COULD someone please help me up off the floor?
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No, on second thoughts, better just leave me here until we can all be sure those photos have well and truly left the building.
You see, I just came across a picture of 1990s rap music star Coolio.
You remember him – he was the musician responsible for the smash hit Gangsta’s Paradise, and the first time I could listen to music from the rap genre without insisting that rap should start with the letter C.
At the time Coolio toured the world doing performances and chat show interviews, which invariably focused heavily on his crazy hair styles and what were described as bullet-proof braids.
Unfortunately, they are bullet proof no more, and all I want to say is, “Mate, are you serious?”
Just 20 years down the track and the bloke is basically bald, but the remaining thin strips of hair on each side of his head have been still braided in what appears to be a desperate attempt to hold on to his image and his past glories.
I reckon his hair looks pretty darn ridiculous, but I suppose it is no more ridiculous that what a lot of us blokes get up to as the years start to slip by us in a seemingly never-ending stream.
We drive fast cars, get back into playing sports, dress like young fools, try to connect with young women before being deservedly slapped down as try-hards from the stone age, and generally lose all sense of reality – all in an effort to recreate a time in our lives when we felt energetic and in control.
I suppose it is not surprising.
There are times in your life when you are strong, energetic, enthusiastic and invincible, when you want to scream out to the world, “We feel too strong to battle mere mortals, bring us giants.”
Contrast that teenage attitude and hope with the depressed, downbeat attitude of a man in his latter years or even later middle life, after decades of having every element of hope, power and energy stripped away from him.
Forget about battling giants or even mere mortals then, all he wants is a comfortable chair to sit in, and if he has to face any sort of a battle, he would rather it be simply picking on something small and feeble.
Is it any wonder he wants to spend much of his life escaping into the so-called glory days with its limitless possibilities and potential, before mortgages and bills, before the stress of work and deadlines created sleepless nights, before marital problems and the responsibilities of parenthood led to peptic ulcers?
Is it surprising the past with its fun, its achievements, and its friends are more welcoming and pleasant places than the past, as illustrated in the Bruce Springsteen hit Glory Days?
So Coolio, you might look ridiculous, but I’m not laughing at you.
I’m crying with you.