Life Before I.D.

Let me tell you about what happened the other night. A bunch of my friends and I gathered in a mutually-agreed upon place and consumed various kinds of legally-acquired alcohol. From there we then moved on to a local club, danced and sweated for a few hours, and unless any of us had ensnared another inhabitant, we walked home, sat around for a bit, and went to bed.

Which is funny actually because it sort of reminds me of a time a couple of nights prior to that, where a bunch of my friends and I gathered in a mutually-agreed upon place and consumed various kinds of legally-acquired alcohol. From there we then moved on to a local club, danced and sweated for a few hours, and unless any of us had ensnared another inhabitant, we walked home, sat around for a bit, and went to bed.

Which makes the previous night look all the more out of character, because that night some of us went out for a meal and discussed interesting topics of the moment, and afterwards we gathered in a mutually-agreed upon place and consumed various kinds of legally-acquired alcohol. From there we then moved on to a local club, danced and sweated for a few hours, and unless any of us had ensnared another inhabitant, we walked home, sat around for a bit, and went to bed.

I'm being cattivo, of course. None of this is meant to disparage the individuals involved, all of whom are peerlessly interesting and enlightening people compared to whom I am an amoeba squirming in their wake, and any one of whom I would give my right arm to spend time with. It's not like I'm any less accountable, anyway. Sure, I might chip in with the odd cynical remark to make the night interesting, and I always make a point of never getting with anyone as a form of protest against the whole standard nightlife experience (yes, I am that dedicated) but when it comes to actually suggesting anything different I give nothing. I'm a clueless pawn, like the rest of them. I even enjoy myself, occasionally. At least for the five minutes when Flo Rida's 'Low' comes on, because I enjoy nothing more than the feeling of encroaching premature arthritis in the knees.

But I am trying to raise a point. It's a suggestion, really; one that's been niggling and growing in the back of my head for a few months now, slowly gnawing at my subconscious and filling me with a cold, clammy dread.

Was life better before I.D?

The years I spent in secondary education were, as were everybody's, defined entirely by a search for sex and fake identification. Well, maybe this is more true of men than it is of women. Not in the respect that they are less pursuing of sex, a view my reconstruction as an enlighted 21st century being has proven pretty much false; but more in the respect that the moment they become conscious of the light cleft that runs down the middle of their chests, bouncers and checkout clerks cease to be any sort of issue. They may as well have a signs declaring them as 'Pope Jesus Superman' for the ease with which they enter clubs and acquire booze.

The I.D problem was an especially pressing one for me, since I was a summer baby and thus didn't come of age until after my school career was over. One top of that I looked like a foetus in a David Cassidy wig, and had a brother who considered borrowing trainers to take the garbage out with an offence deserving of capital punishment, so borrowing his and getting away with it to boot were both remote possibilities.

So I was reduced to, variously, petty thievery (for which I was caught and very nearly executed by both parents and brother) begging and borrowing, (trying to enter 'Zoo' on a trip to London with an I.D declaring me to be 'Daniel Thomas' from 'East Lanarkshire University' whilst standing behind Daniel Thomas was a particular highlight) doctoring, (my friend Edan did a mean trade in sellotaped '1's for the troublesome 1992 birthdate) breaking and entering (badly-cordoned smoking areas; a godsend) dodgy internet ordered licenses, blind chance, and a whole lot of pouting ("Hold on...wait, are those cheekbones I can see on you sire? Go right ahead"). If you want to see how much dignity man is prepared to sacrifice for the chance of a Vodka Red-Bull and a bit of tonsil-hockey with a 3 out of 10, an hour stood outside Sankey's on a Saturday night should provide as many examples as you'll ever need.

But after almost a year spent over the legal age-limit, I'm re-assessing. Sure, the years from 14-17 were frustrating, aimless and took me to the brink of almost total self-pity and unmerited, solipsistic angst. But we'rent they, at the end of it all, just a little more fun?

Alcohol; I can get my hands on a cornucopia of the stuff in under five minutes, drink myself into a puking, weeping oblivion in a good half-hour, and for what? I have to max out my bank account to do so, am largely forced to drink ludicrous quantities of stuff that tastes like a battery that's learnt to piss , and all so I can become the tool I've always feared I am on the inside for maybe 20 minutes before I begin to sober up and feel awful again. Not so when you're 14, when alcohol's rarity imbibes every drop with a delicious thrill, when the sheer novelty of intoxication fills you with a sense of the utmost well-being, convinces you of a deep inner harmony with the rest of the world, and, when you inevitably throw up all over yourself, it's accepted as a reasonable conclusion to the night rather than a source of crippling embarrassment.

Clubbing; an activity only really appreciated by people who shouldn't be there in the first place. I go now and all I can think about is how long the queue is, how shit and familiar the music is, how sweaty and awful the rooms are, how disgusting and fetid the people are, how tempted I am to shove a clawed hand deep into my anus, withdraw a coiled, steaming mass of bowel and run around in circles screaming, just to provide some semblance of novelty. When you're 14, 15, 16, it's a paradise. High on the adrenaline of a successful entry, you're charmed by the music, numbed by the alcohol, entranced by the possibility of coitus; and you leave thinking you've seen humanity at it's apex, have met with something large and profound that has changed your life forever. Or maybe that was just me.

But above all...if I look back over the handful I've years I've spent pursuing nightlife...I don't remember the clubs. I don't remember the bars, or the drinks, or the music. I remember the night where I skipped the length of the Millennium Bridge. I remember the night I threw a can of beans through a window, and was driven through Manchester in search of prostitutes and ended up with a broken office chair. I remember the night we renamed our school ALTRINCHAM GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR BENDERS using white paint, and pissed on the flagpole. I remember being tied to a chair and eating sausage rolls in the A&E car park. I remember sitting around in someone's back-garden singing 'Walk on the Wild Side' and having an utterly pretentious but satisfying conversation about love and poetry. I remember being dragged at 30 miles an hour down the middle of the road on a sled tied to a car. I remember sitting on walls and pissing on doorhandles and thinking I was cool.

I would trade any amount of Jaeger-bombs and Half-Price Tuesdays for one of those moments. I was naive and stupid and never accomplished anything. But I jived, man.

And after you've jived, what more can you say?