How cool are your parents?

By comparison, my Mom is as cool as the first Velvet Underground record.

My mom is one day older than my dad and they started going out when they were 17. She is too cool to be hip and abandoned hipness by the time she was 21 because "that's just what you did, before people could be hippies, and I just missed out on that."

So erm no, theyre not cool. But I love them dearly anyway, the old nerds.

me too! my mom is so much like marge (personality/temperament/mannerisms, not appearance lol), its scary.

They are YELLOW and cuddly?

When Marge is being daggy and does stuff like that "every Simpson dance now! Duh! Duhn duhn duhn dun DUH!" with her silly daggy dance I'm all "Argh thats mum". She would totally be the "hi sweetie! Its me! Mom!" if she was my teacher (not that she ever was)

I've never quite got over my Mum phoning me up in a state of high excitement a few years ago to go on about the new Mogwai album. The fact that I was watching Neighbours whilst drinking a nice cup of tea at the time did nothing to help.

My Dad's pretty cool, in a very low key way. he likes to make stuff, and keep himself to himself.

They are not divorced or separated.

My Dad flirted with blues and jazz in the 50s. He played ice hockey. His two favourite songs in the 70s were "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" by Ian Dury & the Blockheads and "Love is in the Air" by John Paul Young (a song I later discovered was very popular with other people's dads, for some reason or other)

And the first film my Mum and my Dad went to see together, in Glasgow in the early 50s, was a Fellini film!

Spookily, I have every reason to believe it was La Strada at the Cosmo!

I am delighted to report that my parents have no interest in being "cool", only in being themselves. I wouldn't want them any other way.

In terms of superficial "coolness" - well, my dad is still into music and computers and is on The Well so he's probably closer to the ILX concept of "cool". My mum has become more conservative in dress and taste and no longer really bothers with pop culture. However, I have a lot of respect for her individualism, (especially with regards to her battles with her church's bishops.) I think that's genuinely cool.

My mom was a math teacher who joined the Army reserves after she married my dad and became a housewife. Her odd jobs since my birth have included doing other people's tax returns at H&R Block and bookkeeping for Habitat for Humanity. She thought Al Gore was hot and now she does charity walks all the time. She listens to Mary Chapin Carpenter, k.d. lang's yoga album and shops almost exclusively at LL Bean and Lands' End.

You make the call!

my mother is nuts.

Mum keeps telling me how great Katie Melua and the Ladies' Detective Agency books are. She is obviously finding great intellectual stimulation in her degree course because she never shuts up about bronze age farming.

But it doesn't matter because one loves ones parents, doesn't one?

my dad was in the airforce and has a great photo album of pics of he and his military buddies high, hanging around in their underwear, with their philipino girlfriends. I think he was considered cool back then, but after marrying my mother got considerably nerdier. he LOVES CELINE DION -- LOVES HER! he also LOVES elton john and CHER. he also has a ginormous black van that looks like a drug dealers car that he calls "big fella"

SO YEAH, NOT R4EALLY

My mother is a vocalist who sings everywhere she goes, particularly in stairwells because she likes the echo; she's totally unembarassable. She made my clothes and cooked our meals from scratch my entire life. She's BRILLIANT with children, all her natural intelligence lies in cultivating others and she's unbelieveably good at it.

My dad is a soft-spoken mechanical engineer with, as far as I can tell, little-to-no inner life, who can tell what's wrong with a car by leaning over the hood and listening. He has renovated and repaired every single system and appliance in our house, not to mention built & refinished all the woodwork, and will fabricate parts out of scrap metal if he can't find what he needs for a repair. He used to race motocross & still rides motorcycles with never an accident in 30+ years.

My mum is quite new age, into feng shui and meditating to whale noises and stuff.

i love(d) him, but seriously - wtf happened there?

my mum always preferred cliff over mick'n'keef, played carpenters and barry manilow records way loud in the car, and loves will ferrell movies and coldplay. my dad would make mixtapes for the car that veered quesaily from heuy lewis and the news to 'whole lotta love' (with the psyche freakout excised because, as dad would always turn from the steering wheel to say, "your mum hates that bit"). their first date was a who show. my dad thrilled to the trashing of gear, my mum thought it was "a terrible waste".

My mum was never much of a pop fan but I've taught her well over the years. Now she's a sax playing 61 year old. I haven't been able to persuade her to skronk yet. I took her to see Sons & Daughters doing an instore in HMV recently - she liked em.

The coolest thing my folks have done recently is refuse to stand up for God Save the Queen at my graduation. My friend's Tory dad was outraged.

That's the kind of person she is.

My dad is retired Navy - has a degree in electrical engineering, divorced three wives and lives on his own in New Zealand. He listens to Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.

I lean towards 'uncool'.

My dad runs a "retreat center" for deep, deep healing. Across the meadow from his spatious house is a dance center. They share the woodfired sauna by the quarry swimming hole and the hot tub. Clothing optional. He often says "Yum!" and takes deep breaths because he is at one with his chakras or something.

My dad loves all stripes of modern and classic country (and thanks to me a bit of 'alt' in a certain way -- Iris Dement, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Dale Watson), enjoys oldies, mentioned once how he liked the Dave Matthews Band's "Ants Marching." My mom loves her Sting tapes, usually has classical music playing in the kitchen, adores things like In the Nursery and Mojave 3 and more that I've introduced her to. In neither case did they ever impose their tastes on me and I wouldn't change one thing about theirs for the world, bless 'em.

Can't speak for how cool they are (I think they are), but I love how mine can make me feel better without even doing anything. That is all.

dad listens to mystical irish ballads & kris kristofferson. not cool, dad. not cool.

My dad listens to Miles and Coltrane and my mom likes "Single Ladies," so they're fine imo.

That said, my dad also has both of Michael McDonald's Motown albums and my mom is the reason I know a lot of Amy Grant's pre-"Baby Baby" songs. So maybe it's a draw.

When my dad was in the Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton, when they had leave time he would never go with all the other guys to wreak havoc on the local towns' taverns and womenfolk. Instead, he liked to go to Disneyland. Also, though he was 27 during the "Summer of Love", even Elvis was too new-fangled for him, and to this day he still prefers WW2-era music. That's about all you need to know.

Hahahaha my mother loooooooves Beyoncé.

looking at my mom's old chinese passport, under 'profession' she put 'employee'

<3

That is fantastic!

My mom is definitely one of the greatest humans alive, and my dad is a bigot, but he did see Talking Heads play in the '70s, so that's something.

My mom only likes four songs and one Christmas I made her a mix CD of all of them. She said it is the perfect CD.

FWIW here are the four songs:
Queen – We Are The Champions
Chumbawumba – Tubthumping
Ace of Base – The Sign
Faith Hill – This Kiss

lol

one day i will condense all the many thousands of tracks i have listened to into a single four track playlist

My Mum goes to folk/celtic music festivals, likes to have a few glasses of wine and dance...she is actually pretty cool in that regard. Also now that I'm grown up she doesn't get to motherly unless I need it, which is cool, we can sort of chat like friends a lot of the time.
Dad likes Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash, and he loves to laugh. Not exactly cool, but to me he is pretty cool. Though when I was a kid I definitely didn't think so, lol

Love 'em both but, neither of my parents are very cool at all.

My parents are terrible at this. The only CDs my mum ever buys are compilations of music from tv adverts from Tesco -10/10

My mother doesn't listen to music, ever. But she likes hymns.

This is a full list of every pop song she has ever enjoyed.

1. The Shifting, Whispering Sands - Eamonn Andrews.
2. Mustafa Cha Cha Cha - Staiffi et ses Mustafas.
3. Eye Level - The Simon Park Orchestra.

My dear departed dad liked Bobbie Gentry, The Carpenters, Dr Hook, Simon & Garfunkel, Carly Simon, Andy Williams, Abba's "Fernando", Eruption's "One Way Ticket", Andy Fairweather-Low's "Wide Eyed and Legless" and The Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz". He liked The Beatles "before they went funny", and strongly disapproved of Sgt. Pepper.

i love my parents and i hope they never become cool

Abbott Mom CD story is the best.

In the 60s, my Dad was invited to go and see the Beatles play live. He watched Dr No instead. He was also in the vicinity of Woodstock at the time, but didn't go. His favourite songs are:

John Lennon - Watching The Wheels
The Boxtops - Cry Like A Baby
Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby

My Mum is French and I guess some of her music tastes would look quite good on paper: Getz/Gilberto, Los Machucambos, Charles Aznavour, Joe Dassin, but really this is stuff she grew up with. She loves UB40.

My parents went to a Lady Gaga concert. I guess that makes them kind of cool. Or it would if they hadn't also gone to U2 and Celine Dion concerts.

About once a year, on his request, I make my dad a CD of 'what the young people are listening to', the response to which is always 'some of it was alright'. A few years ago he went to Latitude, apparently Mika was a highlight. He has recently enthused about Mumford and Sons, and though I was being too cool for school when I said I didn't like them. He's into classic rock and classical and opera as well.

See I'm not so abhorred by Mumford & Sons (haven't heard them yet) but they do fill this sort of gap in the market once taken up by things like, I dunno, late-80s Simple Minds or Phil Collins - music for mums and dads to listen to. And bless 'em, let them have their bland MOR pie'n'mash.

^^ I haven't actually heard them, but I don't feel like I need to in order to get what they're about. Don't see a reason to be offended by them, it's just parent-fodder.

I just don't think they're at all interesting.

See I'm not so abhorred by Mumford & Sons (haven't heard them yet)
See I'm not so abhorred by Mumford & Sons (haven't heard them yet)
See I'm not so abhorred by Mumford & Sons (haven't heard them yet)

My mother took me to Dial house one New Year about 10 years back. She'd been out there on permaculture courses. Likes green/eco things, stood for the local ward as a Green Party candidate to make sure there was somebody to vote for.
Married a Kenyan when her dad was pretty bigoted. We used to go to Sunday lunch at our granparents, me and my two also half-caste brothers and be regaled with stories of how the darkies were taking over Brixton. & getting called coon no 1, 2 & 3. think grandad loved us though in his own way.

Mother likes trad jazz, some African stuff. Not sure what else exactly. Goes jiving, so I guess early rock'n'roll?

Moans about violence on tv/films while I'm trying to watch them.
Has a nasty habit of talking over the tv.

I dunno, is that what?

MY DAD LOVES STEELY DAN

My parents-in-law saw The Beatles! But they were really there for the top-billed Roy Orbison. (This was early 1963.) Cool in-laws!

My parents went to high school in Akron and then later to Kent State and said they basically grew up with the guys from Devo and that Akron was full of cool/eccentric/sarcastic people like that.

my mum is more or less the perfect age to have embraced the '60s (born 1948), and one time she mentioned seeing The Small Faces in concert. Well that's kinda cool, I thought, "who else did you see live?" "Engelbert Humperdinck and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich." "Oh."

The first time I met my mom-in-law she told me about her life as a hippie (before whe converted to the Mormon church, ha! which she later left). That she had taken so much mescaline at Woodstock, and there is a little footage of her dancing in the Woodstock movie,w hich she later watched while high on mescaline. "It's weird watching yourself on mescaline while on mescaline." Also told me about a time she had taken acid and psychically communicated with the members of Blue Cheer about ketchup. And how she got hep C from heroin. Given all this was introductory conversation from her, I was a little surprised how upset she was at her son smoking pot.

She also showed some movie she made for her college class (in the '90s she went back to college) w/footage (iirc) of her and her daughters getting their nipples pierced. She had a Madonna song playing over it. Also showed me pics of her pierced nips. I am not sure this is cool so much as kinda bonkers thing to show your daughter-in-law.

bonkers means tits right

my mum is def not cool. she collects pig ornaments, likes an extremely clean house, doesn't really listen to music ever but buys CDs of cliff richards, charlotte church, that young-man opera group, and similar stuff. like someone else posted above, i'm pretty sure she has no interior life at all. her dress sense seemed to have improved marginally last time i saw her, but a few years ago she was wearing tight velvet pants (she is a pretty big lady).

my step-dad used to be cool. he plays golf for fun and doesn't care about winning, was a speed skater in his teens (actually, i'm still not sure if he was joking about that or not), loves music and listens to cream, deep purple, uriah heap, faith no more, meat puppets. he's really into rugby, cricket and motorsports (esp nascar). he wears the most hideous dad-clothes ever. he used to be hilariously funny but now i think 25 years married to my mum has completely worn him down into a grumpy old bastard.

Neither of my parents are particularly cool now but I feel like they were when they were younger. My mom was very glamorous, smart, and strong and my dad was pretty wild. He left home at 13, sailed around the world as a cook on a cruise ship, drank with the Beatles in Hamburg, moved to America at 20 and started his own business at 26. Pretty impressive imo.

Oh and until a couple years ago they'd only ever seen one concert but it was Johnny Cash which is pretty great. They broke the one concert thing by seeing Wayne Newton. lol.

After my dad died, my stepmother married a retired club DJ who still wrote a weekly dance review column for a national title. By then in her early fifties, she got well into hip-hop, the lewder the better. After he died, she still went through all the white label 12-inchers that flooded through her specially expanded letter box. Cool step-mum!

Amazing posts itt

love brendan and joan hugely, really appreciate them and value them as people since i moved to the uk, but they are certainly not cool! neither listens to any music whatsoever, mum asks for cds like katie melua occasionally but she can't actually have music on at audible volume without it irritating her. dad liked simon and garfunkel and the beach boys in the 80s, but then kinda stopped and hasn't listened to music or spoken about it or bought any in about 20 years i reckon. v weird how someone would just stop, i suppose not a part of his life in the same way it is for my generation of irish person.

same with films and stuff, they both love say...the shawshank redemption, and mum goes to see big films like once a year or so. dad doesn't read at all except the papers, though maybe since he retired he does a little. mum reads popular fiction, occasionally good stuff, some stuff i wouldn't be into, but not total dross or whatever.

they aren't really fashion people either. my parents are like v irish and from rural backgrounds, you'd never describe them as cool but i dunno, i know friends whose dads love pink floyd and stuff and have big record collections and i think some are sort of losers!

My mom is mortified every time I try to leave the house wearing skinny jeans

My dad coaches roller derby and hangs out with dykes and stuff

i ended up reading someone's shitty coffee table home furnishings mag and there was an article about two north london expats in the wilds of norfolk with their 'rock and roll farmhouse' full of 70s prints and memorabilia tat, they referred to their computer room as 'the imac room' and every piece of branded furniture by its tradename rather than utility, and described long weekend of sitting around playing shitty indie music on acoustic guitars for their kids

a phrase that stuck in the mind was s/thing like 'we did all the classic moves -- clerkenwell loft to north london townhouse and now to the country'

dour haut bourgies >>> 'cool parents'

sp they're not really married anymore, btw

xp not sp

i know friends whose dads love pink floyd and stuff and have big record collections and i think some are sort of losers!

― I see what this is (Local Garda), Friday, 25 February 2011 17:06 (7 minutes ago)

divorced dads asking if their kids want to smoke dank and listen to van der graaf generator oh the horror

my dad's got eight cars and a house in ireland

sing it

not cool. neither of my have ever been interested in pop – music or culture. only interesting albums in my parents' collection of mostly chamber music (mom's a pro cellist) are:

-- a few '70s jug band albums by groups named "big stiffy and the mountain boys" and
-- herb alpert's "whipped cream and other delights"
-- herbie mann "push push"
-- "songs from sesame street"
-- bunch of "burt and I" 78s
-- some tom lehrer collections
--dusty springfield live at the something-or-other.

My dad is a sweet gentle guy who likes masterpiece theatre, and LOVES reruns of the godawful BBC comedy "Keeping Up Appearances" which he claims is the funniest show ever to run on TV. HE's seen each episode about a hundred times, and can quote the entire series by memory. Which he does a lot. My mother finds TV "wholly wasteful" except for the weather, which she watches religiously on NBC. She knows it comes on at 6:18 a.m. and she turns on the TV at 6:17 am, and turns it off again at 6:21. Every single day. I used to try exposing her to films, but it was too much work to get her to sit down and relax. The only movies she's _ever_ liked are "Edward Scissorhands" and the first Back to the Future, which she caught during a blizzard. She owns Planet Earth, and puts it on in the background as "moving wallpaper."

love love love that song xp

My dad's the singer here (also, the video was directed by a young soderbergh):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mr_9JBldaI

woah

that's pretty awesome

fetchboy please tell me those dance moves have been passed down to generations.

Ha! Actually I sent a link of it to an ex without telling her any backstory and she told me I danced just like the lead singer.

awesome

Also, the guitarist on the right is Vance Degeneres of Daily Show fame.

what was the name of the band?

The Backbeats. The 3 other guys went on to form Cowboy Mouth, who I don't care for.

Here's a clip from when they were playing in the cold rain and all had the flu (unfortunately, my dad is NOT the one in the rad pants here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN6zSh4Rhmk

looking at my mom's old chinese passport, under 'profession' she put 'employee'

I would like to note that I have been doing this at every available opportunity.

i figured out my mam likes chillwave

My dad saw Charles Mingus two nights running at the Five Spot in 1963. I repaid this knowledge and wisdom by dragging him to see Yes in 1984.

My Dad grew up in Bangor, Co. Down and enjoys sailing. He used to part-own the boat from the 80s TV series Howard's Way. I think he used to hang out with metalheads in the '70s as he has a few bootlegged Deep Purple and Zep tapes, but he not-so-secretly prefers Elton John and the Bee Gees. Albums he has bought new in my lifetime: Pretenders - Get Close, Annie Lennox - Diva. He does also like Roxy Music, but only has their greatest hits and mostly enjoys the Bryan Ferry solo tracks.

My mother says things like "I really like that Beyonc-EH, she's so pretty" and then sings the words wrong. She has really quite safe taste now ("Housework Anthems Volume 2" material) but she used to be into hip-hop and acid house in her youth. We were at my grandparents' home recently when she unearthed S'Express's "Theme From S'Express" and told me she played it all the time when she was pregnant with me. She once accidentally reversed into a car belonging to a teacher from my high school and when he came out shouting and ranting she laughed and said "Whatever, I'll pay to get your V-reg motor fixed."

She tells me not to worry about my career post-uni because "I've got a psychic friend who's always right about things and she says you're going to be famous." She gives excuses for being late for lunch like "I couldn't find the cat to say goodbye to before I left."

Her husband is into mostly rock music from the 70s and 80s, which can be hit or miss. However at Xmas I found a tape of rave anthems dating to 1991 in the spare room, so maybe they've got more in common than they've ever told me. When they were courting (only a few years ago when they were both in their late thirties) they went to a bar and drank 50 shots between them and had to phone me to get them a taxi home.

FWIW I think my grandparents are cooler: she has an MBE for her work helping those with special needs, and he collects records and dresses up as Elvis at special Teddy Boy weekends.

my parents are pretty cool, though having kids and getting older and so on have kind of lessened their interest in new stuff. But e.g. they're both quite old-school socialist-feminist-academic types who were very involved in various political groups/publications in the 60s and 70s, so clearing out the attic the other weekend unearthed all these completely forgotten magazines and pamphlets. (turns out, having a lot of respect for the intellectual content of the stuff they were doing doesn't make having to sit through reminiscences any more fun.) I'm not so into films, which are my dad's thing, but his taste is what i think of as 'cool'. if canonical. also he doesn't like new films.

they both seem to have stopped keeping up with pop music at the start of the 70s, so there's a really solid beatles/stones/supremes/dylan type vinyl collection and then... nowt else. my mother once told me this story about being sent by v1rago to see Patti Smith in concert in 1976, when they were contemplating publishing her poetry, and watching The Stranglers in support and absolutely haaaaaaaaaaating them. nowadays she is more like, "oh could you buy me that amy winehouse album" but tbh i'd rather buy her some Schubert instead. My dad will say of pretty much anything poppy "this sounds like the beach boys!" - he is very patient when i am being overexcited about records, esp dancier/r&b-ier stuff, but i don't think he necc 'gets' them.

Neither of my parents is cool.

Except that my dad was present at the session where john Martyn recorded his first album for island records.

it's taken a long time to finally realise and accept that my dad is quite a fucking dick

sux nv

ah not in any unbearable way he's still my dad, but this week i've been thinking about history of pros vs cons and he has pretty consistently been a dick i think. shrug and accept and move on i suppose. i seem able to hurt his feelings a lot more easily than he hurts mine, for all he'll casually imply at various points that i'm fat, hypocritical, a failure, a lousy parent etc etc

actually can't argue with some of that but yr folks shd be circumspect about calling you on it

nah, as long as it's a two-way thing imo, if gloves are off, fuckit old man let's dance

these days i just feel rather disaffected with families structurally rather than wrt the qualities of the people involved

for all that the uk has probably gone further than most of the rich nations in undermining the old filial pieties and clan obligations, the middle class british nuclear family still seems to be a basically terrible thing

the idea of 'cool parents' is awful by the way

my dad, i love my dad, but any rational analysis of his conduct since he became a dad would prob come down heavily on 'dick'. Charitably, he's not suited to the responsibility of parenting.

my dad likes Social Distortion, Wilco, old jazz musicians like Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Miles Davis, Coltrane, and Freddie Hubbard. my mom digs Bjork and Rachel's and Public Enemy and Freakwater.

― gear (gear), Friday, October 7, 2005 6:09 AM (6 years ago)

this is just horrific

he moans at the kids if they make too much noise, he treats everybody around him like they're 5, he regurgitates Daily Mail truisms looking for an argument then smugly ignores you with "that's just your opinion" when he gets one, he hates everybody who isn't him or fails to conform to his 10-mile diameter world-view, he drops casual racial epithets and gets pissed when you call him a racist, he hates women unless they're strictly decorative, raging homophobia obv, he passes all this and more off as "joeks" when you lose your shit over it

i've been a very tolerant adult for a long time with this angry little boy and tho i'm wondering if i'm seeing the onset of senility i've gotta say it's always been like this, one way or another

but yeah as nakh says, i don't ever rly transact with him through a 'father/son' filter so much as a 'here is an older guy i know' type relationship, suits us both better

xxxxp That's bullcrap, NV, people shouldn't be treating ya like that, especially not your parents cuz of the whole love thing. The worst part of it is you accept it because they're your parents and you love 'em.

Just finally came to terms with the fact my parents were malignant narcissists. Hard to believe your own parents never loved you, but you need to face the hard truth to really move on... absorbing bad treatment you're unhappy with just leads to problems.

i felt it advisable to warn him in advance that mrs V. was of Irish descent before he ever met her, just so he cd rein in the bullshit. best i can say is he probably tried.

IT'S BEEN A LONG WEEK

nv ur dad sounds a bro imo can we get him on ilx to provide some earthy balance

hah

btw i will be fine when i've put my 150-mile cordon sanitaire back in place and had a fucking drink tonight

i can't dislike him he's so lost and disenchanted, he just don't admit it to himself

idk as bad as a raging alf garnett sounds, at least you have something to kick against

pity all of those kids of repressively tolerant boomer cunts who want to listen to the doors and smoke dope with them

i think tbh it is more some observations about his attitude to us as kids that i see replayed, slightly distorted, with the grandkids, and that rankle cos of their claimed status as real love, like

also gosh venting has real therapeutic benefit sometimes

and the secret fear/recognition that some of those failings are working deep in my own psyche, barely recognised

my dad likes Social Distortion, Wilco, old jazz musicians like Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Miles Davis, Coltrane, and Freddie Hubbard. my mom digs Bjork and Rachel's and Public Enemy and Freakwater.

― gear (gear), Friday, October 7, 2005 6:09 AM (6 years ago)

this is just horrific

― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Friday, August 31, 2012 3:12 PM (8 minutes ago)

i know rite, it should always be "social FUCKING distortion".

I kind of got a bit upset (embarrassingly so) after one too many drinks catching up with my brothers and sisters earlier this summer. My little bro, who is a bit of a show-off at the best of times admittedly, was boasting about his casual/friendly relationship with our (divorced for ten years) parents. It was the kind of stuff, y'know "I can't believe you wouldn't smoke in front of mum - I've smoked fags with her before; and dad too". As the oldest of four, and years after I left home, I still have a hard time treating my folks as much else other than strict authority figures. I was supposed to set the example for my siblings and as such I always ensured that any teenage drinking, smoking or general miscreantism was kept well hidden from my folks. We had a "don't ask, don't tell" thing going on, so if I came home pie-eyed and stinking from a night out, I'd make my excuses and go upstairs. I've hardly ever been drunk in front of them. It's a strange dynamic. By the time my youngest brothers and sisters were teenagers my parents had divorced and they were given a lot more leeway when it came to, well, everything. I certainly don't envy them for having had to have grown up in such a difficult time, but I do sometimes wish I could be a little more genuine and relaxed around my parents in the way that they are now.

My parents are genuine, decent people, dad's a bit of a curmedgeon but nothing major, mum is too easy to bow to "this is the way it's always been", but that's the worst I could say about them. My dad was a Tory councillor when I was a kid, which i find difficult to reconcile with the fact that his dad worked in a factory making steel tools in Sheffield. They're a million miles from cool and thank fuck for that.

Neither of my parents have a jot of interest in any art/culture, my dad prob last listened to a record willingly in about 1990, and that's not an exaggeration.

My mum likes v v v low background music.

They both liked the shawshank redemption I think but films are largely the same.

Mum reads maeve binchy, dad only reads the papers.

They watch sport and the news, mum might watch downton abbey sometimes. She used to bring me to the theatre as a kid but unsure if that was just cos I liked it. She seemed to have an interest tho.

I sometimes think its be nice to have more shared interests but it also would be weird, they're both more than 30 years older than me.

So no, not in any sense are they cool.

Dad has good stories about his younger days on the piss and stuff and is great if you have your (male) friends around.

I'm on a phone, forgive the typos.

As far as "cool" is concerned, the last album my dad bought was "Get Close" by the Pretenders or maybe "Diva" by Annie Lennox. He stopped listening to music about the same time I started. My Mum's taste is largely geared towards French chanteurs like Joe Dassin and stuff, which I kinda like. Her parents (my grandparents) were huge fans of jazz, Motown and all sorts of music - I prefer cool grandparents to cool parents.

my Dad has spent the last 6 months trying to play every Rush song on the piano he's cool as fuck

dad cool

my parents were (and my mom still is) uncool in the best possible way: smart, bookish, progressive, a bit nerdy, curious about art & culture but not particularly hip. i admire that, tbh. seems to reflect a fairly healthy set of priorities.

My parents are rednecks. Draw your own conclusions.

this four year old boy sat next to me on a bench in Griffith Park. he started picking his nose and he had a john coltrane tshirt on and a brian jones haircut. His mom, in front of us ordering a coffee, was an actress but I couldn't place her and it was frustrating -- looked like Maura Tierney or Carla Bruni. She asked him if he wanted a certain kind of food for lunch and he said demanded that she not order anything -- he was full -- and she said "but you haven't had enough protein today!" His dad appeared to be a Paul Rudd character.

His mom, I swear, is in this group of actresses that's, like, Lauren Graham, Tierney, Catherine Keener -- she's played Steve Carrell's or Jim Carrey's love interest in something, I'm sure.

My dad's brother was a speed freak in a St. Louis psychedelic band, so naturally my dad hasn't listened to music since about 1973.

my dad booked Yes at his college "before they sold out" as he says

Maybe he meant yknow that partic show

My general take on my parents' coolness (ie, they rule) remains as above. But I'd like to venture that my dad is cool right now for this reason:

http://www.montereyherald.com/prepsports/ci_23222158/mtal-track-field-championships-catalina-girls-win-league

aww thats sweet

my parents are uncool but i like them

Just found out my dad died on Friday after a long battle with throat cancer. My mum put the phone down on me earlier for trying make humour of the situation - despite being divorced for 30 + years she had been visiting him recently and forgiven him to some extent for what he was. But tonight we have been laughing about what a selfish and insufferable prick he was. And a famous incident where he walked in on some serious class a drug abuse and denounced me as a "glue sniffer"!

sympathies as far as you want em, man

am wondering nkw about mookies dads house

Thanks D, but nah - I was genuinely upset when my paternal grandma died, but not that tosser at all.

I am that cool parent. Though that claim admittedly is somewhat blown out of the water by the sandwiching of Lady Antebellum between Fela Kuti and Kendrick Lamar on my iPod. I'm sorry, I like 'Need You Now' (and some other tracks)!

Well I think this is cool! So: I randomly discovered the other day that as part of a wider oral history project on Carmel, California, the folks behind the project interviewed someone with history in the town back to when he was a small kid -- my dad! It's an hour long, on camera (the preview image is just that), and hey, some might find it interesting! At the least check out the opening story where he talks about trick or treating at Robinson Jeffers's Tor House as a kid with his friend Ned -- and yes, that's who I'm named after.

https://vimeo.com/1008221100

for a hot minute my dad was kinda cool. He picked up Chet Baker and his first wife in the late 50's at the airport, to play a show at Humboldt State Univ where my dad was involved in the jazz club. He drove them around to look at rural property, which Chet had expressed an interest in. He also picked up Dave Brubeck as well

My poor parents were already raising me and my three siblings on a pittance before "The Birth of the Cool" was released, so they never had much of a chance to level up.

My dad was really in to Dylan’s “Self Portrait” and had no idea of its reputation. He used to sing “get you a copper kettle” to my mom before I was born. I feel like that epitomizes my dad’s coolness level.

I was jamming on some Ramsey Lewis recently and he mentioned going to see him when he was in college at NC State. That actually shocked me bc his interest in black music and jazz has always been near zero.

He also voted for Trump twice which is extremely not cool

That’s neat, Ned. I need to do that with my folks before it’s too late

I love that he was happy with the renovation of the house his dad built. We recently renovated our house which was owned by the same family for over 60 years. I would love for the three sisters (who were raised there and sold it to us) to say something similar

My dad claimed that, while working as a young waiter in a Hamburg bar frequented by many actors, he was once propositioned by a Fassbinder regular (sadly I have forgotten which one).

He also lead a student strike for his class at age 13, taking to the streets shouting "Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!" to protest the war in Vietnam. I always get this mental image of some govt agent breathlessly informing Johnson "Mr President Mr President the high schoolers in Hamburg have come out against the war!"

I think my mum's biggest claim to coolness is that when she handed in her thesis on Immanuel Kant her supervisor was "well I didn't really get any of that but I'm assuming it's good".

So long as they keep their mouths shut about politics, mine are pretty damn cool, still mixing drinks and traveling and shopping for the latest clothes and in good health and making mordant observations about people.

My dad claimed that, while working as a young waiter in a Hamburg bar frequented by many actors, he was once propositioned by a Fassbinder regular (sadly I have forgotten which one).

Hoping it was Hanna Schygulla.

Haha no, def a dude. Exact gambit was "wanna blow me in the bathroom later on?". Dad politely declined.

Hm. I don't think of my parents as cool, but they've won their lives and their intersections with the 20th century are... interesting?

My father was born at Los Alamos, New Mexico, during (and because of) the Manhattan Project. So we're already at the nexus of secrecy, explosions, and of unseen long-term radioactivity.

There is a character in John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic who shares my name - the character is that of my great-uncle.

Unfortunately my father is a fabulist and not to be trusted on any aspect of family history. He will calmly mix bullshit in with verifiable facts, in a way that is impossible to untangle.

His Vietnam War stories usually end with him outnumbered, armed only with a banana. Useless. Especially when one finds out, from others, what actually happened.

To be continued.

Some years ago I bought a mandolin because I'd been watching too much Jools Holland. Long story.

My mother emailed me to point out that her father played the mandolin, which I didn't know.

My mother and her brothers had played fairs around Missouri as a novelty child folk trio (guitar, fiddle, mando). They did "Wreck of the Old 97."

Anyway the part I did not know was about Mel Bay. For a long time if an American child knew how to play an instrument (guitar, harmonica, banjo) it was partly because of Mel Bay.

Anyway it turns out my grandfather played mandolin in a duo with Mel, and he shows up in a Bay biography; I think I once had a copy.

Epilog: My father, it turns out, had been a medic.

From there is another story for another time.

My dad isn't really cool, he is an old folkie who tends to re-tell jokes / anecdotes we've all heard before, but he's still a genuinely lovely guy who just naturally charms everyone. I made a Desert Island Discs with him recently for his birthday - https://www.mixcloud.com/centuries_of_sound/mark-errington-desert-island-discs/

He is right this moment undergoing heart surgery, it's as low-risk as heart surgery gets (a valve replacement) but I am still unable to focus on anything else until I get word from my stepmother that he's ok.

YMP, if you can't fabulize about your origins, what can you fabulize?

Excellent point, Alfred.

That said, a long-dead grandfather (I never met either of mine) is also a safe place to gather a lot of colorful anecdotes.

My maternal grandfather died so young and so tragically that he naturally attracts mythologizing. No idea if any of this is true but:

He is said to have had an idle fantasy of running a newspaper, so he... bought one. A very small one in a very small town. You could do that in the 30s: a failing newspaper could be sold at auction for like a dollar.* And one person could be owner/editor/publisher and be home for supper.

He rode a horse to work, with a dog running alongside it. The dog slept under the desk. One time he was reporting on union corruption, and some hard men came to the office to threaten him out of running the story. The dog woke up and startled them out of it.

This is the fellow who played the mandolin with Mel Bay; he worked in public relations for Magic Chef before joining the Navy.

In Philadelphia he bought a house built of schist (you know, the metamorphic rock) and taught his children to tell people (very primly) that they lived in a schist house.

It's way too late to verify or disprove; there's no reason not to embellish the stories.

Camaraderie, hope you hear from your stepmother soon! That DID thing sounds lovely, will give a listen.

Thanks Daniel, he is awake now and seems to have gone well.

I made a mix of some of my dad's faves once, after he had passed, unlikely to feature anything that's a revelation to ILXors but hey

https://www.mixcloud.com/Reifferschizzle/songs-from-my-father/

Oh damn, for some reason I thought this one only about dads. Sorry mom.

My mom is kind of crazy but def awesome. She’s the type that talks before she thinks which leads to some batshit conversations. She’s always been liberal but so disconnected from the news and politics that she relies on my dad which was a bad idea. That was until George Floyd was murdered. It fucked her up. She’s always been religious but she left the church she attended with my dad and found one doing community work, especially when it came to supporting the black community. She helped start a book club where they would read the anti-racist books that were coming out at the time due to the rampant police violence. When a teacher in the area was almost fired for teaching Ta-Nahisi Coates’ “between the world and me” my mom showed up to support her. Turns out TNC showed up too. My mom chatted with him and wound being mentioned in his most recent book.

Most importantly she spent a career teaching disabled kids and gave all she had to it. Even after she retired she would have former students out to the house to entertain them. She has a very big heart which is cool as shit imo

Oh damn, for some reason I thought this one only about dads. Sorry mom.

My mom is kind of crazy but def awesome. She’s the type that talks before she thinks which leads to some batshit conversations. She’s always been liberal but so disconnected from the news and politics that she relies on my dad which was a bad idea. That was until George Floyd was murdered. It fucked her up. She’s always been religious but she left the church she attended with my dad and found one doing community work, especially when it came to supporting the black community. She helped start a book club where they would read the anti-racist books that were coming out at the time due to the rampant police violence. When a teacher in the area was almost fired for teaching Ta-Nahisi Coates’ “between the world and me” my mom showed up to support her. Turns out TNC showed up too. My mom chatted with him and wound being mentioned in his most recent book.

Most importantly she spent a career teaching disabled kids and gave all she had to it. Even after she retired she would have former students out to the house to entertain them. She has a very big heart which is cool as shit imo