Talent
Regular readers of this site (and by regular I means one that were here two days ago but I’ll take what I can get) will remember me picking out the line in These Days by Jackson Browne where he wrote: “Don’t confront me with my failures – I had not forgotten them.”
I thought this was pretty clever, and if I’d written it, I’d be pleased, but then I don’t have two last names like Jackson Browne. Or Woodrow Wilson. Newton Faulkner. Rudyard Kipling. Powers Boothe. There’s something in that, isn’t there? Gladstone Small. Harrison Ford.
F. Scott Fitzgerald. Man. Two last names and an initial. That’s even better than two initials, sported by many literary greats like H H Monro, E E Cummings and C C Peniston. Then there’s three initials – JRR Tolkien, AJP Taylor. You want to carry that off, you better write your weight in gold.
Jackson Browne, anyway. The line in question was picked up by reader who said, with considerable cause, that it was pretentious on the grounds of his age. Well, Chairwomen from The Internet in Cyberspace, I’d argue that it’s precocious, sure, but where do you stand on young talented kids?
Comedy answer: Back of the neck. Keep the fuckers down.
Seriously though, it’s a valid point. Arthur Rimbaud, Yo Yo Ma, that one off the Antiques Roadshow, these guys had talent. What do you do? It makes you want to do something.
It is a little pretentious, but it’s damn annoying when they go right ahead and fulfil that talent like they’re the next fucking generation or something.
Let me tell you something kids. One day I’ll be dead and you’ll still be going to work every day. Ha. How do you like that?
No, hang on.
I guess talent is subjective and it depends as much what you do with it as how people perceive it. There’s no “I” in genius.
No, hang on.
There’s no “us” in genius.
Fuck.
I’m thirty six, by the way. Thirty six and a half exactly this week.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:49 am
I’m already not the next generation anymore at 24, it’s a cut-throat world.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Sam - At least you’re in the right decade. I’m in danger of being outsourced.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:29 am
e.e.cummings: two initials in lowercase.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Gladstone Small was at my wedding.
Just saying.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Katy - I was wondering who would get that. It’s an affectation, in my book, like Itunes. Or K.D. Lang, and I do not repect their authority. cLiff
Miss T - I know.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
It’s “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’”, to which the correct reply is, of course, “Yes, but there’s a ‘U’ in ‘Twunt’”
June 16th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Which is why, just to play it safe, I have a website whose title consists of only four letters. Always thinking.
June 16th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I am 46. I’m of the past generation. Heck, I’m almost of the passed generation. I mean, generations have already passed mine, but I haven’t passed. Yet. I don’t think. Then again I might’ve and just not gotten the memo, because I’m so out of the loop.
Your comic genius is showing, cLiff.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I like it when you swear.
June 16th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
‘Cepting they’d be called “NexGen” or something equally ridiculous.
After recently (ahem) passing down the drop-down list of age groups that one commonly sees these days, I can only rejoice in my new-found age bracket. Not a sign of a hinge either. Besides which, I can spell “know”, understand the difference between “your” and “you are”, and yet still can pass myself off as reasonably “cool”, “hip” and “funky”.
Damn, went and spoiled it there, didn’t I?
Great post, Cliff. ‘Nuff said, innit… err, end of?
no wot im sayin?
June 17th, 2008 at 7:42 am
C - OK. I’m not swearing at you, I’m swearing towards you. I am conscious that I do it a lot, but it’s just how I write. I hope it never comes across as offensive. I have made my peace on here with older relatives by pointing out that their generation made up most of the words.
Jonners - You lost me at the end, but yes. And also never use the word funky without the meaning being strictly and in direct reference to actual funk. I entered that age bracket as well, in the mocking drop-down menus.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Funk as in P-Funk, or funk as in gym socks that haven’t been washed for months?
Or maybe Grand Funk?
Funk and Waggonels?
Funky Winkerbean?
June 17th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I wasn’t complaining.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
13 comments! Where’s Ed when you need him?
June 18th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Damn, I’m really slipping. Sorry, Sam.