On Wednesday I will be celebrating my 35th birthday. (That's okay, I didn't remember your birthday either.) As I always do to celebrate this milestone in my life, I checked the statistics to see how much longer I have to live. It turns out that if all goes well I only have about 39.5 years to go. I didn't realize it before but I have almost officially reached the point of being “middle-aged.” Unfortunately, I am totally unprepared for my mid-life crisis.
The typical mid-life crises cliches aren't very helpful. My wife is already out of my league (28, good-looking, and makes more money than I do) so the idea of trading her in for a trophy wife isn’t a plausible option. I also have four years left on enlistment contract so I can’t dump my job in order to go “find myself.” I’m also too poor to afford a sports car so it look like I’ll be spending my mid-life crises driving my Dodge Neon.
Obviously, I'm off to a bad start.
While I figure out what to do next, I’ve decided to take stock of my life by reviewing what I’ve learned over the past three and a half decades. Mining my past for nuggets of wisdom, however, has been a slow process: So far I’ve only made it back one week:
Apology for the week: I want to begin by apologizing for all of the grammatical errors, slapdash reasoning, and sloppy writing in my recent posts. Unfortunately, I wrote them after taking some cold medication, a mistake I won't make in the future. In fact, from now on, I’ve decided only to take cold medicine when I actually have a cold.
Medical lesson of the week: After the age of 30, men should perform regular self-exams for testicular cancer.
Addendum to medical lesson: While it might appear reasonable to take advantage of time that is otherwise being wasted, performing the exam while standing in checkout line at the supermarket turns out not to be such a good idea.
Interesting lesson learned this week: Although a Texas sidewalk may get hot (145 degrees), it doesn't quite get to the required temperature (158 degrees) to fry an egg. The temperature of the hood of a black Ford F-150 pickup, however, gets more than hot enough for the task (178 degrees).
Painful lesson learned this week: Frying an egg on the hood of a black Ford F-150 pickup will ruin the paint and really tick off the vehicles' owner.
Paradoxical attraction of the week: While I don't find long, poufy hair, denim skirts, or white ankle socks with sneakers particularly appealing, I still think Pentecostal chicks are hot.
Life-altering purchase of the week: Tongue scrapper (bought at Wal-Mart for $2.50).
Anatomical discovery of the week: I found that when the brownish/black gunk was scraped off, my tongue has a reddish-pink hue.
Relationship discovery of the week: Scraping the bad-breath causing bacteria off my tongue has improved all my personal relationships.
Relationship discovery of the week #2: Carrying the brownish/black gunk I scrapped off my tongue in a plastic bag and showing it to everyone I meet has had a surprisingly detrimental effect on all my relationships.
Most disappointing purchase of the week: FlowBee Precision Haircutting System ($59.99 on the Internet). While the vacuum attachments are long enough, the device doesn't work well on back hair.
Important clarification of the week: If your barber misunderstands you and thinks you said, “Can you trim the back of my hair?” when you really said, “Can you trim my back hair?” it will lead to a lot of yelling, comb-waving, and screams of, “Put your shirt back on, ya freak!”
Random thought of the week: Monkeys are always funny. They are to comedy what Jerry Lewis is to the French.
Musical lesson of the week: If you listen carefully and with an open mind to rap-metal music you find that it really does suck as bad as you always thought it did.
Lesson about women that I (re)learned this week: When women say that the quality they prefer in a man is a “sense of humor,” what they mean is they prefer a man who looks like Brad Pitt.
Lesson about men that I (re)learned this week: The type of man who complains that women prefer to date jerks is both (a) absolutely corect and (b) a total wuss.
Thought that kept me up at night this week: Wondering whether ghosts believe in people.
Thought that has kept me depressed for the past week: I drive a Dodge Neon.
One week reviewed, 1819 to go. Stay tuned.
2
I've been stopping by every day for a few months, and with out a doubt this is my favorite post so far.
posted on 08.15.2004 2:29 AM5
It's not all bad. You've got forty to look forward to.HAppy Birthday
posted on 08.15.2004 7:56 AM6
Newly Learned Fact That Strangely Delights Me Because It Will Probably Annoy Joe: We have the same birthday!
And no, unless something remarkable happens next Wednesday, I can pretty much assure you that you don't have 40 to "look forward to."
Happy Birthday.
posted on 08.15.2004 12:24 PM7
Can you give any really good advice to the younger ones among us that you found particularly useful, or in hindsight would have been helpful?
Furthermore, which walmart did you get that tongue scraper?
posted on 08.15.2004 2:45 PM8
Just one word, man.
Decaf.
Seriously.
Happy Birthday 8^)
posted on 08.15.2004 5:10 PM9
Happy Birthday, Joe.
As for the next 22 years, I'll vouch for them. Try 'em. You'll like 'em.
And about the next 22 years, Joe, let me clue you: If you want a long and happy life -- don't miss them!
posted on 08.15.2004 5:21 PM10
Happy Birthday, Joe! The good news is that since the charts you link give you the average life expectancy, you can always hope that you're in the upper half of that bell curve. ;)
posted on 08.15.2004 9:39 PM11
Buy a Corvette Joe. I assure you from personal experience, you will coast right through any mid-life crises if you're cruising in a Vette.
posted on 08.15.2004 10:52 PM12
Happy Birthday Joe! Oh and by the way...stay off the cold medicine! :)(and yes...pentecostal chicks are hot) :)
posted on 08.15.2004 10:54 PM13
Happy Birthday Joe and many more
God Bless you !
15
anon: long, poufy hair, denim skirts, or white ankle socks with sneakers, obviously.
Happy Birthday Joe. If I'd known it was your birthday I would have baked a cake.
posted on 08.16.2004 12:18 PM16
No denim skirts or poufy hair here. BUT, I do wear ankle socks with sneakers. ;-)
posted on 08.16.2004 1:27 PM17
Thirty-five is a bit young for a mid-life crisis, I should think. I passed that milestone over ten years ago, and I am still symptom-free. Perhaps the career change enabled me to bypass it.
As for back hair, get your wife to do it. I believe that such submission is mandated biblically. Heck, my wife is agnostic and she shaves mine. ;-)
I understand that Pentecostal chicks eschew the Brazilian wax; perhaps that is what makes them so hot.
Happy birthday, Joe. Your self-deprecating sense of humor will serve you well as you age, believe me.
posted on 08.16.2004 3:40 PM18
"Monkeys are always funny. They are to comedy what Jerry Lewis is to the French."
Joe, here is my birthday advice: a bunch of Jerry Lewis comedies are being reissued on DVD in September (finally!!!). Check out as many of them as possible. Jerry Lewis is a genius. He made a few movies towards the end of his career (culminating with The Day the Clown Cried) which started to stink. And he became a bizarre TV icon with his telethon. But his contributions to American cinema and to American comedy can not be underestimated. The French were historically keen on Jerry because shortly after parting with Dean he became a "total filmaker," that is, he acted, directed and wrote his movies, and this made him amenable to analysis as an "auteur" director (Nicholas Ray and Sam Fuller are two other American directors working in the same period who were similarly revered by the French long before American critics and directors universally recognized their genius).
But Americans who knew about Jerry's movies -- sadly unavailable on video for YEARS -- knew that Jerry was one hell of a funny guy. He doesn't belong to the French. He belongs to America.
posted on 08.16.2004 8:59 PM19
Larry - Some nits:
- Lewis was a genius when paired with Dean Martin. On his own, he was generally too much of a weird thing.
- How did you see The Day the Clown Cried? Legend has it that Lewis has never allowed the movie to be released.
- I wouldn't say "bizarre"; the MD Telethons are a bit of a spectacle, but he's raised huge bucks for a worthy cause, and there's no denying his heart is fully in it.
- I have heard it said that the French actually thought Lewis was funny only because he was usually overdubbed into French by a well-known French comedian - but I can't find any documentary evidence for that. The idea of Jerry Lewis as "auteur" kind of strains me.
- He did some brilliant work in later years, when he matured into a kind of elder statesman of comedy. (He had a spotty record, but largely due to the lack of good roles.) His trilogy of comedy-in-joke movies: King of Comedy, Mr. Saturday Night (a bit part), and Funny Bones are absolutely riveting insider salutes to the nature of professional comedy. The latter two, especially, are almost treatises on what it means to live that life because you need it. Billy Crystal walks away with Mr. Saturday Night, but Funny Bones was in some ways a better film (as well as being a charming tribute to vaudeville), and Jerry Lewis was one leg of a very heavy-hitting triangle with Oliver Platt and Ray Liota. He had "master" written all over him in that film. He also got decent reviews on Broadway in a revival of "Damn Yankees." Still a few tricks left in the old dog.
Finally:
Will everybody please get it right about "underestimate"!?
If you underestimate someone, you are saying too little about them (i.e., they are better than you are saying). If it is hard to understimate them, then it would "hard to say too little about them" (i.e., it's not possible that they are better than you are saying, meaning they're really worse than you're saying). If you overestimate someone, you are saying too much about them (i.e., they're really not as good as you're saying). If it is hard to overestimate them, then it would be "hard to say too much about them" (i.e., it's not possible that they are worse than you are saying, meaning they're really better than you're saying).
(Exactly the same analysis applies to "overstate" and "impossible to overstate".)
So: "That person is underestimated" is a compliment, but "It would be impossible to underestimate that person" is an insult.
"That person is overestimated" is an insult, but "It would be impossible to overestimate that person" is a compliment.
"They misunderestimated me" is true - George Bush has not been underestimated, and probably can't be.
posted on 08.16.2004 11:55 PM20
KTK
I am sympathetic to the Jerry/Dean versus Jerry solo argument, but I favor the no-holds-barred Jerry.
I've never seen Clown, although I would like to. I've just read about it. Check out this site: http://www.subcin.com/clowncried.html
And I think Jerry's work for muscular dystrophy is great. It is a spectacle. There is a whole blog (or maybe several) devoted to people with MD who can't stand Lewis or his organization.
The auteur thing is real:
Writing in American Directors, Vol. II (1983), Jean-Pierre Coursodon writes, "Watching his films again . . . one more than ever notices how contrived and, at times, counterproductive their formal sophistication can be. Too, their frequent unfunniness shouldn't have been so breezily dismissed as irrelevant. . . . [But] once all the necessary reservations have been duly entered . . . and once it has been recognized that Lewis's work, as a results of its inner contradictions, imposed some serious limitations upon itself, the inescapable fact remains that Lewis was the only Hollywood comedian to rise from mere performer to . . . 'total film maker' during the sound era." (from Straight Dope)
To realize his "total film maker" status, Lewis also was a technical pioneer, responsible for inventing the "video assist" which became (and maybe still is) standard film equipment.
I'll keep any eye out for those later films. I've seen King of Comedy, which is fantastic, but nothing since.
posted on 08.17.2004 1:10 PM22
Now that the day is here, let me say again:
Happy Birthday!
- Kevin
posted on 08.18.2004 12:29 PM23
35 and still alive! Congrats, Joe, and hopefully you'll have many more b-days to celebrate.
posted on 08.18.2004 1:42 PM