The elderly (Everybody Gonfi Gon)

So Collingwood lost, which is fine, I'm not that worried about it, but it was an interesting night in and I didn't really feel like getting my groove on. I'm mostly just sitting around contemplating the decline of American rap music, there seems to be a lot of songs about clubs and licking lollipops and Justin Timberlake somehow seems to be the blackest man in music. I can't be doing with all the references to bitches and hos, it just reminds me of this girl I went to school with - not that she was any of those derogatory terms, certainly not - but there were two kids in our English class one day who, during silent time, had managed to find a pile of Sports Illustrateds and, I don't know, People Magazine or whatever the 1994 equivalent of Alpha was (maybe Inside Sport?) - to cut a long story short, they were simply looking at the swimsuit editions and the pin ups, and commenting on various bits of the female anatomy and where they would stick various bits of their anatomy, Beavis and Butthead style, when this girl has broken silent reading with the classless but still quite poetic arrow in their direction "I guess that's what happens when you can't get a fuck" - no, it's not Dorian Gray for wit and wisdom, but in it's own way it's quite poetic, and no, one of those two boys wasn't me learning a valuable lesson, I was up the back minding my own business reading Wisconsin Death Trip. I think that girl could probably have sorted out the rampant sexism in black American rap quite quickly. Incidentally, I'm also very proud of my book case, as when I went to get Wisconsin Death Trip off the shelf to get some research material, I noticed Flying High by Alisa Camplin is next to the "Wit and Wisdom Of Ghandi" - my moving men have the best sense of humour...

In 1994, for what it's worth, I didn't have a lot of friends. I'm a bit like Norm from Cheers theory on Caspar The Friendly Ghost in terms of how sometimes I have friends then other times I don't. However, I was quite young...christ was I young. Nobody could tell me about the state of music industry in their day or in my day bar I was on the button - Everybody Gonfi Gon by Two Cowboys? I was certainly Gonfi Gonning let me tell you. Morning and night, nothing but Gonfi Gonning. As opposed to Murray Tregonning, the sound effects guy on Hey Hey. Anyway, the point is, christ I was young. To emphasise just how young but also responsible - caught somewhere between a boy and man as it were (thankyou Kid Rock) - we all were, my school used to send us off as "leaders in the community" (in which case, the community was in massive trouble) to go and visit the elderly in old folks homes. This was quite the burdensome task for young me, not least because I didn't have the social compass or thirst for local pride that I have now - and because obviously I was completely embarrassed at seing old people in that state. I mean, the last thing I'd want if I (god forbid) wind up in a home is for some 16 year old to come and ask me how my day was. There was this girl at my school though, called Renee I think, who was really into it, and she would sit in the library and actually come up with questions for the old people for us all to read off cards (and I was the one with no friends?) while I would do constructive things like stand with a yellow jacket on waiting for the bus doing my best sulky teenager impression. One time when were standing outside with paintbrushes (I think we attended the old folks painting class, thank god it wasn't nude model day) she had a massive chip at me for my attitude, saying something like "Yeah, well you should just have STAYED AT HOME! Old people have the right to enjoy themselves!" - constructing arguments was never Renees strong point, and what more could you want after a lifetime of toil than Renee mixing paints for you, but she was rightly indignant I guess, after all, I was a pretty miserable bastard...that said, she didn't apply the same righteous indignation to people who, oh I don't know, take drugs and have little sleeps with no shirt on on the school lawn? I guess people have the right to enjoy themselves...

Anyway, I wasn't the best person to go and visit the elderly - especially as one day I found the pool room and spent most of my time hiding and playing pool (obviously, as there was a pool table - playing darts would have been dumb) and listening to The Grid on my walkman. Renee would just have had me singing Three Pockets In My Overalls anyway. One day though, to combat my pool playing, they paired us up - for the sake of the story, it would be excellent if me and Renee hung out, Captain and Tenille style - and I got paired with this kid called Casey who was the only kid I could ever beat in running races. So it was obviously a bit of a dream team for the poor guy we had to go and visit. As it turned out, the poor old bastard didn't have any legs, so he was stuck in bed, and in the exaggarated version of the story I tell sometimes he was in his underpants having a cheeky fiddle (which is massively untrue, and a slur on his character - he was just scratching). Even I must admit, I felt really bad for him - mostly because he was trying to catch a bit of Midday with Ray Martin and then in came the conversational equivalent of The Blakeney Twins and he had to turn it off before Jeannie Little came on. Naturally, the conversation was pretty muted, and I was hardly going to suggest to him we started Gonfi Gonning. I'm not a great conversationalist to begin with, and the old bloke, he was certainly not doing any lifting. So into the void strode Big Casey, who broke the silence fine style with a cheery "so, mate...get out much?" - between the lack of legs, and the sparse possessions in the battlers room, I was pretty sure the answer was no. So now I felt even worse for him, as he was plainly resisting the urge to kill us both with whatever spirit he had left, so I did the only thing I could...I went and found Renee and got her to spread her own brand of cheer...

The reason I've been thinking about all of this is because I'm about to turn 30, and by AFL standards, that makes me a pensioner and probably entitled to a home visit from Renee. The fact I can remember individual members of Bananarama doesn't seem to cut it with the kids today, and obviously I'm too old for Alix in the Mercury with her coffee and busy lifestyle eating wild boars in Asterix books. To be honest, I'm getting massively too old for places like Isobar and people who can individually recognise members of Operator Please. This cheeky young upstart at work has started asking me about the songs I hear on nine minutes of the 90s like I'm his tour guide to a past universe...mind, he doesn't even know who Boonie is, so he's just thick...that said, I like my vast range of experiences and references, and I certainly don't fancy another crack at being 18. In fact, just the other week, I felt much better about 29, I felt like a canny old fox rather than a knackered old Rocca - I was standing at the little taxi rank across from Knopwoods (I'll get to that place soon) that normally has a queue that runs up the street for ages and then has a massive dispute about whether the rank starts from the top of the street or the bottom of the street. Luckily, my years of Hobart experience told me that with two couples and me waiting for a taxi, some crafty work on my behalf would ensure that no matter what happened, I would get a taxi. So, I went up to the first couple and politely enquired where the taxi queue started - they were at the bottom of the hill, and naturally said it started at the bottom of the hill, making them kings of the hill (too many hills in that sentence, I need a sherpa). With the speed for which I've never been famous, I had a quiet word in the ears of the second couple, a girl in a Presets T-shirt isn't going to be hard to outfox is she, and asked them where the taxi queue began, and they said, quite obviously, at the top of the hill. So with my accumulated Hobart wisdom, I pointed out (can you point it out quickly I know you are thinking) to them the first couple had said it started...well, this resulted in quite the Mercury disapproved punch up between the two couples, with several variations of insult on the girls sexual activities, and while they were punching on, I got in and got into the taxi ahead of both of them...and was rewarded with a Sudanese taxi driver who got lost trying to find the Southern Outlet...

Still, at least when Renee comes to visit, I'll remember to put some pants on...