My Birthday Candles are Becoming a Fire Hazard

I wrote a bit about my birthday last year, the big 4-0. In retrospect, it was the not the traumatic, soul-sucking spiral into depression and insanity that I thought it might be. Now, I am about to turn 41 years old. My 41-year-old perspective on life, or possible early onset dementia, has given me a distinctly zen approach to this year’s reminder of how fucking old and uncool I am. Well, to be fair, I was never cool, but I am really fucking old now. How do I know? Oh, there are signs to be sure.

There are several physiological things that happen to guys as they age which I have actually experienced already. I started going bald at age 21, so thinning hair hasn’t been an issue for me since I started shaving my head fifteen years ago. I was Ok with being bald; it was the process of gradually losing every hair on my head save those which create the tell-tale “hair ring” around the back of my skull that I had a problem with. Solution? Bypass balding altogether and skip ahead to bald. My cranium has now had fifteen years of UV exposure, so my head and my face are roughly the same color. It always makes me laugh when I see a white guy who has just shaved his head for the first time. His face is tan, but his skull is a gleaming white beacon of embarrassment. Delightful!

Also, my facial hair began turning a little gray (is it gray or grey..shit, I don’t know) a couple years ago. Now, my facial hair is four colors – blond, brown, red and gray. Awesome! Thanks, multi-cultural family heritage! My facial hair is a living testament to centuries of war, bloodshed, enslavement and unwanted sexual advances in Europe. Remember, “no means no,” Viking horde. I can handle my shaved head and rainbow beard, it’s my chest hair that really disturbs me. About a year ago, I noticed that some of my chest hairs were also turning gray. That’s fine, except that they also began lengthening considerably. Have you ever seen one of those old guys whose snow white chest hairs are, like, fucking a foot and a half long? - all gangly and pointing in every direction on the compass. I have that now! Really troubling. No wonder I never get laid.

Fortunately, there is more to getting older than crushing depression and a never-ending supply of coarse, white old man body hair. Just this morning, I was listening to the radio on the way to work. Here in Dallas, there is a student run radio station that, I swear to God, took some station’s playlist from 1976 and spins nothing but mellow hits of the 70’s that I grew up with. I’m talking James Taylor, Carol King, Cat Stevens..the list goes on. Anyway, this morning they were playing “Take It On The Run” by REO Speedwagon – a great, great tune! The either really young or really stupid student DJ comes on as the song ends saying, “That was REO Speedwagon with a hit from the 80’s.” Herein lies the trouble. She didn’t say REO Speedwagon as in the letters “R-E-O” Speedwagon, she said it like the place in Brazil – Rio Speedwagon. WHAT?!? Oy!

I noticed a year or two ago that my local grocery Megamart was playing songs over the intercom that I knew, and worse yet, really liked. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about elevator music here. Last week, I was jamming to some Thin Lizzy in the frozen foods section. “Oh, there’s the Hot Pockets..tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak.” I have to wonder if, twenty years from now, my son will be in the store picking ripe melons and listening to 50 Cent or Jay-Z. Yes it’s true, I have reached the age when all of today’s music is complete crap. I never thought it would happen, but here I am. I used to be totally annoyed when old people talked about how great everything was back in the “good old days,” but I get it now. Most things really do suck now.

There are some great things, too. When I was a kid, you couldn’t hang a television on the wall. A television was a giant, ugly piece of furniture, like a dresser. Want to change channels? Fine. You get your ass up and turn a dial manually, like an animal. That’s just how it was. And resolution? Back in the 70’s, the anchorman reading the nightly news was nothing more than a baritone-voiced blur with helmet hair. With today’s HD televisions, I can clearly see if the news anchor is using the wrong conditioner. My son plays video games today that were inconceivable in my time. Halo Reach is probably photo realistic enough to spark flashbacks for Vietnam-era veterans. My game? Atari 2600, baby! I was entertained for hours by Pong – two lines and a fucking dot. Oh man...

Not only is today’s music different, but even the way it is played is foreign to me. When I was growing up, one of my greatest fears was not putting a record on the turntable gently enough, leaving my copy of “Frampton Comes Alive” with an irreparable scratch. “Ooo baby I love your way..way..way..way.” Now, I don’t think kids even buy CDs anymore. Apple iTunes has rendered the entire recording industry as impotent and irrelevant as a Democratic incumbent in this year’s mid-term elections. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that my iPhone (the first one, not the shitty new one that drops calls) can hold every piece of music ever written, it’s just that buying an album used to be about more than just the music; it was an experience. KISS were the kings of that. The Alive II album had a huge insert with concert photos and lots of cool extra shit besides just the records. Today’s music is Ok, but that album buying experience is gone. There are only two uses for LPs now – club DJs spinning 12” vinyl of that new dubstep track from Iceland, or guys who collect old jazz records because they think vinyl lets you hear a fuller spectrum of sound you can’t get on digital, man. You dig?

I used to think old people complained a lot about everything hurting. Now, I get it. Everything really does start hurting when you get older. When I get up out of bed in the morning, it sounds like someone stepped on a bunch of dry twigs. Two or three times a year, my back goes out for absolutely no reason at all. My left knee clicks when I walk, and it is becoming much easier to sit down than it is to get up. In short, my body seems to be withering away at an alarming rate. I anticipate being in a Hoveround by this time next year. Ah, I’m just kidding..that’s probably still two or three years away. Only in America could we develop a method of transportation which does not require getting up from your chair…I mean, besides the obvious (no offense, handicapable people).

I am both fascinated and achingly disappointed seeing how different my actual life is turning out as opposed to how I imagined it. There is good and bad in everything, though. For example, getting married and having a family is simultaneously the most rewarding experience of my life and the most likely to cause alcoholism and premature death. See? It’s all about balance.

Like I said last year, I do enjoy the perspective that 41 years on this earth brings. Things that would have angered me in my twenties are things that I don’t give a shit about anymore. As you age, the rough edges of youth just kind of smooth themselves out into an indistinguishable blur. Kind of like having cataracts. Age has enhanced my ability to know when people are full of shit. As it turns out, I was pretty gullible as a youth. Now, I am suspicious of just about everything and everyone. Though I follow politics, I try not to pay too much attention. If I did, I would be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of bullshit coming out of Washington.

Overall, I would say that I have more confidence in myself this year than last. I am not quite as neurotic as I used to be, although I am still terrified of public restrooms. But, this is not simply an irrational fear. I still wash my hands like a surgeon after using a public restroom. Last year, I was well on my way to full-blown, Howie Mandel-style germophobia. Now, I can handle a few million microbes living on me. Don’t get me wrong, there is a slight chance that I could backslide and be like John Travolta in that Bubble Boy movie.


I decided to get myself a mountain bike for my birthday this year. Not because I want a mountain bike, but because my wife wouldn’t let me get a pony. I haven’t ridden a bike since I was a kid, so I am not sure how this is going to work out. My 11-year-old suggested I might need training wheels…(ha ha, you little son of a..) I am hoping to get some cardio out of the deal, without actually going to a gym. And, getting a bike would give me something to do with all my baseball cards. After some thought, I suppose I should come up with some way to be a grown man riding a bike, and NOT look like a pedophile. I’m working on that.

Anyway, everybody sing along-
Happy Birthday to me.
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday dear old fucker...
Happy Birthday to me