Studiously Uncool (6)

There will be probably another post coming on Mad Men later today but I wanted to deal with some personal disclosure before that.



When I was in high school, the song below was a big hit. It became an anthem for the guys I knew and the bands that played at our dances all learned to play it. Any time itw as played, the guys all stood up on their chairs and sang along shaking their fists in the air.

I hated the song; it came to represent everything I was opposed to in those years. I still don't like it even now.



Now, I have to admit that my hatred blinded me a bit. As heavy metal songs go, which isn't saying much, it's actually pretty adventurous rhythmically. And even though neither the singer nor the players  know how to swing you can tell they are trying. The singer also has a nice, rather soulful, voice, which makes it a bit of a shame that he wasted his talent on this crap.

The strongest quality of the song is the thing that made me hate it most. The lyrics are pretty good—they represent a certain kind of life honestly and accurately. And that, I realize now, is why I hated it. They represented a life that I was just vaguely beginning to realize I didn't want for myself. Every time I heard it—and I heard it thousands of times—I got to be a little more sure that I did not want the culture I was about to inherit.

I grew up, as I've said before, in a mill town. There were five paper mills operating when I was a kid. The town is down to three now and those are heavily automated. The jobs that were my friends only hope for reasonable employment in their home town were rapidly disappearing even then  and my friends knew that when we were still in school together. That creates a certain kind of thinking and Thin Lizzy present a pretty accurate portrait of how the guys who were my friends in high school thought.

I was an upper-middle class kid in a working class town. If anyone wants to hate me for that they can go right ahead because I'm used to it. I was one of just seven kids from my graduating class of more than 300 (not all of whom really graduated) to go on to university.

The first year I went to CEGEP, I still would go out with my old school friends but I became less and less interested in what they were doing. And I started to see them less often.

They took it badly and I got a lot of "you think you're too good for us" in response. An entire campaign was begun to bring me back into the fold, to stop me from getting ideas above my station. My family even joined in.

And I decided to put my foot down. Like Don Draper in the episode I will write about later today, I though, "My life only goes forward." And I cut them off completely.

I agree completely Don Draper on this point. Authenticity means nothing to me. I ditched my authentic roots as fast as I could and, like Don Draper, I hurt my friends and family in order to do so. I wish they hadn't been hurt but there was no reason they had to make it a matter to get hurt over. I have no regrets about nor apologies to make about what I did. In fact, I recommend it to others. Take a good look at the culture you come from. If it is heavily invested in any kind of commitment to authenticity do yourself a favour and start planning your escape right now.

If you are joining me here, this series starts here.

The next post in the series is here.