TOUCH OF GRAY

March. Academy Awards time, I can almost hear them at the podium, tearing open the envelope.

And now the award for Best Clinton Impersonation in a Prime Time Speech -- George W. Bush for his role in Trillion Dollar Giveaway, Part One!

For all the vilifying they did of Clinton, the Republicans sure groomed Resident Bush to sound just like vintage Bill, except that his delivery wasn't as good. Wooden. You gotta laugh when people are giving him high marks for just getting through the speech without mangling any sentences. I guess you could say he gives great teleprompter. Seriously though, I rather liked Dubya's State-Of-The-Tax-Cut speech; it was a great piece of creative writing. We're gonna get a shiny new military, better schools, privatize social programs by giving money to churches, have fewer layoffs, an end to racial profiling, AND a huge tax cut. Whoo-hoo! And he's so right about not paying down the deficit early because we'd get a penalty! Paying down the deficit, what a waste of money! Yes, a great piece of writing. File it under fantasy and sorcery. And that penalty stuff? Does he really expect us to buy that line? Everyone who pays off a loan early has to pay a "penalty," sure. But it's only a TINY FRACTION of the interest you'd rack up over the years, stupid! Clinton might have been imperfect in a lot of ways, but at least he got his economics straight.

Doubly funny, the award for the best Bush Impersonation In A Last Minute Pardon should go to Clinton! Remember how Dubya's Dad pardoned all the Iran-Contra Conspirators a short while before he left office? I'm not surprised you don't, nobody raised much of a fuss. I'm sure Bill thought a few pardons-for-sale would go unnoticed again. Ouch! He's going to try really hard to put a human face on this but I just don't see how it could be anything less than quid pro quo favors. At worst he was in for a slice of that $400K his brother in law picked up. And on top of all that he didn't pardon Indian activist Leonard Peltier, who was certainly deserving of clemency after 25 years in jail! (Listen to Robbie Robertson's song Sacrifice for all you need to know.) Oh well, eight years of really trying hard to like Bill is finally over; he's finally wasted his last bit of aloha with me. Guess he didn't learn that the scandal mongers are always watching, did he? Will Dubya? You know, if the Republicans really want Clinton off the front page, Dubya should pardon Bill! They probably like the smoke screen though. The pardons really don't amount to more than an annoyance in people's lives, so with the media wasting a lot of time on it, Resident Bush's cabinet is free to do the real work of the modern kleptocracy.

Depressing. Sometimes I hate being part of M-M-My Generation. We had so much promise, now look at us! Selling our principles by sealed bid, shilling for big corporations, worshipping nothing so much as the almighty dollar. Time was when peace and brotherhood were on everyone's lips. We were going to solve all the problems of the world with Love. What happened to us?

Well one thing's for sure, we grew up into adults with families. We did more than that; we hit middle age. Now we're moving past that into the "youth of old age." Shit. Turning 30 didn't bother me much. 40 didn't hit me either, I guess because of that late start on my own family. But here comes the big Five-Oh this month and it ain't a Jack Lord re-run!

Strange, even though the gray is finally making an appearance in my hair and I've switched to bifocals already, I don't feel old. 50 is just an arbitrary point on the calendar; nothing's really changed. I certainly don't feel like I "act 50," whatever that means. I mix easily with the twenty and thirty-somethings at work. I have lusty feelings for women young enough to be my daughter, but maybe I act my age in that I don't do anything about it. At least most people do not guess my age right--usually they're about 10 years younger that I really am. I think it's because when I was eighteen I was blessed to have a nine year long summer in Hawaii. I biked everywhere, threw Frisbee every afternoon, smoked vast quantities of pot and managed to get paid to play rock n' roll on the radio late at night. Anyway, I came back after nine years and I was still eighteen! I began a pretty normal life after that. No tattoos or nose rings for me. I'm a regular Whiteman kinda guy these days, but inside I still feel like that 18 year old.

Which is to say a bit insecure and unconfident. I guess that's because I still make mistakes all the time. Little gimpy things that my fingers fumble, right on up to my inability to choose a winning stock no matter how much I research. I wonder, will I ever come to a point where I will finally get things right on a regular basis? I guess I'm talking about the point where I officially get wisdom. Still waiting. Barring some scientific breakthrough, at 50 I'm definitely past the halfway point in life. I don't want to die, but I'm working on accepting the eventual retirement of this body. That wisdom point had better come soon!

Time. Sometimes I think the Serpent in the Garden of Eden wasn't coiled around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; it was the Tree of Knowledge of Time. Instead of apples, the fruit it bore was little red alarm clocks. We've been ruled by the almighty clock ever since. Animals are lucky. They are always in the present, alert, with it, untroubled by past failures, unworried about accumulating a large IRA. Only humans burden themselves with these things.

Just a second, a reminder just popped up on my PC's calendar. "Finish tax return." Jeez! Let me clear this damn thing!

Our sense of time and the speed of our culture makes us worship youth. Remember how The Who once sang "I hope I die before I get old?" At a time when we should be happy to advance into the wisdom stage and hopefully some attending respect, our culture's attitudes make us hate our age like it's a curse. It's another problem that Tree gave us; we know eventually the body will die. We identify with the body so much and as it ages, it frustrates and scares us. It's a big problem in the Judeo-Christian tradition. They seem to see death as a punishment, but it's just a natural occurrence. God is not mad at us, we're more like individual cells in a bigger body, growing, wearing out and being replaced. The bigger body goes on.

Recently I started reading Ram Das's book, Still Here. For those who don't know him he's a protege of Tim Leary and Alan Watts. He did more than a little LSD back in the 60's but eventually a guru in India calmed his inner demons and he became a baba, a teacher. Since the early 70's he's offered a version of Hindu wisdom in a modern, often humorous package that's very easy for Americans to swallow. His first major book, Be Here Now, was a hippie standard and now it's something of a New Age classic. It still resonates with me quite a lot, though I don't believe in reincarnation the way he does. Anyway, Ram Das was a pretty healthy sixty something and already working on Still Here when a stroke put him into a wheelchair. He's taking it pretty well, after all, he's always been about living in the moment. He's got less movement and less memory but he says he is still learning from being here now. I met him very briefly at a book signing last fall and he certainly seemed a happy soul.

Still Here relates much about aging gracefully, even appreciating the body's deterioration and eventual death. It's about the wisdom of old age, too. It's a shame society doesn't value an old member's wisdom much these days. In earlier times old people were resources of knowledge. But change is all now, isn't it? We push away our old folks regardless of the stories they could tell, the lessons we could learn. The new millennium requires speed and technology. Anyone who doesn't know a pocket calculator from a palm pilot don't get no respect. Hell, anyone who can't cross the street fast enough don't get no respect. Why do we need those old crustaceans; we have the Internet now!

What a waste. Somehow it reminds me of the demise of the Great Library of Alexandria. It was a true wonder of the ancient world which contained thousands of papyrus scrolls from the time of the Pharaohs plus the great works of the Greeks, Romans and others. Its end came in another time of change, the Seventh Century, when Islam was new and sweeping the Middle East. Alexandria's conqueror claimed that The Koran was the perfect book of all knowledge. If the books in the Great Library contradicted The Koran, he decreed they should be destroyed. Further, if other books agreed with The Koran, then they were superfluous and should also be destroyed. He burned them all. Likewise we think we know everything in our brave young world - our old folks have nothing to teach. Alexandria's Library is still burning. How many human ones are destroyed, unread, in our nursing homes?

Just a second, it's my PDA is going off this time. Hmm, it says, "Cosmik Debris deadline, hand in column now!" Damn, is it that late? Ok, let me wrap this up.

Anyway, for the first time I feel like there is more in the rearview mirror than ahead. Maybe I should be thankful for new feelings at my age! Groucho Marx once said, "A man is only as old as the woman he feels." When I grow up I want to be a teenager with wisdom like that! I'll still be doing creative things like deejaying, but eventually I might need someone else to carry the system. I'll try to exercise and stay healthy of course, but there are limits. I'll try not to get pissed off at my body as it farts and wheezes close to the finish line. For sure I'll still stop to look at the moon in the night sky; I'll still seek out places where the ideas are flowing with passion. I'll try to keep the spirit of Peace and Love I felt in my youth alive and growing. I'll do my best not to worry about things and stay in the moment. I'll...

Hell, my PDA's going off again. What this? "Academy Show?"

Oh, I forgot I'm going to the Academy Awards tonight because I was nominated for Best Teenage Attitude Performed By Someone Who Should Know Better. I have to go back into the closet and get out my tuxedo, tout suite! I don't think I'll get the Oscar though, Mick Jagger wins that one every year. Gotta run! Thanks for reading and until next month the Closet is closed.



(C) 2001 - Rusty Pipes


Official Disclaimer: The publisher and editors of Cosmik Debris Magazine would like to wish Rusty a happy birthday and say that, while his comments on all things political are his opinions and not necessarily the opinions of the brass at the Washington Post or Sears or 7-11, 50 is really no big deal and we sincerely hope he doesn't take it wrong when we force him into retirement next week. Be with us next month for Closet Philosophy with Biff Spiffman, a 19 year old Californian skater-punk who will tell us how to keep all your piercings sanitary. Thank you and good night.