Jalylah Burrell

Hello, Babar

Seattle-bred, Brooklyn-based cultural critic Jalylah Burrell riffs on anything and everything.

40 is still 40: On being grown even if it has become unsexy

Posted 12/04/2007 at 12:18 PM | Comment?

Geoffrey's Gray's New York Magazine profile of Alex Goldberg, a Nolita brat of some means and absolutely no supervision, is an example of adolescent star fuckery but also suggests the illogic of "40 is the new 20." The now 14-year-old so-called hustler is surrounded by grown folks who have absconded many of their grown up responsibilities, primarily his parents who seem to be living second childhoods as cool kids through Alex. Oh, that being grown has become unsexy! You see, when forty year olds don't act their age, they fail to provide the proper guidance for their sons, nieces, godchildren, or the neighborhood latchkey kids. The only sensible voice to come out of the piece, was that of DJ Clark Kent. He frequently encountered the portly tween terror at the NikeID store in New York City. Gray explains:

Occasionally, he was sent home from NikeID. The primary force behind these banishments was "Super" D.J. Clark Kent, the hip-hop producer who famously discovered Jay-Z and can often be found hanging around the store. "All of this can't possibly be good," says Kent about Alex working there. "The reason Alex is bored is because people let him do whatever he wants. Someone has to be the grown-up around here and tell this kid to go home and do his homework." One afternoon in Soho, Alex spotted Kent on the street and left his friends to rush right over. He wanted to hang. Kent didn't. "I said to him, 'Alex, we're not friends. We cool. But we're not friends. You're 13. I'm 40.' He's just completely out of his mind. He thinks we're the same age."

Whether Kent always conducts himself age appropriately, I'm not aware, but in word he does allude to the importance of growing older gainfully in knowledge, wisdom and understanding such that one can recognize that 13-year-olds and 40-year-olds are not or at least shouldn't be on the same level. I'm loathe to invoke 5%er jargon but never was it more apropos. Now if only Kent's music industry colleagues could wrap their minds around, "You're 13. I'm 40," as it relates to their advancing age and their dumb downed approach to the youth market.

But before I go, here's a pre-Gnarls Barkley Cee-Lo flashback on the subject: