The Different Drummer

A Place To Belong

Throughout their career, Metallica has welcomed outsiders into their family. Celebrating 40 years on the last domestic stop on the M72 tour.

“We’re a gathering of fuckups and misfits and people that don’t belong, but we belong right here.”

– James Hetfield, Metallica

Her name was Susan and she was the outcast of the second grade. Diagnosed by our classmates as having “cooties” she was deemed “untouchable” lest she spread her “infection.” It was not long before I joined Susan in her banishment.

I wonder if the second-grade version of myself completely understood the consequences of these actions. I would like to think that I did and acted anyway, but truthfully my budding sense of justice was intermingled with a mixture of social awkwardness and a propensity towards contrarianism. One day I decided to play with Susan during lunch and instantly caught the “cooties.”

Traveling through my school years other outcasts eventually came together to form a peer group. By Junior High, this included an odd combination of burgeoning burnouts and nerds. The rebel John and brainy Brian from…