At fifteen, I had two great passions: music and Ginetta (a fictional name), a classmate of mine who wasn't very intelligent but really cute. She had an angelic face, a flowing light brown mane, two big aquamarine eyes in which, when I touched myself, I always imagined seeing myself reflected while she sucked me off, a simply delightful bottom, and a generous bust that she always knew how to highlight even in the middle of January. She knew she was attractive and that I liked her, and she took full advantage of this—oh, how she took advantage. After being quizzed a couple of times in her place, I let it go before getting stuck in one of those loops where a girl teases you into doing her favors without, of course, the slightest intention of giving you any. I believe today's youth refer to this as the "friend zone."
Over a decade later, I found myself at some random shopping mall to buy something random when I was tackled rugby-style by a sort of hyper-hydrated valkyrie. "Hey! Long time... Do you remember me?!" I narrowed my eyes and my memory and... yes, it couldn't be anyone else but Ginetta. How merciless the years had been to the hottest of my adolescent erotic dreams! Those splendid eyes were now rimmed with fatigue and worry, the once unattainable bust was already sagging... The worst change, however, was the two screaming nuisances she had with her: "Mom, can you buy me this?! Mom, can you buy me that?!! Mom, when are we leaving?! Mom, mom, MOOOOOM!!!!!" She tried to tell me about her sad life as a single mom, but the two monsters she foolishly decided not to abort allowed me to understand perhaps one word in fifty. (Anyway, ça va sans dire, I couldn't have cared less). She asked for my phone number, but I pretended not to hear and dashed away like a missile.
What does this story with its questionable morals and vaguely sexist tone have to do with the latest effort by the Deftones? Unfortunately, a lot. Ginetta, God bless her, should have stayed in my memories as she was: beautiful, carefree, and as stupid as a bucket. The woman worn by years and pregnancies whom I had crossed paths with had nothing to do with her. I felt incredibly sad, like a jerk for not giving her my number (come on, a coffee and a few words every now and then, how compromising could they be?), but unfortunately, what overshadowed everything was the overwhelming sensation of having been violated in the sacred temple of my memory. That immaterial place where we keep things like the emotion of first times, the joy for the achieved milestones, the important lessons...
Similarly, of the band that made me fall in love with its sound with "Around The Fur," "White Pony," the self-titled album, and even the more than respectable "Diamond Eyes" and "Koi No Yokan," on "Ohms" I found nothing but a bloated, watered-down, uninspired version, and there's no return of Terry Date at the mixing desk to save it. It's true, the title track is a missile. But if to get there, one has to go through the borderline nostalgia of Genesis's self-cover, the sickening Pompeji, and that immense bore that is Urantia and Headless, the game is not worth the candle. Not that I expected a new "Adrenaline," nor do I consider Moreno's, Carpenter's, and Cunningham's careers to be faultless, but never, not even in their more questionable works, had I found so little to save.
Perhaps after twenty-five years, it's even reasonable for a band to live off its legacy. And that things that were cool at fifteen might not be so cool at thirty, I had learned well when I saw Ginetta again. Nevertheless, such a bland reheated meal can only be indigestible to me.
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