I am officially a total geek right now.
I am listening to the Batman soundtrack (the Danny Elfman score, not that Prince monstrosity) on my PC speakers while I type this.
I think it’s appropriate, because I’m writing this morning about those really awesome days of youth, when nobody understands you, your parents are completely unreasonable, and you can’t wait to grow up.
During those days in my life, the Batman score competed with Black Celebration and Only a Lad for air time in my car. It was part of the soundtrack of my life.
Last night, I was watching the History Channel, and this commercial for some 80s super box set comes on. It’s pretty standard for an 80s collection: there’s Foreigner and Journey, as well as some Crowded House and Howard Jones (yeah, I thought that was a weird mix, too.)
While I’m watching this commercial, I start to feel this completely overwhelming sadness. This type of massive sadness that starts so deeply within me, I can’t even define its origin in a physical location. It was sadness coming out of my soul. I get this feeling that I can only describe as “hyper-nostalgia.”
So I’m sitting there in bed, my cat snuggled up to me on one side, my wife sound asleep on the other side, and I start to silently weep, as this David Fincheresque montage of childhood images and feelings races through my mind. I can feel my fear and nervousness the first morning I went to public high school in 9th grade. I can feel the excitement of standing in line to see Batman, in Westwood, at 9AM a few weeks before it opened. I see faces of friends long forgotten, and places which were teenage hangouts that don’t even exist anymore. I feel pain, love, hope…but mostly, I feel sadness and regret that is completely overwhelming.
It’s like I’m sitting in my bed, mourning the passing of my youth.
It’s not that my life is totally miserable now, it’s just so much more complicated than it was when I was a child, and I haven’t really stopped to think about that in quite some time.
I mean, I would gladly trade wondering whatever bullshit my wife’s ex-husband is going to pull today for not being able to stay out past 12 with my friends.
I would gleefully trade worrying about making mortgage payments for…well, for anything, really! 🙂
Every time I go to Paramount, I look around and I think to myself, “man, I had it so good here. Too bad I was too young and arrogant to realize that.” But that could be a series of entries, all on it’s own.
When I go up to my parent’s house, and go to my old bedroom, I can see in my mind the phantoms of my teenage years: Watchmen comics bagged and hung on the walls. Depeche Mode concert posters above my bed, where my cat Ziggy would be sleeping. Stacks of GURPS source books on the floor, and, of course, my Mac II, complete with smokin’ fast 2400 baud modem.
I miss all of these things, and writing about them now I can really feel a sense of loss, and longing. I just closed my eyes, and I could see things in my old bedroom that I haven’t thought about in years: 82 Los Angeles Kings season ticket stubs from 1988-89, taped to the wall next to my computer, underneath this simply dreadful fantasy-art poster I bought at a game con that same year. A clump of silly string mashed into the cottage cheese stuff on the ceiling, above my bed. Five book shelves, filled with VHS copies of the entire collection of 79 episodes of Star Trek.
I recently visited one of my best friends from high school, who moved into his mom and dad’s house when they moved out. It’s the same house we hung out in when we were young, but now his kids are running around in it…and I can still see the path we wore through the ivy, going up the hill to my house. The house is the same, but it’s so very, very different now.
My best friend Darin is getting married in just a few weeks. Darin and I have known each other since I was 14 and he was 16. We have done just about everything together, and crossed lots of major bridges together on our way to adulthood. I’ve been married with kids for 2 years, but never felt like it was that big a deal…it’s HIM getting married that makes me feel like we’re finally adults, with mortgages and responsibilities. When he is married, we will have crossed another major rubicon together.
So when I saw this commercial last night, it hit me: I’m turning 30 in 3 months.
Three months, man.
I am the primary father figure to two kids, one of whom will be a teenager two days after I turn 30.
A teenager, man.
I am going to be the parent to a teenager, and I’m going to be 30. I don’t know why that’s fucking with me as much as it is, but it sure is burning a lot of cycles in my brain.
Thing is, I know that I’ll be 40 someday, and I’ll look back and think, “Man, I thought things were so messed up at 30…and I was so wrong,” as I watch Ryan graduate from college, or get married, or whatever.
But right now, I miss those wonderful days in the late 80s and early 90s, when I couldn’t wait for the weekend, so I could hang out at Darin’s house and play GURPS and Illuminatti, before heading out to the movies to catch whatever crappy Lethal Weapon movie was in theatres.
I totally understand that saying about youth being wasted on the young. I guess that’s the beauty of childhood: we don’t know how tough life is going to get when we grow up, so we cavalierly waste time, blissfully ignorant of how valuable our youth is going to be to us, late one night when we can’t sleep, because we’re thinking about paying bills.
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Oh man, I just turned 40 and with my second girl just born I have felt exactly the same way for a couple of months… I don’t think youth is wasted on the young, I just wish it lasted longer….
Tiffany doesn’t cry.
Carrottop doesn’t cry.
You think Pauly Shore cries?
He doesn’t.
Bill Shatner doesn’t cry.
ACT LIKE A MAN!
larryb said:
>> Oh man, I just turned 40 and with my second girl just born I have felt exactly the same way for a couple of months.
See.
Now it IS over at FORTY.
I mean, who are we kidding here?
Yeah.
You’re definitely done.
No lie.
I won’t blow smoke up your ass.
The good stuff is all behind you.
I spelled weakness wrong twice.
Dang.
Getting too old for this Internet shit.
Hey Wil!
You need to stop stealing my crises!!
My own “rant” took on a vaguely different tone, but amounts to the same thing.
I’m turning 25 in less than a month – and I find myself going through a “quarter life crisis”
Seems our “moods” follow each other.
I guess what I’m saying is – I know what you’re feeling, and I thank you for sharing it with all of us. 🙂
Athena
I really appreciate everything that everyone has said here.
It’s strange: some of my friends have called me, and my mom, too, in tears, telling me that this really struck a chord in them.
That’s not what I was trying to do, really. I was just writing about what’s on my mind.
This is one of those entries that is going to get printed out for The Wife to read. 🙂
Thank you to everyone who has commented, and shared their feelings both here, and in emails. 🙂
And Happy Earth Day, Gaia.
Turning 30 wasn’t that bad for me. I’d been looking forward to it for a long time, actually, because 30 represented the big time to me, adulthood at last. My Dad would stop calling me “kiddo,” I wouldn’t get carded at the liquor store anymore, and my car would magically turn from an ’88 Toyota to…anything made in the ’90s. Didn’t happen. I did finally buy a new car on my 31st birthday, but my Dad still calls me “Kiddo” and I do get carded a lot. (It’s the curse of perpetually looking 19. Bet you can sympathize with that, can’t you, Wil?) I turn 32 in 3 months. I’m pretty happy with my lot right now — got a loving husband, a bright 3-year-old daughter, and a ’98 Saturn. Can’t complain. So don’t stress about it, Wil. Sure, think about the past. But don’t mourn it, celebrate it. And be present in your life, in these moments as they pass you by. Someday you’ll look back on this, too, and wonder where it’s gone.
I turned 31 in February. I have two children and a house. I have a dog and a car and my boy is potty learned. My husband has a great job.
The last movie I went to was LoTR, and it was the first time in two years. I havn’t been out to dinner since the children were born. The last time I was up past midnight was to clean up the toys and finally wash the kitchen floor.
I hear ya, Wil.
Damn now you got me depressed and “hyper-nostaligic”(good word BTW) again!.. I think its one of those rites of passage. I turn 30 in 6months and have been thinking the very same things the last couple of months.
I don’t particularly want to go back to the hell that was High School, but 22-25 would be cool.
Wow.
Makes me think much of my version of the same memories. I’ve not seen the inside of the house I grew up in since 1992, & the neighborhood treehouse was torn down in 1995.
Balancing those carefree memories and the desire to trade them for all the troubles my ex- may commit isn’t nearly as temping though. My best friend, the one with the tree house, still lives in that house in the basement with his parents.
I’ll take the responisiblity of adulthood, with all its consquences (good and bad), thank you.
WHEW! I’m so glad I still feel/act like a kid.. with very little responsibility. Having only to worry about one’s own well being does have it’s plus side. I’ll be 28 in June, and my life is actually looking better than my teenage years. Sure, there are parts of my “childhood” that i get totally nostalgic about, but I refuse to “grow up,” so I don’t see much as lost to me.
I always feel so sad for young people that are in a big damned hurry to be “adults” with all the stress and responsibility (and bills *shudder*) that goes with it.
Shit Wil I know what you mean. I’ll be turning 27 in one week from today. I feel a little different though. I mean I had such a crappy time growing up that I feel like things were supposed to be easier. I feel like I missed something. Like a break or something. So I guess I sorta had one year just to have fun. Actually only 6 months. April of my 21st year through October of my 21st year. No responsiblities. Just working a crappy job and partying with my friends. I could do whatever I wanted. I would go to my crappy job and just be Soooooooooo Happy. Everyday was a vacation for me. The birds were singing, the sky was blue. But then I started to feel like I was wasteing my life. So I left my low responsibility job quite hanging around the people I partyed with. (They really were bad influences, very bad.) And I got an Adult Job. An Adult Apartment. I started chasing a dream of happiness that wasn’t really mine. Now I’m chasing another dream. One that will permit me to be free from this life. I have no kids and never will. That’s one less thing for me to deal with. Finacial Freedom. I hope that permits me the time to breath, before my youth is all gone. 3 years to 30. Gahhhh. When the Hell did that happen? Life is what passes you by when you’re not looking. Maybe I’ll just stop and look around a bit.
Good Luck Wil. I know the passing of youth can be hard on some people. I hope you can recover quickly so you can realize how much time you really have left to have fun. Shit look at Shatner he’s way the fuck old, but he’s still liven’ it up.
I think you’re my male version of me.
I’ll be 30 next month.
I hear after 30 is better anyway. You’ve gone through all the bullshit searching and doubts of the 20’s and are finally comfortable enough with yourself to just be.
I turn 30 in four months, and it hits me at weird times. I was reminiscing with my older brother the other day, and we were recalling bad 80s tv shows (“That’s Incredible” being at the forefront). Eek, just had another flashback.
Yea, the 80’s were pretty kickin’ here too. Running through the woods, not caring about anything or worrying about the smallest thing. As long as we can hold on to those good memories.. then I think we always bring our childhood along with us. It’s harder to find.. but it is there.
“So when I saw this commercial last night, it hit me: I’m turning 30 in 3 months.”
RENEW! RENEW! RENEW!
🙂
Damn. It’s posts like this that make me really love your blog, man. Now I’m all, Mr. Sensitive-like and shit. *snif* Thanks a lot, ya fucker.
I’m right there with you, Wil. You know how you said that when you had it good that you were to arrogant or whatever to know better. I wish that I could have been a little more arrogant and not cared a FUCK what the “cool kids” thought of a geek girl like me. I could have had so much more fun instead of sitting arround moping that I didn’t have the “right” kind of clothes to wear. Hey, all you 30 year old “cool kids” -you can kiss my ASS!!
I competely understand where you are coming from. I am 23 years old but looking at my students at school and listening to them I feel the same way. they think not having the newest flip flops is a crises and I am worried about saving rent money. grr getting older is hard. I can’t imagine what having kids that age is like. good luck 🙂
God, Wil, way to depress us. I suddenly desperately miss the 80’s now, too, and I was only 7.
wow and i thought i was depressed this past weekend. We went to see my college friends and realized wow we have changed. We only graduated three years ago. I felt sad cause not all my friends were there. Things changed really quick. I found myself wishing it was the fall of 97 when I was a junior in college. It was then I met the best of friends or so it seemed. Things changed we all went our seperate ways and I felt like balling. We decided we had to visit more and I said what I always wanted to say. It was touching. I felt odd reading this and actually finding out that you was practically thinking about similar aspects. I guess I just wanted to say wow things change.
Wow…. you saw that advertisement too, huh? I am not quite 30 yet, but approaching fast (just turned 29 this month!). I have been “hyper nostalgic” (great term by the way) off and on for the past year and can completely relate to how you feel. Only now , not so much. Too much to look forward to! The past was fun, but I like it right where it is…
Boy, Wil, your post today reall struck home for me. I’m turning 30 in 5 months (ha ha! I’m younger than you) and am alternating by being very happy where I am at in life right now and missing my younger youth so damn much it hurts. Thanks for reminding me that I’m not the only one.
True story, though I don’t remember the names or the exact quotes.
A 60 year old woman was starting out on a completely new life project. She asked her 80 year old friend whether it was foolish for her to start something completely new at her age. The 80 year old said you’re asking the wrong person. She continued: I’m 20 years older than you and I’m starting something new myself, something I’ve never tried before and you my dear are just a baby.
So at almost twenty-nine…knowing that there is an 80 year old that regards a 60 year old as a “just a baby”; it makes me smile and worry a little less about the time going by so quickly. A lot has past, but there is also much more to come.
Hope this brings you a smile as well.
Wil, I couldn’t have put that any better than you. The 80’s were a great time not because of anything historic, but because it was our youth. There has been many a time when I think back to how carefree those days were hanging out with my friends and my biggest worry was what we were going to do tonight. I so miss those times. I so miss those people. But time has changed everything and though I still keep in touch with some of those people, many more are lost because of the different paths we all chose.
But I also have things to look forward to. I’ve been married to a great woman now for almost 7 years and have a beautiful 2 year old daughter that I can’t wait to share more of myself with as she gets older. If only there was someway to take what I have now and combine it with the feeling of youth. I would be the happiest person in the world, especially if I didn’t have to worry about paying the bills!
Will,
You are such an awesome writer, I hope you realize that! I love reading your blog. You are NOT old, but I do understand your feelings. I am turning 40 in September, and I am definitely feeling it. I can’t deny that I don’t enjoy the sound of it. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about it that I don’t like. I guess it’s just a societal image that somehow has stuck in my head.
And then I think, when I’m 60 I’m sure I’ll wish I was 40. So just enjoy it now, and don’t worry about the past. Cherish it and make the most of NOW cause that’s all we have.
’nuff said…and I still love “The Buddy System”.
Denise
Oh and I almost forgot-the Danny Elfman score from Batman is awesome! But then again, most everything Elfman does is!
Will, today’s my birthday. I’m turning 17. So many times in the past few years of my life, I’ve looked back on my life, and wondered about how easy things were, and how hard they’d appeared at the time. I’m glad that I’ve realized that as tough as life is now, some things will be harder. But others will be easier. And growing up doesn’t always mean getting old and out-of-date. It just means learning more. Everything happens at the time it’s supposed to happen. And I realize that as a 17-year-old I don’t exactly have the greatest experience in the world, but I believe I’m right here. And besides, wouldn’t you rather see your step-sons become teenagers while you’re 30 and still have hopes of being cool, rather than 40 and ‘old,’ or younger and unprepared?
I wonder what they’ll be calling classics when I’m 30…
I get these feelings from time to time and I’m only 19! I’m turning 20 soon and I’m glad to know that doesn’t mean I won’t be a kid anymore. I can’t stand the thought of growing up. I have nostalgic feelings all the time, I guess that explains the tv theme songs on my computer. But then again, I had the same don’t-wanna-grow-up feelings at 10, so that’s life. Hang in there Wil.
I have to move out of residence this week as the school yeah is over, and I’m having that feeling in heaps. My first year is over. Where did it go? Sometimes we could slow down life, just a little bit, wouldn’t that be nice.
My oldest brother is eight years older than I am. When I turned 30 (badly; I was working a horrific job at the time), he told me that your 30s are the best time, and he was right. You’re old enough to know more of who you are, but young enough to have fun with it. He was absolutely right. You will hate turning 30, and you will LOVE it after that.
Uhm, I didn’t read all the comments, hell you probably won’t read this considering all the great lovin’ advice here, but uhm… I was a strange kid. I mean heck, I wanted to grow up fast like any of them, but I had so many adults saying “You’re young, kid, enjoy it!” that it became old very fast (pardon the awful pun there). I did enjoy my childhood when I could, but I remember a lot I didn’t like about it. For me, childhood wasn’t sunshine and lollipops. I argued a lot with my parents, I had a hard time at school because I wasn’t very popular, and I only really started getting friends in my early teens. I guess what I’m trying to say is, you did the best you could during that time, all of us do. Life isn’t over though, once you reach a certain age. I mean, what do you think this is – Star Trek or something? You think you’re an eskimo? “Anne… get the sleigh and the dogs… I’m ready for them polar bears.”
I’ve felt nostalgia plenty of times, but I stop and think… hang on. When I was having so much ‘fun’ back then, I didn’t have my beautiful neices and nephews. They weren’t around. My family was smaller by about ten people. I *love* those people. Shit, careers and mortgages make life harder for you, but your life is enriched so much because hey – you are a much better person now than you used to be. I’m not saying you were an asshole when you were a kid – don’t take that the wrong way. I’m saying that when we’re younger we’re only a portion of the person we grow up to be. Life is to be savoured, every little second. Sorry, I’m ranting. Message in short:
Feel good about the past, cause it’s the only youth you’ve got and a lot of other people had worse (trust me).
Good shit in front of you now. Look forward to it. Mucho happy life if you choose to savour it.
Advice from blog comment listings are like fortune-cookies – fun for a little while but you soon forget it when it comes to the crunch. So read often and with fresh-baked cookies.
Well said Bo.
Hey all.
Wil dude I turned 28 last year and damn its tough. But I am not even married and nowhere near it. I have a girlfriend of 3 months and friends on my water polo team and I still party alot. It’s nice to actually wait til later in life to get married and have kids and pretend like you are still a kid.
Let me tell you its AWESOME. I don’t even have a mortgage payment.. I live in an apartment and do whatever i want when i want. I think around 30 I may get depressed enough to get married but until then I feel your pain. I miss the innocence of not knowing what you are gonna do when you are a kid. I grew up collecting comics watching sci fi and having fun til there was no tomorrow. Soon I will be where you are minus the wife and kids but it’s cool to know big willie is along with me..
AND HEY THE PRINCE BATMAN SOUNDTRACK OWNED!! “PArty Man” ruled n stuff 🙁
good times noodle salad
As a child of the 80s who is going to turn 30 this year, I can understand the weight of responsibilities of adulthood.
But, don’t worry… you’ll make a big movie and you’ll make millions. Then Drew Barrymore will try to seduce you and you’ll just be like, get the hell away from me.
You’ll have a mansion an life will be grand.
Or, maybe you will find happiness is in making life simple. I find the older I get the more I enjoy reading philosophical texts on Taoism. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Good luck and keep on writing.
-BlueEgret
I’ve got 23 days before I get to legally drink the alkeeholl, and now I feel old.
Granted, that ain’t got NUTHIN on all of you older people. You guys got to see Jaws in the theater and crap.
Me?
I gotta deal with Britney Spears being called the epitome of hot-chick-hood.
You wanna know how frustrating it is to have some younger ho being all famous and quoted and shit?
It’s enough to make me feel like I’m wasting my fucking time.
I can only hope I grow up to be as jaded and cynical as Spudnuts, only not quite as male.
So, yeah, Wil? and all the rest of you?
You ain’t old.
My grandma got her first speeding ticket a couple years ago.
She just turned 89.
So there is a future, so long as it’s as an old lady who drives like a maniac.
Eat THAT, Spudnuts.
Actually, don’t. The mental image of you doing that to my grammy… eewww.
I’m going now.
Wil, thanks for posting that. A few weeks ago the Sunday edition of the LA Times ran an 80’s theme in the magazine section and I just kept reading it over and over. Felt that same sense of loss, cept for me it was growing up in Bethesda Maryland with my friends riding our BMX bikes everywhere. Spike Jonz was even in our crew. (Rockville BMX will live forever in memory)
Senior year in high school, freshman year in college, man I couldn’t wait to put it all behind me and now I think I’d give a lot to go back for a few weeks. Listening to Depeche Mode, Simply Red, Fine Young Cannibals, and quite a few other bands I’d rather not admit listening to BUT they were from my era man. Then there are all those 80’s teen movies. Ferris, Weird Science, Breakfast Club….ahh, where did it go and where are we going?
Wil, I’m 35, and have reflected on my life’s great regrets for five years now. This is what I’ve learned:
If I had known then what I know now… I’d be living right now with a past filled with different regrets. Perhaps I wouldn’t be living at all.
To have regrets is to wish for events to have been different, diminishing the value we place on learning from those failures. I’m not so certain that success teaches us the value of what we have as much as failure does.
A past failure still perceived as a failure, may lead to a success which otherwise would not have occurred.
My great regrets:
1. Not being more social in High School
2. Not being more successful with women in High School
3. Not completing university
4. Not leveraging my community college education as well as I could have
5. Not choosing a career path in IT earlier
6. A car accident I had nearly 10 years ago in which my passenger died
I think that my first two regrets are silly. I actually largely avoided getting caught up in a lot of frivolity. It hurt at the time, but I probably avoided even more pain.
My next two regrets are more complex. I think I wasn’t ready for university at the time, and I still have many more years to get additional higher education. As for not leveraging my education, I think that I am, just not directly. In many ways I learned what I didn’t want to do.
As for not choosing an IT career sooner – well, bad choice. Then again, it is likely that had I done so, I wouldn’t have been living in the town where I met my wife. And my children, Natasha and Alexander, would never have existed.
As for the car accident, I deeply regret my friend passing away, and no amount of learning from the experience can justify her death. But I learned a lot about the value of life and of my own character. I still think about her daily, and try hard to be a better person than I think I otherwise would have been.
In summary, forward is the way we move through time, and is the direction we should all look to.
Im turning 23 years old tomorrow. :o/
Hey Wil:
30 Something eh? Well I turn 47 in two weeks. You just gotta keep that quirky smile that everyone had so much fun with in photoshop.Yeah life throws us these deep feelings that we wonder where they came from. WTF I really like that Pink Floyd reference, it’s one of my favorites TTFN
So is time a predator, that stalks us all our lives? Or is time a companion that joins us on the journey, reminding us to cherish every moment because it will never come again?
See, Star Trek movies, even the bad ones, can teach us something.
Anyway. My high school reunion is in three months. I wasn’t all that fond of high school, and I have managed to forget a good percentage of the people in my class. For some reason, I’ve prided myself on that; that I’ve been able to shove aside the unpleasant people and memories and get on with life.
Last month, I encountered an old high school chum at the mall. Not a dear friend, but a friend, and someone I remembered fondly.
He had no idea who I was.
Here I was, thinking I was all superior for shoving aside the past, ready to go to my reunion and play the “Who are you, again?” card with everybody. And someone goes and beats me to it.
Part of growing older means accepting that you aren’t the center of the universe. That’s not directed specifically at anyone here; it’s just an observation. Man, that’s a tough one.
Wil, I sympathize. *wipes a tear* I was just thinking about that the other day. I’m 20 and sometimes I feel that way.
What I wouldn’t give to go back to primary colors and pigtails, playing with the boy next door and watching the sun set with him… And never having to worry about anything more serious than a flat bicycle wheel.
Instead of my freaking CAR dying this week. Oy vey…
But hey, you seem to have turned out all right. There’s hope for the rest of us. We just have to keep childhood in perspective.
Your writing is beautiful, by the way. Thank you for sharing your gift with us.
I love Danny Elfman! I love his Batman score!
His Black Beauty score is my favorite.
I love Depeche Mode. I love Black Celebration! I was just saying the other day how it was my favorite album.
You rock!
80’s music is just too good, I wish it was still “cool” to say that you liked it….
But the funny thing is…I’m only 20, not 30…
Oh well.
ACK!! THTTHBTTHTTHBTH!!! TJS, Generations was the BEST Star Trek film!!!! Blasphemer!
I’ll be 30 in four months, but I’m looking forward to it. I don’t know how it happened, but just this year I finally lost my angst! You know, the 20’s “angst”, which I used to have a bad case of: what am i going to do with my life, crazy relationships, what job is right for me..etc. I don’t really know what has actually changed this year, but it’s like I settled into my skin and feel “this is me, ahhhh”. And I’m going to have one rockin’ birthday party!
Try being 35 un-married, no kids and still wondering when life is going to “begin”.
The 80’s… What a time capsule. The 80’s – it seems more like “a place” than “a time”, you know? Like there’s a wrong turn you can make in some old video store and come out of a mall surrounded by more “big hair” than you care to think about.
You’ve made me want to dig out “Good For Your Soul”, however…
Very moving. I read the majority of comments here and laughed and sharedd, ”
that’s true” feelings with some of them. The 80’s were the best of times. I think
the chaos in the world today has something to do with these memories springing up
inside ourselves. I think it’s more than just growing up or reaching a certain age. We’re
recalling the happier and simpler times during a time in which the world seems to be spiralling out of control.
What helps me in times of mourning over days past is that I lived in a country that allowed me to have
these precious moments. How many thousands or millions starve each day in remote places around the world who
will never have the chance to look back and treasure memories such as we share here?
Ferris is 40? SOAB!
Ya know…I think I saw that same commercial…I actually bought the fucking thing though. So very very sad. Anyway, I will hit the big Three Oh this sunday and I think I’ve finally come to grips with it. I have three great kids, a wonderful wife, two cats and a bunny. It’s not so bad really…(sob) Oh how I miss 15.
In four months I turn 41. I survived turning 30 — it wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone made me think — and I survived turning 40. The only bad thing about that was the gray hair.
I’ve survived raising a teenager. That wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out to be, either. It was interesting, watching those stages unfold right before me, knowing that the snotty 13 year old was going to turn into an eyerolling 14 year old, an impatient 15 year old, and then gradually turn into an adult. And at 19, he’s there. Fully grown up, and I still have (I hope) a lot of my own life left to have FUN.
When you let STUFF bring you down (and it really is all just STUFF) it makes geting older more difficult. You look back and wish for the things you had as a kid. But let me tell you, when you’re looking straight ahead, there’s *alot* of fun out there waiting.
DUDE, you so totally summed it up man. Im like turning 30 in a month and all i seem to be thinking about these last few months has been the 80’s and the fun times i had, roleplaying and cruisen the streets in my hot V8 car with my mates.
I want that time and feelings back.
Then again there was the whole teenage thing and been a uncool nerdy geek boy, plus dodging the gangbangers each day after school so you didnt get the shit beat out of you.
hmm perhaps we are better off nowadays, with our wives and kids and mortages. Sure it is a little bit more stressful sometimes. But aleast you know where we are in our lives and generally we know what we want. Plus there is the whole family thing and the joy it brings with it.
“That Prince monstrosity”?
“That Prince monstrosity”?
Wil,
We need to talk.
Surely you can’t be seriously expecting me to believe that TV’s WIL WHEATON is incapable of understanding the majesty of Prince’s pre-stupid-name-change, pre-scrawling-grafitti-about-“how-my-record-company-is-a-bunch-of-mean-men”-on-his cheek masterpiece?
See, in the filmclip to Batdance (Bat-daaaaaaance) – and before you say “Batman doesn’t dance”, let me remind you of a certain episode where Burt Ward got left in the Batmobile while Batman went into a licenced venue and proceeded to strut his caped crusader stuff on the dancefloor with some mighty fine go-go girls who, if I remember correctly, turned out to be someone’s henchmen – or henchwomen – or henchpeople – in that filmclip, the tiny purple GENIUS is dressed as both The Joker AND The Batman, thereby acknowledging that they both – Jokesy and Batsy – are two sides of the same twisted coin.
Pretty astute observations, there, the kind of weighty psychological observations about the nature of revenge and the fine line between heroism and villainty that never even SURFACED on Danny Elfman’s “ooh look at me I’m a John Williams wannabe and Tim Burton is my BUDDY” soundtrack
The Batusi. Remember, Wil?
I’d love to see you try to batusi to Elfman’s score.
You can’t.
So don’t try.
Even though I said I’d like to see it.
Because I wouldn’t, really.
But PRINCE?
Oh, there’s a whole lot of batusi goin’ on there.
Bet your cowl on it.