The great / terrible story of Fischer-Price-Punker Mark Hoppus
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Why Fahrenheit-182 is a great book
Is the chance one in a million? Then it will happen anyway. For example, Mark Hoppus (53) summarizes his life. Everything that is apparently impossible seems to happen to him, writes the singer-bass player of the American punk band Blink-182 in his autobiography Fahrenheit-182.
To immediately start with the biggest chance -to -hit: how could it otherwise be that three rebellious teenagers conquered the world and sold more than fifty million records with only a few chords and rhyming underpants’ lollers?
But there is more, Hoppus argues. Why exactly when his fear of fear and virus and bactere bobia peaked (he has been broken his hands for years and held his breath in meetings with fans) out of a global pandemic? Why did drummer Travis Barker – the only band member with chronic fear of flying – have to fall out of the sky (but did he also know again as one of the few who survive crash)? And the main prize of Hoppus’ Miljoenenjacht: why did he survive cancer, and not so many others?
Moral of the story: « One-in-a-million happens to me all the time. «
That mantra makes Fahrenheit-182 A true boy’s book in which everything still ends well and all dreams come true, despite all youth traumas, fears, depression, compulsive disorders and suicidal thoughts. And no, Goddank is not a floating self -help Bible that explains how to achieve worldwide success or manifest tumors away. Hoppus writes everything (thanks to journalist and ghostwriter Dan Ozzi), sorter, self -relatively and full of humor, as if it happened to him.
Surviving cancer is not ‘courageous’ or ‘brave’, he emphasizes, how many people try to tell him. « All I did was sit in a chair and take poison. » That poison is so fierce that his family is not allowed to use the same toilet for up to three days after the treatment, is evident from a fragment of the diary that he has kept up to date on the advice of his therapist during chemotherapy and from which he – who does brave – frequently quotes.
No matter how strange that sounds, in the end cancer brought him a lot of good, Hoppus believes. The disease not only expels its depression but also causes a reunification with his lost bosom friend. Singer-guitarist Tom Delonge seemed to have finally left Blink-182 to devote himself to his other band, tech company and (well) UFO research. After four years of radio silence, he suddenly calls again.
Their chemistry is the secret of Blink-182. From the first casual (one-in-one-million!) The two teenagers are instant soul mates. They feel each other’s pain about the divorce of their parents, are just reckless in skateboarding, refusing to grow up and therefore share the same obsession for poop, pee and dick jokes.
From the first moment they finish each other’s sentences and songs. About rapidly bouncing punk rockbeats and elementary guitar tunes, they stick very sweet melodies that stick to as chewing gum. The children’s songs packaged as a poppunk are perfectly in line with the (skate-)-punk hype that experiences its peak in the mid-1990s with bands such as The Offspring and Green Day. Plate bosses are fighting for the band.
If the self -proclaimed “Lennon and McCartney or Dick Jokes« Each other when people in their fifties fall into their arms again, that the band blows new into life, culminating in a last-minute show as a headliner at the American festival Coachella. It will be the biggest performance ever, for more than 150,000 crazy fans, of whom most are younger than we started the band ».
It is precisely that satisfying Climax (Huh-Huh) who had announced Hoppus a few pages earlier: « I Promise This Story Will Give You A Happy Ending (Grow Up). «
Why Fahrenheit-182 is a horrible book
Always when Mark Hoppus’s mother comes to watch a performance by her son, he greets her from the stage in the same way: « That’s my mom. She Gives Great blowjobs!«
Well, the society or large capital will not overthrow Blink-182 with their recalcitrance. But that was never the intention, Hoppus writes. « We were never punk, » he admits. « We were Fischer-Price-Punk. »
He had kept it there. Then there would have been nothing wrong at all. Do you want to make kindergarten? Great dude! Continue like this (but just a little on your mother).
But unfortunately: despite the certainty with which Hoppus declares not to be a punker, he always squeezes himself in impossible turns and spagates to prove that he is. It goes horribly wrong when he claims that the band wanted to « be serious » on a successor to the übergladde and over -produced breakthrough album Enema of the State (1999) That had exploded thanks to slick video clips with naked running around (‘What’s My Age Again’) or band members dressed as Boybands (‘All the Small Things’).
Then follows the most miserable passage from a rock (car) biography ever: “We fell back on many of our heavier, angular influences, such as Fugazi and Quicksand, and that trickled in the way we wrote songs. We draw more from emo and post-hardcore references. Sound sounded more mature. «
Practice.
Just for all non-dugs: Fugazi is the politically correct punk (or actually: post-hardcore) band of all time whose foreman and supreme Ian Mac-Kaye is the ultimate conscience of the global counterculture. The band came up with a unique cocktail of transverse guitar music (which can sound like experimental indie, raging punk rock or danceable reggae). Fugazi has zero funny (let alone adolescent) texts and will never or will never come on with banal rhythms as’Unless your dad will suck me off« , »your mom will touch my cockAnd « »ejaculate into a sock« As Hoppus does on the fourth Blink plate Take Off Your Pants And Jacket (2001) That exactly licked, überglad and over -produced sounds like its predecessor.
In short, any suggestion of any parable is completely out of place … unless you want to boost your credibility to get rid of your kindergarten complex by getting better. Hey Fellow Kids! Take a look at me credible are!
That combination of overestimation and lack of sense of reality seems to be a guideline in the career of Blink-182. Moments later, Fugazi was forgotten again and Hoppus only claims to compete with The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Beach Boys. The band is considering the fifth album, which ultimately does not get a title, even a little while Our Pet Sounds to name.
The corresponding promo shows for which the tickets only cost one dollar are, on the other hand, « a return to our punkroots ». Only the megalomaniac process to complete that plate cost a million dollars and seven producers. A few years later, in addition to countless producers, songwriters are also shamelessly flown in. Do it yourself You can also outsource of course!
The pinnacle of contradiction? That is of course performing on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf during the War on Terror. As a small child, Hoppus describes how impressive the tour runs along the American troops stationed in the Middle East (for all non-inaugurations: they fought a lies-based war in Iraq). Hoppus proudly signs guncills from soldiers. It is the final death of the Fischer-Price-Punk.
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