facebook, internet

Kudos and Dads

Dads generally get a tough break, they wear dodgy clothes, listen to dodgier music and dance like a cross between a tramp imitating Michael Flatley and a monkey that has been force-fed Ketamine.

However, the one trick that the Dad has had up his sleeve, his top trump, the ace of fucking spades was the fact that his kids weren’t around when he was “cool”. Therefore, he can elaborate wildly about how he was Rotherham’s equivalent to Tony Manero or that women traveled from miles around to have a chance to hop on the back of his moped. Along the way he also pretty much guided, saw live and jammed with most musicians from his era that still have resonance. Not only was he this genre-creating, free-loving renaissance man (don’t forget he managed to forge a steady career in telephone pole engineering during all the LSD-laden creative orgies) he was also somewhat of a bad-ass, regulating on any miscreant whom happened to darken his door.

No matter how unbelievable and out-and-out deluded the tales of Dads were/are, before the internet came into existence they couldn’t really be disproved. Dads could recant debauch tales of how him, Tommy ‘The Face’ McQueen and Bob Riffs (apparently an unofficial band member of the Animals or some other cerebral band) pretty much created the Mod scene without fear of being rumbled as there was no audit trail.

Taking photos just wasn’t really the vibe and everyone was too high to take a decent photo anyway. It was only really uncool people that took photos back then, hence why there is always a photo of said all-conquering Dad in a dodgy jumper, because he had to because it was his Grandma’s birthday or something. Also there weren’t mobiles or interwebs to stay in touch, so people just ghosted in and out of each other’s lives and lived for the moment, hence why you can’t meet any of the more colourful characters of his kaleidoscopic early years. Incidentally, there were also so “on it” that they’re probably dead now anyway (read: retired to Devon).

This lack of documented evidence afforded Dad’s kudos, an element of awe and respect that prevented us from stealing more than a handful of penny sweets, just in case he found out and handed out a bigger can of whoop-ass than that time he took on Andre the Giant and The Boston Strangler in a triple threat death match.

In musical terms also, the fact that Dads around the UK frequently jammed with Beatles in the past gives them the gravitas to dismiss the Horrors as a poor man’s Cramps and to state with authority that Andy Fairweather-Low would walk into any band around these days.

However, the tide it is a changing. These days you can’t even do a silent fart without someone tagging it on facebook or writing a blog about how it smelt.

Whilst Dads above say 40 ish, may have just got away with it, most Dads under 40 should be sweating. Most of them will (if computer literate) be on Facebook or some similar social networking site, opening themselves up to retrospective analysis by their kids.

By the time I’m a Dad (a few key prerequisites are missing in this respect at the mo: girlfriend and/or any form of sexual activity), my whole 20s and 30s will be thoroughly documented online, there won’t be any scope for me to attempt to hide the fact that I was some wishy washy fucker listening to The Feeling and wearing cardigans and skinny ties whilst I glug down Magners on ice from my kids.

Facebook will be like the secret service in Soviet times; kids (the government) will use Facebook (the secret service) to interrogate me (the Dad) and my history (i.e. tagged photos drinking in Whetherspoons, Robson & Jerome songs dedicated to me, wall posts from some dick who works at an accountancy firm including the word “banter”) and realise I’m a fraud. The household I’d built on rock n’ roll would crumble due to the unstable foundations of my coolness, and my kids would no doubt turn out to be knife wielding, smack heads – which on the upside would at least be lucrative.

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