[Cheesecake_Marmalade]

People been telling me, hey Joey, what happened to you, man, you used to be hardcore.

Good question, fair question, interesting question. I don’t know. What do you say to someone whose life hasn’t attacked them yet. I mean, that’s what you do when life attacks, right? You either seed back into your little shell and curl up into a spineless mess of aggression and youth, like a cancerous grouping of stem cells, or you man up and move on.

I can tell you that these people that have been asking me, yo Joey, whatchyou been up to man, we haven’t seen you at the concert, have obviously not been looking hard enough. I mean, I still go to all the shows and I still listen to all the music, I just don’t kick in all the faces or jump around like all the idiots.

I can tell you that these people that have been asking me, yo Joey, how come you haven’t been hanging out with all the homies, are still hanging out with the same homies that beat them up as an initiation and introduced them to coke and speed like some druggie pyramid scheme where the product is protection and the profit is reputation.

I seem to remember a time before I enjoyed life where I thought I was living life to the fullest. A waste of time seem likes time well spent when you subtract scruples. I’m basically the same guy, with the same attitude, with the same jokes, because I guess I never really was that guy that they thought I was- like Michelangelo’s “David” shoved into a folk art museum, I can be surrounded by bullshit but still be a masterpiece.

So when people tell me, hey Joey, what happened to you, man, you used to be hardcore, I kinda just shrug it off and say, “tough shit, I’m not anymore.”