I've said it before and I'll say it again, "I've wasted my life". Half a life-time gone (the good half at that) and all the opportunities missed. All those Friday nights in my twenties where I sat in, hoping the phone would ring, but then being too shy to answer it on the rare occasions it did and I could have been out in the world experiencing stuff and meeting people. Admittedly I didn't really have the money to do too much back then, but evenso I should have made an effort.
I went to a gig last night. A music gig. It's not something I do very often, but a friend invited me along and I thought, why not? I had never heard of the band that I was going to see and had no idea what they would be like, but I have to say that they were amazing. They were called
the Go! Team and rather like the Banghra girls from yesterday they were an hilarious life affirming delight. A mixture of geeky looking guitar-playing men and feisty track-suit wearing cool girls all jumping around and shouting and flashing lights and noise and projected images. I got swept along by it and thoroughly enjoyed it, except that it made me feel foolish for all the times that I have denied myself such pleasures because of my rebellious pretence to not like music and my uncomfortable feelings at being in big crowds.
I imagine that I was the only 38 year old man in the crowd who was thinking to himself, "I am a bit like Miranda in the Tempest". Maybe there were others. But I doubt it. It was a real brave new world moment. Having never seen a man (aside from her dad and Caliban if you count him) she comes across one and is bedazzled by him. But you get the feeling that Ferdinand (I think that's who she is impressed by) might well just be ordinary looking, but Miranda is impressed because she's got nothing to compare him with and immediately falls in love. I wouldn't be surprised if when she gets back to civilisation she might rue her hasty decision, but like her I fell in love with "the Go! Team" because from a few crusty old punks they are more or less the only band I have ever seen.
It was as much fun seeing the infectious joy of the performers spread through the massive crowd as we were carried away from our humdrum lives. How could I have left it so long to try stuff like this out? I am a twat, that's why.
So I have decided that I am going to be 21 again. I missed out the first time round by being a fusty fuddy-duddy frightened idiot and so I am going to expand upon my burgeoning mid-life crisis and be 21 properly. I think I'll be 21 for the next 16 months, until I turn 40, when it will be time to grow up and finally act my age (because it's not like I have had a very conventional life for the last 15 years, it's just that I missed out on enjoying being young when I had the chance). I am going to take loads of drugs, go and see bands whose members are half my (actual) age, I'm going to hang around with twenty year olds attempting to speak to them in what I imagine is current street slang (saying stuff like "waaaassssupppp" and "perfick") and I am going to kiss beautiful women on the mouth.
All thanks to the raw, sexual power of pop music (again right up to date on the street terms there), which is the real fountain of youth.
I probably won't, but still it was fun to let my non-existent soul fly tonight. Thanks the Go! Team (and I'm loving that exclamation mark too) for showing me too late what my life could have been. If you are really 21 it's not too late to snap out of it and enjoy life. You can still do it at 38 but you have to accept that you will look a sad idiot. I do accept that and bring it on. Break out the cocaines and pots. I'm thirsty enough to drink three or four tins of drugs.
