I'm sitting in my living room, alone, listening to my favorite song as of late, which is actually a re-discovered old favorite.

When I was 15, I was sitting at my mom's kitchen table, reading a magazine that I assume now was my brother's. And I saw an ad in the back for a comp. album called, "Skins and Pins" and it had all these Boston (and beyond, I'm pretty sure) Oi-type bands on there. But the best part was, it was only like $4 and I grew up poor, so momma didn't raise no fool. I scraped up $4 and sent it through the mail and bam! I had one good album.

And the first song on the album is called "The Times" by The Pinkerton Thugs. I was in love with this song, seriously, when I was in the 9th grade. I obsessed over it and I remember jumping around my room, getting ready for school, at 6:30 a.m., screaming to this song.

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but sometimes, I'll hear a song, or smell a smell, and it'll hit me with a picture like memory of something I was doing when I heard the song, or smelled the smell. And the other day, I was going through all my old CD's and I put this one in and all of a sudden, I could see the yellow light on my walls. I could see my Rancid poster on the walls. I could see the boots on the floor, on top of a pile of black t-shirts. I could see my CD racks, with Rancid and Dropkick Murphys and the like. And I could see me, wearing my Rancid "...And Out Come the Wolves" T-shirt, my carpenter jeans, and my hair spiked to perfection.

Sometimes I miss those days. Sometimes I just wish I could go back, like transplant my brain into my 14 or 15 year old body and do it all over, knowing that all the shit I was worried about didn't matter. I could just enjoy it. I could just hang out with Sarah and Megan, and we could go to shows and jump around and I could just not give a fuck what anyone else thought of me, because come on, did anything they thought really do shit to me in the long run?

That's what happens when I listen to old albums. That's the power of music over me.

"Whoa! Pick yourself up now, let's go. These are the times! These are the times!" -The Times by The Pinkerton Thugs. It may not sound deep, but man, is it ever a kick-ass song.