Lever Fancies Björk!

Lip Service by Chris Lever (Last Hours #16)

This is Uncool
Adj. Slang
Not in accord with the standards or mores of a specified group.

This is a Carrie Bradshaw column. Sex and the City still on in the background, a parting hypothesis perturbs: ‘Maybe you’ve got to let go of who you are; to become, who you’re going to be?” Albeit with the aid of a Jimmy Choo, she hit the nail on its head.

I am inherently uncool.

I distrust people who dismiss their past’s validity for the sake of posturing in the present. Every time you deny a part of your past as uncool, a little part of you dies. I endeavour to stay consistent: on a cliff-top plateau, watching the waves of fashion crash down on the souls below. I wear a lot of plain clothes and cashmere jumpers. If it’s cheap, comfortable, and fits; I’ll wear it. If I’m desperate enough, I’d turn my girlfriend’s ‘Donnas’ t-shirt inside out and wear it too, Edd.

Cool people never get that desperate.

Our parents are cool. Almost all have a steady job; and all, at least one child. They have already achieved everything we’re so afraid of doing ourselves. The love and support, my parents gave me when I was growing, afforded me a lot of spare time. While they were preoccupied with raising me, I whiled my days away with uncool obsessions. When most of my peers were collecting football stickers, I was watching Dominick Diamond and Dexter Fletcher on ‘GamesMaster’, transcribing Sir Patrick Moore’s cheats into the ‘Sega News’ zine my friends and I were making at the time. I also became a devoted x-phile, curating my own secret dossier of episode synopses.

In the summer holidays I would spend a lot of that spare time with my Grandad; flocking terrain for Warhammer 40K, and sampling his record collection. One afternoon, upon collecting me after work I treated my mother to the impromptu rendition of ‘Johnny Be Good’ I rehearsed earlier that day. A couple of days later, after one of our frequent jaunts to Woodbridge - to stroll beside the Tide Mill, and complete the activity sheets in the Town museum - I bought a tape of Aswad’s ‘Warriors’ from the bargain bin in Woolworths. Fuelled by sweets and Kia-Ora, I listened to it all afternoon; repeatedly rewinding to write down the lyrics.

After spending a couple of summers home-alone - watching hours of MTV (US, before it became MTV Europe and Ireland) breaking only to eat sandwiches for lunch, an Supernoodles for high-tea - my parents bought me my first CD player. The first album proper I ever bought was ‘Melancholy and The Infinite Sadness’ by The Smashing Pumpkins. I remember how excited I was, at the opportunity to finally cross-reference the lyrics of ‘Bullets With Butterfly Wings’ with the ones I previously transcribed from a version I taped off the radio. Whilst I still regard this anecdote as indicative of relative cool I possessed in the past, when juxtaposed with the two CDs I bought before it, one can instantly observe, how inherently uncool I was. Nonetheless, I am not ashamed to confess: my first compilation was ‘Now 28’ and the first CD I ever owned, will always be MN8’s ‘I’ve Got a Little Something for Ya!’ A family friend my age, was obsessed with Michael Jackson at the time. Her bedroom door wallpapered with his image, which she would cut out of the National Enquirer, and every weekly rag he was featured in.

My parents eventually let me put posters on my walls; but only if they were laminated. The first space worthy of this privilege was reserved for the Spice Girls. Alongside every fourteen-year-old fanatic, I had all their CDs, and would regularly taunt my friend Tom, that Sporty was considerably more attractive than Posh. Unlike Tom, I never bought Smash Hits - which would explain the menagerie of stickers, posters and other wank paraphernalia adorning his walls - but recall the jubilation at beating him to that exclusive Pepsi single ‘Step To Me’; collecting my forty ring-pulls first! If you’re cool, I doubt I’ll be seeing you at their reunion.

My parents let me go to gigs.

The first I ever went, to was Alisha’s Attic, at the Ipswich Corn Exchange. Smash Hits brought this momentous occasion to Tom’s attention, as a plan hastily unfurled in ‘double History’. One of my art teachers was there too, keeping an eye on us from the balcony seats, as we drank lemonade with the cool kids frequenting the floor. Their self-titled album is amazing. In fact, it’s one of the last four I’ve listened to; counting down the cases on my CD player as follows: The Leif Ericsson, the first mix of an acoustic punk record I’m going to release, Acid Mother’s Temple, and…Alisha’a Attic. I remember catching them with a ciggie before their encore, and an inclination towards the alternative forming within me; albeit towards a couple of fag-hag blonde redheads perceived as the edgiest monster Smash Hits could have ever spawned.

Oh, how we push to transcend the limitations of our youth! How we race to be cool! Listening to the ‘Men In Black’ single at home, before taking the bus to drink stolen brown ale in the park with our bros! By the time B*Witched rolled into town - the following year - some of my cooler mates pissed on their limo.

I used to like Limp Bizkit! And Korn! You’ll never hear me deny it. Interviewed by The Evening Star whilst attending an exclusive preview of the ‘Issues’ album I was, and still have the cutting to prove it. We were given party bags and ‘popkorn’! Why would I seek to devalue any of those feelings that strangely made sense at the time? Puberty is embarrassing enough in itself; but to deny past tense in perpetual pursuit of what's presently cool, prevents the realisation of who you have become. Everyone has musical passions perceived as uncool; ‘skeletons’ in our closet-mindedness. I was ridiculed at school once: expressing an interest in a Björk biography, leading, in turn, to the class bully crying out ‘Lever fancies Björk!’, as our teacher entered the room. Needless to say, he had never heard of her, and did little to quell the furore that followed, at my expense. Ten consistent years later, that fancy was finally realised; I thought, as she took to the stage, at Glastonbury 2007.

I don't want to admit it, but when I’m hung-over, only Nora Jones and a sweet cup of tea have the potential to make me feel myself again. I know Jon from Captain Everything shares the sentiment somewhat further. When I think of how much I love Captain Everything! I cannot help but contemplate: is it because they’re cool, or so blatantly uncool? After all, they openly admit there’s nothing better than playing ‘Risk’ – The Classic Game of World Domination. I’m not a fan myself, and abhor playing Monopoly, but if you wannabe my lover, you’ve gotta get ‘Dreamphone’ out once in a while! When it comes to ‘bored’ games, I’ve played them all. I had a childhood, after all. Looking back on it as an adult, I can say with conviction, that ‘I wasn’t in such a hurry to get here’. Never stopping to consider what would tarnish my track-record, I eventually grew, into the person I was destined to be.

Can all the cool, kids of today; honestly say the same?

Chris Lever

End Notes:

Last Hours is relatively uncool too. Whilst researching this column I received a paradigmatic txt from Edd:

“Dude, I still listen to Michael Jackson, thought Captain Planet was cool as a kid and wanted to be a member of East 17.”

Nuff said.

The bespoke illustration for this column was crafted by the lovely Matilda Huang