"good music for people who hate bad music"
There was a great big neon sign outside the usual place;
it said "New Scene: Inquire Within".
They flocked to it in their too-big clothes, smelling of hope, looking of hairspray.
The New Scene had all the misgivings of the old one,
done up in better packaging.
Everyone was so happy to be Something that they gave it no mind,
and covered it up when necessary,
like when the time came to Think of Their Reputations.
Everyone in the New Scene was Something,
and they were Something New,
Something Brand New and Different than any Something that had come before.
It was so splendid, to be Something, but who wants to be Something
if that Something had been done?
That just made you Anything.
In fact, some would argue it even made you Nothing.
Not one of the New Kids in the New Scene could stand to be Nothing.
Nothing sucked them of their Everything,
and their Everything was All That They Had,
so onward they went,
being their Something.
The New Scene spread.
Soon it stopped being Something and it became Everything. It was The Thing To Be for those who had nothing else to be.
Eventually it was put-upon the New Scene to appear in the Magazines and on the National Television and in the Popular Culture.
Much fighting ensued.
For some, they had been there since it was one sign,
just outside of one dusty old dive bar where no one went but them.
And they thought it shouldn't be Everything,
but that it should be just Theirs.
Becoming Everything made it Nothing.
Others kicked their scuffed skate shoes at the dirty concrete and lamented
how it had changed.
Naming it Watered-Down and Sold-Out and Given-In
to the demands of the Masses,
who weren't worth the Scene, because they'd never understand it anyway.
One night in December,
The Scene caught on fire.
It collapsed into itself like a tree being felled in the forest.
The fighting reached a fever pitch, rose, and then fell,
like an empire,
which perhaps the Scene might have been, if you asked a historian.
Empires are supposed to last for two-hundred years,
and for all Half-A-Decade of the New Scene, it sure had felt that way,
but now it took only two-hundred minutes to kill.
Everyone kicked at the dirty concrete as they watched the fire.
A few toasted marshmallows. One was burnt.
They all came to an agreement for the first time;
which was that the Scene had sucked anyway,
and that it had always been lame,
and that they were glad it was gone,
and that it was good for their Reputations not to be Associated any longer.
It took one week for the building to come back up.
A day later, there was a neon sign hanging out front,
bright and oppressive against that brown wooden facade.
It read:
"New Scene: Inquire Within."