It hit me today.
First of all, I was walking for exercise.
Secondly, I was making mental notes about people’s yards.
Thirdly, it occurred to me observing people’s yards, that people who have good yards in the neighborhoods are my friends. If you have a shitty yard and don’t take care of it, you’ll not be my friend.
THAT is old.
It USED to be whomever was funny, or whomever partied like me, or whomever had the best seats that would dictate who my friends were.
NOW it’s whoever has the best yard.
Holy shit.
Please just bear with me as I age. If you’re still young, it will happen to you eventually, I’m just telling you how it will be.
If you’re still young you should look at me as a visionary. When you turn 65 and have to go through the incredibly confounding process of Medicare, you’ll say…
“Damn that Blade, he was right. He’s a prophet!”
There will come a day when you will wake up and look in the mirror and you will say.
“OK I am now officially old.” It doesn’t gradually happen in your face. It happens overnight.
I had two procedures in the last year. A double hernia and a brand-new hip. That’s what did it. When I woke up the day after I got home from receiving a sculptured ceramic sphere in my right leg, I took a look at the sutures in my ass and then my face and it became evident to me, that I Iooked like a card-carrying grandfather.
Now…the fun part is the pain-pills.
At least I had that.
They gave me like ten 10MG hydrocodone mixed with some baby aspirin.
Now that’s messed up. Two a day, they say. Because I’m me, I made it three a day and the last day I made it four, going out with a bang.
I love opiods.
Some people say, “I don’t like them.”
I believe them.
My mother was on her death bed dying of cancer and she refused morphine and dilaudid to ease her pain.
For LIFE of me, I do not get that. I’ll take ‘em sure!
Did you know they’re addicting?
I’ve faced it, I’m addicted to everything. I heard Mad Max say that once.
And back to turning old, I find pulling weeds addicting.
Once you start, you can’t stop. Take a break after pulling about fifteen and look around the yard…
“Aw man. Only about 19 or 20 weeds left to pull. Shoot a quick text over to me dealer.”
Nicotine, Mountain Dew, Budweiser, doughnuts, crime shows, electronic gadgets, hell, Amazon.
My yard…
I am NOT addicted to drinking pigs blood like some Canadian woman I just read about.
Some other addictions people don’t talk about:
In an extreme form of self-expression, some individuals become addicted to altering their physical appearance through tattoos, piercings, and even surgical procedures.
Hording.
Unconventional relationships. These relationships involve a person forming a deep emotional bond with an inanimate object, such as a car, a doll, or a carnival ride. Examples of these unusual relationships include Nathaniel’s relationship with his car, “Chase,” Davecat’s relationship with his doll, Sidore, and Linda’s relationship with her carnival ride, Bruce.
Guys I’ve known in the radio business get addicted to microphones. I’ve known some guys who have over fifty microphones.
Mel Gibson said he was addicted to everything. But not things like that. I think I know what he meant.
The conventional addictions like drugs, alcohol, nicotine, sugar, caffeine. The underlying thought from my end, is that you always need a buzz. Is it that simple? With me it is.
I love a buzz. A jump in my mood.
Hey, it’s tough once you’ve had a good buzz to not want it all the time.
But you can’t because you become dependent, and dependency takes you down a very dark path.
Duff McKagan told me that one day. Bassist for Guns-N-Roses.
If you’re like that, meaning you always want a good buzz, you gotta be all or nothing, go all out and flirt not only with your life, but others, or nothing
THIS NEW WORLD
Look. At the age I am, I have adapted well to this new age.
People my age are what an old program director once said to me, Chris Shebel.
“We are caught in the middle.”
We are old school yet forced to be new school.
Like I said, I have adapted well. In my head I know that times change, and we are in the middle of a big one, and frankly, one that will CONTINUE to change every single day, not every decade or so.
And for people my age, the old school is this…comforting.
Old man.
The good ol’ days.
So that being said, I have said nothing. It’s always been like that since the beginning of time. The old guy talking about the good ol’ days.
There. I said something.
I don’t care that much that kids don’t go outside to play anymore like we did.
I don’t care that nobody writes anymore, they type.
I don’t care that everyone has their faces super-glued to their whatever screen of the moment.
I think it’s incredibly cool I can shake my cell phone and it’s flashlight turns on. Shake it twice more, and it goes off.
How we don’t need to drop our photos off at a drug store anymore.
And this AI thing is beyond my comprehension. Type in “Tell me more about sofa cushion zippers” and within 30 seconds you have intel on what zipper to buy for your Ikea couch you bought 13 years ago.
But overall, the greatest thing about today in this world is you can find out the name of that song in your head by typing in a few words from it.
And we don’t get lost anymore.
GPS.
That’s just how it is. I have to say, if anyone is really an irritable old bastard about things like that, then “tough tittie”.
I have a content creator director pal at iHeart who really put it well WAY WAY back then, like at the turn of this century:
“The internet is great-you can get anything you want on the internet. But it’s all about porn. You can free porn on the internet.”
I know that’s offensive, but it’s things like that guys talk about in their offices at a radio station.
