Old Age & Treachery – Turning 50

Tags

blogging, Blogs, growing old, Kris Kristofferson, the Big 50, Tim L O'Brien, Tim O'Brien, turning 50, writer

I’ve spent quite a bit of time lately thinking about age.  About getting older.  Dealing with my own mortality.  Not a particularly sunny topic to think about.  Four days from now I will take my turn at blowing out the 50 candles.  I honestly don’t know what to think or how to feel about that.

Life as you have lived it is more than likely half over.  That’s a weird thing to wrap your mind around.  My time here is half over.  More than half really.  Maybe I have 20 more years, hopefully 30.  I can still see myself playing baseball in the street with my childhood buddies.  Hell, that was over 35 years ago, yet feels like yesterday.  Thirty-five years from now?  I hope it doesn’t go by as fast as the last thirty-five.

If the glass is half empty, then life is half over.  If the glass is half full, then well, just be happy to still be here.  I used to look in the mirror and cuss every new grey hair on my head.  Now, I’m thankful that I still have grey hairs growing and I still have all my hair.

So many thing race through your mind as you get older.  Conflicting thoughts.  Some happy, some sad.  We spend our entire life racing to get to the top of the mountain.  If you are lucky enough to get there you stop and look back at the paths that you took, the choices you made, the lasting impressions you’ve left behind.

I have yet to reach the mountaintop.  Don’t know if I honestly care that much about it anymore. But, as I look back at the past fifty years, I truly don’t like what I see.  The paths I have chosen aren’t filled with glorious triumphs and thrilling achievements.  I haven’t accumulated immense wealth, nor have I made the cover of Rolling Stone.  I look back and see a path of destruction left behind in my wake. I’ve made more than a few messes.  Made some poor choices.  Some not so proud moments flicker on the screen.

Does your past define who you are as a person today?  For the sake of sanity, I sure as hell hope not.

“Why do I do the things that I do?

Was I born this way or am I a self-made fool?

I shoot the lights and curse the dark.

I need your love but I break your heart….

I had to work to become the jerk I’ve come to be.

It ain’t easy being me.” 

—  Songwriter Chris Knight

My past hasn’t been entirely bad.  I am the father to four terrific children, which I hope, will become the lasting memory of what I accomplished.  My oldest daughter is in her first year of law school. Another daughter married this past summer to an upstanding young man.  He is a United States Marine, and they are currently living in California.  He will deploy for the second time this December.  I pray for the two of them every night.

I have a son who just turned ten years old and another daughter who will turn nine in a few more weeks.  My son’s first day of Kindergarten was also my oldest daughter’s first day of college.  Quite a gap in there.  The joys of fatherhood and being a proud parent are the most rewarding things life has to offer.  But the joy just as quickly turns to guilt.  I was an older dad when my last two children were born.  My father is still living.  So is my mother. And man, there is not a day that goes by that I don’t feel blessed to still have them.  Yet, I have cheated my two youngest children of ever feeling that same joy.  When they turn fifty…well…I probably won’t see it.  I have to cram as many memories of life with me into their little minds as possible.  Time is not on our side.

The joys conflicting with the guilt.

I still have much I want to accomplish, and much to teach my children.  I just don’t have as much time to get it all done.  Life was a marathon.  Now it’s a race – a sprint.  The hourglass is tipped over.  I have so much to do, and so little time.   There is not a day to waste.

As the next four days inch closer and closer I have concluded many things.  Despite the grey hairs, I refuse to give in to Father Time.  Just because, I need reading glasses and my hearing sucks, doesn’t mean I have to act like an old man.  I will remain young at heart.  I will still do the silly dance with my children in public and not give a damn what others may think.  I will still make up my own words to songs and sing in the shower.  I will play catch with a football or baseball for as long as my son wants to.  I will download new music onto my computer but still prefer the sound of a record playing on my early 1950’s record player.  I will never believe in political correctness.  I will always believe that “old school” is still way cool.  Faded Levi’s and a t-shirt are better than a coat and tie.  I will always prefer to sit around a campfire with close friends drinking cold beers than sitting around a conference table in a boardroom with a bunch of robots wearing suits.  I will always play my music loud and if you don’t like it then buy me hearing aides.

“He’s a walking contradiction

Partly truth, partly fiction

Taking every wrong direction

On his lonely walk back home”

—  Kris Kristofferson

My perspective on life may have changed with age, but that doesn’t mean my attitude has to.  I’m old enough to know better, but I’m still young enough to do it again.  Or in the immortal words of Billy Joe Shaver, “The devil made me do it the fist time, the second time I done it on my own.”

Reasons to Read – Time Travel, Bad TV & Sex Tapes

Tags

America's Next Top Model, American Idol, Bad TV, Bad TV & Sex Tapes, Berlin, blogging, Blogs, Bonanza, Cold War, Come Monday, Cormac McCarthy, CSI, D.D. Warren, Dancing with the Stars, Gorky Park, Harry Potter, Jack Kerouac, James Rollins, Jersey Shore, John Le Carre, Kim Kardashian, Larry McMurtry, Lisa Gardner, Lonesome Dove, Lost in a Drunken Banquet of Static, Love You More, Martin Cruz Smith, Moscow, On the Road, Reasons to Read, Reasons to Read - Time Travel, SE HInton, Shakespeare, Soviet Union, Survivor, Suzanne Collins, Texas Rangers, The Biggest Loser, The Devil Colony, The Great Gatsby, The Hunger Games, The Outsiders, The Road, The Things They Carried, TheSpy Who Came in From the Cold, Tim L O'Brien, Tim O'Brien, Twilight series, writer, X Factor

Have I ever told you my tale of riding with two former Texas Rangers in the late 19th century?  I rode along with them on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana.

Have I told you about the time I was a British Agent in Cold War Berlin?  Or traveled to Moscow before the collapse of the Soviet Union and found three corpses frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing?  If I failed to mention these exploits, I probably failed to mention that I served in Vietnam and walked with a father and son in the post-apocalyptic future.

I don’t have any sort of super powers over the universe.  I have no extraordinary abilities, but yet, I am able to travel in time and go places that others can only dream of.  The cost of my adventures?  Next to nothing!  I have traveled the world over ten times for what most of us pay for cable television each month.

Before you say I am full of more sh*t than a Christmas turkey, or place the call to have me committed, remember we all have the ability to visit far away places of intrigue, adventure and romance.

Sadly, most of us never will.

In last weeks post “Reasons to Read – Getting in Touch With Your Inner Casting Director I mentioned that one-third of high school graduates never read another book, and 42% of college graduates will never read another book after college. The numbers are shocking!

Of course, I have never been on a cattle drive with two Texas Rangers.  But, I have read Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove.  I have never been to Berlin or Moscow, but I have read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre and Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park.  I never served in the military, but traveled with Tim O’Brien as I read his outstanding book The Things They Carried.  I can’t predict the next hour, much less travel into the future, but Cormac McCarthy’s The Road took me there.                             

So why don’t more people read?

Was it the classics we were forced to read in high school, that at the time, seemed like the driest, dullest stories in the world?  If our teachers hadn’t forced Shakespeare or The Great Gatsby upon us, but instead choose Jack Kerouac’s On the Road or even SE Hinton’s The Outsiders, would more people read today?  Maybe with the popularity of the Harry Potter novels and the Twilight series the reading numbers will improve.  It is hard to deny the book marketing directed towards today’s youth.  I don’t recall my generation or generations thereafter being targeted with anything as popular and mass appealing as we are seeing today.

People don’t read because they would rather be entertained by the television.  They would rather sit back on the couch and watch Dancing with the Stars.  This is a show where I haven’t even heard of the so-called stars.  Watch dancing?  Are you serious?  I was forced to take ballroom dancing in 8th grade with “Mr. Al.”  Hated it then and don’t watch it now.

Do I really need to know or care about which rather large person can lose the most weight on The Biggest Loser?  Am I supposed to be entertained by a network show that concludes with obese people standing on a weight scale?

I don’t get the X Factor, Survivor, American Idol or America’s Next Top Model.  Don’t even get me started with Jersey Shore.  Someone please, give me one, just one, valid reason to watch such numbingly bad television.  I don’t even understand the popularity of CSI, the show that is as fake as the backdrops were on Bonanza.

What about the greatest sham pulled on the American public this year?  How many millions and millions of misguided fools watched and continue to follow the Kim Kardashian marriage saga?  Why am I supposed to be enthralled about the life of a wanna-be celebrity?  A woman made famous by a sex tape, gets married and 72 days later wants a divorce.  What a joke, and the punch line is on the ever-caring public as she laughs all the way to the bank.

Turn it off.  Tune it out.

Instead, take a trip to the not to distant future with Suzanne Collins in The Hunger Games or help D.D. Warren solve the case in Lisa Gardner’s Love You More.  

I’m not taking calls right now I’m on another journey, this time with James Rollins in The Devil Colony.

Come Monday:  Here at Lost in a Drunken Banquet of Static we celebrate the survival of another weekend!  And if it’s Monday, it’s time to start reading a new book.  On this day, we will go to the bookstore, the digital library and even dust off a few books on the bookshelf.  We will not only explore reasons to read, but also discuss other topics including book v. the movie.  Together we will also revisit some classics and look at how they are holding up with time, discuss our favorites, etc.

Remember if you are enjoying yourself here at my blog site you can easily subscribe to this blog and have each post delivered to your email address.  It’s kind of like a free Christmas present delivered to your box three days a week.  It’s almost as enjoyable as finding just one more beer hidden in the back of the refrigerator when you thought you were all out.  Just click the subscribe icon at the top right of this page and the gifts will keep on coming!

Danger, Dope and Drunks – The First Concert

Tags

blogging, Blogs, danger, dope, drunks, First Concert, Houston, Joel Osteen, KISS, KISS Army, Lost in a Drunken Banquet of Static, music, mystery writer, Styx, Summit ARena, Tim L O'Brien, Tim O'Brien, writer

For four impressionable teenage innocent boys, it was a night met with as much anticipation as Christmas Eve.  We were going to our first concert.

Tickets were hard to come by, but not near as difficult as negotiations with our parents.  We pledged to do anything – including improve our grades!  After prolonged begging, we were allowed to attend the biggest and most popular concert on tour that year.  Stipulations were placed on our attending, but we didn’t care.

Our bedroom walls were decorated with posters of the band.  We had bought every album and eight-track (remember those?) and knew the words to every song.  We were even official members of the fan club, or Army as the band called us.  The band had sold out two shows in our town and we were headed to the second night’s concert!

On September 2, 1977, we arrived at Summit Arena in Houston, Texas a full hour before the doors were to open.  We milled around outside taking in the atmosphere with our two “grown up” chaperones.  Yes, they were part of the stipulations handed down to us.  Once the doors finally opened, and the crowd started to rush in our excitement level began to rise.  This was it.  The big night.

Just as the four of us were set to enter the “grown up” chaperones notified us that they were not going in and would wait outside the arena for us once the concert was over.  A small level of anxiety set in.  We had never been to a concert before and by the looks of the characters in the crowd we were just a little out of our element here.

Setting fear of the unknown aside, we rushed into the arena and found our seats.  Our tickets were in the upper most level and in the far back.  We were only a few rows away from having the worst seats in the concert hall, but we could care less.

That is until we spotted the guy struggling to walk up the steps.  One hand tightly held the handrail, the other circled around him like a helicopter blade as he tried to maintain some level of balance.  His long black hair waved back and forth, dancing across his face like car wash brushes across the hood of your car.  His eyes were half-opened and unfocused as his head flopped around like it was on a puppet string.

The four of us spotted him at the same time.  We elbowed each other in the side, but were too afraid to say a word.  The guy continued to stumble his way up the aisle closer and closer to our seats.  On several occasions he nearly let go of the rail and somehow avoided falling into the people seated along the aisle.  He continued closer and closer to us.  Time to panic.  We were young, but not dumb.  We knew what was about to happen.

As fast as we could see it coming, we saw it coming.  A steady stream of Pepto-Bismal colored vomit erupted and landed all over the poor kid sitting on the aisle step below us.  The kids head was turned away talking to his friend and never saw what we saw coming.  We didn’t know if we should run, scream or laugh.  There was no way we could offer the pink colored kid any help.  So we just sat there in stunned silence.

As would become a tradition for every concert, my friend and I decided now would be an opportune time to buy our concert shirts.  The concourse was packed with people from a world two 15-year-olds had never seen before.  The kids our own age had hair longer than our sisters.  There were Afros the size of over-inflated basketballs.  Men wore makeup, and the women, well lets just say they were confused as to which bathroom to use.  Everyone was dressed in costume, and we were still over a month away from Halloween.

We made our purchases, and as we turned to head back to our seats we were greeted by a couple of rather large Hispanic men.  They demanded we hand over our concert shirts.  We stood in shock.  Frozen in complete fear.  Suddenly one of them reached out and grabbed my buddy’s concert shirt.  Natural instinct set in.  Chris immediately, and with all the force and muscle he could gather, pulled back.  It was then that we saw the switch blade knife fall out the man’s hand and onto the ground.

We had no doubt what to do next.  We ran!

Once back in our seats the voices of our parents concerns began to make a little sense.  Maybe, just maybe they were right. Concerts are dangerous and no place for four teenagers.  But the parental voices in my head were soon turned off as the arena lights went dark.  The moment had come.  A loud roar of anticipation came from the crowd.  People held up lighters illuminating the crowd in an orange glow.

The PA announcer came over the sound system:  “YOU WANTED THE BEST AND YOU GOT THE BEST.  THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE LAND….KISS!!”  

Our eyes were glued to the stage and the pyrotechnic show.  The band came out playing “I Stole Your Love.”  Our little juvenile heads bobbed to the beat of the music.  Smiles were transfixed across our face.  We raised our fisted arms in triumph.

Then something funny started to happen.  It was if someone had let a family of skunks loose in the arena.  The “skunky” smell came from all-around us!  Suddenly, little, white, hand-rolled cigarette-looking objects were passed our way.  What the hell?  We passed them right back.  Offering our best and polite “no thank you.”  We were warned (yes by our parents) about marijuana at concerts.  Well, this skunk smell must be it.  For the first time in our lives, our senses took in the smell of pot.  I have to admit, I still like the smell.  Just never been a fan of partaking.

The band played all the fan favorites and as usual put on an entertaining show.  They performed all the antics we had read about – fire breathing, blood spewing, explosions, smoking guitars.  We left the concert excited as if we had been to the mountaintop.  We were on our own “natural” high, or maybe a second-hand smoke high.  We met our two chaperones outside and told them what a great concert they missed.  They music was so loud, they said, they sat outside and could hear the entire show.  I could tell they were relieved it was over, and we had made it out safe and sound.

I look back at that concert with fond and amusing memories.  Did we actually go see four grown men dressed in makeup and high-heeled boots?  It’s strange that my former concert arena, which hosted the best and loudest concerts, and played host to thousands of drunks and dope heads is now home to preacher Joel Osteen.  The Houston televangelist turned the arena into a church.  He better perform an exorcism if he expects to rid all the demons from that place!

I don’t remember if we ever lived up to our promise to make better grades.  I have a feeling we didn’t.  Our little world was never the same after that night.  But I’ll never forget my first concert when the circus came to town.

Going to your first concert is like a first kiss (no pun intended) or a first date.  Do you remember your first concert?  Did you walk through mysterious doors into a world never seen before?  Can you remember the opening band?  (FYI – the opening band that night was Styx.)  What long-lasting memories came from that night?