhile, yr 32 yr old dad is gesticulating on stages across Europe, letting anarchy (and occasional brilliance-ahem!) run wild for unbelieving audiences. Tonight felt like 1983 and our first European tour, when yr mom was with us, all over again. Songs were not played well, mishaps abounded, but a general tone and ferocity emerged, a SERIOUS and DANGEROUS fun, which I know was not what the crowd expected from a travelling band. They expected polish and song, they got Confusion and maelstrom instead. And they were glad. This was not/is not a normal band. Each night is a roll of the dice. It feels good to be more wild and less professional for a change. It's a great change, yeah. But how can you know? Will you ever see me in this insane state? By the time yr old enough to come along and really experience Sonic Youth, and retain the memory, will it still be there for you to see? I wonder. This is what yr father does, son. Something not describable in terms of skill, or profession. Let's just call it performers and performance. It's the only word which takes the variety into account. Let's call it Hell Breaking Loose. Let's call it Out To Pasture. We can't always call it music, but we can usually call it Sound. Let's call it Volume, let's call it Sex/Noise. Let's call it Empty and Full all at once.

I wish you were here tonight, in Spain w us instead of back in NYC. I wish you could see what yr dad is doing with his life. The marks he's making. A night like tonight is really what it's all about. A new experience, for everybody. Not just a buncha songs. When this all ends I don't know where I'll be. It's not a fear I'll address here, now. I just wish you could know what yr dad is doing. It's pretty cool, I think, to have a dad doing this. I wish that I did. I hope you'll think so.

Well Cody would have been about 27 when the Youth finally hung it up so I would like to believe that he got a feeling for what his old man was all about.

This makes me glad that I journal to my kids.