Hanging on the Telephone

Part of my job involves talking to old people and service providers on the phone. This might seem funny to those of you who have talked to me on the phone and heard me doze off after about three minutes or have waited on me to return a call, sort of knowing in the back of your head that it ain't never gonna happen.

But I'm professional and courteous, and get called "Hon" a lot.

One morning I helped one of our customers with his account. This happens fairly regularly - people want to change the frequency of the mailings, or change one of their selections, or want to re-listen to something they had years ago.

After the usual small talk, we get into it.

"Well, I'm looking to see which ones of the Jedi series I've read before. I know I'm about halfway through with one series and WOULD YOU KEEP IT DOWN, YOU BITCH? I'M ON THE DAMN PHONE!"

I was pretty sure this previously nice old man wasn't talking to me, but something had obviously tripped this switch over to Hyde mode.

I don't like being around people getting yelled or yelling. It always reminds me of being at a friend's house as a kid while they got in trouble and you just had to sort of sit there and act like you're not hearing anything. On the funny side, when he screamed, he sounded remarkably like the angry dad  in the D.R.I. thrash classic "Mad Man."

"Just a second, please. I TOLD YOU I'M ON THE DAMN PHONE! WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? So, I think I finished all that New Republic stuff, but I can't remember. Could you see what I've read?"

"Uh...yeah...uh..certainly. It looks like you did finish most of  --"

"YOU GOT ENOUGH MANURE IN YOU TO FERTILIZE ALL OF KANSAS! YEAH, YOU KNOW IT ALL, SURE YOU DO! Say, do you have "Dune" on digital yet or is it still only on tape?"

This went on for a few more minutes, him screaming at some unknown person, returning to me as a nice old man, me looking up book series for him, and neither one of us acknowledging the screaming. Should I say something? Should I ask if he needed help? These are were all great options running through my head as I ignored the yelling and finished the call.

I found out later that I did the right thing by ignoring the problem - he's been calling for years and almost always gets into it with whoever he's sharing a house with. As always, my strategy of ignoring problems and having good telephone skills continue to work like a charm.

Old Folks at Home

I have a new job.

Well, not a totally new job; I'm still at the library, but I'm back downtown again, down in the basement, just like the creepy uncle the family doesn't talk about. I work with blind and deaf people, most of whom are old.

Old people seem to like me. Kids, too. I'm not exactly sure why. On one of my site visits last week a woman said, "That was a nice young man" as I left. I am 42.

Substitute Bart with a middle-aged man, and you have a picture of my job.

I do a lot of outreach - going out to senior centers (sort of like day care for old people), retirement homes, and health fairs talking about the services YOU'RE PAYING FOR WITH YOUR TAX DOLLARS.

The senior centers and retirement homes are a mixed lot - sometimes they're sort of depressing, sometimes I can't wait to turn old and get in there. The last senior center I visited had a wide-screen TV and Wii, along with a dog park and vegetable garden. I was ready to sign up. Some are less fancy, but all of them have something interesting; one had a huge bird cage, some have pretty awesome aquariums, and they all have TVs. I don't know how they decide what gets played, but the stereotypes are true - they do watch "Matlock."

But not as much as "The Price is Right," which is almost always on when I show up.

And yes, they really do love their Bingo. I usually go on right after a game, while they're all excited. I was going to try to sneak as many photos of Bingo games or paraphernalia I could get away with and start a Tumblr. Then I thought that would be too much work, so the thought passed.

The stereotypes are true.

I haven't had any bad experiences yet, even if the field of old people isn't as organized as you might think. A couple of months ago I showed up a few minutes early to my appointment and had the following conversation with an activities director:

"Hi, I have an appointment at 11."

"Oh. I didn't think you'd show up today."

"Yeah, well...wait, why not?"

"A lot of people break appointments after they're added on the calendar which upsets the residents, and I assumed you wouldn't show up, so I took them to the gym already."

"But...I'm here...now..."
 
Not only do I get to talk to old people, I have a regular radio show for the blind (unfortunately, you need a special radio to get it, so it's not like my friends can listen to me or anything) and have been thrown uncomfortably on public access television. I am dominating free old people media!

The job has eased my mind a bit about getting old. For years I've been terrified of it, mostly because I've done a terrible job of planning for the future and have no family, so I had visions of being stuck in the cheapie retirement home where disinterested nurses would ignore me. "But...I was on blind people radio and wrote funny stuff on the internet," I'd mumble, as they plugged into their ibrain to sext their significant others.

That still freaks me out but it's not as big a concern. There's a whole network of people and services out there, and there's still a chance that I'll hit the big money jackpot somehow so I can live out my golden years in the style in which I deserve.

I also think occasionally about that clip that made the rounds on Facebook a while back. Old people with dementia were played music from their youth. Once they heard the music, they started talking and responding, even if they had been non-communicative for months.

Of course, that's fairly easy now, today's old people only had one song growing up, Glenn Miller's "In the Mood." Just like how Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" was the official song of the Vietnam war.

So years from now, some well meaning social worker will queue up "Life is a Highway" or "2 Legit 2 Quit" for me, waiting for my dramatic turnaround, when all I do is retreat deeper into my cranky, uncommunicative shell.

Hangin' Brains

I made it up to Chicago to check out the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2009 as part of my Divorced Guy North American Tour. I had a great time.

Saturday afternoon, my friend Jon was driving me and my friend Kevin to the second day of the festival. We were running late and had already missed two of the bands I wanted to see, so I'd like to imagine Jon was driving all French Connection to get us there without missing any more fun, although I know that when looked at through a purely factual worldview, that's not exactly true.

What I do know for sure is that Jon was playing a Bad Brains CD in his car. There was some discussion as to whether it was the self-titled album (you know, the one with the lightning bolt of righteousness striking the Capitol building) or "Rock for Light." I can't remember which one it was or which side I was on, but since I'm writing this blog, we'll go ahead and say I was right.

There was much singing and pumping of fists and pointing for emphasis. There was much talk about how insane it was to finally see the lyrics if you had a dubbed tape of the album and wondering how all those words fit in there when all you could make out was "hackabackabackabackaPOISONWEEEELL." There was much skipping of reggae tracks.

Discussion floated from mutual friends who were lucky enough to see Bad Brains in, if not their peak, at least not in their crazy, 'you might get energized HR, might get reggae, might get crazy no singing HR' days of the last ...holy crap, 20 years, to the awesomeness of "The Big Takeover."

Here, check out this stolen Youtube clip from 1983:

While this cuts out the awesome Morse code sounding intro, and Dr. Know's guitar solo doesn't sound as much like a semi truck as on the studio versions, it still shows just how vital and explosive the song is. Now for the rest of the week I'm going to be singing "jusanotha nazi scheeeme. Heeeaay." And check out that blonde girl on the stage happily singing every word. I wonder what she's doing right now?

As Einstein and Doc Brown have taught us, time is a crazy thing. Sometimes I think that Pitchfork fest was just last year, sometimes it seems like about a decade ago. Then I realize that I've known the people in that car for over 20 years. Our friendship is old enough to drink! I was married for over ten years. I've been at my job for longer than that, even though thinking back, the past 30 years or so seem like they've gone by in a flash - all my stories, all my experiences seem like they happened in the blink of an eye, which, I guess in the grand scheme of things, they did.

 I'd say that listening to decades-old hardcore songs made the three of us feel young again, but, at least in my case, I feel about the same as I did when I heard "The Big Takeover" for the first time. A little fatter, with possibly a few more life lessons under my belt, and with marginally better skin, but not too much different from my late teens or early or mid 20s. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I do know that when it came time for Jon to drop us off, after listening to Bad Brains for about a half hour, we all sort of looked at each other, knowing that with all the bands we were going to see that weekend, none of them could touch what we were listening to at the moment. I think we made him drive us around the block just to milk a little more Bad Brains out of the afternoon.

The Toughest Butterfly Collector in the World

Even though I spent a good amount of time half-assing and wandering around campus, I loved writing press releases for the University of Florida. I'm naturally curious, and love to hear people's stories, so listening to professors tell me the details of their work was fascinating. Plus, meeting and talking to people so wrapped up in the details of some small area of study could be inspiring. Sure, it might mean nothing to 98 percent of the world, but feeling this person's excitement over whatever crazy research they dedicated their lives to was pretty cool.

Like the butterfly expert. Before retiring he had saved and reintroduced a species of butterfly back into South Florida after Hurricane Andrew, which was pretty impressive. I mean, have you ever saved an entire species of anything? The interview went well, I had more than enough information to write a good two page release that would probably be picked up by the wire services, and he was a likeable guy. Wrapping the interview up, I asked one of those throwaway questions, like "what have you been doing recently."

"Well, there was the time I fought an alligator," he said, totally deadpan.

"Well, yeah, of course you're gonna - Wait! What?"

"I was in a swamp gathering specimens when this alligator came and grabbed me between the legs," he said, in a tone that you or I would use for relating how we went to the store earlier or raked the yard or something. "I knew that I was a goner if he dragged me down, so I started punching him in the nose, and eventually he lost his grip and swam away."

I must have sat there for a couple seconds with my mouth open. Butterfly guy totally punched an alligator in the face!

"So what are you doing now," I asked, after gaining my composure.

"Oh, just waiting around for death," Butterfly guy replied.

I'm sure he kicked Death's ass also.

The Running Man

I registered for a 15K race, the first race I've run since high school. It's also probably farther than I've ever run before. I announced it on facebook, knowing that if I told enough people I'd be too ashamed not to do it.

I was running for a while at our old apartment. I had built up some distance and was feeling pretty good about it. That all stopped once we bought the house and I was spending most of my free time working on it and using most of my excess energy freaking out over all the money we didn't have and all the repairs we needed.

I picked it up a few times since then, but it would turn cold or rain for a few days and that would be it for me. Plus I was started getting shin splints, something I always thought were just made up by slackers for sympathy.

Once my neighbor Bryan pointed out that I was running way too fast, things got so much better. I'm not getting injured or burning out. I'm feeling the way I felt when I first started biking, not really obsessed but really looking forward to it on the days I don't run.

If Bryan can't make and I have to go by myself, I have a kick-ass metal and hardcore playlist. I had to make a playlist since listening on random would mean there's about a 67 percent chance that I'd get a novelty Halloween song or Dean Martin or some indie rock ballad, all of which are great, but don't give me the stuff TO POUND THROUGH YOUR STREETS, CLUELESS SUBURBAN SQUARES! Sure, I may look like a doughy middle aged guy stomping through the neighborhood, but inside I'm screaming for the youth! THAT'S RIGHT, MR. REAGAN! YOUR FASCIST POLICE STATE CAN'T STOP ME! RISE ABOVE, WE'RE GONNA RISE ABOVE!!!

Oh, that's right, most of those songs were written like 30 years ago. WELL, DON'T FORCE YOUR NAZI HEALTH CARE ON ME, MR. OBAMA!

After my forced transfer, I sit in traffic every morning, getting angrier and more frustrated by the minute. "This is no way for a man to live," I think, as I glare at the back of the stupid car in front of me.

Luckily, three or four times a week I get to feel like an actual person again.

Great Balls of Fire

Being older isn’t really all that bad. Sure, there’s annoying stuff, like constantly being on patrol for ear and nose hair, but on the whole it’s not as awful as I thought it would be. Actually, I never really thought about being this old. As a kid, and probably up to my 20s or so, the whole length between 30 through 70 just seemed sort of boring, a vague halfway point between kick ass young adult-ness and the time when it would be acceptable for me to wear a white suit and give out long winded speeches about the old days to anyone who would listen. And yeah, before you comment, I realize that’s what I do here, but I don’t wear a white suit while doing it, so it’s totally different.

Luckily, I’m incredibly immature, so mentally and emotionally I’m about the same as I was in my 20s, with maybe a bit more self-confidence and knowledge tossed in as seasoning. Physically, I can probably do more now than I did back then; while this sounds awesome, like I’m Jack LaLane, or one of those senior citizens waterskiing on commercials, it’s more a comment on how sedentary I was in my 20s. After running track and cross country and skating daily in high school, about the only strenuous activity I regularly participated in was drinking King Kobra malt liquor, being an obnoxious loudmouth, and taking long showers.

But you know what’s really weird about getting old? Realizing that whole crowds of people are younger than you. Football players, sexy actresses, politicians, business owners, cops; all sorts of people that were always older than you are suddenly young enough to be your kids, if you started young enough.

But you sort of accept this, or at least don’t really think about it, at least until circumstances force you to confront this fact in the creepiest and most uncomfortable ways.

A few years ago I had a dermatologist appointment. As many of you know, I am terrified of doctors, but I’m OK with dermatologists, which you’d realize if you’d ever seen a picture of me from high school.


My Graduation Photo

This was a regular follow up visit to make sure I didn’t have skin cancer or whatever, and the previous visit took about 5 minutes. No big deal.

Except that weeks earlier I had noticed a little red spot. On my balls. I’m not really a hypochondriac, but this seemed like a good time to start. Was this the beginning of nut cancer? Some sort of weird ball leprosy? It couldn’t be a venereal disease, could it? I was happily having regular sexual activity, and was having a great time doing so. I knew there had to be a catch. But it couldn’t be that. I mean, I was with a regular partner, and we had discussed all that stuff before and besides, we used condoms, so…Oh wait. No, I guess we didn’t really. Shit, I wonder if I got it off some toilet in the library and spread it to her? How would I explain that?

This made for a stressful week before the appointment. I didn’t research any of this stuff on WebMD or any of the other sites geared to hypochondriacs, I knew too many friends who looked stuff up and became convinced they would die within minutes of shutting down the computer. No, better to wait and see what the doctor said.

My dermatologist was an older guy who told corny jokes and did his best to make his patients comfortable. He also played classic rock in the examining room. The last time I heard “The Boys are Back in Town” and “Maggie May.” While “Cowboy Song” or “Every Picture Tells a Story” would have been better jams, it was still nice.

I was early for my appointment. The assistant leads me back and starts talking to a group of young women in scrubs in front of the examining room. One of them is a youngish Asian woman. She is wearing pigtails and is showing off her new braces, both of which make her look about 12 years old.

“Oh, you finally got them,” the women exclaim, as I’m sort of paying attention but mostly wondering what sort of long and painful process they’re going to have to use to scrape this disease from my testicles.

I’m told to strip to my underwear. I notice there is no classic rock playing. It’s very quiet, a nice place for me to contemplate and accept my ball-less future, as I’ve now resigned myself to the fact that they’re both going to have to be cut off. I have a moment of acceptance. You know, what have they ever done but get me in trouble anyway? Things would probably be more peaceful and less stressful as a eunuch. OK. Let’s do this.

The door opens. Naturally, my new doctor is the Asian woman wearing cartoon scrubs, pigtails and braces.

“Wait,” I think. “What happened to Doctor Oldie?"

“OK, stand up, we’re just going to check your skin.”

I swear she giggled. Jesus, how old is this girl? Is this Take Your Daughter to Work Day?

She looks me over. I can’t stop staring at her pigtails and braces. When she left the house this morning did she purposely try to look as young as possible? I just came in to get my diseased balls cut off, not to feel like a pedophile.

“Everything looks fine. Anything new since the last visit?”

“Uh, no, not really.”

Tell her, tell her, tell her, tell her. You can’t ignore this. You have to have this looked at, if for no other reason than to stop freaking out.

“Good, then we’ll…

“Well, OK, actually there is something. Uh..you know, down there. I mean, it’s probably nothing but …”

“Down there? Where, exactly?”

“Uh…my …uh..”

“Your penis? Your scrotum?”

“Uh… yeah…uh… that one. Scrotum. Yep, scrotum.”

“You don’t have to be nervous. I’ve seen everything before. Just take your underwear off and let me have a look.”

Normally, I like hearing women say that last sentence but this time a lot of the sexy had gone out of it.

“Where is the problem?”

“Right …right here. That red spot.”

God, now this braces wearing girl is inches away from my equipment. Am I being filmed or something? I mean, they’d have to see that I didn’t try anything, right?

“Oh, that? That’s just a blood vessel that burst. People get them all over their body. Nothing to worry about.”

I swear she giggled again.

After that experience, I thoroughly research any doctors I might have to get naked in front of. They have to be at least 20 years older than I am. It’s much less stressful that way.

Reflections on a Facebook Forward

I saw this thing a few days ago on a friend's Facebook wall where you look up the number one song from the date of your birth and post it. Naturally, I had to do it. I mean, it was 11 o'clock on a weekday. What was I gonna do, work*?

I did pretty good - "ABC" by the Jackson 5. Then I poked around the site to see what other songs America decided to give me as birthday presents throughout the years.

Not too bad - Two Blondie songs, "I Love Rock n Roll," "Kiss" by Prince, "Nothing Compares 2 U," Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady;" you know, the one that goes: "Push it in, Push it out, Push it in, Push it out,Disco Lady." Subtle!

Overall a nice little assortment.

Then I decided to see what hits were signaling my birth in the years before I was born. Still not too bad - some Elvis, Beatles, "Joy to the World," and the Chipmunks doing that "Witchdoctor" song. But I still needed to search further.

Then I saw it - Arthur Collins' bad 1899 jam, "Hello, Ma Baby." You know, the one tune everyone whips out when the occasion calls for an old-timey song. Like if you try on a straw hat or find an old microphone or see a guy in a bowtie or something. Really? You guys don't do that? Huh. Well, trust me, most normal people do.

Here's a cartoon frog doing a version of it

I was pretty happy to see the song was a hit on my pre-pre-birthday, but then remembered that "Hello, Ma Baby" was the only song released in America until about 1928, so it was a hit on everybody's birthday. That took some of the fun out of it.

Anyway, almost two weeks ago I heard Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out" in the grocery store. That tune had been lodged in my head ever since. I didn't really mind it too much - it's not a bad song, but just the fact that it hadn't left my mind in close to two weeks was a bit troubling. I was considering seeking medical help, you know, like they tell you to do if you have a boner that lasts over four hours.

However, once I saw the words "Hello, Ma Baby," Joe Jackson was booted out of my brain, and that little green frog took up permanent residence.

Bookmark this page, loyal readers. Next time you have a song stuck in your head, go back. I can almost guarantee "Hello, Ma Baby" will clear it out. You might eventually end up wearing a straw hat and bowtie while singing it into an old-timey microphone, but that's a small, yet immensely entertaining price to pay.



* Note to current and potential employers - this is a joke. I didn't have to work til 12. Let's keep this out of the files, huh?

One of My Favorite Work Stories (No, Really)

Couple years ago I'm walking through the stacks when this old guy asks me for the "DVD tapes."

"Aw, crap," I think. "Guess I've got my work cut out for me with this guy."

"Well, the DVDs are all in this area," I said. "Is there anything in particular you're looking for?"

"I've been looking for tapes of the Judy Garland Show for years, but I doubt you'd have any of them."

"Yeah, we've got the Christmas show right over here," I say, walking him over to the musicals.

The guy starts going into a spiel about how this DVD is actually a bootleg copy and and I tell him that it came from a reputable distributor, and blah, blah, blah. Then he starts telling me about his days in early television.

Now we get a lot of cranks, crazies and straight-up delusional people in the library. We used to have a regular phone customer who woman who claimed to be Axl Rose's daughter, so I wasn't sure how much to really believe this guy, but he went on to tell me this story.

The old guy was a producer for the Judy Garland show back in the '50s and '60s. Her show was shot live, which was risky, since Garland wasn't the most punctual or dependable performer due to her addictions. So the day after President Kennedy's assassination, the crew was wondering right up to the shoot if they were going to have to find a guest star at the last moment. Garland was friends with the Kennedys, and was very distraught. At least that's what they assumed; they hadn't heard anything from her since the day before.

Minutes before the show aired, a visibly shaken Judy Garland walks on stage. She makes a short speech to the studio audience and then sings a song dedicated to the late President. I can't remember what he said the song was, I think it might have been "Over the Rainbow." It was one of her big ones. After she finished, the whole place, crew, audience, everyone just starts bawling, and the show goes on.

So the crazy part? This is before the actual show and nobody thought to turn on a camera and point it at her. Nowadays, we'd have blurry phone camera footage within seconds after she stopped singing. Now, there's still a chance that the whole thing is made up, but I love the fact that this simple, heartfelt tribute was shared by a few people, then forgotten forever. Until the old guy told me. Hell, I didn't believe the Bob Hope Gator Growl story, but enough people have come out of the woodwork to make me believe that one.

The guy left, but not before almost crushing my hand with a handshake, I guess to show me that he worked on musicals, but he was all man. Again, I have no idea if the story is true or just the product of an old guy with too much time on his hands, but like the guy from the X Files, I want to believe.

LETS. GET. WEIRD!

This old woman is trying to find a book on CD about one of the first Americans to climb Mt. Everest. She can't remember the title, but remembers the main character.

"He was always a weird little kid. He was always climbing and was never afraid of anything. I love weird little kids. I have a weird grandson and I just love him to death. I have a normal one, and he's OK, but I love that little weird one."

The Monster Mash-Up

There's this little old lady who comes into the fiction department fairly regularly. She's about 4 feet tall and has to be 100 years old. She loves supernatural romances and will go through piles of them in a week. She's exhuasted our collection and has had to use the interlibrary loan system to get her fix from outside the area.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as supernatural romances, but they all seem to involve some sort of vampire/werewolf/ghost hunter woman who ends up falling in love with a monster. And I have inferred from the back cover descriptions that they have a lot of sex.

Now, I'm a fan of both monsters and the erotic arts, but I don't really think the two should be mixed. Plus, when did werewolves become sexy? Werewolves are the lamest of all the classic monsters, spending most of their time as humans whining about their curse. You don't see vampires or Frankensteins doing that, do you? Hell no, they embrace their monsterness. And why can't a Frankenstein monster get some love? Nobody ever makes movies or books about getting poor Frankenstein some action. Hell, even his own bride rejected him. If you ask me, there should be more erotic fiction concerning poor, unloved Frankenstein. Somebody needs to get on that.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the little old lady. So she says, "You know the books I'm looking for. Anything with ghosts, werewolves, vampires, anything like that."

"Well, let's see what we've got. Any thing in particular you're looking for?"

"No, just as long as it's kinky."

Oldies

The other day at work I was trying to get across the concept of 'assist,' and I came up with the classic Magic Johnson assist to the Kareem skyhook. The person I was speaking to didn't know what the hell I was talking about.

Then I realized that all my sports metaphors, much like my musical tastes, seem to have frozen around 1988.

How I Know I'm Getting Old

So this weekend we're going to a 2 day plant festival in Gainesville where Christie is selling jewelery. I'm about as excited for the plant festival as I would have been 10 years ago if you had told me about a 2 day record swap where Angelina Jolie handed out free drinks and the Fat Boys played "All You Can Eat" at the buffet line.

Well, maybe not that excited, but pretty close.

Some of you might be laughing now, but when I take home the trophy for "Most Improved" at the first annual Murray Hill Garden Contest, we'll see who laughs the loudest.

Music News From 1985

About a month ago I'm sitting at a stoplight when a car starts pumping the bass behind me.

"Goddammit," I think. "I can't even listen to my Dadrock* in my own damn car."
Then I realize they're blasting out "La De Da Di" by Doug E. Fresh like it was 1985.

Coincidentally that same week some friends and I were discussing the awesomeness of early '80s electro funk. You know, that synthesizer-heavy early hip-hop that would get everyone on the floor at the skating rink. Think of "Rockit" or "Freakazoid." Or better yet, think of Jonzun Crew. Check 'em out.



You know you're getting some bad jams when the band includes an outer space dandy.

Deducing I had somehow slipped through a hole in time to the mid '80s, I rushed home and fired up MTV hoping I'd catch the video for "Somebody's Watching Me," "19" or perhaps the latest Billy Squier jam. After that I figured I'd go through my high school revenge list and settle some scores. That's right, 17 and 18 year olds. You don't look so tough now that I'm in my thirties. After that I'd make sure I passed algebra the first time, ensuring a future full of big money, and then bet on a few Superbowls just to make sure.

Oh yeah, and I'd totally kill Hitler, too.

Sadly, after watching a bunch of people I'd never heard of show off their houses and cars I realized that I had not, in fact gone back in time and would have to make the best of things here in the present. Hitler didn't know how close he came.


* Dadrock in question was a best of ZZ Top CD I took home from work. "Just Got Paid?" "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide?" While handicapped by the absence of outer space dandies, those are some bad jams indeed. For more information on this topic, wait for my hard-hitting 'more music news from 1975' post.

No Diner For Young Men

Couple years back I took the car to get fixed. My parents had drummed into me the need to get to repair places right when they opened so I would be first in line. I've since learned that at most places the mechanic doesn't show up until 9, so you may as well get another couple hours of sleep instead of hanging around reading 7 month old Newsweeks and watching Judge Judy on the crappy repair place TV while wondering how much all this is going to cost.

After a couple hours of waiting around I figured I'd walk down to this diner and get some breakfast.

As I opened the door all conversation stopped and everyone turned to look at me. I felt like I just walked into the saloon and was going to start a shoot-out. I determined that I was the youngest person in the place by like 50 years, and had probably interrupted some Masonic ritual or spirited review of last week's church social.

After the oldies vibed me out, they went back to eating, but I could tell they didn't take kindly to this young buck taking up valuable space in their establishment.

Later that week my wife and I went to see TV on the Radio at Freebird Cafe, where we were the oldest people by about 15 years, so I suppose it all evened out.

Pirates of the Homophobic

This old guy comes up to the desk today screaming something about pirates. Once Oldie finally ambles up, I deduce he’s asking about that last Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

“TV said its been out since Friday. Do ya’ll have it in?”

”I don’t think it comes out until next week.”

“No, the TV’s been running ads all last week.”

“Actually, I’ve got Amazon up right here. There, see, next Tuesday.”

”Well, why would the TV be telling me about it for a week?”

”Well, you know, they run ads beforehand to get people excited about it.”

”I guess so. Go ahead and put a hold on that one for me. Here’s my card. I loved that first movie, but me and my brother had to walk out of the second one.”

”Yeah, I remember it being kind of long.”

”Wasn’t that, it was all the gay stuff in there.”

“Yeah, I ..wait…what?”

”Oh yeah, we couldn’t stand that stuff. Remember how they were all ghosts and were trying to get that girl? Well, of course he didn’t care anything about that, being the way he was.”

Oldie wandered off by that point, leaving me to wonder just what pirate movie he was talking about.

Lost in the Supermarket

I needed something sweet a couple nights ago. We had nothing but healthy stuff in the house, so I had to take a trip down to Winn Dixie, something I try to avoid, but when the sweets hit you late at night, sometimes you just gotta give in.

I’m standing in line waiting to buy my treats and this guy comes behind me with his wife and kids. He’s about my age and has almost completely grey hair. He’s also wearing an old Circle Jerks T-shirt.

“Hey, I used to have that same shirt.”

”Oh yeah? Man, they were a great band.”

“Yeah, I was actually listening to Group Sex in the car a couple weeks ago.”

”Yeah, that album’s gotta be in anybody’s top ten.”

“Growing up, I lived close to St. Pete, and I swear they played like every summer. Actually, they played the first show I ever saw, back in like ’85. After seeing them it was pretty much all over for me and I knew I was gonna be a punk rocker for life.”

”Yeah, they used to play Virginia constantly when I lived there back in the ‘80s. Even on those later tours when Keith Morris was all grumpy and would preach for 10 minutes before singing a song, it would still be a good time.”

“Heh, I remember those shows. Well, take care.”

“Yeah, see you later.”

I started up my car and started thinking (which was pretty hard, since I had “Paid Vacation” and “Live Fast, Die Young” now stuck in my head in an endless loop.

Who knows where I’d be right now if I hadn’t gone to that Circle Jerks show back in 1985? For one thing, instead of a wall of CDs, I’d probably have a bunch of real CDs in a bank earning interest for my golden years. Hell, I might be a doctor or lawyer right now instead of some chump driving to Winn Dixie for a box of Cocoa Pebbles in the middle of the night.