Careful With That Axe, Eugene!

And finally, some good news. At least that's the way I am choosing to see it. Here it is: British newspaper The Times reports this week that up to two and a half million children in the United Kingdom have graduated from playing toy instruments in video games to playing real guitars and drums. As a Guitar Hero devotee for most of a year, I believe this is the leading edge of the Hope and Change wave that will be spreading over our own great land in the coming months.
Much in the same way that we all fretted about our children picking up automatic weapons and trenchcoats after spending hours in front of their first-person shooter games, we can now start worrying about the price of music lessons. Instead of watching my son sit slack-jawed in front of our TV for hours at a time, I now stand slack-jawed next to him, windmilling and strumming for all we're worth.
I took a lot of smug satisfaction from this particular report, having to defend my mild obsession to various friends and relatives. "Do you really think that your son will be more interested in playing a real guitar after playing that game?" Yes, I do. He has been picking up my wife's ukulele and picking out "Smoke On The Water."
Meanwhile, I have been introduced to Linkin Park and my son has a growing appreciation for Ozzy Osbourne. We have shared many happy Father and Son air-guitar battles in those moments when we didn't have access to our "real" instruments. It's a renaissance of my own adolescence. We both know enough to shudder at Ted Nugent's politics, but we still appreciate the virtuosity of his jam on "Stranglehold."
My son is eleven, and I know that a certain amount of rebellion is inevitable, but I will be fascinated to see what form it takes, considering I'm the one who gave him his first Green Day album. Will he start his own band? Will he grow his hair long and give up the piano for something he can plug in to a Marshall stack? Will he end up playing the keytar? Who cares as long as it's loud.