Now that I'm officially part of the generation that can't tell the difference between adolescent rappers Lil' Bow Wow and Lil' Romeo, I'm not feeling bad about it at all.
Naturally, all three of my boys sneer at me for my apparent "cluelessness." Because I don't understand the appeal of wearing baggy pants that threaten to slip below the waist with every cough, my opinion hasn't meant anything to them in a long time.
Even my archaic use of the word "cool" betrays me as someone not to be taken seriously. "Cool" is worse than "groovy," according to one of my 11-year-old twins. When will I learn that everything in the world that matters is either "hard" or "beasty"?
My 13-year-old says "SpongeBob SquarePants" is a worthy successor to that revered golden oldie "Ren & Stimpy," the one cartoon, in theory, my wife never allowed them to watch after school. I saw "SpongeBob SquarePants" for the first time about a month ago; it made absolutely no sense to me.
As someone who grew up reading reprints of George Herriman's brilliant but surreal "Krazy Kat" comic strips from the 1920s, I'm perfectly capable of appreciating abstract and nondiscursive narratives. But cartoons like "SpongeBob SquarePants" seem to be of another order of magnitude. Only brains used to the quantum leaps in logic required to play video games for hours uninterrupted are going to find the concept of a talking kitchen sponge either viable or interesting.
But it's a boy's world in the Norman household, a reality my wife has made a very grumpy peace with. Clean and dirty clothes cover the boys' bedroom floors at all times. Old and discarded Pokeman cards have taken on the ubiquity of confetti over the years. The radios are always blasting whether the boys are in their rooms or not.
Posters of tattooed NBA millionaires and professional wrestlers cover plaster cracked and broken by incessant ball bouncing. Stuffed animals and sports trophies stand together like sentries overlooking desks and book cases.
As long as they maintain excellent grades and stay out of trouble, I can live with any aesthetic disaster three boys going through various stages of puberty represent. Things are, to use a perfectly unacceptable word, usually "cool" until they get it in their heads to remind me how "behind the times" I supposedly am.
"Dad, look at this guy," my oldest boy said pointing to either Lil' Romeo or Lil' Bow Wow on a video countdown show a few days ago. "He thinks he's so hard, but he isn't. He's weak." Jeremy may be a local soccer legend, but until he brings home a multimillion-dollar contract to promote his own Nike sneaker, he's just talking. I reminded him of this cruel fact. He shook his head indulgently, as if such a thing were only a day or two away.
He returned to mocking the pint-sized rapper who appeared to have a mean jump shot in a video that pitted him against several NBA players. I chalked up Jeremy's griping to a case of adolescent envy until I noticed what he was wearing. Both my son and the rapper were dressed similarly, though not identically.
Whoever the rapper was, Jeremy had modeled himself on him for some time. Now he was going about the psychologically necessary duty of "dismantling" his rival. It was a more interesting bit of rebellion than anything I'd managed at his age. I took an ironic satisfaction in it, but I didn't show it.
Yesterday morning at the bus stop, Jeremy was back to the "normality" that fuels the narcissism of the teen years. "Hey, Dad," he said as his school bus rolled up. "I need a pair of Iversons -- they're so hard."
Even I know that "Air Jordans" are passe among discriminating conformists, replaced by shoes bearing the name of the 76ers' Allen Iverson. I told my son to get a part-time job like I did when I was his age. He smirked. "That's the old way of doing things," he said before jumping on the bus.
That's one lucky kid, I thought as his bus drove off. Thanks to his mom's unconditional love, he's going to end up with the sneakers he wants anyway without ever lifting a finger. Even back in my day, that would've been the textbook definition of cool.
Tony Norman's e-mail address is: tnorman@post-gazette.com
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