41 - and counting...

Yesterday was my birthday - again. My 41st. I am officially at mid-life, officially in crisis. Where is my great acting career? Where is my big house with the big pool and the hot red Ferrari in the big phallic driveway serving as a metaphor for my inadequacy issues? Where is my 19 year old aerobic teacher named Tammy with the red corvette and the big boobs that seem to hum because they’re so tight?

It seems nobody sent me the memo that reads; It ain't all promised to you. (NOTE: This is where this could degenerate into one of those positivity/productivity blogs where some dope presents an article on how you too can achieve your dreams. I'll save you the long read: Get a dream, get a plan, go. Nobody told me this when I was 18. I was told the following; Get a dream, have your parents shoot it onto the ground, forget about it until it haunts your dreams and gives you ulcers and a bit of impotence. Not that that last part ever happened to me. Just saying.)

I got up early and sat looking at the water. I got all ponderous and did what anyone else in my position would do. I craved cake.

THOUGHT: I used to love birthdays. It was the one day I could take stock of my progress and add a few more details to my dreams. I could get away with anything like grabbing girls by the boobs and pushing small children into the middle of the street. Well, okay, maybe not the middle of the street...After 30th things changed, dreams weren't getting realized and life wasn't getting any easier like I had hoped. Instead it got harder, a lot harder. Then I began dreading birthdays because they reminded me of all that I wasn't getting done. They are like the ass end of your New Year's Resolutions, the day you find out you were totally full of crap when you said on January 1st that you were totally starting a band.

As I prepared to spend the day in a corner in the fetal position the phone rang; Johnny Style was on the other end and he was in bad shape, far worse than I. He was down, morose, glum and teary. There was no cheer in his voice as he weepily wished me a Happy Birthday. I wondered why he was so down and it suddenly struck me; just two days before, our Johnny, King of Fashion, Man With His Pulse On All That is Happening, Mister Up-To-The-Minute had turned...40. And reached obsolescence.

The Conversation:

Dude...40.

Yes, I know. I did it last year and I'm still scraping it off my forehead.

40.

Yep, I know.

Where did the time go. I was just 18. I was just wearing spandex pants and bandanas around my wrist and following Bon Jovi all over the country.

I personally wouldn't lament the loss of spandex or bandanas and you still follow Bon Jovi all over the country only now you've got your 5 year old son into it. I wouldnt' necessarily have looked to make that item a family tradition but, hey, I'm only 41, what do I know?

What are we gonna do, dude? We're old. We're out. We're done. We don't matter anymore. We're not the Pepsi Generation, Miami Vice is now considered a joke. I can't believe this.

Wait wait wait- last year when I crossed this threshold of doom and I had my head in the toilet and I was repeated flushing trying to drown myself you were on the phone telling me, "Aw, Dude, lighten up, it's only a number" and now that it's happened to you it is now okay to fall apart? And by the way, Miami Vice was always a joke, we just didn't get that part. Who the hell said it was cool to go to our high School graduation in a t-shirt and blazer with rolled up sleeves?

It's different for you, you weren't the cool one. You were the nerd who thought you were cool because you told everyone you bought your own condoms when really it was your mother.
(NOTE: That was NOT the case. I bought my own condoms and proudly told everyone because I was doing my part to promote safe sex.) I was always the guy who knew the new bands and styles and trends. Now I'm just out. I need a drink.

I think it sounds like you need a glass of milk and a twinkie....


And so it went for the next hour; me sitting watching the calm waters silently outlining my plans for this year's attempt at Hollywood stardom because I'm just too dumb to give up and take the day job and Johnny Optimism sitting in the dark staring at the demon that crossed my path just 367 days ago. I told him to bone up on his trends because I had no patience for it and fI were to go out on stage again I couldn't afford to look like a fool. I told him 40 was painless, that it wears off and that it helps to have younger friends call you when it happens to them. I asked him if he wanted to go for a coffee but he declined, there was a Bon Jovi sighting somewhere in New Jersey and he was going with his son.

Before I jumped into the shower I thought about how age is so much more than a number, that it's more than a state of mind or a bench mark - and how it really can be nothing at all....

Running for the fence, because my knees still work,
Tommy