Guns Attract Monsters

Samhain tomorrow for us, for myself a new year. This post carries on from my previous one by way of Tal's choice of fancy dress costume. He wanted to be Party Poison from the Killjoys, a.k.a. Gerrard Way from My Chemical Romance, currently his big obsession during 'song time'.

So he has his billy bones shirt, badges, bandana, MCR holster and lazer gun, spider wellies and skull legging. Snips and I both joined in with Killjoy variants of our own but Tal stole the show as the leader.






I was so proud I entered him into the MCR costume competition under the name Flashback Boy. Just to prove that Tal is genuinely into the Killjoys and the Na Na Na video, here he is with his intro to the vid.



Now that's some vicarious rocking!

* Guns Attract Monsters, by the way, was something Tal said that I thought qualified for a band name, a graphic novel and a film, all in one.

All hail the lone goth.

It's that time again... you know, late thirties. I feel like I'm fighting the mid life crisis but really I think it's fighting an urge for another reality.

I heard from QI elves that we don't change our temperament as we get older; the fool we were at eight is the fool we will be at eighty. Which must mean that the 'mid-life crisis' we experience or rail against in our mid life is merely a change of context for something we have been battling against throughout our lives. Fighting the sense of complacency. Coming to terms with a sense of self and developing self expression.

Railing against normality seems so much more natural and easy for youth, when stupid fashion makes some kind of sense. Attempting to get to grips with this strange idea that we should be 'grown up' by now, that we should have put aside childish things, is far more difficult to shake off once you are embedded in the responsibility of real life.

Yet, here I am as a near 40 year old with little sign of becoming any more mature. Is it a by product of my generation, coddled from the harsh realities and austerities and inebriated with media distractions, or is it just me never really growing up?

I use the term 'mid life crisis' jokingly, as I don't really buy in to such a definition. It seems to me to be more like an alternate reality, an idealised version of ones own psyche just out of reach and barely understood. A version of one's self where confidence and extroversion is maximised as a conduit for everything we like and find cool about the world. It draws us on, tempered only by common sense and feedback. I think it is this avatar that I have been dealing with, which leads me to now question my instinctive sense of self and how it differs from reality.

Anecdote: It was a cold, morning and I was waiting for the bus to work along with other dour faced commuters and school kids, when along comes some very youthful chap who had elected to go about his normal day in the manner of a 'goth'. He was platform booted, chained, black fabric, arms bands, studs and attitude; all of which would have been startling enough to see on the school bus, without the fact that he was wearing a girl's coat. Sure, he had removed the laces and corset bands, and clearly imagined himself armed and dangerous, stepping from the Matrix, but it was clearly a girl's coat. He didn't care. That takes some 'cojones'. Perhaps in a darkened nightclub his garb would have made a contextual sense, but surrounded by laughing 9 year olds and still managing to bop ones head to Korn takes some doing. All hail the lone goth.

I have always been an odd bean. When I was very young I wore a faux-leather coat, wellies and a milkman's hat. I carried a toy luger. I didn't take them off no matter how hot it become in Summer. Only looking back can I imagine what my parents must have thought, surely I was dressing up as some kind of innocent toddler version of a Nazi gestapo officer?

As a teenager, having ventured out for Art College at 16, I would wear a fedora, a long coat and two-tone shoes as a kind of de facto uniform. I wanted to be easily recognised as 'that guy with the hat'. Which I was for a while but I can't really tell if that was a good thing or not. Just another affectation of youth and the need to define one's self from the crowd. Where others sought to join in, fit in and get along, I actively loathed any such mainstream but as a student I never went far enough.

If your in fashion, music, film or celebrity you can justify any kind of oddity but as a middle aged, middle manager it becomes more difficult, especially outside of London.

I now wear a suit for work and in my private life I wear army surplus but neither of those goes far enough. Neither really match up to the avatar, the ideal from that alternate reality.

I have in my wardrobe some white leather hand made spats but dare I wear them? During the normal working day I wear a chain fob for my watch, a waistcoat and a derby hat. I am halfway to the weird world that my brain is living in. If I'm going to do smart I want to wear two tone shoes, bespoke tailoring, Edwardian style's, spats, a wide brim fedora.

At home I wear my army surplus. American army boots, a Dutch army jacket with BSG arm patch. Again I am half way into the other world. Not quite fit for this one and not bold enough for the other. I am imagining myself wearing kick-ass motocross boots, flying hat with goggles.

Yet, despite my wild idea of fashion I am sane enough to know that I would not look good if were to give in to all these flights of fancy. I would be as cool as a goth on a school bus. Sorry kid, for all your kudos, you just went a little too far out of context.

Every so often something comes along and wakes up the urge to go a bit mental, a calling from that place. With the new My Chemical Romance album I felt, for no known reason, that I should buy those huge boots, dye my hair, get a tattoo. It's kind of a guilty pleasure. A little embarrassing.

Perhaps this is where the avatar from the other world comes in. Is it here to remind me of the things I never did? The other paths, the other choices? I never did join a band, dye my hair, get a tattoo, rip my clothes. Why not?

I think fundamentally I was never that fussed. I could never commit to any single genre or style, any single design ethic. The dream of touring is one thing but I think being with my wife and boy is my pleasure. It is something I can become effortlessly passionate about. A nice cup of tea and a sit down, chatting about any old thing. To grow old and watch my boy grow up.

Perhaps it is because my boy likes the My Chemical Romance vid as much as me, that I can allow him the chance to make that choice. He has plenty of time to rock out. Until I get a reason to become the avatar I shall be happy enough in my present state. Just weird enough, one hopes, to be interesting.