old man abaddon has a kid

I read an article about how Abaddon, the drummer from 80’s UK metal band Venom, had a kid with a young woman recently. He is currently 63 years old.

^{Venom, in the early 80’s. That’s Abaddon on the left.}

I have questions about this.

How can anyone justify having a child at such an advanced age? How can you parent it like you need to when you have your own health needs and concerns that need to be addressed? Some other big male stars have been doing this recently — Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro most notably I think, and they’re even older than Abaddon. I was incredulous at them too of course. What the hell are these men thinking when they knock someone up?

But it takes two to tango, so I also wonder what their partners are thinking. I feel like anyone who signs up for having a child with a senior citizen father is clearly completely fucking nuts. There must be some sort of elite level gold digger, baby mama, or daddy issues stuff at play with these people.

But Abaddon in particular really has me wondering about his young partner, because Abaddon can’t be that wealthy. He played in a cult metal band that has probably only paid about as well as an entry-level career would have, plus he was probably a party animal who drank and snorted a lot of his money away, plus he probably had shady, inept managers who didn’t look after his meager wealth for him, so I don’t think there is much gold to dig here. In Abaddon’s case, I wonder if his partner is just such a star-struck Venom fan that she is happy to have the child of a 60-something year old man with basically zero prospects, just because he played drums (poorly) in a (lousy) metal band (40 years ago). It’s baffling, but people are totally fucked so not only would I not put this past someone, I actually expect it.

A while back, someone (I think it was Ben) said it would be great if there was a way to give every man a vasectomy at age 10 or something, and then if and when they want to have a kid in the future, they just have to go get it reversed. It would stop so many unwanted pregnancies, and ensure a certain measure of forethought going in to having kids. I’m not sure that hurdle would have stopped old Abaddon from making this mess he has created but it might have, and I think that would have been far better for him, his young wife, and the kid.

sidewalk cemetery

For the last few nights, I’ve been having a series of ‘young adult challenges’-themed bad dreams. I don’t like it much.

It started several nights ago when I dreamed that I’d gotten Jenn pregnant. She wasn’t present when I learned this, I was out for dinner with her folks and another man I don’t know when they brought it up to me, and I was trying to act chill and unconcerned in front of them when internally I was panicking. How did this happen, what were we going to do about it? I really wished Jenn was there so we could have talked about it straight away. I was terrified at the prospect of giving up this life that I’m so happy with and exchanging it for one that I have no interest in, but what could I do if she decided to go ahead and have the kid? My head swooned, it was almost unfathomable. It seriously almost qualified as a nightmare but I personally require some kind of evil or sadistic element to grant dreams that coveted title.

Last night, I had two more similar dreams, though not as terrifying. In the first one I was in my late 20’s again, and dating. I went for a first date with some decently attractive woman, maybe a 7/10. She was attractive in a trashy kind of way, lived in a sort of shitty place, and she was aloof in her demeanor but we had a bit of awkward first date chemistry. She had some beater car that needed work and I helped her drop it off at a garage, and I remember thinking, “am I really going to sign up for a relationship with this person I’m not really wild about? Are we going to fall in love eventually or will I always feel this unsatisfied? Do I just need to give this more time?” I had serious misgivings about it, like she was fine to date and hang out with but she wasn’t long-term relationship material, and yet here I was, feeling like I was already committed to something her. It sucked.

Then I had another dream that I don’t remember as clearly. I know my step mother was a primary character in it. I think I had to move back in to my dad’s house or something like that, and she was there, harping away at me like usual. That was more or less it. Boy, I’m 40 now and I still hate my step mom. It’s been over 30 years and that hasn’t changed. I always hated it when adults said stuff to me like “you’ll grow out of it” because I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t, and what do you know, here I am all grown up and I still think she’s an entitled, pathetic, whiny, weird, twisted old crone. I look forward to the day I never have to interact with her again. The once or twice per year I currently have to is still too much.

Anyway, it’s funny how my dreams have taken on this theme of ‘tough young adult situations.’ I wonder why my subconscious is on that tear. I don’t think I’ve been consciously contemplating this kind of stuff lately. Just another mystery of the mind.

***

In the last week, I’ve had to deal with some legal bullshit due to a co-worker’s situation at work and it’s been entirely annoying. So far I’ve had to deal with my employer, my employer’s lawyer, my union, and my union’s lawyer, and guess what — all four of them have been either rude, pushy, incorrect, or dumb. It’s really quite remarkable.

Lionel Hutz. That’s perfect.

First my employer’s lawyer called me, and they were rude when I politely said I’d rather not speak to them if I wasn’t legally obligated. Then I talked to a union representative and he gave me some information that didn’t sound right to me, and he turned out to be wrong in the end. Then I talked to another union rep and he seemed equally misinformed as the first, and it turned out he was also incorrect but to make things even worse, he was one of those people who just keeps repeating the same points over and over so that what could be a 3-minute conversation becomes an 8-minute convo. Fuck, that was annoying. How many times must I say “ok, got it” before a person feels they can stop repeating themselves? Then my union’s lawyer contacted me and they were befuddled and mixed up, like the dipshit lawyer from The Simpsons show. Then I talked to my employer’s lawyer again and they were condescending, then I heard from my employer who was also condescending.

You may not guess it from the tone of this post or my blog but I’m generally polite and professional in my dealings with people at work, and I was no different with these schlubs so I don’t understand why they some of them would be rude to me, and how incompetent some of them were. It blows me away that I, an uneducated plebe with no hoity toity credentials, can be more together than all these other supposedly professional jerk offs. What a bunch of phony twats.