“Do I look like John Mayer?” I asked my sister, roughly seven years ago. My hair was styled like his as were my chucks, my belt, my jeans and even my guitar. For a time everything I owned seemed to be styled in an attempt to embody his holiness John Clayton Mayer or JM, as he has been known to call himself. Even to his mother. Especially to his mother.

I spent a good chunk of my early twenties collecting bootlegs of his shows and studying his catalog. I’d watch every video and pay to see him whenever he was in the city. I dug up old articles at the library and even won a case of Honest Tea through a sweepstakes promoting a summer tour of his. While high, I’d aggressively tweet at him.

I was obsessed. As a youth I only listened to music that I concluded “sounded like it came from the sixties and seventies,” because I was an idiot. “Listen to this,” my twelve year old sister said passing me her iPod. It was John Mayer. “Fuck this guy,” I said.

Then I heard him play guitar.

“What the fuck is this guy?” I’d never heard anything like it. His guitar sounded like my dad’s record collection being pushed through some modern filter. It was old, it was new. It was deep, it was soft. It was beautiful. “Like Sting’s voice,” JM once said to Rolling Stone. Hearing his guitar in person was like meeting a celebrity, “Wow it really sounds like that.” When I was really really high I’d try to draw out the wavelengths with colored pencils. I was so consumed by the low end theory behind this guy’s guitar that it took me years to finally understand an obvious universal truth about his music.

It’s awful.

Maybe not all the way awful, but close. He definitely has an ear for hooks and melodies and some sense of poetic rhythm at least. But his words? My god his words.

Split Screen Sadness.

Love Song For No One.

A Face To Call Home.

Only Heart.

Half Of My Heart.

Dreaming With A Broken Heart.

Heartbreak Warfare.

Circumcised Heart.

I made that last one up, but seriously JM? Aren't you like a thirty year old man? I’d sing these songs in the kitchen, guitar in hand, completely misinterpreting lyrics and filling in words that seemed more suitable to my subconscious. “That sounds better,” my girlfriend would say. “What does?” I’d ask. “The song. Those aren't the words, but it sounds better now.” This would erupt a long argument about our different tastes in music and artist intent and blah blah blah. Eventually we’d just look up the lyrics, then I’d quickly brush off my incorrectness and go play alone on the roof. Stupid John Mayer. He was my worship, and I’m still trying to wipe away at some of that bad blind faith. “He’s only good when his lyrics are so vague that you can make up your own meaning,” I’d say in the car to another girlfriend. “Sure,” she’d reply.

Mr. Mayer sure seems cool. He worked with Kanye and Dave Chappelle. He frequents Tokyo. He knew Steve Jobs and he often bangs the baddest white bitches on the Billboard charts. Those sound like the accolades of a superstar don’t they? Of someone insanely interesting. So then what’s the deal? Why does he suck so hard? Pop in practically any of his offerings and all you’ll hear is the mellow voice of someone trying to convince everyone that all of his attempts in life concern love. Giving Love. Taking Love. Examining Love.

Mother fucker we've been watching you this entire time.

He collects cars and Rolexes for fuck sake. Imagine having to listen to Bruce Wayne brood every time you turned on the radio. “I’m so sad,” he cried to the new butler. Honestly it all wouldn't be that big a deal if he just went straight hip hop and spoke on all the famous throats he’s gagged or how many Bitcoins he has in his PayPal account. That’s the type of artistic honesty that gets worshiped. Something along the lines of, “I fuck daughters and piles of gold.” But no, instead we get a sad millionaire with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica who swears he’s gonna “get it together this time”, but who is really saying,

I like the idea of love but I love me the most of all.

I love my voice and I love my hair and I love my dick and I love my life.

As the fiscal years roll by Señor Mayer grows grayer and grayer and he gets closer and closer to being grandfathered into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Peter Frampton and the ghost of Eric Clapton. Eric Clapton’s dead right? I will still on occasion listen to John Mayer. He can be kinda funny and kinda charming and is always around with some new shit. Like the guy at the party everyone fucking hates. Fucking hates. I've been that guy before. I've been John Mayer, except if he were short and ethnic and only played guitar during Christmas.

But yeah,