Paaa...rty

Unfortunately accompanying parents to a party is not a Paaaa...rty, allegedly. This is old people's territory. This old people's laughter. This old people being old.


Teenagers want 'old school' rock trapped in a time warp when the groovers and shakers who once cut discs and danced to the midnight air are solely on celluloid... looking young... damn it. If they saw these celluloid facses now, they would have wrinkles like mine, chins as numerous as mine, bags under eyes that could shop at tesco like mine, a paunch like mine to rest a beer on probably. They would be condemned, but on celluloid they are not only condoned they are celebrated.


I use to cut shapes with the best of them. Apparently cutting shapes is hip version of navel gazing to New Order. I could do that -and ladies and gentlemen, the award for best Navel Gazing in Video goes to....

Nowadays an old disc may be cool, but slipping a disc is a risk. Perhaps my teenagers are being caring and considerate that the old fella is one tango away from hospital and they need to think where the next black Goth-rock T-shirt is coming from.

So today as we do things together as a family, I call it party, my pair of teenagers call sitting down. Teenagers that would-be happy" children if I respected their exclusion zone. I do not respect the exclusion zone because I can. I am at a Party, we are at a party, the operative word is party, let us party.

Somewhere in the ether this translates at Dad Pryce begging Teenager Pryce to cut shapes and teenager Pryce is cutting the air with a sharp stare and a look. I am recognising slowly this Look as "You are not my Father because my father would be considerate".

Rock on. I cut shapes alone amonst the Tango-ers. I am hip going on hip replacement. A circle forms a la America's best dance crew. Is there to be a Dad-on-Dad Dance off. I feel a challenger coming through the masses of playing it safe Tango/ers , I feel he's readying Jiggywithit while I am a ready to shake my tail feather. Sadly I am more alone than Marlene on the wall. Sharp staring is back in fashion apparently, aswell as my new blushing red and it does not match my pants. The middle aged "in crowd" appear to share my daughter's opinion. The middle aged crowd are conditioned to behave to a teenage view of the world, to behave as if old and being old is not having lots of fun. Middling fun once in blue moon is supposed to be my norm. I am not only a disgrace to all things paternal, but to all things middle aged. I am in a void of my own making.

I retreat after a last humiliating "I don't care stand" that leaves little to my dignity as a fellow adult, with an internal voice saying at least, they did not laugh....aloud.... well did not laugh in my face .....much.

So today we talk post dance off with myself, about things my teenagers say are not so good about me. Damning the evidence, I listen but make no promises, I have memories of how to party and I wish to grow old slowly.

I used to be cool..

There was a time we held hands, a time when they sat on my shoulders and they could box my ears and rub my head. Any brusing was worth it. There was a time they wore colours brighter than a rainbow. And now in a twinkle of a peer group's downcast eye, they fade to Goth.

There was a time long ago when I could choose my own wardrobe without fear of guffaws, smirks, giggles or embarrassment. Guffaws collapse to pouting if they, my teenagers, are informed that they were expected to escort me to the shops. Its quid pro quo if I escort them to the disco, they escort me to the shops. They are not happy as they walk and pout.

The Times they are changing to the tune of a chemical clock.

I may have been wrong to think that hip hop could be mastered, but by darn I could still bobby dazzle to the Abba tribute. Pass the tank top, sister.


So was it my pretend "John Travolta Pulp Fiction" dancing, when your friend thought I was not entering into the spirit of being a chaperon at a chaperoned party. Sadly failing to do my duty as a Dad, which was to be a wall flower. There should have been a sign "This is a sregreated area", Old people in the sad area to the left, cool fun-loving kids access all areas. Daughters reminding parents that Dad and sad rhyme and this is a clue to my future life. I should have been happy with a nominated-Driver orange juice and reconciled to hiding by a wall with poor lighting. Instead I cruelly subjected you and your friends to Disco moves that graced many a dancefloor when Pacman was cutting edge. I broke the "pass" laws.

Here I was cruelly dismissed, as I was equally sure that I could still cut it, cutting shapes with the best of them. I had blossomed as a Disco King to re-take his throne, well perhaps I should face the reality of my exaggeration, I blossomed as a Disco Prince with royal parents unknown, well Disco first cousin and fifth in line to the throne, fifth in line and if there is a Black Plague and the powers-that-be recognised a tryst with a eighteenth century lady-in-waiting, that is. Disco King may have been an exaggeration in hindsight, and probably a damn lie in 1980's as well. Disco-distant-relevant-to-the-queen was not a probably pretty sight back then, without alcohol, and is definitely a not quite pretty sight now, with or without alcohol . The mind play tricks on the older orange juiced mind. I think I am ripping up the form book and unwittingly ripping up respect in the adult-child relationship.

I have become an embarassment to all things born the wrong side of 1997. Apparently its not only my double chin that is telling them and me that I am growing old. My teenagers are telling me by the use of upcast thrown eyes. It is now my fashion sense that is so uncool I could substitute for a fridge.
Life is changing as my careful clinging to my youth is being critiqued. My fashion is compared to tramps. My fashion rests on Classic T-shirts and baggy shorts that are now deemed inappropriate, when apparently I should be wearing a cardigan and taking a dog for a walk. And we do not even have a dog. Being rock'n'roll is for them and not me.

Tough, I admit without care I do not care if I am a leper amongst the fashion streets of trouser-wearers, if this means trousers are at half mast, half-heartily clinging to a buttock allowing an unfetching taste in underwear to be known to the outside world. Nowadays I could sadly but accurately describe teenage trousers as low cut, where a generation ago it was dresses. I think my generation is winning hands down on this 'low cut' fashion style.

And so in a moment of middle-aged realism, I realise I am sane, my underwear, my generation's underwear is under my trousers, our trousers. I am the one eyed man in the land of the blind. I must be strong and loyal to my former 100% cotton T-shirts, that are now approximately 80% cotton and 20% air ventilated. They may see my vest but not my pants. The battle of the T-shirt must be won for the sake of holy 80's bands.

I will dance, I will wear denim and damn the disgrace. No mirrors please. No Mobile phone camera work please.
Mad and Dad rhymes too.

Disco by any other name

My daughter announced she had a love of dance and wanted to spend my hard earned cash dancing. Later this new love of dance was proven to be that her friends were doing it, so loving dancing appears to have morphed from her idea of loving to "keeping friends". I was happy, she was making friends, she would get exercise, she could be the next Olivia Newton John and I know I am old by virtue of a namecheck.

Dancing was and is good, and I must admit that I used to cut a few shapes back in the day .......and at the end of this dancing masterclass there was to be Spectacular in a proper theatre.

Expensive tickets were bought by a sold-out crowd of parents, aunts, and third cousins that jockeyed for seats in the free for all seating arrangements of the proper amateur theatre experience, but at least the seating was on a slope. It was a crowd that taught me a new lesson in evolutionary theory. Evolution of Man and survival of the fittest rested on who had the pointiest elbow. And beware grannies bearing umbrellas and false teeth smiles.

I was a newby lost in with the "Vets" ~ The Regulars with older children that had their phase of loving dance, they had specially darned scarves evenly distributed to mark their claim for the first three rows. Obviously their holiday towel training had gone well. So we were forced to the rear rows and thanked the Lord that we had pointily elbowed our way out of the seat with a panoramic view of a column, we had elbows and knew how to use it. We had been saved from "audio only" ticket that would have singled us out as he who is the one called nerd, son of nerd, son of the geek.

Game on after 15 minutes of waiting and watching the scarf with jealousy, just in case there was a chance of pinzer action and a taking of the lowgrounds. But no curtains were raised and the Regulars miraculosly appeared at the last minute to take the seats draped in the honour guard of the Scarf.

On they came, the dancers......danced...well I say danced...well, no, actually ...on they skipped.... there was to be fair a bizarre twirl of a body enhanced by a trailing scarf that probably had released a half a dozen seats in its hey day.... after such exertions the dancing apparently took on the form of sitting on the floor..... then a sitting on a magic sofa...a lounging about on the sofa that appeared to be based on the young dancers, or perhaps correctly, the sitters posed as in artistic poses, but I could be wrong...the sofa went to far worlds where modern dance appeared to have replaced all forms of communication... in the name of God, this was Modern Dance that bar for a daughter on stage to make me feel duty bound to sit and clap and stay put and overcome a certain fear and loathing, they had inflicted upon me Modern Dance. Was I warned, was there a note on the ticket ~Warning Modern Dance may be boring ~ I would have asked for my money back... but damn it, I ask you ...I looked on....I spit in the face of peer group pressure to clap....skipping is not difficult....I could have done it ~skipping~ and without ten weeks of training, and what did we pay for again....although admittedly if I had actually skipped I probably would have regretted the swollen knees tomorrow. I am growing old. I duly clapped. I have learned that love is clapping Modern Dance when your daughter is skipping and twirling a scarf.

And in all this there was a certainly fatherly pride that as skipping goes my daughter's skipping had a grace, a physical eloquence that any comparisons to heffalumps were safely avoided. It is a strange quirk of fatherhood that unholy of unholies things that got ganders up further than absolutely necessary in former times, those rants I entered into at drop of a hat over one or several beers in single-dom pubs are now condoned and not condemned. I am maturing, but is it fast enough to withstand the coming teenage storm.

This is still, at least, sub thirteen behaviour... we await when she wants to go proper nightclub dancing and I may yearn for the easy applause of seeing my daughter skip across a stage.