Forty To Life

Can’t We All Just Get Along (Again)?

2010-07-02T14:44:00.001-07:00

By Lawrence Schubert

Is the World Cup over yet?

Can I come out of my room?

Have they stopped blowing those funny horns?

Is it safe to sign onto Facebook again?
(Or as safe as it ever was?)

There was a story in the L.A. Times about a guy named Jose who was wearing his Mexican flag bandana during the W-Cup games, but he felt compelled to explain, after being grilled by that newspaper’s intrepid reporter, that he was only doing it for sporting reasons. He loves being an American and last year when he attended the Immigrants’ Rights Day rally in downtown L.A., he wore his American flag bandana. If I was looking for an argument, I’d say: So, Jose-let me get this straight. When you’re complaining, you’re an American, and when you’re a sports enthusiast, you’re a Mexican. But I’m not looking for an argument. Jose looked pretty hot and I’d love to meet him on Olvera Street and buy him a cerveza. They need the business and I need the company.

Why can’t we all just get along? God knows we haven’t quite sunk to the level of paranoia they have in Arizona, but there is still that subtle suspicion lurking behind all these “Where are your real loyalties?” stories that there is a secret Mexican plot afoot to reclaim California (aka the Northern Territories), install Lupillo Rivera as El Presidente and put all us gringos in prison camps where we will be forced to listen to narcocorridos 24/7.

Shortly after that the Armenians will probably annex Glendale and claim it for the restored Armenian Empire. My bank branch is chock full of them-it’s like some weird Armenian diaspora. They must be up to something, even if they didn’t have a team to cheer for in the WC. They’ve produced at least one great filmmaker, Sergei Paradjanov, and even if he doesn’t have his own jersey, any one of his films is worth a cabinet full of World Cup cups, or whatever they hand the victor in that sweaty jersey mashup.

Forget the W-Cup, let’s hear it for the D-Cup.

Or, as Russ Meyer would have it, the Double-D.

Why must everything in life be in opposition?

Why can’t we be happy unless someone else is miserable? I guess it’s because you can’t be a winner unless someone else is a loser. Maybe that’s why I never had much affinity for sports, and never warmed up to “American Idol.” I’d have been a lousy cheerleader for the gladiators at the old Roman Colosseum. If they were all as hot as Russell Crowe (used to be) I’d have asked them all out for a cup of grog and then back to my place for a lusty game of charades. No need to get all bloody and bruised, unless role-playing turns you on.

I go to the opera. At the opera they don’t cheer the soprano and hiss the baritone. They cheer everyone. That’s probably why operas run so long-they cheer after every aria. They cheer lustily. And at the end, the audience cheers again, and stands up, and cheers the conductor, and the whole cast right down to the extras, and even the third flute, who probably didn’t even play, he’s just there because he’s union. And then everyone goes home, exhausted, mainly because it takes a half hour to get out of the parking garage, but also exhilarated, and humming.

You never hear about post-opera revelers running amok, looting and pillaging Grand Avenue, not even after Achim Freyer’s recent and controversial Wagner Ring cycle. Maybe it’s because they were tapped out by the average five-hour running time per installment. But a Lakers game probably clocks in at roughly the same length, and look at how that turned out. More Wotan, less Kobe, for a more peaceful planet.

And what is it with these Russian spies amongst us? I thought that “We will bury you” crap ended after we tore down “that wall.” We’ve already buried ourselves, so what could they possibly be looking for? The secret of how to wage two wars badly at the same time? How to get absolutely nothing done politically at all? Or is it that Holy Grail of American ingenuity, the secret formulation for Coca-Cola?

Can’t we all just get along? No one ever “wins” at Fashion Week-they just fight for the good seats and the goody bags.

More silk jersey and less soccer jersey for a more peaceful planet.

Down with the W-Cup. Up with the C-cup, the D-cup, and the Double-D.

Can’t we all just get along? Can’t we all just cop a feel?

Is the World Cup over yet?

I Will Dance at Your Funeral

2010-06-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

by Lawrence Schubert

“The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out

The ones that crawl in are lean and thin

The ones that crawl out are fat and stout

Be merry my friends be merry…”

-Traditional

People think that I am being perverse when I say that I enjoy funerals and despise weddings. I scoff at your nuptials, I tell friends, but I will dance at your funeral. This is neither perverse nor morbid. It is a plain fact that nothing incites depression more than other people’s happiness (and in-laws), and nothing is so uplifting as other people’s trials and tribulations.

All loving couples contemplating marriage should elope. They would save their families vast expense and spare their friends a great deal of annoyance. But upon dying, I say cram the house and don’t spare the buffet.

When I was a younger man, I lived for a spell with my grandparents. I found it quite amusing that my grandfather drank his morning coffee while perusing the obituaries. Now I do the exact same thing; with only one, small difference. My grandfather read the Newark Star Ledger: He was looking for news of people that he knew. I read the Los Angeles Times: I do not expect to see my friends or acquaintances eulogized therein. I am looking for news of people I have admired, or those I have never known.

You will never read a complete report of a person’s life in any newspaper until that person is dead. Only in death will people finally give you a break. Or take long-deserved notice of you. Usually because they are so surprised to find out that you were not already deceased that they are seized with a momentary, involuntary spasm of goodwill and generosity.

I have not thought of Art Linkletter, who died last week at age 97, often in my life. As a child I toured CBS Television City and the studio where he taped his long-running show “House Party,” the one that spawned his signature book, “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” I still don’t believe all those little shavers weren’t prompted when they came up with lines like “My mother does a little housework then reads the Racing Form the rest of the day,” or the boy who wanted to be an octopus so that he could hit bullies with his “testicles.” It was amusing how he was always prodding children to say something naughty, but by accident, so that it was cute. Amusing and a tad subversive, and America ate it up because it was the “Candid Camera” era, a kinder/gentler “gotcha” culture than today’s YouTube and reality TV horror shows.

I remember Linkletter mostly for the “Merrie Melodies” send-up of his earlier show, “People Are Funny.” In the Daffy Duck/Bugs Bunny cartoon he is parodied as Art Lamplighter, and hosts a show called “People Are Phony.” I remember him also as the secondary butt of an early John Waters cinema provocation from 1970, “The Diane Linkletter Story,” starring Divine as his ill-fated daughter who jumped to her death from a 6^th floor window-a tragedy her father blamed on LSD. Linkletter sued to prevent the Waters’ film from being shown, which of course accorded it instant cult status.

When I read his obituary, I discovered that Linkletter was quirkier and cooler than I ever gave him credit for. When he was in his 80s, someone asked him the secret of longevity. “You live between your ears,” he replied. “You can’t turn back the clock, but you can rewind it.” And after his daughter’s death, though he had initially embraced a wide-ranging anti-everything drug policy (he, like Elvis, became an advisor to Richard Nixon), he eventually modified his position and in 1972 announced he had concluded that marijuana was relatively harmless and that law-enforcement officials should spend their time concentrating on hard drugs. Four decades past, Linkletter took the same position that is about to be put to a vote in the upcoming California state elections. And he was a Republican.

Less well known, but more frequently in my thoughts, was mathematician, writer and bon-vivant Martin Gardner, who also passed last week, he at age 95. Gardner was one of those quintessential American characters who brought his own unique perspective to whatever he touched. Mathematics and math puzzles were his lifetime forte, but he was also renowned for his “Annotated Alice in Wonderland,” not to mention more esoteric fare such as his “Annotated Casey at the Bat” and his 1998 continuation of L. Frank Baum’s Oz series, “Visitors From Oz.” If a mind like Gardner’s was a pool I would dive in and happily drown.

And let us not forget Doris Eaton Travis, the “last Ziegfeld girl,” who died recently at age 106, making Gardner & Linkletter look like refugees from “Cocoon 3.” That we shall never see her like again is as much an understatement as saying that the old Penn Station in New York City was vastly superior to the current one.

So, to recap: Kids say the darndest things, a pretty girl is like a melody, and the universe is made of numbers. It’s a wonderful life, death be not proud-but only when a life is concluded can it be measured and appreciated in its totality.

Death touches everyone, marriage only the unlucky.

Strike up the band. I will dance at your funeral.

Doris Eaton Travis: the “last Ziegfeld Girl”

Postscript: Since this epistle was completed, death has claimed actor Dennis Hopper (age 74) and artist Louise Bourgeois (age 98). The former, like many contemporary actors, appears to have so fascinated himself that I find little to interest me, which is not to diminish his suffering or the loss felt by those who knew him better. The latter’s life speaks to the sustaining force of a creative mind. And lost in the shuffle between the easy rider and the spider woman was the cameraman’s cameraman William Fraker, dead at 86. Fraker began his career with “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” and went on to compile a resume that included “Rosemary’s Baby” and “American Hot Wax,” though he is best remembered for his “fasten your seatbelts” cinematography for the 1968 “Bullitt.” If that’s not proof of evolution, I don’t know what is.

Death marches on, but we do not celebrate death, only the dead.

The Perils of Sex Past 40: An Occasional Series

2010-05-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

By Lawrence Schubert

WHAT PART OF “NO” DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?

The news that Viagra may cause hearing loss in users strikes me as very convenient for men, and may help to explain why so many old horndogs don’t seem to hear their wives when they say: Let’s not and say we did.

http://doctor.ndtv.com/storypage/ndtv/id/004479/Viagra_may_cause_hearing_loss.html

Beyonce may have the moves, but Maureen can run sentences around her any day.

2010-05-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

By Lawrence Schubert

MAUREEN DOWD considers the situation of single ladies and comes up with a much more empowering answer to the situation than BEYONCE KNOWLES did. And why would we expect any less from the auburn-tressed word vixen of the NY Times?

“Men, generally more favored by nature as they age, can be single at all ages. But often, for women, once you’re 40 or 50, or simply beyond childbearing age, you’re no longer single. You’re unmarried…..”

LINK:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/opinion/19dowd.html?src=me&ref=homepage

FOREVER YOUNG: QUELLE HORREUR!

2010-05-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

By Lawrence Schubert

I recently celebrated a most inauspicious birthday-57.

Having said that, I now feel like Margo Channing in “All About Eve” when she admits that she is 40. “Lloyd, I'm not twenty-ish, I'm not thirty-ish. Three months ago I was forty years old. Forty. Four O. That slipped out. I hadn't quite made up my mind to admit it. Now I suddenly feel as if I've taken all my clothes off.” So here I stand, naked in public, like someone in a Spencer Tunick photograph. I just hope the lighting is forgiving.

There’s no sense in trying to hide it: It’s already on the public record. I am one of those guileless fools who entered his complete birthdate—month, day and year—when I joined Facebook. That was before I realized that F-Book is the Peter Pan adjunct of the Internet where everyone is ageless, like Matthew Rolston, who has been using the same Contributor’s photograph in magazines for the last two or three decades-and even when he started it was at least ten years out of date.

I recently heard someone of advanced age described on the radio in an infuriatingly popular and condescending manner as “80 years young.” That the person described was a seasoned symphony conductor, and not some aging Hollywood starlet raging, raging against the dying of the light, and that I heard it on KUSC and not on “Showbiz Tonight,” made it even more execrable. Of course the opposite, “80 years old,” is almost as bad. We either try to deny aging or bury the living alive in America. Europeans have a much more sensible phrase: 80 anni. The middle ground is always the most sensible, but since we have no middle ground in America, and hardly even a middle class anymore, of course it goes unconsidered.

To be forever young: Quelle horreur! It seems to be the unblinking goal of most of the entertainment industry, a pernicious pastime that has spread like a virus to large portions of a population hypnotized by its products.

One would think that by now we would have learned the lesson of such cautionary tales as Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” published 1890, or Robert Zemeckis’s film “Death Becomes Her,” released approximately a century later.

Forever fit: yes, please. Forever useful, forever engaged: better yet. Even forever chic, as superficial as that is: Why the hell not? No one ever said that one has to age in dowdiness, wrapped in a Slanket and trundling about in one of those goddamned Rascals. When the legs give out, get a fucking rocking chair, knit, and await the end in dignity.

For a few minutes in the last century, before Tina tarted it up and Graydon cauterized it, Vanity Fair used to have covers with photographs of real people with real faces. Wrinkles and all, they were captured with surgical precision by the likes of Irving Penn, who mapped the visages of artists and intellectuals like a cartographer. Nowadays the portraiture purveyed by practically everyone except National Geographic owes more to porn than Penn. The old VF epitomized what used to be the East Coast standard of Aging with Dignity (and hopefully, money; LOTS of money) as opposed to the West Coast standard of Aging with Surgery. (And money, lots of money. Some values are just universal.)

It is a dichotomy now mostly superseded by the bicoastal cult of celebrity, but well summed up by Neil Simon’s snappy badinage in “California Suite,” the playwright’s 1978 examination of East vs. West, no better encapsulated than in the “bantering” between Jane Fonda’s Hannah Warren and her-ex husband Bill (played by Alan Alda) as to who will raise their teenage daughter, Jenny, who has fled her domineering, careerist mother to seek refuge with her mellow dad, reborn in the palm latitudes of Southern California.

Hannah: When you haven't seen your ex-husband in nine years, your eyes have to... adjust. You look so... what is the word?

Bill: Happy

Hannah: [ignores his reply] Casual. What have you done to your hair? You look like the sweetest, 16 year-old boy. (Steps back, examining him) I’ll bet they call you Billy… (He looks at her without answering) They do, don’t they? (She glances at his tennis outfit.) And I love your California clothes. Where do you get them?

Bill: At Bloomingdales. That’s the best place for California clothes.

Hannah: I suppose if Jenny stays she'll grow up to look like that. Blonde hair. Blonde teeth. Blonde life.

Of course, since “California Suite” the distinction between Eastern intelligentsia and Left Coast vapidity has gradually dissolved. The hottest after-party on Oscar night is Vanity Fair’s. Nowadays everyone wants blonde teeth, if not a blonde life. But age is still the great divider. Still, I’d rather be cool like Betty White than Kool-Aid like Justin Bieber. Granted, I prefer the taut skin of a twink to the crepe paper of an octogenarian, but you can’t always get what you want. The flesh withers but the soul is eternal, and Olay Regenerist is available at Rite-Aid for a fraction of the cost of the high-priced creams, with visible results in just 30 days.

The last Ziegfeld girl just died at age 106, and I’ll bet she never took Boniva.

Here’s to aging with integrity, and an elastic spirit, if not elastic skin.

LOOKING UP GRANNY'S SKIRT

2010-03-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

By Lawrence Schubert

Far be it from we mere mortals @ 40ToLife to tell any women when her G-spot should be retired, or at least, put into a good assisted living program, but the thought (and nothing else) did arise when we stumbled across this bit of senior citizen salaciousness from across the pond titled “Sophia Loren: How To Smoulder When You’re Older.”

God love Sophia, and she is holding together well (that, or she has a great support garment) but we feel a little creepy looking up the skirt of someone who is someone else’s grandma. Alright, so those pattern-baldness Ponti boys of hers look older than she does, and she did do the Pirelli calendar a year or two ago en dishabille, but the Pirelli calendar uses high-art photographers and hangs in garages and the Daily Mail is newsprint and is used to wrap fish. Besides, Sharon Stone already kinda creeps us out-and she’s only what…52??

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1257085/How-smoulder-youre-older-Sophia-Loren-75.html

Give the funny old man some pie

2010-03-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

Comedian and magician PENN GILLETTE, who recently celebrated his “magical” birthday (that once-in-a-lifetime event when your age and your birth year are the same-in this case, 55 for Mr. Gillette) ruminates in the LA Times on the experience of becoming “the old guy,” and how it is easier to face ageing when you weren’t really good-looking in the first place. (Hat tip to Bruce Springsteen-60 anni and recent AARP Magazine cover boy.) Mr. Gillette confirms what 40 To Life has known all along: There is life after 40-even 50, and the candle sometimes burns brightest when it is halfway down.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-jillette12-2010mar12,0,7294106.story

OCYSEC: Overly Confident Yet Self-Esteem Challenged

2010-03-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

By Dale Brasel

I’m glad that I’m not Julia Roberts. There are many reasons for this, but mainly because I believe that she has too much self-esteem. I live in Los Angeles—Sherman Oaks to be exact, which even though is the neighboring community to Beverly Hills and Bel Air, is considered The Burbs. That’s because The S.O. is on The Valley side, or what we Los Angelenos term “over the hill.” Being “over the hill” has a particular, less-than-hip stigma attached to it, in more ways than one. Even though for the past year and a half I’ve lived in this beautiful, sprawling house in one of the most desirable zip codes in the city with television star neighbors (if you are into such things), a gardener, a pool man, and enough fruit trees to make Anita Bryant raise an eyebrow, I never ordered a land line because I didn’t want an (818) area code. Never mind that I am living more than a little bit past my financial means, it isn’t my empty wallet messing with my self-esteem, but my area code.

This brings me back to Julia Roberts. I’m sure she is a fine woman…even a pretty woman…but she always seems to come across as just too damn confident, and I blame this on questionable self esteem. When you are a teenager, you are lousy with self-esteem. Somewhere in your twenties and mid-thirties, it gets a little shaky. By your forties it seems to be back in check…most of the time. There are some people who just have too much confidence (and feel free to insert your own definition of “too much” here), but still battle self esteem issues in the oddest ways: me, for example, and my over the hill (818) area code phobia.

The overly confident yet self-esteem challenged (we’ll call them OCYSECs) are people who can never, ever ride in the back seat of a car because they claim to get car sick, unless of course you are in a situation with a chauffeured sedan, then under no circumstance can these people ever, ever ride in the front seat. You know whom I am speaking of. They are the women who spend $1,500 on a pair of shoes, only to lament about wearing them for fear that someone will recognize the shoes as past season. People that spend an obnoxious amount of money on a house and ultra trendy furniture, but at the house warming party don’t have a piece of art on the walls or a single book on a shelf (having said that, it is quite possible they have a single art book on a coffee table along the lines of Nagel: The Art of Patrick Nagel). It’s the “dude” that when you are taking two cars to a destination breaks every traffic rule in the book just so they can arrive seconds before you to shout “I win” for the nonexistent road race. OCYSECs must be the first to have the new iPhone, iPod, iPad, or iWhatever, not for technology sake, but for flash appeal. They remove the Zara and H&M labels from their clothing, and when you compliment them on their attire pass them off as big name designers. The people who assumingly always evenly split the bill at the end of a group meal, even though they ordered the priciest menu items and three bottles of wine, of which you had exactly half a glass. At night, Black American Express cards fill their OCYSEC dreams. Isn’t it curious that nearly all of the above habits are usually bundled together as a package deal?

I was recently in a tony store selling a gothic-inspired, human head-sized candle that was marked in excess of $1,000. Not an ornate candleholder, just a conglomeration of beeswax. Who buys such a thing? Cher? I asked the saleswoman about it and she tells me that they can’t keep them in stock. I commented on how great the scent must be, and she scolds, “You don’t burn it…you put little tea lights inside of it hidden under the rim and burn those. It’s more about the perception. It’s a showpiece.” It got me thinking about my own post-forty self-esteem status: am I a just a big wedge of pricey wax, and my evaded (818) area code a hidden tea light?

Am I an OCYSEC? I hope that I have evolved more than that. The gardener and the pool man came yesterday. Time to pick some oranges off of my trees, squeeze some juice for fresh mimosas sipped poolside at my “over the hill” home…and not be concerned with Julia Roberts. If you need to reach me, it’s still by my (323) area code cell phone. Damn, if not an OCYSEC, I am at least a tea light.

GOODBYE eBAY and AMEN

2010-02-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

By Lawrence Schubert
Our service culture is rife with treatments to wean one from all manner of addiction: sex, gambling, and substance abuse of every stripe. There is help for drug addicts, orgasm addicts, even the lowly pot smoker. We have an Alcoholics Anonymous, but why has no one thought to address a disease just as pernicious: Where is eBayers Anonymous?

My name is Lawrence Schubert and I am a shopaholic.

I am approaching Wilt Chamberlain status in my eBay score, and without help I may surpass even his accomplishments, albeit in my own field of expertise, which is neither sex nor basketball, but online shopping. Stop me before I bid again. I sign in and immediately hear the whispered suggestion Mrs. Danvers makes to the second Mrs. DeWinter as they look down from the second floor window in Hitchcock’s Rebecca: “Why don’t you-it’s so easy……….”

Commodity fetishism of all types has always been a weakness of mine. I’d have made a lousy Marxist. But my habits were relatively modest, confined mainly to flea markets, thrift stores, and the back room at Circus of Books until the internet came along and enabled my unquenchable love of obscure and outré objects of desire. Pottery and phallocentric Hispanic gay porn, both are ripe for the picking online, separated only by middle-class respectability. There is little difference between time lost trolling eBay and that spent perusing BiLatinMen.com. The only distinction is the labeling. At the former all objects are clearly described, while the latter proffers the fantasy, popular on such sites, that the tough hombres sitting around stroking their big churros and chomping each others’ corndogs are bisexual, though there is nary a woman in sight. It’s not really BiLatinMen; it’s BuyLatinMen. They’re not bisexual, just illiterate.

Unfortunately, there is no halfway remedy for the commodity fetishist.

There is no such thing as a little bit of eBay anymore than there is a little bit of porn.

Unless one renounces all, dons a loincloth and takes up residence under the Bodhi tree until enlightenment comes—and not at the Bodhi Tree, where bliss comes with sales tax attached—life is about acquisition in one form or another. You’re either in the game or you’re out of it. No wonder Marxism had such a short, joyless run. Even the Chinese realized eventually that Mao was a dead end and replaced him with Versace, and look at them now. Goodbye little red book-hello little red dress.

But let’s get down to cases regarding obsessive-compulsive online dysfunction: the mothership of them all is hovering in plain sight. Facebook is the perfect melding of shopping and porn all gussied up as social networking; the dark eBay of the soul. Everyone is selling something, primarily themselves, and everyone wants to be admired and desired. “Want to buy some illusions?” indeed!

I spend more time on Facebook than eBay and the other site combined, but at least with eBay I get a package in the mail, and with the other place I get to handle my package. I think that if God had wanted us to be abstemious, he would not have created the internet or storage spaces. My right hand may grow blistered and my left hand may wither, but I will die in a crowded house, a commodity fetishist to the death.

Chastity is for monks, restraint is for saints, and sobriety is for suckers.

You’ve got a friend in PayPal.

Life is a banquet and most poor bastards are starving to death.

My name is Lawrence Schubert and I’m going shopping.

WHEN I WAS A CHILD

2010-02-02T23:24:00.000-08:00

By Trent Buckroyd

“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.”

—1 Corinthians 13:11 (King James Bible translation)

Now that I’ve reached my 40s I’ve come to realize that there are just certain things that I, or anyone over 40 for that matter, just probably shouldn’t do (like grow ironic facial hair, wear T-shirts with funny sayings on them, or sport a baseball cap turned backwards). I’ve noticed lately that there is just the slightest bulging of the eyes or raising of the eyebrow when I converse with my contemporaries. I’m thinking that I really might need to edit my vocabulary. Yes, now that I’m in my 40s, I think that some of these should probably be permanently removed from my lexicon…especially when speaking with my physician, my kid’s soccer coach, or cops.

40 THINGS YOU SHOULDN’T SAY IF YOU’RE OVER 40:

Kick Ass!
Drop it like it’s hot
“Get your _______ on.” i.e. get you “swag” on, or get your “drink” on, etc. (Expectable options: “pants,” “jacket” or “shoes”)
“Hella”
Hells yes
Dope (Only a no-no when used as an adjective, still perfectly fine as a noun)
Sweeeeeet
Killer
Sexting
Bootylicious
Booty call
Fuckin’ A!
Va-Jay-Jay
Me so horny
Radical (Exceptions: when speaking about surgery or a political viewpoint)
Playa
You the man, dog
Off the hook
Apps. (Go ahead and say “applications,” you’re really not saving that much time by abbreviating it, and you sound like a douche)
Douche
Baby mama
Baby mama drama
Righteous (Unless referring to the Dali Lama or another holy man)
How I roll (Gymnasts excluded)
In the Hee-Zee
Unfriend (Note to all the Facebook people who bitch about not having a “dislike” button. Are you really so busy that you can’t type the comment “I don’t like this”? You need a button?!?!)
Gangsta
OMG! LOL! ROFLMAO! (FYI)
Hardcore (Unless you are speaking to the guy behind the counter at the video store and your conversation also contains the words “Latinas” and “stilettos”)
Bro, Brah, Broseph, or Brougham (Brougham is okay if you happen to be at a Cadillac dealership)
Teachable moment (Unless of course you are an actual teacher)
Panties (I ‘m not sure why, but this one just never feels right to say, regardless of age)
I’d like to send a big shout out to…
Holla
Yummy
Cougar
Muffin Top
Dude
What up, bitches?
Ambercrombie and/or Fitch

To Be Fetching

2010-02-01T17:05:00.000-08:00

By Dale Brasel

You know the adage “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” It occurred to me recently, as an Ole Dawg, that nobody bothered to ask the dog if he cared to learn the aforementioned tricks. I know some dogs who lead a great life with the skill sets they have learned thus far. I’ve got a great life too. It’s not that I don’t have a yearning for acquiring further knowledge, but there are certain “tricks” that I haven’t felt any urgency to learn at this point in my life, and am somehow completely fine with feeling that maybe I just don’t need to. It is said that with age comes wisdom. I’m not buying that. I think that with age comes a particular gift for knowing when to just let things go, and doing so with a smile on your face. My head is cluttered enough with useless skills. I’m still waiting to actually apply trigonometry and the 50 memorized state capitols to anything in my life.

At 46, I still haven’t learned the “trick” to folding a fitted sheet. My sheets usually go straight from the dryer to the mattress, or an unvisited linen cabinet until I have the rare out-of-town guest, so why bother? I don’t see how this skill is truly going to enrich my life. I don’t know how to tie a bowtie, and don’t give a poo. I can’t make fart noises with my armpit (but think this “trick” might be handy in the right social situation). I can’t put a hem in my pants or do anything with a sewing machine. My dry cleaner does more than just clean. Can’t juggle or ride a unicycle. Can’t do the splits. Can’t tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue. Can’t hit the high notes on Minnie Ripperton’s “Loving You.” Can’t weld, but can solder…also useless. I don’t know how to drive a car with a standard transmission. Haven’t had to know so far, and I don’t plan on having to drive a tractor anytime soon.

Oddly, there are many tricks I haven’t learned that pertain to vehicles. I can’t change my own oil. I don’t really know how that trailer ball on the back of my car works. I’ve never used it, and probably never will. Don’t know what that button with ESP written on it really, truly does. I’ve never touched it, and have always been suspicious of its powers. I still have trouble defogging my interior windows. Sure, there are little symbols on dashboards dials, but are those symbols for defogging or defrosting? I don’t encounter a lot of ice on my windshield in Los Angeles. I’ve got a special little button on my console that all I do is push and the rear window magically defogs seemingly on its own. Why, oh why, can’t this same “trick” be used for the front windshield? If it’s cold outside, do I make the car interior temperature cold too? Or do I make it warm? And why does the air blow so loud, yet seem to do nothing except on the bottom few inches of the glass? I don’t know. It’s more fun to ponder than to actually learn, so I usually just roll down my windows and stick my head out like a Golden Retriever on an excursion until I either I reach my destination, or until the windows just clear up from the fresh air outside. I have, however, never run out of gas. It’s not much of a “new trick,” I know, but how many people do you know who travel with an empty gas can in their trunk?

Old dogs aren’t dumb. They’ve just learned the ageless “trick” of knowing how it’s all going to work out.

JAGUAR in a MERCEDES

2010-01-07T11:06:00.000-08:00

By Lawrence Schubert

What is the male equivalent of a cougar? Not the genus puma concolor, the cat that prowls on four feet in the wild, but the vertical type that prowls Rodeo Drive in Manolo Blahniks. What is the male equivalent of Demi Moore or Courteney Cox Arquette? To be more exact, the gay male equivalent (or is that redundant)? I choose the jaguar as my genus middleageus role model. “The jaguar is a solitary, stalk-and-ambush predator, opportunistic in its prey selection, playing an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating the populations of prey species.” Transposed from the rainforest to the urban jungle, not a bad analogy; as I roam, sequestered in my automobile, scanning the streets with hungry eyes.

Take, say Cary Grant’s Roger O. Thornhill in “North by Northwest,” a role model a man of any sexual persuasion can appreciate. His matchbooks are monogrammed with his initials, (“That’s my trademark-ROT.”), and his self-effacement is disarming; but recall that his one phone call from jail is reserved for “Mother.” While his suaveness is beyond my reach, I too am a sinner looking for a saint, just not one named Eva-Marie.

Alas, there are few contemporary icons that offer similar inspiration. Most of the older predators in public life are wolfish heterosexuals pursuing younger women. This bespeaks the insecurity of straight men, who rarely show any imagination as they age, only the desperation of a star in the supernova stage that inevitably precedes the white dwarf. This is the man that chooses 36-hour Cialis. Gay men, being only in the first generation of liberation, are still negotiating the public options for their Golden Years. When I was younger, the main options were to become an old john or a character from a Tennessee Williams play, like Blanche Dubois or Miss Alma from “Summer & Smoke.”Blanche tries to seduce a young delivery boy and Alma pines for the boy next door: neither comes to a happy ending, but at least their suffering has a certain ennobling poetry.

This thought comforts me as I observe the army of Mexican gardeners who swarm my neighborhood every Thursday with their Pancho Villa mustaches and big leaf-blowers, or the thick-limbed pool cleaner who stirs the stygian dregs of my swimming pool and my heart—neither of which get much use these days— because otherwise there is something nakedly colonial about lusting after men of the working class. Unlike the jaguar, I have the stalking part down but the ambush is more problematic. Wile. E. Coyote has nothing on me. Because what’s love got to do with it? Not much, unfortunately.

The currency of youth is youth while the currency of age is currency. In social intercourse everything is a negotiation where the younger partner holds the cards and the elder, the credit cards. And when a man’s incrementals are no bigger than two lentils, he has less leverage than may be necessary. Not all men are mercenary, but one is certainly more attractive wearing the vestments of security. I really should have started my 401K a few years earlier-say 30-and found a good medical/dental plan before reaching the age where everything is a pre-existing condition. My species is vanishing, doomed to extinction by loss of habitat.

Perhaps I should consider a different model.

All that (no pun intended) sappy Joyce Kilmer nonsense aside, trees really are a marvel and a fine model for aging with dignity. As saplings, they all look very much alike, but with age they acquire character and distinction. And they are resilient. Lop off a branch and another will grow. Trees always seem to find perfect balance, even in imbalance. No two are ever alike: some stand majestically alone, others in harmonious clusters.

So perhaps I will emulate the trees and find my balance in singularity, instead of being a jaguar, in a Mercedes: circling, circling, endlessly circling.

I Dreamed a Dream:

2009-12-31T11:47:00.000-08:00

By Dale Brasel

My Personal Beautification Project for 2010 and Pending Susan Boyle Moment. A New Year, a New You…or at least a new YouTube video showcasing a cat flushing a toilet. Come on, it’s still funny. As I write this, it is mere hours before the entrance of a new decade, and my only panicked thought is, “What the hell I am supposed to kiss at the stroke of midnight?” There is a whirlwind of yearend Top Ten lists that have me thinking that I should rid myself of all of the toxic things that brought this boy down in 2009. Not so much New Year Resolutions as a campaign I am calling “The Dale Brasel Beautification Project, 2010.” The year 2009 was hard on everybody I know, and everybody I know is waiting to have their very own Susan Boyle moment…that magical (if only in your own mind) episodic moment when all is right in the world, you hit your personal best, and a mantra echoes in you head of, “You go, girl!” And by “girl,” I mean 46 year-old man. Never mind that I don’t have any real talent—that never stopped Kate Hudson.

I therefore vow to the following to initiate the Dale Brasel Beautification Project 2010:

10) I promise to spend more time in Costco than in Neiman Marcus. Pushing a flatbed and snacking on freshly baked bite-sized snacks has its own unique glamour attached.

9) I promise not to be enveloped in what happens to Jon and Kate, or their eight. Is it odd that I had the same haircut as Kate back in 1982, give or take a rat-tail?

8) I promise that even though I know way too many names of the Kardashians (Kris, Kim, Khole, and Kourtney), that I will attempt to never know the names of the last two of those “K” girls, who are bound to be a series spin-off.

7) I promise to spend more time watching new decade visionary Rachel Maddow, who is far smarter (and more crisply dressed) than me, over the 2000’s Bill Maher, who is much shorter (and higher) than me.

6) I promise that whenever Bernie Madoff says, “I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today,” not to believe him.

5) I promise that I will never again put a little Colorado boy in an attic and tell him to lie about being in a Mylar balloon in hopes of a big signing bonus for a reality television show.

4) I promise not to wear sleeveless, J. Crew tops, exposing my well-developed arms. Such acts only lead to unpleasant, partisan fodder for Bill O’Reily and the entire Fox News Channel.

3) I promise that whenever asked about a certain relationship to offer the stock answer, ‘Tiger Woods and I are only Facebook friends.”

2) I promise to learn how to properly fold a fitted sheet. It’s a small thing, but it has wreaked havoc in too many linen closets for far too long. If not now, when? If not me, who?

1) I promise not to give in to the temptations of Twitter. I love my friends, but don’t need to know instantaneously when they are buying socks.

Promises, promises, promises. It is said that beauty is only skin deep…but ugly is to the bone. I think I’ve still got good bones, so my personal beautification project will start at the musculoskeletal level before the onset of osteoporosis and arthritis. Okay, just a little Botox wouldn’t hurt either. Hello, 2010…bring on my Susan Boyle moment.

40TOLIFE Manifesto

2009-12-19T12:26:00.001-08:00

40TOLIFE will not focus on celebrity, unless of course we want to mock the young…and we will. We’ve earned it. Audrina Patridge from The Hills? Really? Video may have killed the radio star, but certainly reality TV has killed celebrity. 40TOLIFE will not focus on fashion, unless of course we want to mock those whose entire wardrobe comes from Forever 21. 40TOLIFE will not focus on health and wellbeing. You’ve made it this far, so you must be doing something right. Just keep doing what you’re doing, just give yourself a little extra time in the morning. 40TOLIFE will not focus on predisposed notions of chronological age. We’re here! We’re Clear! Get used to it! 40TOLIFE will focus on, with the help of our disposable contacts, is a free spirited approach to living mid-life without a rulebook…or “Honk If You Are A Hot Cougar” bumper stickers.

NO ONE EVER TOLD ME MY KNEES WOULD SAG FIRST!!!!

2009-11-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

By the only woman on the team

Here I am, well into my 40s, and my skin has managed to remain somewhat youthful, (I don’t look a day over 38!), partly because of good genes and partly because I stopped taking sun at 14. Thank you PUNK ROCK-you saved my skin! I have always taken great care of my complexion: I never went to bed with my make-up on, I used the best products money would allow (or my credit card would accept), rigorously applied sunblock…etc. Nonetheless, I do see the signs of aging on my face, neck, hands… hell-my entire body. However, the most startling place of all: my knees!!!

The week preceding my 40th birthday, I scrutinized myself in the mirror, every inch, from head to toe. Suddenly, to my horror, I realized that Father Time had taken up residence on my knees. I was shocked! They were sagging and discolored, like an old woman’s. “Why did no one tell me about this”? I asked myself, as I collected all my miniskirts to donate to Out of the Closet.

Once the initial shock wore off, I dialed my mother. “Why didn’t you warn me that my knees would go first”? After a moment of total silence, she burst out laughing. “Did I also forget to tell you about the stray hairs?” Said I: “Yes, mother, you forgot to tell me about that too. Is there anything else you’re holding back?” Returning to the mirror, once my best friend, I thought-Great! On top of these old lady knees, I now have to be on the lookout for stray hairs. But we will save that discussion for another time.

Several days after my 40th birthday, after countless conversations with my older girl friends (one should always have a few older girlfriends-both to consult with and to feel superior to), I turned to the Internet in hopes of finding out more about aging knees.

I know Nora Ephron has the “I hate my neck” thing covered, but to my dismay there is very little information or conversation about this forgotten body part further down the torso. Really, all that I found out is that there is a plastic surgery procedure (apparently Demi Moore has had it done-quelle surprise!) where they basically do a knee lift, leaving you with scars that I assume can be passed off as something that you did as a child, or perhaps blamed on a skateboarding accident. (Or a tumble in a mosh pit-thank you again PUNK ROCK!!)

Great so now I have to worry about how to pay for an eyelift, a facelift and a knee lift?? You have to be kidding me! While I have yet to succumb to Botox, Juvederm, or any of those other fillers on my face, you’d best believe I’ve made inquiries to see if these fillers have been injected into knees and what the results have been. Usually, the voice on the other end of the phone told me, “No we do not suggest these procedures for that particular body part.”

I guess I am destined to be the trailblazer for the anti-aging of one’s knees movement… While I am unsure if I can reverse the signs of aging, I am doing my best to forestall further deterioration. I have taken to caring for my sagging knees in the same manner I do for my face. They are exfoliated thrice weekly, I put a hydrating mask on them, every morning they are caressed with a rich moisturizer, and then again at bedtime with a greasy night crème in hopes of arresting gravity’s pull.

And I pray standing up from now on.

So ladies, still in your 20’s and 30’s, consider yourself warned!
Forget the neck: there’s a new frontier.

Your knees will show the signs of aging first.
Peace, love and moisturizer!!

If It's Too Loud, Then...Turn It Down

2009-08-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

Who's The Narc?
By Trent Buckroyd

I'm 40 years old and I still go to rock shows. I still love seeing live music, but it's now a constant seesaw of "should I or shouldn't I?" Things I use to not care about now factor in. Do I want to stand for two hours in a hot, packed room? Do I want to pay 8 bucks for parking? Do I really need to see the opening band (I use to love to see the opening band!)? Will I be able to see game 4 of the NBA Finals that I’m Tivo'ing before someone tells me the score? There’s also the sleep element, I like a good 8 hours if I can get it, but you see the alarm clock of two toddlers is going to go off at 6:00 AM without fail, and the fact that Daddy was out until 2 AM and may have enjoyed a couple of adult beverages does not really factor into the equation.

These are things I never would have questioned in my bullet-proof youth. In fact just typing these things really makes feel old, like I should be standing on my front porch shaking my fist yelling "You damn kids get off my lawn." I know all the indie kids look at me at rock shows and think, "who's the narc?" They secretly mock my “Van Halen 1982 Hide Your Sheep World Tour” throwback reproduction replica
t shirt(http://www.vanhalenstore.com/page/VH/PROD/shirts/S82). I can't really squeeze into the original anymore so an alternate had to be purchased at the last partial re-union show. (Please don't get me started on the whole Wolfie vs. Michael Anthony debate, but is nothing sacred?). I remember that when I was in my late teens I thought that someone like myself, a music editor for a national magazine, should have an expiration date on them, just like a carton of milk. Perhaps there would be some sort of ceremony where on my 21st birthday I'd float up in the sky and be shot with a laser just like in Logan's Run. I didn't really listen to the Who at that age, (though the song that most people think of is called Teenage Wasteland but is really called Baba O’Riley was all over Dallas radio, hell it still is. Man, oh man does Dallas radio suck). I thought that was music for old people, but I was well aware and somewhat agreed with Roger Daltrey's “My Generation” sentiment of "Hope I die before I get old.” Well now I'm 40, so of course my worldview has conveniently changed. Just like Rutger Hauer says to Harrison Ford near the end of Blade Runner "I want more life, fucker."At a recent Butthole Surfers re-union show, an event where people like myself tried to "go home again" and relive the good old days of Black Sabbath riffs mixed with punk rock, tape loops, smoke machines and projected videos of penal surgery along with other assorted general weirdness the band's somewhat bewildered lead singer, Gibby Haynes walked out on stage and surveyed the crowd. After about 15 seconds of scanning the packed room he declared, "Wow, a room full of fat, old white guys" he then motioned to himself as if to say he was looking in a mirror or stupid is as stupid does. The band then launched into "22 Going On 23" and all was right with the world. Four or five songs later he started shouting out random people’s names and asking if they were in attendance. This was a hometown gig for Gibby who went to Lake Highlands High School, a school that is located just a few miles away from the venue. Aside from a few responses of "we love you Gibby" or "Sweat Loaf!" All was quiet as Gibby waited for a reply to the list of names. After a few more seconds of silence Gibby then declared well, it's a good thing nobody answered because these are all people I went to high school with and they are all dead. Slightly demented? Yes, but so right on. Painfully right on.

Perhaps this most recent scenario will shed some light on just where my head is at right now. About two weeks ago The New York Dolls were coming through town. I wanted to see them. I know that some people argue that they should be called the “New” New York Dolls since they are unfortunately minus several crucial founding members, but death, it's a bitch, what are you going to do? I was too young to catch them the first time around, they are historically important, and the new record "Cuz I Sez So" is good. It's so good that I'm almost willing to forgive David Johansen's whole Buster Poindexter "Hot, Hot, Hot" period so I figure sure, why not? I'm literally picking up my keys to walk out the door when I felt a sharp pain in my side. A really sharp pain. I thought to myself I'll just lie down for five minutes and then go. By the time I get to the bed I'm thinking this isn't going to work, I need to get to the hospital. That's big for me. Most people hate hospitals. I “REALLY” hate the hospital. I go to the emergency room and I'm admitted. They perform a CT scan. I don't know what CT stands for, canned tuna perhaps? I do know that they make you drink a really nasty drink that they will say tastes like Gatorade but in truth tastes nothing like Gatorade. All I can think about when they scoot me inside the big metal cylinder is "but I'm missing the band," well that, and I might poop myself. Turns out I have diverticulitis. Diverticulitis! That is what old people get! Even my doctor said "well, you're a little young for it, but that's what you have. You are going to be with us for a few days." I just find it somewhat ironic that I'm missing seeing the elder statesmen founding fathers of punk rock because I have diverticulitis. Anyway, after four days of "nothing by mouth" I go home. (Big, big shout out to nurses: Devena, Daisy, Mary Beth, Larry, and the whole Presbyterian Hospital crew!) As it turns out, my doctor says you really shouldn’t eat red meat every day. Who knew? Even though pork is the other white meat, I think the straw that may have broke the camel's back for me was that just the day before I had decided to make Tyler Florence's Ultimate Ribs (picture and recipe enclosed). Just a side note, did you know that Tyler's real, full name is Kevin Tyler Florence? Go ahead, Wikipedia that shit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Florence). Not quite as cool now is it? I can see why he goes with Tyler. Anyway I made Kevin's ribs and they put the hurt on me something fierce. I’m considering a lawsuit. They were delicious.

Ingredients

* 2 slabs baby back ribs (about 3 pounds)

* Kosher salt and freshly groundblack pepper

* Extra-virgin olive oil

* 2 bacon slices

* 4 sprigs fresh thyme

* 1/2 onion

* 3 smashed garlic cloves

* 2 cups ketchup

* 1 cup peach preserves

* 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard or 1 tablespoon dry mustard

* 2 tablespoons brown sugar

* 1/4 cup molasses

* 2 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar

* 1 teaspoon ground cumin

* 1 teaspoon ground paprika

Directions

Special equipment: Kitchen twine

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Put the ribs on a baking sheet, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Stick them in the oven, and let the ribs bake, low and slow for 1 1/2 hours.

Meanwhile, make the sauce. Wrap the bacon around the middle of the thyme sprigs and tie with kitchen twine so you have a nice bundle. Heat a 2-count of oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the thyme bundle and cook slowly for 3 to 4 minutes to render the bacon fat and give the sauce a nice smoky taste. Add the onion and garlic and cook slowly, without coloring, for 5 minutes. Add all of the rest of the sauce ingredients, give the sauce a stir, and turn the heat down to low. Cook slowly for 20 minutes to meld the flavors. Put some sauce in a separate bowl for basting, reserving the remaining sauce for serving.

Baste the ribs with the sauce and let them continue cooking, basting twice more, for 30 more minutes. When the ribs are cooked, take them out of the oven. You can let them hang out like this until you're ready to eat. When ready to eat, preheat the broiler for 5 minutes and broil the ribs, basting with the sauce. They should become crisp and charred, about 5 minutes on each side. Pick the onion and garlic out of the sauce and serve with ribs.

To email Trent Buckroyd - donkeymilkshake@gmail.com

Fine Lines

2009-08-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

By Dale Brasel

Forty-five. So maybe this wasn’t what I planned as far as where I would be on my life path, but, as it turns out, that is okay. I don’t have the I. M. Pei-designed abode with a pair of Airedale Terriers named Buddy and Sally (an homage to The Dick Van Dyke Show) standing guard at the front gates—as if blondes with goatees are ever really considered menacing, canine or otherwise. No high rise vacation condo on Waikiki where I would sip on a Mai Tai out of a pineapple, spritz my face with canned Evian, and feed bananas to a pet chimp wearing a Nehru jacket. No helicopter. No personal chef. No problem. So many of the indulgent dreams of a 27-year old seem silly when you hit your forties. Not to get all Eckhart Tolle on anyone, but there comes an age where either you freak out with a mid-life crisis and act like an idiot, or you take stock of what you have worked for and lived through and say, “Hey, this is so much better than what I thought it was going to be.” When I was that twenty-something kid, I thought Forty-five was ancient. It’s closer to death than birth. Now that I’m here, I feel surprisingly young. That’s not to say that the condo on Waikiki isn’t still something to shoot for, but knowing what I know now, chimps seem to make awful pets since they have been known to chew the face off of their owners. Now there is something to regret.

Exactly when did I slip into the skin of a mid-lifer with complete comfort? It was on Saturday, April 18^th, 2009, just before midnight. I had cooked a ham for Easter the previous Sunday. Always the thrifty dreamer, I was confident I would save the bone to make split pea soup. Earlier that evening, a buddy called to say that a group of people were meeting up at what was then the “hot” club (it’s LA, so don’t blink). It sounded fun to hang out with friends, and having practically grown up in clubs, I’m still known to hit them, so why not? Having just jumped out of the shower and checked my ears for mid-life hair growth, I put on some boxers and thought to myself, I’m sick of looking at that ham bone. I should just throw it out now so I won’t have to look at it in the morning with the probable likelihood of mild hangover. Barefoot, wet head, and clad only in Texas state flag boxers, I head to the trash bins curbside with a Belvedere and diet Dr. Pepper in one hand and the Saran Wrapped bone in the other. I noticed there was still more than a little bit of ham on the bone, and what a waste it would be not to get just one last taste. It was a damn good ham. As I nibbled on the bits looking much like a caveman, a car drove by with a group of what I took to be out-on-the-town kids dressed most likely in Christian Audigier with Lady Gaga blaring out of the cracked, overly tinted windows. They slowed down to look at the nearly nude, slightly gray man chomping on a bone in his driveway. In all fairness, who wouldn’t slow down to get a look at that? In my own self-assured world, I didn’t think twice about it…at the time. What I did think was, “Lady Gaga? Yuck. She’s really just a recycled Stacey Q. Those kids need to get real.” At that point, I knew I was of a “certain” age. I ended up staying at home that night and skipped the club. Who needs the long valet lines? I was clean, ear hair free, and had eaten some honey baked pig alfresco. Plus I had recorded episodes of My Big Redneck Wedding I had been meaning to catch up on. Content is content.

Age versus youth isn’t a fine line…it’s more like crows feet. I know too many people in my age group who are grasping on to youth in the most desperate ways. They spend an excessive amount of time on Twitter and Facebook reconnecting with high school friends. They spend their nights getting on guest lists for the bars and clubs they overhear the interns in the office chat about. This much I know: when one hits that “certain” age, you may convince yourself that hanging out with 27 year-olds makes you feel younger, but ultimately it just makes your look older. There is already one Sylvia Miles, and even she could barely pull off being Sylvia Miles. I believe that no matter what your age, you should be out having fun, acting like a kid, and feeling young, but if you are consistently spending time hanging out with and embracing the culture of someone 25 or 30 years your junior in bars, you might want to check your visitor pass for an expiration date. There’s a lot to be learned from the younger generation, and there is a lot to share with them, but it shouldn’t be an enormous, end of the night bar bill they’ve racked up on your tab gulping down shots. Ever notice how pesky flies disappear at night? Take a cue from Mother Nature. If constantly surrounding yourself with a big posse from the generation following yours made you a well rounded person, than how do you explain Octomom? Sir Richard Branson is one of the hippest, youthful, life-loving people around, but I doubt he is swapping IPod play lists with Taylor Swift—or that he’s planning on hanging out with Heidi & Spencer in an effort to look cool.

The first time someone called me “sir”—as a reference to age, as I am not knighted—it stung a bit. Now it’s a badge of honor. I take it, whether it is intended or not, as someone recognizing the handful of decades I’ve been around to collect life experiences. And by “life experiences,” I mean collecting random thoughts to the most superficial of questions and not to be confused with wisdom. Take for instance the Amaretto di Sorano television ad where the actor/bartender (there’s a stretch, huh?) explains how to make an Amaretto and orange juice. Who is their target audience? If someone can’t figure out that an Amaretto and orange juice is Amaretto and orange juice, should they really be numbing their senses any further with alcohol? I’m loaded with quirky thoughts that I can’t get out of my head. Fact: Kathy Ireland is both a successful lamp and sock designer. Is there such a thing as an Elvis impersonator “impersonator?” How many bongs are there in capitol, Washington, D.C. per capita? Isn’t polenta just a fancy name for grits? Where have all of the Irish Setters gone? When did Steve Martin stop being the funniest man alive? Was the person who invented the wedge salad really just a lazy chef? Wouldn’t it be fun to not only ask red carpet stars what designer they are wearing but also to spell it? I’ve spent years pondering these and many other useless bits, but the key is I have had time to ponder them.

It is said that age is just a number. A friend told me that a recently installed baby changing station in the men’s room of his favorite, all over TMZ, scene-and-be-scene restaurant /lounge had him questioning where he was in life. What could this possibly mean and what was it telling him and all of his friends about his forty-something single lifestyle? What could this mean? What could this mean? My first thought was that much like pairing linen shirts with corduroy pants, mixing cocktails and babies is just a bad, bad idea. Instead of dwelling on some larger ramification of meaning (it’s just about poo, brother), just be thrilled that there is a stable and convenient place to rest your beer instead of the normal balancing act of placing it on top of a urinal. Keeping with the lemons and lemonade adage, when life hands you a changing table…make it your cocktail table. Age really is just a number and it’s all in how you do the math whether it adds up in your favor or not. Now carry the 2.

Many things haven’t changed from when I was a twenty-something dreamer bound for Honolulu and a monkey. Always have big ideas about the future. My aspirations may not be over-the-top indulgences —and that is probably a good thing—but they can be just as frivolous. At 45, I might have come across the dream occupation that has eluded me thus far. I would like to be the person who names the colors of Behr Paints…a colorologist, if you will. I used to think I would be perfect to be the official name giver to eyeglass frames, but after much consideration, I think paint colors is the way to go. Behr has the cute names covered such as Pecan Sandie, Kola Bear, and Plum Frost, but I’m thinking names with a little bit of an edge: Jonas Brothers Pure White, Last Night’s Ashtray Taupe, or Chimp Chewed Face Red. Maybe even Forty Five Year Old Slightly Gray…I already have the sample.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL (Part One)

2009-08-26T15:02:00.001-07:00

by Lawrence Schubert

I am a member of the generation that was famously advised not to trust anyone over the age of 40. I adhered to that advice rigorously…until I turned 40. Thereafter, I adhered rigorously to a new credo: Never trust anyone under the age of 40.

As I was nearing my fourth decade of life, someone told me: “At 40 you have the face you deserve.” I remember looking in the mirror and wondering, “What did I do to deserve this?!” Then there was my sainted Italian grandmother, as prolifically quotable as Oscar Wilde (albeit, without his vocabulary) who once told me: “A man’s life begins at 40.” It is one of those sayings that sounds like it originated in the Reader’s Digest or the Ladies Home Companion and would find its perfect expression as an embroidery sampler hanging on the kitchen wall. It probably doesn’t qualify as an aphorism, or even as an adage (Grandma was not one for metaphors, or metaphysics: Simply put, she believed in God, family and ravioli-and in that order.) And, of course, I paid little heed when she said it, but it resonated in the years that followed, when I often wondered: Did I hear the whole thought, or only the part I wanted to hear?

“I’m glad I’m not young anymore,” sings Maurice Chevalier in Gigi (1958) Liar!! Big French Liar! One minute he’s thanking God for little girls and the next he’s pretending that he doesn’t care that his baguette won’t get hard anymore. 40 is easy. Even 50 is breezy, and catches you off guard. (I’m still here! And I have sperm!!) But mind you: This is not your father’s 50.

You are approaching the Wasteland as delineated by T.S. Eliot, or “midway through this journey called Life,” as Dante & Marianne Faithful said. Quote: “Midway upon the road of our life I found myself within a dark wood, for the right way had been missed. Ah! How hard a thing it is to tell what this wild and rough and dense wood was, which in thought renews the fear! So bitter is it that death is little more. I cannot well recount how I entered it, so full was I of slumber at that point where I abandoned the true way.” That’s me-nodding out at my desk, in this jungle called Hollywood.

How do you meet people when you have been superseded by the Twitter Generation? I find myself haunting the mailbox hoping for a jury duty summons and buying things on eBay so I can leave Feedback for Blanche in Tuscaloosa. Blanche seems like a delightful woman and if I am ever in that part of the world I will have to take a detour and visit her and the butterfly cemetery she keeps in her backyard. And also Bruce in Des Moines, who sold me all that nice McCoy pottery. Everyone seems friendly and happy on eBay: it’s like an Internet Disneyland-the happiest place online.

But I digress. Frequently. In life and in conversation.

Dorian Gray had the right idea: let the picture get old. I would not make the same mistakes as Dorian, however. I wouldn’t ditch poor Sybil Vane and murder my friend, turning my portrait from a Rembrandt to a DeKooning. And I wouldn’t have to worry about Universal Health Care passing: I’d only have to keep the varnish fresh on my likeness.

To be continued….