Forced Relocation
6/29/04 (#33)
Greetings friends:
I am surprised to announce that I have suddenly changed my address, and wanted to let you know in case you needed to find me. The new residence is located in Adulthood, a huge section of the world where people do not understand their children's music, cannot differentiate between the nouns and verbs in their children's conversations despite the words sounding eerily similar to English, and are mystified by the latest so-called fashion trends. I'm still fairly close to the border, and on occasion I do jump the fence to my old stomping grounds in Youth to eat Taco Bell chalupas or sneak a smoke with my old neighbors. But I'm usually home by 10 P.M, secure in my new digs.
As a musician, I swore I would never feel at home in Adulthood. I have never clung to the old musical standards, even my favorites. While my friends moved into Adulthood and kept Steely Dan and The Who in permanent residence in their CD changers, I was always looking for the new, the fresh. Even The Replacements, who are the John, Peter, Mark and Paul of my rock and roll bible, rarely get a spin these days. (Disciple Paul has been recording his latest outings in his home studio located deep in the heart of Adulthood, and frankly, they've mostly sucked.) But I must admit, I am convinced that the problem with Nickelback (and similar fodder currently fueling the record industry) is not that I don't "get" it, but that there simply isn't anything to "get". I sound just like my Dad did when he talked about "my" music. (And how I struggled as a child to explain the complexities and nuance of the band Kiss.)("Dad, he is both the God of Thunder AND Doctor Love."). So begrudgingly, I admit that maybe I am aligning myself with the Them in the Us vs. Them debate, as pop pap like Nickelback is a dog-whistle frequency which my aging ears cannot hear. (Though in the case of Nickelback, that seems improbable. Even my dog Boo Radley groans when they come on the radio. Think dogs like sticking their heads out the windows of cars so they can feel the breeze? Nope. They're getting away from the radio. Boo never sticks his head out the window while The White Album cassette plays in the car.)
As for the lingo, I still have some connections in Youth thanks to friends who listen to hip-hop and other friends who attend the meetings at the various hipster bars. I know that shelf-white new sneakers are "crispy", I know that in some circles the kids don't get "wasted" anymore, they get "faded", and I know that when my coworker says "Good morning, pimp juice!" she is speaking positively of my mannerisms, despite the possible negative connotations of the phrase. But let's face facts: I just used "pimp juice" in the same sentence as "possible negative connotations"---I'm not exactly "street". I still exhibit the confusion of an English speaker stranded in Greece when there's any talk of "Fashizzle" or "The shiznit", and I am painfully aware that any attempt to drop such words into my daily speech makes me look like Aerosmith's Steven Tyler flirting with 18-year-old women while they smile politely and think, "Eyes off the prize, grandpa." (Heck, I'm so uncool that when I heard a girl on the bus talk about a confrontation, proclaiming "I'm gonna get my ones", I went home and tried to research the phrase on the internet.)(No luck. I could only find it in similar contextual phrases, alluding to the meaning, "to land punches".)(See, there I go again. Does the phrase, "Researching on the internet, I could only find it in similar contextual phrases" sound like the vernacular of youth? Damn, I'm as old as NPR.)
But fashion? That was the harbinger of the mental relocation, and psychiatric forensics will identify two events in particular as the essential catalysts:
- the birth of my daughter
- the young woman one block over who walked by the house wearing sweatpants with one word emblazoned boldly across the fabric that stretched across her generous bottom: "Juicy".
Now I realize that Juicy is actually the name of the company that makes the pants. Undoubtedly, the folks at Juicy loved the idea that the women of America would be advertising their corporate logo in one of the most frequently espied locations on the female physique. And I admit, in this woman's case, these pants were not false advertising. From my old place Youth, I could have easily witnessed that the pants were the appropriate vessel for what seemed to be two exceptional scoops of chocolate ice cream. But from my new digs in Adulthood, every young woman is my 21-month-old daughter seen through a time-distorting telescope, and I wanted to run over and wrap a towel around her hips. Damn, girl, there are some products that don't need direct marketing.
Juicy. When I was in Junior High School during the Carter administration, there was a minor scandal in gym class when Nanette Woodbury emerged form the girl's locker room sporting an advertisement for the newly released Busch beer, her nubile body covered with a shirt that boldly declared, "You can head for the mountains, but stay away from my Busch." This was a risque double entendre in that era. 20 years later, the double entendre has mostly disappeared in favor of overt sexuality. Kids in the late 90's heard all about sex on the news: Bill Clinton's presidency came with a footnote delineating so many alleged sex scandals that the footnote required its own page. In the late 70's, President Carter actually took political shots not for having an affair, but because he had "lusted in his heart". Imagine how he'd have lusted in his heart if the streets of Plains, Georgia were populated with Juicy booties.
I love my life, but I'll be honest, I'm going to miss my old stomping grounds. People in Adulthood seem nice enough, but there aren't many Radiohead bumper stickers on the station wagons. Now and then when I'm walking with Boo, I'll see another Dad out on his lawn with his daughter. We'll chat about the best grocery stores in the area or what new development in our daughter's lives are giving us cause for joy and/or concern, and I'll recognize in him a familiar disconcertion. He never signed the paperwork on his home in Adulthood, it's just that one day, he was living here, in a house that looks much like his old house except there is nothing below counter level that his little girl can grab and the TV now airs only animated characters. I want to invite him out for a beer, clink the glasses in yet another final toast to our years spent in Youth, but there's no time for that in Adulthood. Instead we retreat to our homes, tuck our kids into bed, and spend the rest of the night hoping that bare midriffs, push-up bras, and "Juicy" sweatpants will one day be the fashions that our daughters dismiss as passe.
That kind of thinking comes with the territory.
If you're in the new neighborhood, please stop in and say hello. But remember my neighbors---turn down the stereo before you get to my block, aiight?
©2004 wpreagan
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