Quips and Quotations (Strike a Pose Edition)

 

 Whether or not we admit it to ourselves, we are all haunted by a truly awful sense of impermanence.

--Tennessee Williams

Quips and Quotations (Actuarial Tables Edition)

 How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

--Satchel Paige

Smart Art (Dutch Selfies Edition)

Whether I'm right or whether I'm wrong
Whether I find a place in this world or never belong

I gotta be me, I've gotta be me
What else can I be but what I am

I want to live, not merely survive
And I won't give up this dream
Of life that keeps me alive

I gotta be me, I gotta be me
The dream that I see makes me what I am

That far away prize, a world of success
Is waiting for me if I heed the call

I won't settle down, won't settle for less
As long as there's a chance that I can have it all

 I'll go it alone, that's how it must be
I can't be right for somebody else
If I'm not right for me

I gotta be free, I've gotta be free
Daring to try, to do it or die
I've gotta be me

I'll go it alone, that's how it must be

I can't be right for somebody else
If I'm not right for me

I gotta be free, I just gotta be free
Daring to try, to do it or die

I gotta be me

Old Master painter Rembrandt van Rijn was born on this day in 1606. As you can see, he liked to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror.

Vital Viewing (Senior Living Edition)

Actor Burt Reynolds (seen here with a "cougar") was born on this day in 1936. Just last year he appeared in the feature film The Last Movie Star, with Chevy Chase and Kathleen Nolan (Richard Crenna's wife on The Real McCoys.) I can't tell you whether this flick was good, bad, or in-between, because I didn't know of its existence until about 15 minutes ago (if you've seen it and want to give a mini-review in the comment section, feel free to do so.) Here's a clip not of the movie itself but the movie's premier at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, featuring the aforementioned Reynolds, Chase, Noland, and festival co-founder Robert De Niro:

 It may be just simple nostalgia on my part (after all, I grew up in the 1970s), but even in stoop-shouldered, cane-wielding old age, Burt Reynolds is still the coolest guy in the room.

Here's a clip to enjoy from way-back-when:

Fun and games during the Energy Crises.

Going for the Old

Every so often, I skim through a page on Wikipedia titled "Deaths in 2012." Two months from now I'll be skimming through "Deaths in 2013." Last year, I was skimming through "Deaths in 2011." You get the idea. I do this to see if anyone obscure but notable has passed on but whose obituary didn't make my daily paper, or if it did I missed it because it was too small, or too far below the fold, or whatever. By "obscure but notable" I mean has-beens or never-weres, folks who are not, or are no longer, famous, but aren't quite unheard of either. That's how I found out about this fellow's passing:

Clive Dunn, 92, British actor (Dad's Army) and singer ("Grandad"), complications following operation.

             
 If you're not familiar with Dad's Army, it was a situation comedy popular in Great Britain from the late '60s to the mid- '70s. Taking place during World War II, it concerned a unit of the Home Guard, British volunteers deemed unfit to serve in the regular army, often due to age, and so did their part in this special service as a secondary line of defense in case the Nazis invaded, which, fortunately, they never did. I discovered Dad's Army about 15 years ago on a Youngstown PBS affiliate and found it hilarious. Dunn, though not the star of the show, was memorable as Lance-Corporal Jones, an elderly veteran of previous wars who couldn't stop talking. Here's Dunn in action:

 

While he was still on Dad's Army, Dunn released a song called "Grandad" that sat on top of the UK singles charts for three weeks in 1971, making him an unlikely pop star:

Some rather nubile granddaughters he's got there, huh?

When I read that Dunn was 92 at the time of his death, I originally thought nothing of it. Dad's Army first aired in 1968, quite a while ago, and Dunn had played an old man on it, so it was only natural that he'd be up there in years.

Then I did the math. As I said earlier, Dunn's character was a veteran who couldn't stop talking. Especially about earlier military engagements. In more than one episode, he mentions the Boer Wars, which were fought at the end of the 19th century. At the very least, Lance-Corporal Jones would have been close to 70 by the time of World War II. If the actor who played him was 70 in 1968, he'd...suddenly, 92 no longer seemed old but unusually young.

I did some research on Clive Dunn. He was actually 48 when he first appeared on Dad's Army. Here's a picture of him around that time, but out of character:

A middle-aged man. A touch of grey, laugh lines, but nothing that cries out "elderly." To play Jones, Dunn must have died his hair white, and further obscured his true age with glasses, but I think it was mostly his skill as an actor that made him such a convincing senior.

And it wasn't his first senior moment, either. In 1960, when he was 40, Dunn played a doddering old man on another British sitcom called Bootie and Snudge. After Dad's Army went off the air in 1977, Dunn played an elderly character yet again in a kids show called, appropriately, Grandad. That lasted until 1984, by which time Dunn was an actual senior citizen.

He then promptly retired.

Over the years, there have been other actors who've risen in their profession. Dunn's fellow Brit Alastair Sim made a career out of playing old men. Americans probably know him best as Ebenezer Scrooge in the '51 film version of A Christmas Carol. Sim himself was 51 at the time. Here in the States, Walter Brennan played elderly roles from the late 1930s, when he was relatively young, all the way to the early 1970s, when he was decidedly old. Redd Foxx was all of 50 when he first portrayed the 65-year old Fred on Sanford and Son. Foxx's childhood friend LaWanda Page played 60-something Aunt Esther on the same show. Estelle Getty was one year younger than Bea Arthur when she played the latter's mother on The Golden Girls.

And so, while the rest of us wash that grey right out of our hair, cover up those liver spots and wrinkles with anti-aging creams, have face-lifts, eye-lifts, neck lifts, and pump our faces up with Botox in a futile effort to hang on to our youth, there are those hardy souls among us darting in the opposite direction.

While they're still able to dart.     

             

They Don't Always Have More Fun

(originally posted  2/21/2009)

Both my two sisters and my brother had blond hair when they were kids.

My one sister is still blond, but both the other sister and  brother are now brunettes.

I, on the other hand, came out of the womb a brunette, and have remained a brunette for most of my life.

Lately, though, I've found that my hair is getting lighter, the reverse situation of my two sisters and my brother. Ironic, huh?

Well, that's enough blogging for today.

I think I'll stop by the drugstore and pick up some Grecian Formula.

Old Standard

(Originally posted on 12/10/2008--KJ)

The one disease where you don't look forward to the cure.

--Citizen Kane

I dread getting old.

Not that it's imminent, but I do have a birthday coming up, so it'll be just a little bit closer this year than it was this same time last year. Which was just a little bit closer that year than that same time the year before.

Nice, leisurely pace, huh? Then how come it feels more like justalittlebitcloserthisyearthanitwasthissametimelastyear whichwasjustalittlebitcloserthatyearthanthatsametimetheyearbefore?

And that's just during the waking hours.

Why should I look forward to the aging process? Liver spots change your complexion. There's wet spaghetti where your neck used to be. Your fingers and toes petrify. Your flesh turns to corduroy. A speed bump sprouts from your back. And, if your male, your pelvis apparently disappears so that you have to pull your waist band all the way up to your nipples.

When you're old your voice hushes up. Maybe that's where the phrase "dirty old man" comes from. If you're going to talk like an obscene phone caller anyway...

You walk, talk, think, eat, breathe, and do absolutely nothing, at a much slower pace. You become more susceptible to gravitational force. Why else do so many elderly people walk with their heads bent over like they're at Catholic Mass?

When you're old your eyesight deteriorates so that your squint is just one more line on your face. Your hearing deteriorates so that you tip sideways, like a buoy, trying to understand what people are saying. And, finally, your mind deteriorates so that you no longer have to squint or tip your head sideways, as you can now see and hear people who aren't even there!

Getting old is a bummer. Huh? What's that? Nobody says "bummer" anymore? That's another problem with the aging process--your vocabulary deteriorates.

Thinking about all this the other night left me in a very bad way. So I did what I often do when consumed with despair. I reached for the remote and started channel surfing.

I came upon Entertainment Tonight. This show has been on the air for a very long time now. In fact, I think the year it premiered, the term "bummer" was at the height of it's popularity. Anyway, watching ET I flashed back to a segment that aired, oh, God, some twenty-five years earlier.

Estelle Winwood was an acclaimed British stage actress who, in her later years, played character roles in Hollywood movies. In 1983, she turned 100. About this same time, comedian George Burns, then 87, came out with a book titled How to Live to be 100 or More. Some publicist got the clever idea that Miss Winwood should appear at a book signing with Burns.

She agreed to do it, but may not have been vetted properly. As they both sat there before the assembled media (including Entertainment Tonight), a reporter held the book, about the positive aspects of aging, up to Miss Winwood. She took one look at the title and said, "Oh, dear, don't remind me!"

A moment later, she turned to George Burns, whom she had apparently never met nor, in spite his being very well-known in 1983, heard of before, and asked, "Are you some sort of doctor?"

Never one to take offense easily, Burns answered, "No, I'm an entertainer. I sing a little, dance a little, tell a few jokes."

"Oh," exclaimed Estelle Winwood. "Why, how marvelous!"

If I could just hang around with the likes of those two, I think I'd look forward to aging.

Quips and Quotations

Cold are the hands of time that creep along relentlessly, destroying slowly, but without pity, that which yesterday was young. Alone, our memories resist this disintegration and grow more lovely with the passing years.

That's hard to say with false teeth!

--The Palm Beach Story, screenplay by Preston Sturges.

Archival Revival

Sometime next week, I'll be celebrating my 48th birthday. Or I might just be in deep mourning. Hard to say. I kind of touched upon it a week ago in a post titled "Time Travel" which received a surprising amount of attention. But I actually prefer the post I did about the same subject a year ago, when I was about to turn 47. For one thing I was a year younger. The other is that I thought it was a nice little piece of writing. It has a few rough spots, but there's a soft landing.

Time Travel

1961-62..........................................1963.........................................1964........................................1965.......................................1966......................................1967.....................................1968....................................1969...................................1970..................................1971.................................1972................................1973...............................1974..............................1975.............................1976............................1977...........................1978..........................1979.........................1980........................1981..........................1982......................1983.....................1984....................1985...................1986..................1987.................1988................1989...............1990..............1991.............1992............1993...........1994..........1995.........1996........1997.......1998......1999.....2000....2001...2002..2003.200420052006200720082009201020--

Slow it down! Slow it down!

They Don't Always Have More Fun

Both my two sisters and my brother had blond hair when they were kids.

My one sister is still blond, but both the other sister and the brother are now brunettes.

I, on the other hand, came out of the womb a brunette, and have remained a brunette for most of my life.

Lately, though, I've found that my hair is getting lighter, the reverse situation of my two sisters and my brother. Ironic, huh?

Well, that's enough blogging for today.

I think I'll stop by the drugstore and pick up some Grecian Formula.

Old Standard

The one disease where you don't look forward to the cure.

--From the movie Citizen Kane

I dread getting old.

Not that it's imminent, but I do have a birthday coming up, so it'll be just a little bit closer this year than it was this same time last year. Which was just a little bit closer that year than that same time the year before.

Nice, leisurely pace, huh? Then how come it feels more like justalittlebitcloserthisyearthanitwasthissametimelastyear whichwasjustalittlebitcloserthatyearthanthatsametimetheyearbefore?

And that's just during the waking hours.

Why should I look forward to the aging process? Liver spots change your complexion. There's wet spaghetti where your neck used to be. Your fingers and toes petrify. Your flesh turns to corduroy. A speed bump sprouts from your back. And, if your male, your pelvis apparently disappears so that you have to pull your waist band all the way up to your nipples.

When you're old your voice hushes up. Maybe that's where the phrase "dirty old man" comes from. If you're going to talk like an obscene phone caller anyway...

You walk, talk, think, eat, breathe, and do absolutely nothing, at a much slower pace. You become more susceptible to gravitational force. Why else do so many elderly people walk with their heads bent over like they're at Catholic Mass?

When you're old your eyesight deteriorates so that your squint is just one more line on your face. Your hearing deteriorates so that you tip sideways, like a buoy, trying to understand what people are saying. And, finally, your mind deteriorates so that you no longer have to squint or tip your head sideways, as you can now see and hear people who aren't even there!

Getting old is a bummer. Huh? What's that? Nobody says "bummer" anymore? That's another problem with the aging process--your vocabulary deteriorates.

Thinking about all this the other day left me in a very bad way. So I did what I often do when consumed with despair. I reached for the remote and started channel surfing.

I came upon Entertainment Tonight. This show has been on the air for a very long time now. In fact, I think the year it premiered, the term "bummer" was at the height of it's popularity. Anyway, watching ET I flashed back to a segment that aired, oh, God, some twenty-five years before.

Estelle Winwood was an acclaimed British stage actress who, in her later years, played character roles in Hollywood movies. In 1983, she turned 100. About this same time, comedian George Burns, then 87, came out with a book titled How to Live to be 100 or More. Some publicist got the clever idea that Miss Winwood should appear at a book signing with Burns.

She agreed to do it, but she may not have been vetted properly. As they both sat there before the assembled media (including Entertainment Tonight), a reporter held the book, which was about the positive aspects of aging, up to Miss Winwood. She took one look at the title and said, "Oh, dear, don't remind me!"

A moment later, she turned to George Burns, whom she had apparently never met before, and asked, "Are you some sort of doctor?"

Never one to take offense easily, Burns answered, "No, I'm an entertainer. I sing a little, dance a little, tell a few jokes."

"Oh!" exclaimed Estelle Winwood. "How marvelous!"

If I could just hang around with the likes of those two, I think I'd look forward to aging.