i-want-more

Don’t look back on an empty feeling

Soundtrack: Grand Prix by Teenage Fanclub

I was a late convert to the Fannies. It’s only in recent years that I’ve found them bearable. When I look back, I think it was owing to the music press hype that surrounded them at the time. That, and also the annoying bunch of try-hards at my sixth-form college that sang their praises so loudly.

I spent three years doing my A-levels at a college in Exeter. Having been to a comprehensive that imagined itself a strict grammar (belligerent ghouls run Devonshire schools), the relaxed environs of college were like a narcotic. On that point, the common room was busted about once a fortnight for drugs. Not that I’ve ever been one for illicit substances.

I met some wonderful people at the college, but there were a large number of total assholes. During my second year, four co-students were killed in a car crash, including the irrepressible Gabs Ropschitz. He was in possession of my first copy of The Cramps live mini-album Smell of Female when he died (my pal Richie Rich had lent it to him without my knowledge). I replaced the record at a fair a few years later. Every time I take that record out of the box to play it now, I think of Gabs and what a bloody waste it is that he didn’t make it past 19.

There was also a Floppy-haired boy who I can’t contact anymore (his missus won’t allow it). He ended up living with a quite-famous music journalist in Brighton (hint) and while there fielded phone calls from all sorts of people, including Mrs Cobain. There was also his pal from down the road, The Boy who would be King, who was very well-to-do but had gotten chucked out of a minor public school for acting the twat. And I can’t miss out How far to Hitchin. He was a friend for the full three years and was one of the most talented actors I have ever had the pleasure to know. All of these people have long since disappeared from my address books and Christmas card lists, which is a pity, but that's the way it goes.

There’s something about September that makes me lapse into these memories. Perhaps it’s something to do with the new academic year – on the bus to the station in the mornings, I see children all done up in their over-sized uniforms and I remember what it was like to be a teenager, full of rage about nothing. These past four years I have been observing a group of teenage girls going to school on the bus – watched them fall out with each other, fall in with new people, fall out with the new people, and so on.

I’m not sure how I imagined my adult life would be at that age, or even if I gave it a thought. I’ve a vague recollection that I reckoned that I wouldn’t make old bones, which is preposterous really. Now I’m quite the grande dame and I wonder what kids on the bus think of me.

Who am I kidding. I am invisible to them. To be honest - I like that.

posted by deafdisco @ 4:31 am