Heavy Mettle

It’s official – my son rocks!

He’s a big fan of the new CGI “Iron Man” cartoon on one of the kids’ channels.

So I cranked up the Sabbath “Iron Man” tune one Sunday morning recently and he totally banged his head to it (after I initially freaked him out by turning it up to 11, getting in his face and mouthing the words “I. Am. Iron. Man!” at the beginning).

So I didn’t think much more about it. He’s danced around the room to Rush and AC/DC ever since he could walk. It wasn’t until I was giving him a bath last night that I began to appreciate the depth of his appreciation. He clearly begin to sing the “Iron Man,” riff, the first two lines, including the distortion. I like to fell off the throne. We sang it back and forth to each other a few times then tried a duet – it was beautiful and hilarious.

Tonight, I turned on “Iron Maiden In Rio” on the DTV and he began to scamper around the front room like the little people of Stonehenge. He announced, “I like this music” and is still out there dancing to some of the most outlandish but rhythmic noise.

(I did have to explain to him though that because Bruce Dickinson was not singing with the band at the time of this taping, he was enjoying a watered-down version of the real thing. As usual, his response gave away nothing.)

Man it just keeps getting better. While I’m typing this up, The Missus comes in and tells me he’s “shredding” on this little toy guitar he has, and sure enough, he’s out with it on his lap, strumming its four loose strings in rough time to the pummeling beat of “Two Minutes to Midnight.”

He’s about to turn four. I’m hoping by 5 he’ll want a real guitar and that he won’t be playing this kind of music around the house all the time.

Next morning addendum: As God is my witness, he just taught me how to use an app on my cell phone. That probably says more about me than him, though.