You'll Be Alone Again With Nothing To Distract You, You Watch The Clock As It Keeps Ticking

I've always found Pete Wentz to be kind of an interesting person. On one hand, he's the overexposed celebrity divorcing Ashlee Simpson. On the other hand he's the guy who lived with his parents during some of the most successful years of his life. There's pretty much a constant duality between him being a very famous person who is always in the spotlight and a dude who can apparently be very down to earth.

I can understand why most people I know hate him though. It's not as bad now, since Fall Out Boy is on hiatus, but while they were big he was everywhere. He was definitely the "heartthrob" of Fall Out Boy and the excessive fandom of teenaged mall punks over him definitely didn't score him any points. The other guys in the band are (or at least seem to be) pretty shy, so he became the one who would always talk and as result became the biggest personality out of all of them and could be pretty overbearing. Then on top of all this he married Ashlee Simpson which solidified him as a Hollywood tabloid grabber.

When they were at the height of their fame he just really seemed like an over-the-top personality.

And in the punk rock community at least, that is what everyone thinks of when they think of Pete Wentz.

But he's also done some stuff that's really fucking cool in my opinion.

The first thing I always think of is him signing Lifetime when they got back together to record another album after being broken up for 7 years. Everyone was wondering where Lifetime would end up in terms of record label and were immediately mega-critical (and I guess rightfully so) of them signing to Wentz's label Decaydence. Everyone assumed this meant the beloved pop-punk band would be opening for Fall Out Boy or Panic At The Disco on tour and that their reputation would go to shit (Sidenote: Guys, did you actually think, even for one single second, that Dr. Dan would let that happen? Give me a fucking break.). But what seems to be the case was that Lifetime is one of Pete's all-time favourite bands and he wanted to help them out as much as he could by signing them. He paid for their record (which means he could give them tons of money to put into recording) and let them do essentially whatever the hell they wanted to. So basically, Pete Wentz was very instrumental in my 3rd favourite band putting out one of my favourite albums.

And that's pretty fucking cool.

While on the topic of Pete Wentz and Lifetime; Fall Out Boy did a cover of the classic "Turnpike Gates" (it's pretty bad, but I guess the intent was there). But what I like is the little blurb by Wentz, talking about how much Lifetime meant to him (which I like because the band has payed a similarly huge role in my life) and thanking absolutepunk.net for always sticking by the band (which is a nice moment of level-headed down to earthness).

Another instance of him being apparently pretty rad and down to earth: Fall Out Boy opened part of the blink-182 (I will always refuse to spell it with a capital B and sans-dash) reunion tour that happened in 2009 and I caught one of those shows. They said something like "Hey, we're Fall Out Boy" and about a third of the crowd cheered. Pete pointed out one of the guys cheering for them and said "Hey, thanks for showing support or an opening band, that's awesome." and pulled the guy up on stage, gave him free stuff and got him backstage. I don't give a fuck how many times he leaks pictures of his wiener on the internet, that really fucking cool of him.

That same show he also wished one of their fans happy birthday on-stage. I don't know the exact circumstances, but I imagine that it was one fan saying something like "It's my birthday today!" Most people as famous as Mr. Wentz would definitely just shrug it off, but he actually wrote it on his hand to remember too say it. As a dude who geeks out over people in his favourite bands, that's also pretty fucking cool.

Though they did cover "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey that show, which is the worst song of all time. Take it with a grain of salt I guess?

Something that really shows both sides of him is his episode of Cribs on MTV. On one hand he has his "modesty closet" which is a closet filled with all of his gold/platinum/multi-platinum record plaques and he says he sends people thee when they're being dicks. That makes you a much larger dick. He also calls the goose-wing doors on his Lamborghini a "guarenteed make-out" which definitely doesn't win him any points in my book.

But there are also moments of coolness in it as well. He's the only person I can think that shows their books on the show. He's all about his pet dog name Hemingway and says "I don't put anything into my body unless it's fluorescent and sugary" which is a statement that is also pretty applicable to myself.

All in all he's not that terrible. Everytime you see him in the tabloids just think "Self-Titled, Self-Titled, Self-Titled!" (For those not familiar with the band, the Lifetime album he put out was, you guessed it, Self-Titled.)

He can be a little much, but I think he's a little more down to earth and in touch with where he came from than most of his peers.

It's pretty weird to type all this out over the bassist in a band that I barely listen to.

Speaking of Lifetime, only a month until I get to see them for the first time!

Jam to this shit, it's the song that got me into the band!

And seriously, how fucking awesome is it that Dan Yemin still uses that same Strat with the Black Flag sticker? So fucking awesome.