Jack White is my homeboy

Last week the new issue of Paste was delivered to my doorstep, then to my mailbox, and from there I took it inside my house. Paste is, in my humble opinion, the best magazine out there for music fans. The writing is superb, highlighting an eclectic variety of great bands without catering to indie rock snobbery/fandom. And the mix CD included with every issue ain't bad, either.

The current issue features a lengthy interview with Jack White (and occasionally Meg White) of The White Stripes. It's one of the more in-depth interviews with the man I've read, and it made me like him. A lot. In fact, I never realized I had so much in common with him. (Kudos to writer Jason Killingsworth for tackling some big issues.) I found myself admiring Jack and completely agreeing with him about the state of music journalism and indie rock in general:

Paste: It seems like the journalistic community is partially responsible for the cycle of building up rock stars and then ripping them down. Like a kid who makes a bunch of sand castles and then gleefully stomps all over them.
JW: I've never understood it. . . . It's ridiculous to champion underdogs and once they succeed to abandon them. . . . If you abandon a band as soon as other people like them, then you don't love it for the right reasons. You like music for identity. That's not loving music. Loving art for its own sake means you don't care what people think.

Now, I admit I feel a pang of disappointment, maybe even some disillusionment, when a little-known band I like strikes it big, but that's my fault, not the band's. If a band can stay true to its sound and sell out an arena, bully for those guys.

Reading on, I found out that Jack and I have a similar opinion about God as well, at least at the core. He says:

I just want to know what the truth is. I mean that's what I'm looking for. In my opinion, there's no way God looks at things from 14 different angles. I see God as knowing only one truth, and that's it. There's no other opinion about it. And I want to know what that one truth is.

Amen, brother.

That said, I sometimes wear black with colors other than white and red, and there's also no confusion about whether the lady in my life is my wife or my sister. So I guess the similarities only go so far.