van halen

Here is the thing, see: there is an entire generation out there right now who just have no idea who Van Halen were.

I realised this while talking to my kid brother, who as fate would have it is a decade younger than me. I was driving him to see his girl friend, and as it so happened the music that was on was 1984, by Van Halen, you might know it as the album — oh, hand on, that’s right, see, back in the day there were these things called albums, and you put them on or in your stereo while you were driving/cleaning the house/having a dinner party, and then you got on with things.

Damn. Where was I?

Oh yes. That’s right. The music. The music was having quite an effect on the kid. He wanted to know what it was and could I burn him a copy for his iPod.

I told him to go jump.

I said that if he wanted, I could tale him to the 2nd hand CD store and we could by a fully depreciated copy of something by the band there. He asked why. I mumbled something incoherent about artist royalties and such like, and before we knew it we were there, managed to pick up a copy of Live: Right Here, Right Now for cheap.

My education continues.

untitled

It's always easier to talk your way into something
Than it is to talk your way out of it

Talking about my generation

In generational terms, I’m a ‘late’ Gen Xer, meaning I was born when between such and such a date. I really am getting these t-shirts printed up. They will say ‘I am not part of your target demographic’. My generation. Oh boy. I feel stupid, and contagious. We are probably best summed up by the palm muted strumming that kicks off Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’. There really isn’t that much more to say, you know. On the cusp. Hello, hello, hello, how low. And so on.

Middle Class Values

My old man is forever telling me that the chief way in which I am perverse is in my reverence for the middle class and their values. This perversity is borne of having descended and ascended the socioeconomic ladder more times than I would care to count. But he is right: while I am by temperament somewhat of a radical, I see no sense in waging a war against la petite bourgeoisie.

It is in this somewhat playful spirit that I relate the following anecdote, which, although in and of itself may not be that interesting, was, as these things go, at least mildly entertaining.

It all happened at a party I was at the other week or month. I found myself assailed, in the corner of the room, by another young man eager to a) tell me who I was; and b) tell me that my whole way of living was wrong. When I deigned to disagree with him on this second point, he exclaimed, ‘That’s just bloody typical! Typical middle class scum, you are!’, at which point I had the baneful duty of pointing out to him that a member of the middle class is, by definition, not scum.

I think the point was somewhat lost on him, however.

And so on.