Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A Prepress Specialist Looks at 50

I've been really too busy to fuss with my "main" blog here, what with an 8-year-old boy and a 16-month-old girl. That, and I've started writing for Examiner.com as their Chicago Craft Beer Examiner; check it out, this actually pays per page view instead of waiting for you to click on an ad!
But having passed the Aloha Age (because I'm now Five-0), I started to think up lists of things I;ve already surpassed in age:
  • For the first time, I'm older than the President of the United States, which I noted on my election Day post.
  • I'm older than Carroll O'Connor was when he started playing Archie Bunker in 1971 (47).
  • Redd Foxx was "just" 49 when he started in "Sanford & Son." Bea Arthur had just turned 50 when "Maude" became a series. O'Connor, Foxx and Arthur are all now dead.
  • By the time of Mozart's 50th birthday, he'd already been dead 15 years (thanks to Tom Lehrer for that one).
  • Two years ago, Turner Classic Movies aired the deservedly little-seen "Skidoo," which included a shot of Carol Channing in her underwear. I realized that at the time I was watching, I was older than Carol Channing (47), and I still did NOT want to see her in bra and panties. At least I still enjoy seeing my wife…
Conversely, there are still some positive things I can think of:
  • No one aged 50 or less has been elected Pope since Clement VII in 1523. So if I really cleaned up my act, I could still… oh, wait… yeah… married.
  • Prince has the same birthday as me, except he'll always be a year older.
  • I saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon live on TV. You have to watch a kinescope compressed for YouTube.
  • I thought once the entertainment industry stopped pandering to aging Baby Boomers, there'd be more radio stations playing great new rock acts. But when I tune in to local college and high school stations, they're still playing music recorded before they were born. Guys, when I was on radio, no one was phoning in requesting Elvis. And now they've gone from remaking 60's sitcoms to making movies based on 80's toys.
  • Most of the teen idols, models and movie stars of my age look more like me. And their careers will never be as hot as they once were.
And most importantly, having a baby when I was 48 and Barb was 46 is considered by many a "miracle." I just can't wait for people to start seeing our faces on tortillas!