Driving too early in the morning and she was nearly uncontrollable. Shouting, yelling, seemingly unable to disconnect from her inner-Moroccan bazaar, a chaotic kerfuffle of audio-physical explosiveness.
7.15am and I could feel my blood-pressure steadily rising…steady…steady…breathe deep…fire up a BBC podcast for the teenager and I…Five Live football daily…boring update, boring interviews, all punctuated by the back-seat cacophony.
And then I did it. I selected a playlist. And like honey-suckle elixer for the ears, like a homeopathic salve for the soul, she suddenly, and I mean SUDDENLY, dropped down 6 gears, ceased cacophonizing and got sucked into the sounds. She started singing quietly along. And so did I. And so did the teenager. Even though two of the car’s speakers have blown to silence, NOTHING was gonna derail this! And I realized, in an epiphany, that I had discovered a new personal Jesus and that his name was Rob Birch.
Jesus and his diciples offer the word...
Yes, behold the new Jesus, for He is a spikey-haired, craggy-faced Mancunian who wears baggy coats, loped around the Hacienda back in the day and says things like ‘kewl’ instead of ‘cool’ because he has a ‘kewl’ Mancunian accent which automatically makes him ‘kewler’ than you or I. He usually wears really ‘kewl’ shades, which just add to it all; the pre-schooler likes his picture.
His voice, smooth yet raw with that Manc-man bluster, lends itself to a singalong for sure, but the beats, the styles, the fusion, the whole blend is like an instant security blanket for the pre-schooler. This, by virtue, makes it heavenly for me. On returning home from the school drop-offs, I immediately went about finding their latest music, and read some unflattering reviews from the usual collection of young witless critical bastards who’s sole job it seems is to cock a snook at anything outside the parameters of modern ‘cool’ (which lies somewhere between navel gazing with Thom Yorke or criticizing the world like Kanye West). Well listen up arseholes, the Stereo MCs can do no wrong in this house because Rob Birch is a personal Jesus* with willing and able disciples who spread a musical word of energetic joy and calm, an escape from whatever’s bothering and irritating the soul, a full-body massage. So whether you think they’re ‘dated’ or not, Mr.Oh-t00-uber-cool Emo Warrior Fundament, you are wrong! OK? And you’ll listen to me because I am probably old enough to be your Dad OK? ! Yes! That’s right! OLD ENOUGH…
Old enough…I wonder…it’s been swirling for a little while now, as it does when you’re approaching the midway point of the match, the metaphoric half-time (although I’m hoping for some Sir Alex Ferguson-approved added-time after the full 90) I wandered into the new Diesel flagship store this weekend, looked around, scratched my head and started frowning at the sight of a guy in ‘ironic’ dress shoes/chequered shorts, shirt, suspenders, waistcoat and trilby hat get-up. ‘What on earth happened to this trog?’ I mused from inside my recently purchased g-star dark (danger danger) denim jeans, black t-shirt and big black boots, before said-20 year old shouted that ‘I’m sorry Sir that size isn’t available!’ My God. It was an employee. And I was a grumpy middle-aged man disguised (just about) as a mid-30s brooding European in my tight jeans made by a company which is (frankly) just about out of my reach and my big trendy boots. I looked at a pair of jeans. I liked them. But they were $200 dollar and I quickly realized they had some leather applique on the them. Good grief. And you know what? As much as I could try to pretend, I don’t think they’d really like me. Why? Because save the occasional 40-something guy, jeans with leather applique don’t work unless you’re a rock star or actor, and even then it’s debatable. Truth is, on me, they would not be in the territory of ‘rocker’ more than the territory of ‘wanker’, and that’s just how modern male ‘fashion’ seems to pan out.
Indeed, wandering the mall, I realized that increasingly, there isn’t much for me. American Eagle? No. Abercrombie? That’ll also be a ‘no’. Banana Republic? Yes. Gap? Yes. Macys? Only if it’s not in the basement. But I still look. I’ll look with the teenager and we’ll peruse items together. And sometimes I’ll catch a glimpse of someone, oh alright, a YOUNG person (!!!!) and I’ll briefly realize that although I’m fighting again, although I’m regaining some of what I lost over a few years of aquiesance to sugar, I am not 30, let alone 20 or 25. I am 42. And yes, age is a state of mind but it’s also a state of realism. Like the realism which gripped me once I got home and started reading the issue of COMPLEX magazine I’d bought; yeah, fun to look at but not to live by.
Because sometimes, when the teenager is grinding and the pre-schooler is whining, when my feet are screamingly sore from planter faciitis after indoor soccer, when I’m moving just a tad slower, I remember that I am, in fact, 42. Not old by any stretch but also no longer young. It is middle age. And it is OK. It doesn’t mean I will give in to being a grumpy old bastard all the time, it doesn’t mean I will cease to be physical and it doesn’t mean I will cease to ‘live’ an active life, no no no! But what it does mean is that I must slowly recognize that certain situations, and certain shops, should be approached with both caution and realism. again, I am still fairly cool for my age, but I’m not uber-cool (thank christ -sorry, thank Rob Birch).
“You are the silliest Dada in the whole wide world!” the pre-schooler will say, whilst the teenager routinely chuckles at my turn of sarcastic phrase, saying I am ‘genuinely funny.’
And as I sit in the car, g-star jeans wrapped around peddle-pushing legs, Spy-optics sunglasses on, moving and swaying to music from Jesus and his disciples, I realie it’s OK, I’m not ready for my bus-pass just yet and that in an hour I’ll go into the gym and show those 20-something students that this ’sort-of-young-man’ is still ready to rumble with both the world AND his own kids…
(can I now take a nap please?)
*other personal Jesuses have included Ricky Villa, Glenn Hoddle, David Bowie, Tony Benn, my Mum, Leonard Rossiter, David Ginola, Jermain Defoe, Eddie Izzard and Peter Cook…
