Thursday, September 20, 2007

NYC...The Young, the Old, the Ugly Me

No city makes you feel young like New York City. No matter what age you are, there's always some idiot that's older than you that's starting a new band, or writing a screenplay, or wiping down tables at a bar to pay for his improv classes that night. There's always some dipshit 50 year old in a ponytail yammering bout the Raconteurs' new ep etc etc. So unlike every other city where by the time you're 23 you better have a wife and a mortgage you always feel well, I reckon there's still some time for me to grow up.

And no city makes you feel old like New York City. Unlike other cities, with their cars and isolated areas, no place brings you face to face with youth like NYC. Twice a day the streets and trains are flooded with kids going to and coming from school...Christ, you think, I thought they ended 8th grade after I left. Wtf. They still have schools? And you used to assume you were on the kids' side, that kids would somehow automatically think you were "cool" and on their team; now you realize that to some kid on a train, you're just some really old guy. It's impossible for him to imagine being born in 1972. And then there's the annual flood of 22 year olds hitting Bedford Avenue, pushing your own youth and coolness further down the L train with each H.R. Pufnstuf lunch box and pair of Buddy Holly rims. They regale the pub with how "metal rocking" Appetite for Destruction is, but they can't imagine being alive when it was actually on the charts.

Ah well. Old age - it's wasted on the old.

No comments: