WYFP, Crusty Old Fart Rant

The only Crusty Old Fart Rant that you will read this week that is guaranteed 100% John McCain free.

(Except for onelittle part in the beginning, and you're safely past that!)

On with the whining!

But first, the "legal"...

WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

and... hey, you kids - get off my lawn!

"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

Dr. Henry Jones

Nope, Indy, its not that either.

Its the lack of regularly scheduled maintenance that gets you.

I often play this obsessive game where I check out some hero of my youth, - political, athletic, artistic, fictional - and see what they had accomplished by the time they were my age.

A strangely consoling thought is that more than a few of them were dead before they reached my present decreptitude. It makes up for my lack of accomplishment lately. I'm still here.

-but then I'm not doing so well either...

I've had some trouble with one or two of the five or six medications I take to keep my internal organs from interacting in an unpleasant manner. Some side effects are that I forget things, even things that I really mean or need to remember. This has caused me some grief at work, as I have been too proud and too scared to admit this to my boss... until recently.

"Life is what happens when you're making other plans"
John Lennon

If I had thought ahead about my life I never would have smoked... tobacco.

Really stupid idea when both your grandfathers die of cancer, that you take up smoking. Granted, I was only thirteen at the time, and it was in the early 70's when only ALMOST all sources were screaming that it wasn't a good idea.

One lung and two heart attacks later I seem to have permanently kicked that habit.

But its the other stuff I did that is really beginning to catch up with me.

I fell off a mountain once and racked up my back. Three weeks of laying in my bunk and taking 292w Codeine tabs and all those technocolor bruises and killing back aches seemd to fade.

Then, twenty years later I slip in the shower and it all comes back to me.

Or those concerts I worked where you could measure the speaker response vibrations in inches, where all the amps were cranked to eleven. and encores went on long into the early morning. Or the explosives I worked with. Or the pneumatic powered tools on the bridge.

It's not that I'm deaf, its just that all the high and low frequencies seem to be squashing together into a mushy middle where I can't quite make out the TV.... and why are you young whippersnappers all mumbling?

"It is not true that life is one damn thing after another - it is one damn thing over and over."

Edna St. Vincent Millay

It wouldn't be so bad if I had matured at all in these years, or changed, or grown, or just adapted a better style of dress (American combat pants with collarless dress shirts - gah!).

I still get tongue tied around attractive women - especially my wife. I still can't hit a curve ball to save my life. I still think my poetry is good; I still can't stand it enough to revise it as I should. I still really want to believe in God, and often I do. I still can't stick with a rhyme scheme or proper metre. I still let small irritations pile up until I explode. I'm still passive agressive, but in a nice way. I can't keep to a single theme. I still pick my nose.

I still drive like an asshole. I still hurt peoples' feelings unintentionally. I still get paranoid. I suffer some fools gladly and turn down good advice. When my father is talking to me I am still ten years old. I can't do a proper load of laundry, though I still do my laundry. I still bang my elbow at inappropriate times and get that "boing boing" feeling.

I am waiting for the wisdom that is supposed to come with age, and I have a sinking feeling that it won't.

When do I become a grown up?

"The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing"

-Marcus Aurelius

The causes of my youth are the causes I follow today. Not truly out of conviction, though I believe in them, but because none of the causes I believe in have succeeded as yet. I am hopeful yet resigned.

I am the sum of a long list of compromises unreeling. At times, and at specific places, I feel closer to my adversaries than some of my allies. I have to stop myself from constantly comparing the present unpleasantness with some other, earlier, struggle.

I struggle, with the personal, political, social, economic and aesthetic, every fucking day.

No time outs.

People who say you are just as old as you feel are full of shit... because there are some days when I'd be surrounded by immortals.

---------------------------------------------------

Read this far? Good for you.

Because there are some consolations.

As someone said to me in an ICU ward once - Life has got to be better than the only alternative. He knew what he was talking about.

And my life can't be that bad, after all, I've managed to have something to do with this person...

...and her equally remarkable little sister...

SO that may well be the answer - Life is about the American Dream. As hoary as that chestnut is, I still want my kids to have a better life than I do.

Now, to make up for all this depressing crap, some links to divert you on a Saturday evening... all courtesy of the Toronto Star Sunday Entertainment section for March.

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Politics:

This is what US television usd to be like. Buckley Interviews Chomsky




If anyone still gives a shit about what David Mamet thinks, let me know.

Pop Culture:

I think it works better without the cat, don't you?




Jiminy Glick and John Waters discuss George Bush and coprophagy.
I'd rather have what she had than talk about W.




On the subject of getting older and wiser... I bet
Ms. Alanis Morrisette would want a do over on this one.




Whatever you do, for the love of God,  Don't let your kids see this!




Matt Damon's next career move?






Music:
Jeff Healey and Stevie Ray Vaughan are both gone, and we can't get Jon Bon Jovi near a helicopter. Bad video, Great Music.




Chuck E. Cheese as you've never seen him before.