Sweet 65

Prowling on the sawdust is a naked boy cracking a whip. He has a pile of tornadic ink black hair draped all over his childlike face...like a samurai orphan. He cracks the whip like a lion tamer. There are no lions in the cage, but clocks. Half a dozen clocks. They angrily prowl the cage and he cracks the whip again. They sit up on their stools, roaring and screaming at him.

The clocks have wet fangs bared at him, they also have razor sharp claws with blood stained on them from scratching themselves. They want to tear away at him with time…ravage him with painful years and decades.

Once they lost the plot and got at him..a little lunge and he went a little deaf and went a little blind. In revenge, he not only cracked the whip but made contact to them, tearing off a minute hand here and there. Let them know who’s boss. Now they obey.

Before he was born his mother was in a jail cell pregnant, expecting him and a gypsy shared the cell with her. She told his mother that the boy was going to be the loudest most cacophonic creature ever born…he would burn up every room he walked into. Outside the cell were the sounds of people rioting, burning cars, pulling down monuments and breaking shop windows.

Insane Scorpio boy, intoxicated by the darkness, turning everything upside down and frightening every beauty and every beast in the forest. Look at him now, cracking his whip and taming the clocks that want to tear him up. They’ll never succeed. Sweet 65.

High School Weight

Rebecca had a friend in his mid-forties with awful crows feet and a jowly face who proudly bragged that he could still fit into his high school clothes. The thought of someone keeping their creepy old fashions from the 1970’s is too disgusting to bear. After all, those who forget past fashions are condemned to wear them again, so it’s said. Now that another year has gone by and my birthday is approaching the following changes have occurred in my life:

1. I really like spaced out trip-hop because there’s only so many screaming rock guys I can handle and I’m bored with bad jazz music, so I listen to crazy shit like DJ Spooky’s “Zxero”, DJ Food’s “The Riff”, and Kid Koala’s “Drunk Trumpet”, to name a few.

2. I like wearing makeup, and it’s a bizarre leftover from the glam era from the 1970’s. In fact I miss the whole glam era in general, pre-punk so it was all about love, narcissm, beauty and safety-pin hate wasn’t on the menu just yet. Slade, T. Rex, The Sweet, and Roxy Music called the tune, and it didn’t hurt a bit.

3. Social networking means nothing to me. I still haven’t been on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Etsy, or anywhere else. For five minutes I had a momentary lapse of reason and tried to register with Facebook. I had to fill out so many boring questions about myself that I had an anxiety attack and got off as quickly as I tried to get on! I can only go as far as Flick*r (who thankfully don’t care what my favorite food is).

4. Maybe I'm crazy, but I still feel like taking off my clothes and dancing - I refuse to get caught up in the 9/11 A Go Go paranoia set where everything is cause for panic and anxiety. I just don't give a shit. I'm here to tell you that everything's gonna be alright. Because I said so.

Getting old doesn’t bother me a bit but guys going through weird Dorian Gray maneuvers like keeping their old clothes and bragging about fitting in them does. The best thing about being seventeen is getting over it, the same way getting over twenty-seven is epic, too. It’s not the age you’re at but how hot you are living it, and it’s not something you can hang in your fucking closet.

Suggested listening: The Stranglers' "Old Codger Running" (from "Black & White")

Happy Birthdie 2 Me

Halloween’s here and I’m another year old today. Every birthday becomes more interesting lately because I’ve passed the half-century mark. I still look pretty young for my age: yesterday some old lady called me a “sweet puppy”. I don’t know how many 52-year old men have been called a puppy this week, but I’m willing to bet they can be counted on only one finger!

Living old and looking young can be a bit frustrating, though, because people assume you’re an inexperienced young whelp based on your looks. I’ve always referred to myself as “a man of experience with the face of inexperience”. It’s weird! You may still look young but things change inside. Like what?

1. You’re going blind. No matter how large the type everything looks like little ants running across a spilled packet of black pepper. Everything looks like dots and squiggles and it’s maddening.

2. You’re going deaf. Either you’re going to have to repeat what you just said to get me to react or I’ll just nod my head and pretend I heard you. I’m a dick, sorry.

3. Something’s growing inside of me and it will take my life away from me eventually when it gets bigger. Until then I’ll smoke another cigarette. Like I said, I’m kind of a dick.

4. Remember all the fun food you enjoyed when you were 25? Well, it’s over. Your constitution can’t handle it any more. Club sandwiches are just a distant memory, peanuts are history and potatocorntortilla chips, Cheetos, and the rest of that crap are out of the picture. Vegetables for lunch, maybe turkey or tuna. Eat light…for the rest of your life, or else.

5. Just because you look like a sweet puppy doesn’t mean you can lift things any more. The only thing you’ll lift from now on is a book or a guitar. Otherwise forget it. The simplest lifting of objects will make your body fold up like a cardboard accordion.

6. You’ll get so absent minded you’ll forget where you put everything, like your wedding ring you lost last December. Your mind will be a fleeting thing.

Now that I’ve depressed you to death, how do you stay young or at least halfway humanly alert and alive? It’s actually pretty easy:

1. Never obsess over an era. It’s scary the way my peers still talk about the old punk rock days of 1977, the way my college rock pals talk about 1988, the way my grunge pals talk about 1991, etc. Yes, Mr. Dullsville those were the good old days, no they don’t make them like that any more (thank God). Live for the next moment because it will be better. I promise.

2. You never stop learning things, keep learning. Get the latest gadgets, read all you can about new computer systems, stay ahead of everything. When you stop learning you stop growing.

3. The war is over. There’s nothing sadder than an old bastard trying to play the James Dean-Henry Rolliins rebel. Even Richard Pryor backed down after awhile. Old tough guys are pathetic, so just breathe deeply and watch the world undo itself in front of you. It’s somebody else’s battle now.

4. Never forget that 99% of everyone around you is younger than you, even the fuckers that look older than you. Be patient with them, they’re very loud and annoying, yes, but just remember you were a lot like them when you were a sawed-off punk.

I’ve kept my age a partially-hidden fact because people assume all sorts of shit about age. I’m also pretty vain sometimes, just like my dad. I think I held up pretty well for a guy my age, but the best thing about turning fifty-two is being able to say “I did it all, and now I don’t have to try so hard”. Growing old is easy, but doing it well takes work.

Rebecca: Kween o' Kool Kards

'Tis the season for Rebecca to pull out her artistic armada of weapons: acrylics, pencils, inks, etc. and make me her wild cards. In the next six months I'll be getting my Birthday cards (October 31st), Hanukkah/Xmas cards (December 25th), and our Anniversary cards (February 12th). That's quite a triage, so there's tons of great art to look forward to! Go baby go!