Like Sand Through The Hourglass...

I'm getting old.
   I know that I've lamented my impending old-man-ness* from time to time... all right, I've done it frequently, but the process is speeding up. I can feel my dewy youth slipping away like the orderly who steals your pills from your dresser when you're just resting your eyes. I've noticed my slide by several factors:

   I listen to NPR almost exclusively. All right, I admit I've been doing that for over a decade, but that just shows you how early I began my descent into advanced old-man-ity.*

   I harbor a secret longing nostalgia for 70's AM radio. Which I guess isn't secret any more. I wasn't old enough to have any say in what we listened to in the car, and my parents really, really, really liked lame music, so that's what we listened to. Lame AM 70's radio. Lately I've been appreciating Abba and Hall and Oates. I may need someone to put me out of my misery before I discover Leo Sayer again.

   I do a killer Fred Mertz impression. I did it just this afternoon, dead-on perfect. It's only a matter of time before I too wear my pants rib-cage high like Fred, and not in a mocking way.

   I talk to myself in the grocery store. 'Big deal,' you say, 'lots of people do that to remember what they need to buy.' But talking to myself while running errands is the preliminary stage before I start muttering all the time. And start chewing an imaginary mouthful of something. And get huge tufts of hair growing out of my ears.

   Sweet things are too sweet. I understand there is more sugar in prepared food now than there used to be, but I'm losing what used to be an epic sweet tooth. When I was in the full bloom of youth I could almost polish off an entire pie. So maybe aging prematurely isn't entirely bad.

   I understand how governmental policies from twenty years ago have shaped the society we have now. If that doesn't make me an old man before my time, I don't know what else would. Reganomics is directly responsible for the mess we're in now, and if you want I can tell you exactly why. And get off my lawn, you stupid kids!

   I have a lawn.

   I know how escrow works.

   I know how to navigate State and Federal bureaucracy to establish a business and pay taxes.

   I go to the post office at least once a week.


There's nothing I can do about it. I'm done. Gone. Might as well get me a Hoveround and a helper monkey. Really. At least the helper monkey, I've always wanted a helper monkey. His name would be Mr. Chimps, which is a reference to a 72-year-old film. Old men fondly remember old films.

   ADDENDUM: I think Saturday Night Live is funny again. For years, decades, it was definitely not at all funny, in any way. It's funny again. I think maybe it's because they stopped trying to do 'Saturday Night Live' and just started doing funny stuff again. Or maybe I'm just old...

* old-man-dom? old-man-itude?

Were I A Billionaire...

Everybody wants to have lots of money, and most of us don't want to have to do anything to get it. That would be the best, tons of cash in a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin just free and clear. I'd dive and cavort and everything else Scrooge McDuck does but without all the bother of actually having to manage my money.
   There are, according to Forbes Magazine which tracks these things, 1,011 billionaires in the world. Aside from being a complete socio-economic travesty and an insult to hard-working people across the globe, the fact that there are over one thousand billionaires means it's becoming increasingly common. The possibility exists, is what I'm saying. I could be one of them.
   But what do you do with $1 billion in assets? I mean, really. When you have more than enough for any ten lifetimes, what do you do with it? You could endow libraries, like Andrew Carnegie, or you could support crackpot political movements that pretend to help the very people they're screwing the most, like the Koch brothers. So I sat and pondered what I would do if I had the money to do anything at all.

Build a Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang car. One that really flies.
   Endow pure scientific research projects. But the scientists have to call me 'Uncle Moneybags' on weekly video conferences broadcast over the web.
Punch Alan Greenspan in the nose. And kick Phil Gramm in the nuts. Bastards ruined our economy for no good reason...
   Go to Vegas and procure midget hookers, then make them carry my luggage.
Buy lots of ranch land and raise gigantic armadillos, ones big enough for kids to ride, then take over the kiddie-ride industry.
   Go to clown college. Then flunk out.
Teach an army of gorillas sign language, then send them all to school to get their MBAs. Then get them jobs at every major US corporation. And then when anyone at that corporation puts forward some illegal, immoral, or just plain stupid idea the gorilla gets to rend them limb from limb. That ought to cut down on the shenanigans in corporate America.
   Make a Summer blockbuster that doesn't completely suck.
Learn how to mambo. Because 'mambo' sounds funny.
   Start a World Family Reunion, that everyone has to attend, all six billion of us. We're all related, after all, if you go back far enough. People don't remember that enough.
Buy up all the TV air time for one day and just turn it off. All of it, every channel. You people need to figure out what to do without the idiot box flashing at you every two seconds.

See? My wants are few, my needs even fewer. I could probably do all that with just a couple of billion dollars, no need for $50 billion or anything outrageous.

Food Confidence

Have you ever had a sandwich prepared by a surly food service worker?
   How did that make you feel about the meal you paid for? Because today I felt suspicious, which kind of made me surly myself.
   When you walk into a restaurant or fast-food joint, usually you're greeted with a smile, perhaps an over-enthusiastic one or a sarcastic one, but still a smile. When I was a waiter it was my job to be friendly even if I hated your guts from the moment you walked in. Especially if I hated your guts.
   Obviously this was part of our training, if for no other reason than a smile prompts bigger tips. It really does, I made an experiment of it one weekend.
   But there's a better reason why food service workers are friendly. It gives the customer confidence that no one's going to do something to their food. A meal prepared by a surly worker is inherently no better or worse than a meal prepared by a similarly-skilled friendly worker. But if the guy making your sandwich isn't smiling you're pretty sure he's up to something. With your food. That you're going to put in your mouth.
   All this ran through my head today as I watched the frowning lady at Schlotzky's make my sandwich. I couldn't see her hands, which totally bothered me. What kind of morning did she have that made her that frowny? Was it her kids? Her dog? Her husband who I might resemble closely enough that revenge on me would be revenge on him? Why wasn't she happy making my meal? Or at least less upset? What was she doing back there? To my Deluxe Original?
   I'm not ashamed at all to say that when I got back to my desk at work I double-checked my sandwich before I took a bite. Nothing amiss so I proceeded with the eating. But it's only maybe the second or third time I've ever felt the need to do that. If she'd just smiled a little, tiny bit, even for a moment, I would have been more at ease.
   So smile, food service workers, if for no other reason than to give the rest of us false hope you're not doing anything weird with our sandwiches.

An iPhone Failure

You know what I do with my iPhone?
   I make phone calls.
   Yup, kickin' it old school. I actually like to talk to people instead of typing at them. I do send and receive the occasional text message, I'm not a complete Luddite, but I really do prefer to talk with a real human being.
   I have a game or two to while away the odd free moment or two, but I haven't paid for a single app and I probably never will. And, no, one of those games is not 'Angry Birds.'
   I don't like being tagged in pictures and I don't tag anyone else, I don't take pictures with my phone because I don't want anyone to know where I've been. I don't use the compass or the GPS or anything on my iPhone that has the remotest possibility of talking back to me.
   I just want a freakin' phone.
   And before you start in with the 'so why did you buy an iPhone, you big hypocrite?' I can tell you it's an old one, which I got for $49 from ATT when I moved. Fifty bucks for a new phone and I'll take what they give me.
   If you need to reach me, give me a call, I may not answer any text messages.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I'm concerned that I might suddenly develop see-through vision.
   I don't mean x-ray vision, not like I can see bones or spleens or what have you. I'm concerned that I might suddenly develop the ability to see people as if they had no clothes on, like the X-Ray Specs they used to advertise on the back of comic books.
   On first consideration that might seem to be a pretty cool thing, especially when you think of supermodels or Playboy playmates or the hot chick checking groceries. But then, after a moment's consideration I realized that I've never actually seen a supermodel in person, and the only Playmate I've seen was a coked-out wreck fifteen years ago at the Dallas Fantasy Fair, and though she had a booming bod her face looked like what you'd expect a coked-out Playmate stuck at the Dallas Fantasy Fair would look like. Not good. Not good at all.
   Then you consider all the homeless guys and truckers and transsexual-looking people you see in a week (or at least that I see in a week) and the opportunity to see the occasional MILF or college cheerleader with no clothes on doesn't seem like a very good trade-off.
   And the thought of going to the local Wal-Mart and seeing the sagging, jiggling, varicose-veined train wrecks there would make me want to claw my eyes out.
   God invented Indonesian sweat shops so that we Americans could have the clothes our flabby bodies need to hide our excesses and indiscretions. And I'm fine stopping right there, no need to look any further.
   I just don't see how Superman does it...

If I Were A Blues Musician...

If I were a blues musician I'd have a great nickname. Because all blues musicians have great nicknames, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, or Lightnin' Hopkins. If you have a cool nickname people treat you better, they move aside when you pass by, they hold doors open for you. Mostly, though, you get that cool nickname on your tombstone so people 100 years from now can pass by your grave and wonder how cool that guy was to get a nickname like 'Jelly Roll.'
   So I decided to cut out the middleman - and, coincidentally, all the tragedy and pathos of being an actual blues musician - and come up with my own blues nickname. I tried to think of things that define me, or at least that others might think define me.

   Scratchin' Don H.
Needs a Shave Hartshorn
   Junk Food Hartshorn
Don 'Cut the Damn Grass' Hartshorn
   Knee Poppin' Don
Old Man Groan Hartshorn
   Don 'Too Much Mayonnaise' Hartshorn
The Bellybutton Lint Kid
   White Guy Rhythm Hartshorn
Bad Haircut Don
   Don 'Pays Bills On Time' Hartshorn
Sullen Resentment Hartshorn
   Inappropriate Mutterin' Don

   One of those just has to fit. I'll go to local jazz clubs and get the emcee to announce me over the microphone, see which one has the right reverb.

Feeding The Five-Year-Old In Me

Guess what I had for dinner? Go on, I'll give you three guesses and I'm positive you're never going to figure it out.
   A hot dog wrapped in a tortilla with cheese and some salsa?
   Jeez... first try...
   Yup, I ate a tortilla-wrapped hot dog for dinner. With some cantaloupe and grapes on the side. For lunch I had lemonade and yogurt and some bread pudding (not really sweet, but it's very good. From Sun Harvest.) For breakfast I had iced tea and Pop Tarts, the chocolate chip kind, which are much more honest than the fruit-flavored kind which pretend not to be the candy they so obviously are.
   I'm regressing back to my childhood. When I was five this was what I thought it would be like to be an adult and to feed myself. Not junk food, not really (except for the Pop Tarts and hot dog), but not the most nutritious day I've had in my life either.
   I don't know, lately I just can't be bothered. Either I'll go days subsisting on fruit and vegetables because I just can't quite make it to the grocery store for animal protein, or I end up raiding the pantry for whatever's in there that might go well together. No middle ground. I'm waiting for the 'leftover lemon chicken - ranch style beans' night that will inevitably happen some time soon.
   I can cook meals. Really. I used to be a cook, years ago. I can make fifteen pans of lasagna and four-hundred-fifty hand-breaded cheese sticks and work the ovens and stoves on the line. And still have time to read to orphans. I'm good. But I'm terribly, terribly lazy, especially when the meal is only for me, myself and I. I dread what's going to happen to me next. When I was five I thought a stellar breakfast would be Lucky Charms but with all the pesky cereal bits taken out. I pined for a bowl of just Lucky Charms marshmallows but my mother foiled my efforts to bring my dreams to life.
   Now that I'm good and grown I might just need to make that happen. Although maybe that's a cry for help...

Shuttle Down

It's the last NASA Space Shuttle mission. And you know what? I'm glad.
   Don't get me wrong, I'm not a flat-Earther or one of those people who thinks that all space exploration is the next worst thing to searching for extraterrestrial life. On the contrary, I think manned exploration beyond our tiny planet is humanity's manifest destiny. It's what we do, exploring. It's what we as a species have always done and it's what's going to take us, inevitably if far too slowly, out into the Solar System and then beyond.
   This is the reason I'm glad the Space Shuttle program is ending. We're meant for bigger and better things, and when the Short Bus to Orbit finally stops being a viable option, we'll focus on what's really important. The Shuttle was really only meant to help build the International Space Station (ISS), and it's done that. As George Bush said, Mission Accomplished. Time to move on.
   Low-Earth orbit - the ISS is only about 200 miles up - isn't even getting your toes wet in the cosmic ocean. It's not even at the high tide mark it's waaaay back in the dunes where the sand fleas get into your swim trunks. We need to go farther, go deeper, get out there into the Cosmos and see what happens. The Shuttle was all about playing it safe, baby steps, nothing too risky or adventurous. Sure, we lost fourteen astronauts, but only the second lost shuttle was really an accident, the first was caused by entirely preventable bureaucratic mismanagement. Which is what you get when you play it safe instead of committing to something truly monumental.
   We need to cut loose, blaze a trail to the next frontier, get our people out there and make things happen. When Christopher Columbus set out for the Western Passage to India, he was... pretty sure... he was going to find it. But he miscalculated severely and found nothing. His crew almost mutinied, and then - voila! - he hits land. Not India, but something much, much better. The same thing will happen when we really commit to space exploration. We'll go looking for one thing but we'll find something far better. I guarantee it.
   Yes, people will die, but they'll die actually doing something worthwhile instead of busy work ferrying satellites into orbit and garbage back down to earth. The Shuttle was nothing more than an extremely expensive delivery van. I'm glad we're done with it.