Soon to be, or perhaps already, totally uncool

We spent yesterday afternoon in Kadikoy, the hipster suburb of Istanbul, hoping to get a random glimpse of Turkish life before we meet up with Amy Dickie (T-minus 30 minutes, yes!) and hit the road again. We ended up on the second floor of a four-story bar playing Turkish scrabble, drinking dark beer (finally) and smoking apple tobacco out of a houka while two local guys wailed on their acoustic guitars and waiters clapped in the background. As we looked around the room we realized that we were by far the oldest people in the place. Yikes. When did I start being the fogey in the bar? All the guys around me had hair gelled up into a faux-mohawk and wore black. Is this cool in America nowadays? I used to know the answer to this, but one day last year I looked at the Billboard Top 40 list and some chick named Chingy was at the top. Who the hell is Chingy? I always said I'd never be one of those parents who was out of touch with their kid's music, but here I am just short of 30 (T-minus 5 months, yes!) and I'm already hopelessly far from hip. I take solace only in the fact that Meg's even less aware of pop culture than I am, and thus even lamer than me.

---rahul