DEEP THOUGHTS (AND SHALLOW ONES) FROM A WRITER-PRODUCER-POET-COLUMNIST WHO'S STILL TRYING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT
(Live! From Paradise! will be back next week.)
…I know what most people think, but, nope, it’s not Kareem’s astounding basketball career that makes me a true believer (with apologies to certain guy named Stan Lee), it’s that Kareem is as good a writer as anyone in this day and age could ever read.
Especially his non-fiction – most easily found on his substack website – which gets right to the heart of things, demonstrating a rare combination of clear thought and warm heart.
For example:
Life in My Seventies, Study: Billionaires Not that Smart, Study: Loneliness as Dangerous as Smoking, NBA Social Justice Champion Finalists, Elon Gets It Wrong (Again), Joan Baez Sings, and More
I recently turned 76, and for the past six years, I’ve been living in the Red Zone. The Red Zone is when famous people keep dying at around the same age as you are. (Last month Tim Bachman, co-founder of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, died at the age of 71. So did Lasse Wellander, the longtime guitarist for ABBA. He was 70.)
The Red Zone is like the section of a car’s gas gauge just past E that, when the needle hovers over it, you’re never sure exactly how many miles you have left before the car conks out. You’re still going strong, but you’re not sure for how long.
Of course, it’s not just famous people dying, but those are the ones I read about with their 70-something ages prominently displayed like flashing warning lights directed at me.
I don’t dwell on death. I don’t fidget over impending doom. I’m not crafting pithy last words. (I might just use Oscar Wilde’s last words: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”) Quite the opposite. Like most people over sixty, I’m actually happier than when I was younger (“Older Americans upbeat about aging, future”)….
LYMI,
LB
CBR.Com, a major player in the comics/film/tv industry, has an article of great interest to me today, so I thought I’d share it. Brace yourselves, kids. It’s called 10 Best Animated Shows With Only One Season and starts like this:
Entertainment is one of the most unpredictable industries, and animation is no exception. Many beloved shows were only granted one season due to budgetary restrictions, cancelations, low ratings, or even creative choices. Despite only having a single season, many shows developed large fan bases and huge cult followings that were left craving more with the worlds they fell in love with….
After which it continues with this:
Created by Larry Brody, Silver Surfer centers around the comic book character, Silver Surfer, as he travels the galaxy in search of a planet that isn’t Earth for his master to destroy. One of the most powerful superheroes, creators brought a new life to Silver Surfer’s character, showcasing his strengths without The Fantastic Four.
Silver Surfer gained immediate praise from fans and critics, making its cancelation shocking. The show only lasted for thirteen episodes, and while there are many rumors regarding its cancelation, Brody claimed it was due to a legal dispute, though some believe it was a result of Marvel’s bankruptcy. Regardless, fans remain hopeful that there will be an up-to-par reboot.
I recognize that Ms. Emalfarb doesn’t consider this the best of the Top Ten – that’s a show called The Midnight Gospel that I’m definitely going to have look at, but I’m excited that recognition has been given to the show and as a result everyone at late, lamented Saban Entertainment who contributed to it.
Thanks, CBR.Com, for brightening my morning. I loved working on Silver Surfer and also “remain hopeful that there will be an up-to-par reboot,” especially one that brings the old animation crew back together for more idealistic interstellar surfing.
Read the entire article HERE
I’m not the first person to observe with a feeling (probably inflated) of wisdom that as our lives amble, zip, and sometimes sputter along paths we’ve chosen—or had chosen for us—many different milestones measure our passage.
First day of school.
First communion.
Bar or Bat Mitzvah.
High school or college (and, these days, junior high and preschool) graduation.
Marriage.
The birth of a child or two, or more.
Divorce.
Grandchildren.
The deaths of our parents.
The death of our mate.
A host of others, some intensely personal, others appropriate for us all.
Obviously, many of these moments are wonderful. And, just as obviously, many are 180 degrees in the other direction.
But just a few weeks ago I encountered the most terrifying and, yep, depressing milestone of all.
Like a whole lot of bad news, it came in the mail.
I’m talking about my Medicare card.
I’m not talking political-socio-economic philosophy here, I’m talking psychological reality.
Staring at that little card waiting to be separated at its perforations and slipped into my wallet, I could think of only one thing:
In less than one month—under 30 days!—I’ll be 65.
Yikes!
Was that for real? Could it possibly be true? Once upon a time various of my grandparents were 65. I remember them well. Doddering, deaf, terrifying when they were behind the wheel of any vehicle on any public, or for that matter private, thoroughfare.
And my parents. They both reach 65 too. Shriveled. Barely able to see. Terrifyingly driving each other to doctors and hospitals as bouts of illness became more and more frequent…and severe.
But those old codgers were from other generations. Immigrant oldsters born in Europe at the turn of the 20th Century. Generation Gapped adults of what Time Magazine called “the best generation,” born in the Good Ole USA just in time for the Great Depression.
That’s not me.
It can’t be.
I’m a young, vital, physically fit baby boomer. I’ve trained with weights for over 50 years. Worked at a gig that demands the utmost in concentration and creativity for 40—
Uh-oh.
There are things, some important, some not-so, that I’ve done for 40 or 50 years?
Friends I’ve had for that same length of time?
Stories I tell that begin not with “Once upon a time” but “Back in the day…?”
I am so…so…what’s the word? Back in the day I never had trouble picking the exact one I needed, but now….
Now I’m old.
Medicare old.
Social Security benefits old.
“Grampa Larry” old.
I may not be doddering—yet—but when I stand beside my children I feel nowhere near as tall as I used to be. My doctor recently recommended a good hearing aid so I could appreciate all the now-missing “sha-bop-sha-bops” on oldies radio. The prescription that just a year ago covered the farthest distance of my “progressive lenses” now is too weak for even the middle…
And, difficult as this is for me to admit, I wouldn’t want to be in another car driving on the same road Grampa Larry was on, nosirree. In fact, just yesterday a neighbor young enough to be my son posted these much-too-true words to me on Facebook:
“Hey, Brody, stay on your side of the road!”
He added an “LOL,” but that was just an act of mercy, after a surprisingly close call.
“I grow old, I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
So wrote T.S. Elliot back in the day long before the day I go back to. He was referring to fashion, a teacher of mine who had heard him speak about his poetry told a lit class I was in.
“At the time Eliot wrote this,” she said, “the style was for young men to wear straight bottoms and for older ones to fold their pants into cuffs.”
I’m still wearing straight bottoms on my jeans, but even though I’ve beaten Fashion, Time’s got me on the ropes.
Having become a grandparent several times over has been wonderful, but what comes next doesn’t seem nearly so good. I’ve spent much of my life throwing myself at the future but fear that the best I can hope for next time I do that is that I’ll be bounced groggily back.
What bothers me most is that after all these years I still haven’t figured out what the Universe is all about.
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure the Universe hasn’t figured me out either.
Hmm, whaddaya know?
Gotcha, U-dude.
