Maybe it’s my budding infomanicism or just the incessant pull of being a Superfan (ha) of literally everything, but I currently have 10 books on hold at the library. And they’re all about modern music history.
It started with your average rabbit hole. I wanted to read more about bloghaus (or indie sleaze as it’s called now) and started digging into magazine articles and firsthand recounts from people actually old enough to experience the 2000s indie music scene. I was like 8 years old, so I could only listen to the Two Door Cinema Club Slacker radio and hope I’d find a new band to add to my growing collection. Devastating.
There’s a book titled ‘Never Be Alone Again: How Bloghouse United the Internet and the Dancefloor’ I ended up buying off Ebay and I’m not sure where it is… But in the meantime, I went on the library’s website and tracked down the Dewey decimal number for rock history centric books and put everything that looked remotely interesting on my holds list. Most of the books were at other locations and had to be transferred to my local spot. The only book that was sitting at my library of choice was Fahrenheit-182 by Mark Hoppus.
Listen. I grew up in the 2000s. Of course I listened to blink-182. But it’s mostly been casual listening through the aforementioned Slacker radios I’d put on. And if you don’t know what Slacker is, it’s basically just Pandora if it flopped. Anyway. My knowledge of blink was really just their 4 biggest songs and a vague recollection of the members’ names. I put the book on hold because the cover was cool #judgingbythecover
Honestly, my week was so busy with work and then freelance after work because I am crazy like that, and I was excited to pick up another book. I started reading it that night and one chapter in, I thought about how inconvenient having to sleep that night would be.
Mark’s story was fascinating from page one, starting from childhood on a desert military base and quickly getting into the catalyst for everything that happened to him as a result of his parents’ divorce. The point of view we see this separation happening through feels so visceral and devastating that kids so young would have to experience the fallout of a failed marriage.
At this point I was thinking huh.. I was prepared to read a pop punk band behind the scenes book, not a deeply personal examination on how your childhood experiences dictate everything in your life. The story of how Mark navigated all that and it culminated in him discovering skate culture and the music that comes along with it and eventually getting his first bass. I thought the behind-the-scenes look into the life of a punk band would be the most interesting part of his story, but I ended up really connecting with his struggles with OCD and anxiety.
Dealing with OCD and anxiety as a normal person is hard enough, imagine having that while being in one of the biggest bands in the world. He’s stronger than me, I would’ve gone into hiding like ?!?! If someone pulled the Box Car Racer stunt on me, you’d see me on national television committing crimes. A consistent motif in Fahrenheit-182 was how “one-in-a-million happens to him all the time.” This applied to blink becoming a household name, but also to the numerous awful situations and events he found himself in. I heavily related to his OCD fixating on how insane situations always happen to him, so why would his other OCD spirals not come true? I’ve never read something that captured my OCD experience so well before like that’s my mirror…
I’ve never reread a memoir before, but I think this has to go in my super rereadable list. The way it’s written is so engaging and fun the whole way through. After reading, I’d put on blink songs, hear a line he had talked about in his book, and go WAIIIIT. Feeling like an #insider <3 So, basically, yes I am a superfan of Mark Hoppus now!!! Who wants to start a punk band with me and live life like it’s the 1990s <3 I’ll be Mark (plays bass, wants to sing, has OCD, people at work call me Mark over email because they think I am a man)
(Side Note: There was a point in the book where it suddenly felt like it had switched genres to horror and all I could think about was how killer it would be as a movie scene. Sorry Mark, I have Live Action Brain.)
