Somewhat serendipitously, this song was released the same year that my brother was born. It was also the year that John Lennon was assassinated, and the first of only three times I remember my father crying.
He’ll hate this, but here goes.
To celebrate the first anniversary of this blog, St Valentines’ Day, and his 31st Birthday, for your reading pleasure, an entire post dedicated to my one and only brother, the Smartarse.
Artists Impression of the Smartarse - 1
I am the oldest the Smartarse is the youngest with the ArtSist perched permanently in Swedish designed neutrality between us, choosing which side of the war to ally herself with depending on the material benefit to herself. It is only natural that there have been cavernous differences between us as we shared a childhood, two schools, two parents and box of Lego. Me, the administrator of all things, trying to prove that I was the boss, and he, since the death of our father, the only man of the family exerting a paternal stability upon the remains of the day, we have an innate tendency to rub each other the wrong way. But thanks to the wonders of technology, I speak to him and his family every other day. Thanks to the wonders of technology, he can take the piss out of me over a high-speed Internet connection just as he does in real life.
Artists Impression of the Smartarse - 2
Like our father before him and me shortly afterwards, the Smartarse has a rather narrow taste in music. It must be hereditary. Each of us discovered a particular musical act in our early teens leading to an obsessive but limiting passion that lasts a lifetime. Dad loved The Beatles, I was Madonna and the Smartarse took to Metallica. When you love something that much, it becomes hard to widen your interests. Madonna might get jealous if she knows she is not the only one. Dad did eventually take a shine to Elton John, a melodic gay Paul McCartney, I widened my obsession with glittered gay-icon nymphettes to include Kylie and the Smartarse would extend his enthusiasm for four long-haired blokes with dubious decisions made regarding sideburns to include four other blokes with interesting bum-fluffed chins, Faith No More.
Blessed with MENSA level intelligence, he is one of the cleverest people I’ve ever encountered. That cleverness applied less so to his personal intellectual advancement but more frequently to the development of ever more biting jokes or insults at others’ expense. A particular memory that dates decades now is still stamped upon my far inferior brain. Telling jokes after dinner as we often did, of the sort, what do you get if your cross a such and such with a such and such, the Smartarse, only 7 or 8 at the time, asked the question…
“What do you get if you cross a stove with bare feet”
“Burnt feet”
It was the first of many times that his wit, well developed beyond his years and experience would flabbergast me.
He is blessed with the ability, much the same as Seinfeld, one of his favourite comedians, to identify the obvious, and make you feel like a moron for not noticing. During a recent video call, he remarked upon a photo behind me and asked,
“ Why do you have a photo of yourself hanging on the wall? Can’t you just go and look in the mirror?”
Artists Impression of the Smartarse - 3
There is not much to say for his advice, or his diplomatic ability when it comes to love and affairs of the heart. He is after all my father’s son and blessed with a Lennonian simplicity when it comes to emotion. He is not going to start writing self-help books, or love stories unless they could be entirely constructed from the scripts of the Simpsons or Family Guy.
One summer, rather unexpectedly for all who knew him, he came home one day and announced he was seeing a girl. All the more unexpected given he was living in Tasmania at the time and consorting with nothing other than his ever expanding collection of computers. Within three years, that girl became his wife, then mother of his daughter and 13 months later, mother of his son.
As a father, he makes a great network engineer. His daughter was weaned to the sounds of Metallica and laughingly slaps herself in the forehead and says D’oh. I suppose it beats the Wiggles and howling if she bumps her head.
A smirking boy, a boy that has grown into the man who is now the proud father of my niece and my nephew.
A Boy that is Beautiful in every sense of the word.
Darling, Darling, Darling B.
Wow Marisa
When does the book come out!!! Tears in my eyes
Lots of Love and Happy Birthday Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful Ben
Posted by: Phil Mewett | 02/13/2011 at 08:48 PM
Gorgeous. Perfect. xx
Posted by: Inner Pickle | 02/14/2011 at 12:21 AM