When You Wake Up Feeling Old... go to the Rock Show

Every now and then the spring chicken must cop to the fact that he's really just getting to be an old rooster, time just keeps right on marching along and we loose track of the fact that those sunrises and sunsets are finite, hell when they come and go as they do one tends to get the feeling they'll always be there and maybe they will, we're still waiting for Tim Leary to send that letter but until then we tend to not dwell on the fact that we can check out at any time and there are a myriad of ways for us to leave the key card on the nightstand (so to speak), this week in particular has been a motherfucker when it comes to reminding me that i ain't getting any younger...

I've never been professionally diagnosed but i've watched enough ER dramas in my youth and read enough books written by or about the mentally ill to know that i've got what might be termed an addictive personality, or you could just say i liked to party, still do really i've just learned that some things will kill you faster than others and since the appearance of the boyos on the scene i've tried to eliminate most of those things, (see blow, smack, ridiculously excessive boozing, things of that nature) i've gotten back to the Earth you could say, back to my favorite plant and the occasional bit of fungus, you could call it spiritual or you could just say i like to crawl inside my own head and think, where before i used to want to run the streets of dope, speed and fucking now i prefer to lounge on the couch and study the ceiling, and of course i've developed this almost pathological need to work out...

Now i can honestly say that i usually see the wall i'm about to smash my face into and somehow pull out of it, my old friend the Engineer once stated how he was amazed at how i could walk away from things, and usually i could, the diciest by far was our fair sister Charlie Baltimore, my lack of respect for her pretty much bit me on the ass but these days i'm like into healthy living or some fucking thing and i go at these workouts with an almost bizarre sense of duty, doesn't matter if i'm fucking myself up i'll still do them, that is of course until i can barely lift my arm above my head or in the most recent case walk... the kettle bells fucked my shoulder all because i was too stupid to admit they were fucking up my shoulder, i had concocted my own little regimen and at times i half wondered if i hadn't stress fractured a clavicle or something of that ilk, painful, sometimes ridiculously so but not enough to get me to stop...

Now if you'll allow my to digress i'll explain that yesterday i went to the eye doctor for the first time, my eyes have always been fucking great but i realized by night time i couldn't read a book, i mean i could it was just that all the little letters were fuzzy and i spent a good deal of my time wondering if i had the words right, it also wasn't lost on me that by the time i do sit down to read i'm usually Jeff Lebowski stoned and possibly that was the problem, it made it worse but even without Jah's help i still could barely fucking see the words and so after reading all those little lines of letters with this eye or that eye it was determined that i could use a pair of reading glasses... and so now i lay on the couch while the crickets chirp with my NHS specs on and can actually see the damn words, i can read faster too, probably because i can see, i should have done it six months ago but i'm the stubborn type, if there's anything left in to this wine of youth it is most definitely the dregs... and maybe not even that...

And so while i was building Swedish furniture and organizing and sorting out the gaff, per the Breadwinner's orders of course, i couldn't do my normal shit and so i hopped on the Breadwinner's treadmill and started running, figured 3 or 4 miles couldn't hurt, problem was i have this funny left knee from fucking about with Nick Disaster and the football, was doing a right shit imitation of Johan Cruyff when it sort of went all wonky, my diagnosis was a knee sleeve, ice and copious amounts of ganja and damn if that didn't seem to do the trick and the running seemed like a good idea and it came pretty easy except now i realize i was sorta of favoring that left knee which in turn ended up fucking up my right side, or to be more specific what i'm guessing is some sort of problem with the old sciatic nerve, of which i've prescribed heating pads, rest, stretching and copious amounts of ganja...

Let me say that usually a day or two of this regimen would suffice and the pain would subside just enough for my dumb ass to start back at it, the workout being my new crack, but this time i was (and still am) a bit fucked and i had a ticket to a rock show, those crazy kids from DC called Priests, it was in a tiny club and i have a feeling this band won't be playing many tiny clubs in the near future but damn if i could barely fucking walk and so for the first time in my life i was staring down the premise of missing a rock show cuz i couldn't physically hack it, the old man sitting out the young man's gig, i mean i've missed or blown off shows before but that was my choice, this wasn't, this was a blow, and so i lay in bed and heavily medicated throughout the day, of course i forgot my eye appointment which i went to pleasantly gooned, but as the clock ticked towards having to leave or skipping the gig i laced up the shoes and walked gingerly to the car...

So there i was joining the hipster cognoscenti with my uncool shoes, but really what's more punk rock than a suburban dad? fucking nuffin that's what less i have to school these kids on Foucault and Derrida and the philosophy of Deconstructionism, except the kids were alright and there were even a couple of the original Indy kids there, though older and grayer and plumper, but damn if it wasn't a fine fucking show and damn if i didn't feel like a kid as i smiled my way to the car and damn if i didn't blast the stereo all the way home as i sang along to today's new wave hits, a humid summer night and a drive through the city and i'm 16 again... or maybe 25, doesn't matter, what matters is i'm still at it and i think Mr. Jones would agree that just cuz you get old doesn't mean you have to grow up, that staying curious and checking out what the kids are in to spurs the mind and the body... and besides, what else have i got to do?