Old People Now Come With Tracksuits and Sneakers

You think we are trying to be cool but we invented tracksuits and sneakers, you little bastards.

I looked at myself in the mirror the other day. It was a mistake.

It isn’t totally up there with the worst times I have seen myself dualistically.

Which, by the way, are as follows:

1.) I filmed myself running

I made the mistake of reading about running ‘form’.

I have always considered myself a fairly competitive runner until I saw myself on camera flapping around like a handkerchief in the wind. What’s worse is that I have seen people running like that in the past and thought:

Those Motherfuckers need to learn some running form.

Turns out I am one of those Motherfuckers.

2.) I filmed myself having sex.

Yes, with someone else before you ask.

And, yes, it was meant to be hot. But no, it wasn’t. Unless you like to watch albino hippos mating, in which case it was SPICY.

There is something inherently wrong about seeing one’s own hips thrusting.

It’s just far too Cronenberg for my liking.

Anyway, as I said, I looked at myself in the mirror the other day. It was a mistake. What did I see?

An old man dressed in hip hop clothing.

It reminded me of the scene where the old woman is rapping in the wedding singer.

But then I stopped and thought,

Fuck it.

Why should I feel like this?

After all, my generation invented sneakers. We didn’t invent the tracksuit, but we popularised it as everyday dress.

We definitely invented hip hop.

Sure, not me personally. But are we really expected to start wearing rough brown slacks and knitted jumpers when we hit a certain age?

The last generation of old folks did, but they were the last of the war generation.

Heck, when they were eight years old, they were wearing itchy jumpers and scratchy brown pants and leather shoes. It was what they knew, even in their youth — itchy jumpers, scratchy brown pants, leather shoes.

In the same way, we are dressing the way we always have, and no little shit is gonna take that away from us. Alright?

It’s probably the same with music.

Sometimes I like to do bog laps (an Australian term meaning do a few laps of the block with your windows down and your music blasting).

My favourite bog lap artists are Underworld or the Chemical Brothers. Those guys were doing so-called ‘doof’ before it was even a thing.

So don’t hassle me if I’m a forty-five-year-old grey man doing bog laps. My generation invented doof, and we invented bog laps.

Okay, so I might not understand NFTs and blockchain and Tik Tok and sure, that makes me an old bastard. And honestly, if any young people are reading this, they are probably wondering what this grumpy old man is rambling about.

We do that, don’t we, us old people? We complain about stuff — stuff that hasn’t even happened.

Come to think about it, I don’t think anyone has ever commented on my tracksuit and sneakers before.

But that doesn’t mean they weren’t thinking it in their heads.

Those little bastards.