Dear Wigleaf,

Downstairs, the kick drum thumps, the snare titters. My kid's garage band is practicing the one song they've been trying to play for weeks. I've peeked through the door a few times, heard them fumbling the tempo, stumbling over the chords, and I consider strapping up my acoustic, joining in. But when I was thirteen, when my first band The Pissants practiced in my drummer's parents' garage, no adult butted in to show us a few things, unless you count the handful of cops who rapped on the garage door to report a noise complaint, and how embarrassed and also significant we felt to have annoyed the adult world. How punk-rock perfect. Though my kid claims their band is not punk. They don't even like punk music, Dad's music, despite their practice space being decorated in my teenage posters: Kurt Cobain's sarcastic smile, Rancid offering middle fingers, Johnny Cash brandishing middle finger, Against All Authority, Falling Sickness, Link 80, L7, Sonic Youth. But this band will rebel against punk rock, despite wanting to learn "Should I Stay or Should I Go" for their next song, after they've mastered this first one, which, from the sounds of things they will not be mastering anytime soon.

Wigleaf, you see, I never could've coached soccer or softball. But maybe I could coach a garage band, if the kids would have me, but the first lesson I'd teach them would be to resist.

With a safety pin through my heart,

Dustin