Dignified and Old

So I know that I touted this as a music blog and you are getting way too many non-music posts (well, they have some music but its not as I intended).

This episode of my after-work ramblings goes out to the M-Rocket. Though it will do his ego none-too-good to see this. However since he is perhaps my only regular reader he should not expect my praise of him to spread throughout the community.

M-Rocket has several major events happening in the latter part of the year - one which may perhaps overshadow the other. So, to prempt the larger event and give the other event its fair dues, I have decided to celebrate his birthday early. And in a non-physical object type way. By devoting a bit of blog to him. Clearly he should no longer expect a present...

So what is the best thing about this guy? Well, a series of traits which I identify as being good character. Plus a series of traits that I identify as being similar to mine (thus of questionable character but familiar). But there's one thing that he has bought into my world that's rather larger than this.

When you are a child your best friend is the person living next door or the kid that you sit next to at school. Your tastes are yet to be developed to some extent. "You like kitties? Wow, I like kitties too - we should be best friends!" (I should mention that my friends in the early 80s (when I was a youngan) were two sisters called Tia and Maria who lived in the townhouse next door. We listened (and perhaps danced) to Thriller together. We moved on to "The Girl Is Mine" duet and I sang the Paul Mcartney bit - cannot tell still if that was a good or bad move. But I never got their name thing until I got older. Now I'm just painfully ashamed for their parents. That's rather wrong really).

You move into high school and it becomes more about styles or genres. Its the very definition of a clique. The sporty types, the outsiders, the smart kids - all united by something. Me, I was a music nerd and gravitated towards kids that had heard of The Pixies. It didn't *particularly* matter if they entirely upheld your value system because... well, they'd heard of The Pixies and the other 6000 kids at your school hadn't! You didn't really discuss the morality of issues because we were still finding our feet on that one.

Adulthood onsets and you take this mentality of common ground but push it a little further to include values and place slightly less (but still a great deal) on the common bonds. My best friend in the world and I got together because of a similar passion for photography. She had much more to offer but that's where we started. If she liked to drown kittens in her spare time then I wouldn't have gone near her but she liked photography and she liked similar music (score card starting at two points) and we were in a similar location of doing the same course at university (thus combining the location aspect of a child with the genre of a teen).

These days I make friends through association more than anything else. Nadia introduced me to Susie - she's 20, makes great music, is a good person - she is my friend. Adam introduced me to Tim - he's my age, plays in bands but comes from a completely different sort of background than me - he's my friend. I met Lorraine at work - we love cameras and animals, she is one of the greatest people I've ever met, we have a HUGE gap in a lot of tastes - she is my friend. These are all GREAT FRIENDS. But there's always a common link on something we are passionate about.

So at this point in the story my theory gets blown away.

M-Rocket comes along. I would like to say his musical taste is questionable but I'll get branded as being a snob. He gave me a book to read and I couldn't make it past the first chapter. He wears nice collared shirts to work and I wear dirty sneakers. He is committed to his career but I'm just there because I have to be. He's a finance nerd and I'm into art. We have nothing of style and genre in common. He is completely foreign to me.

He's stripped back all the style and genre commonailty. We have none. I couldn't have a conversation with him about a Converge record if I tried. And I'm completely passionate about my Converge records. In fact, I know for sure if I ever played it for him he'd pull the same blurgh face he does when stirring coffee. But that's just not what its about.

M-Rocket is a great person. It's the person.

Splaying it out like this I feel lame for coming across as shallow or closed minded but I think the commonality of interests is something which has always presented itself to me and so I've come to expect it. Sometimes you are best not to expect and strip down everything to its core layer and appreciate. Because thats where the true surprises lie.

If I was a teenager I'd never go near him. He'd never go near me. We certainly would not be friends.

A good reason to embrace getting older.

So a pre-birthday homage to the birthday boy who will officially be "old" this year. Congratulations on getting another year older. Its actually a good thing.

BUT MOST OF ALL - Congratulations on getting through today.

My love to you and the J-Rocket.

PS. My first choice in songs should be "Hate To Say I Told You So" however I won't rub into the wound that I am supreme, can predict the future and clearly am older and wiser. So on to second choice.

PPS. Yr old, don't know about dignified.

Buy Modern Lovers at Missing Link
Listen to Modern Lovers Dignified and Old

PPPS. Happy early 30th.