Young Folks

Found this in an old half-filled notebook. According to my notes the scene is Velvet on Queen East, on a Saturday night in April 2005. And for the record, I believe it was Jep who pointed out that it looked like the young folks were singing to the TV.

He stands in the almost-spotlight, both hands cupping the microphone, hunched forward with his knees bent so that he appears to be serenading the TV monitor, though he’s only concentrating on the words as they moult onscreen in time to the music. He’s doing Prince, “Purple Rain,” after a night full of mainstream metal – Zeppelin & Aerosmith & GnR – and he’s struggling with it a little bit, you can tell he’s never sung this one before. He’s young (23 years old, as he tells us out on the sidewalk later – he says his family moved to Canada 10 years ago after somebody started killing people in his neighbourhood in LA and his parents got freaked out & stayed freaked out even after the serial killer was caught & tried, so they fled to London, ON, where his father was from, and now he’s a young man living in Toronto and he says he likes it & doesn’t want to leave) and he’s got the hipster look down cold: ironic Twisted Sister T-shirt, low-riding frayed blue jeans, wispy asymmetrical hair that looks like its tufts have been carefully set in place, sideburns stretching down his face. But he’s charming, too, there’s a soft light of warmth & compassion around him. His name is Colin. As he sings the last note on each line he breaks into a broad smile, and maybe it’s just nerves or maybe he’s mugging for his friends, but it looks more like an unconscious reflex, a symptom of innocent delight in his own youth & skill & health, the same smile an amateur ballplayer might show after reaching first on a clear hit up the middle. Colin’s friend does the same thing, she has the same kind of smile when she’s up there herself, singing in her Jesus Rocks T-shirt and blue jeans, a fleshy bulge of belly visible between them. “This is for Jesus, because He rocks,” she says into the mic during the first notes of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion.” “And fuck Eminem for sampling this, and fuck Puff Daddy for sampling Led Zeppelin.” She’s heavy and Colin is skinny and they’re only friends – he seems linked to another girl who watches cool & regal, taking the efforts of the entertainers as her due – but they share a guileless pleasure in each other and the world and their bodies.