"Dispatch From 'Increasingly Old'"

They look the same, but they aren’t.

As I have recently determined.

Having studied the difference, I now describe for your educational enjoyment two variants of “slow.”  One involves literal slowness.  The other, mistakenly categorized as “slow”, is distinguishingly not.

Here’s the first kind of “slow”, which caught me – as it is about me – startlingly by surprise.

Returning from Groundwork Coffee Co., I walk westward on Rose Avenue, on my way to Fourth Street, where I will turn right, heading back to my house.

As is my nature, I habitually walk deep in thought, dreamily unclear about my current location. 

I emerge from my reverie.

I have reached Third Street.

“Overshooting the runway”, as it were, by one street.

I have options.  I can turn back to Fourth Street.  But being chronically averse to “retracing my steps”, avoiding the steep northbound hill, I opt to hike over to Main Street, where I will turn right, in the direction of home, although two blocks to the west.

I walk the additional westward two blocks.  I look up at the street sign.

It says Third Street.

“What?”

I am understandably confused.  (As, I imagine, are you.)

I walked two blocks west from Third Street and am now standing at Third Street?

“How did that happen?”

It happened like this.

While deep in thought when walking, I rely on an impeccable “Inner Sense” calibrating the distance I have traveled without actively noticing.  Today, that reliable “Inner Sense” informed me that I had reached Third Street. 

Had I been consciously awake, I would have known I had actually only reached Fifth Street.   

Sadly, my impeccable “Inner Sense” had substantially screwed up.  Not on purpose.  It’s primary problem was being an outdated “Inner Sense”, calibrating my progress by a rate of speed I no longer possessed.

If the “Now me” could behold the former, speedier me, I would have been able to see that younger me, walking two blocks ahead of where I currently stood.

There it is.

A classic example of geriatrical “slow.” 

Now the other one. 

We have all experienced this, from a bystander’s perspective.

You are “Next in line” at the supermarket “check-out.”

The customer before you is not young.

Let’s say it’s a woman.  No gender inference intended.  There’s just more to work with.

The woman’s groceries have been scanned.  Informed of the bill, she sets her purse down on the counter.

Reaching into her purse, she produces a checkbook.  (Note:  We are ignoring the “rummaging” cliché, though you may feel free to factor that in.)  She sets the checkbook on the counter, next to her purse.

She then goes back into her purse and pulls out a pen, laying the pen on the checkbook, sitting next to her purse.

Next, she extracts her reading glasses out of her purse, removes the reading glasses from their case, which she sets on the counter beside the pen and checkbook, sitting next to her purse.

Donning her reading glasses, she lifts the pen off the counter, and with the checkbook on the counter, she writes a check for the groceries.

Asked for I.D., she closes the checkbook sitting on the counter, lays the pen back on the checkbook, and goes back into her purse.

Out comes the wallet.

Sliding her I.D. out of her wallet, the customer hands the I.D. to the “cashier.”

After checking her I.D., the “cashier” returns the I.D. to the customer.

At which point,

The entire process is meticulously reversed.

She slides the I.D. back into her wallet, returning the wallet back into her purse.

She retrieves the glasses case from its spot on the counter, inserting the reading glasses into the glasses case, and then putting the glasses case back into her purse.

The pen and checkbook are next. 

First the pen –

Then the checkbook –

Back into the purse.

She lifts the purse off of the counter.

The cashier hands her the receipt for the groceries.

She puts the purse back on the counter.

She inserts the receipt for the groceries, now neatly folded, into her purse.

She lifts the purse again off of the counter…

And the transaction is over.

Was the customer slow?

No.

She was, in fact, thorough, deliberate, careful, and efficient. 

(It could have been worse.  She could have had “coupons.”) 

And there you have it. 

Two examples of elderly “slow”, one that is slow, and one that appears slow, but arguably isn’t.

Is it a distinction that matters?

Not to “Next in line” at the supermarket.

Fuming in place, and dreaming of homicide.

And if you try to show them the difference between “slow” are “carefully efficient”,

Double homicide.

"Only When I Tilt"

(Or, parodying a Warner Brothers cartoon title – “Hair Today; Gone Tomorrow.”

(A DISTINCTLY HAIRLESS) ELMER FUDD:  “Hilawious.”

Okay.  Let’s get lofty.

It is said that the revered Jewish scholar Hillel was asked by a prospective convert (who was apparently in a hurry) to explain the entire Torah, standing on one foot.  To which the balancing Hillel replied,

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.”

You will agree that’s pretty good.  (Barring a truly terrible neighbor, wherein all bets are off.  Though, feeling the same way about you, they might react angrily in kind, so watch out.)

Challenged by this possibly apocryphal pronouncement, I shall now deliver a post, conceived while I was standing in one place.  (Though, admittedly, not on one foot.)

The place I am standing is over the sink in the Master Bathroom.  What I am doing there is brushing my teeth.

Okay, here’s my first “correction”, or at least “clarifying adjustment.”

I am not exactly standing over the sink, brushing my teeth.

I am, in fact, bending over the sink, brushing my teeth.

Why?

And here’s my first embarrassing confession.  (Of, I believe, a total number of two, but it’s early.  There could easily be more.)

I bend over the sink brushing my teeth, due to a genetic, malfunctioning lower lip. 

Though hardly an expert in that area of the face, let me credibly report from personal experience.

Top lips are decorative.  They don’t actually do anything.  Oh, they cover the top teeth all right, but that’s nothing to brag about at labial Thanksgiving.

“What are you up to, my boy?”

“I cover the top teeth.”

“Ah.  (INSTANTLY SWIVELING AWAY)  “And what are you up to?”

“Covering the top teeth” is no towering achievement.  It’s not even “protection.”  A hard punch rattles those teeth, while the bleeding top lip looks on weakly and goes “Whoa!” 

The bottom lip does stuff.  Along with covering the bottom teeth, it has the exclusive duty of keeping the stuff in your mouth, until swallowing, inside your mouth.

Mine doesn’t.

It hangs loosely, as things inevitably fall out.

Including – specific to this narrative –  

Toothpaste.

So – salient to the point – if I do not bend over the sink while brushing my teeth, the applied toothpaste drops from my mouth, bleaching – being, among other things, whitening toothpaste – the area of my shirt it gloppily lands on. 

Trust me.  You cannot get that stuff out!  I have numerous shirts, few of which are actually wearable.

Ergo, to strategically avoid sartorial carnage, I bend over the sink when I am brushing my teeth.

Triggering a surprising (and, as mentioned, embarrassing) discovery, I would not have discovered were I not bending over the sink brushing my teeth.

To my startled chagrin, there, sitting forlornly at the bottom of the sink, is one isolated wisp of hair, a recognized refugee from the top of my head.  (Being identical in color to the hair still, thankfully, attached.  (I shall not dwell on that color, for fear of ruffling the feathers of contemporaries with hair-color more age-appropriate than my luxuriant brown, a genetic anomaly I would happily trade for sturdier heart valves.)

Anyway, there it is – a personal hair sample, adrift on a sea of alien porcelain.

Why did it suddenly fall out?  I have no answering idea.  There is no hair in my morning granola.  No telltale strands, decorating my pillow.  It only happens, it seems, when I bend of over the sink brushing my teeth.  And then, o

nly one – or at most two – displaced specimen at a time.

I run the water in the sink – the “evidence” swirls down the drain, reuniting with lost friends, the new arrival fused to the fraternal clump.

“Is this heaven?”

“No.  It’s Earl’s plumbing.  Rapidly clogging as we speak.”

The whole process perplexes me.  It is not like I am dancing a vigorous “Frug” over the sink, my head, bopping to the pulsating beat.  I casually bend over the sink, and

“Oh, look!  There’s a hair!”

How lightly must it have been affixed to my skull, if casual bending made it suddenly descend?

Triggering this culminating dilemma:

If I brush my teeth in a vertical position, I risk mutilating my shirts.  But if I bend over the sink,

I watch myself balding,

One follicle at a time.

I know there’s a third option:

Brushing my teeth shirtless.

But then I’m cold.  Daubing runaway toothpaste off of my chest.

That’s my post, conceived standing in one place.

He said, lingering at his desktop,

Imagining applause.

"Long Shot"

The short version, for people “on the go”:

If you are doing a Judd Apatow movie, get Judd Apatow to do it.

Otherwise, you’re going to get Long Shot, a Judd Apatow kind of a movie that, although it’s not, feels instead a Nancy Meyers kind of a movie. 

What does a Nancy Meyers kind of a movie feel like?

“Middle-Age Hip”, where an uptight person gets stoned.

Which inevitably happens in Long Shot, a film we saw at the Landmark, a chain of theaters, catering to regular moviegoers’ elderly grandparents. 

The aisles are wide to accommodate “Walkers.”

No, they aren’t, but they could be.  There is, in fact, a designated “Parking Station” for “Walkers.”  How they get to their seats… (Some sentences, you just don’t want to finish.  Why did I start it?  I probably shouldn’t have.)

Let me backtrack a little, just to make this flagrantly longer.  (It’s too early to quit.)

Check the movie listings right now.  (I don’t mean “Check the movies listing right now.”  I mean, “Check the current movie listings.”  In the meantime, keep reading.)

How many comedies are playing?  Where I live, it’s one.

Long Shot.

That’s a city with one store.  You’re in the mood for a comedy and it’s

“I guess we’ll go there.” 

So you go.

Unfortunately, Long Shot will not the film you were ardently hoping for.  Which should have been evident because it’s playing at the Landmark.  The movie’s lead characters may be mid-to-late thirties.  The attending audience goes “Oy!” when it sits down.

Long Shot is, sadly, just what you expect:

A young comedy for old people.

A shlubby slacker (Seth Rogen, in a role he now contractually owns) with political principles and a childhood history (a one-way crush) with a female Secretary of State (Charlie Theron, because the women they asked first said, “I already played that.”) reconnect as she’s about to declare her candidacy for president of the United States.

Long Shot – you get it?  It’s a “long shot” because it’s a woman aspiring to win the presidency.  And it’s also a long shot – a shlubby slacker, landing the hot and powerful Charlize Theron. 

Two “long shots” in one.  Making it double-y delicious.

Or as the cliché goes, “Or not.”

Exiting the theater, I overheard a guy telling his companion, “I saw the original script for this movie.  It was a lot different.”

To me, that’s all Judd Apatow-produced movies.  Of which Long Shot is not one but wants to be so it follows the same formula: 

You take a viable concept and turn it into a tasteless cartoon.

I think about Bridesmaids – a solid idea, involving “Best Buds”, facing the impending marriage of one of them.  The initial premise shows interesting potential.

Judd signs on and immediately “Apatows” it up, retaining the grounding “female buddy” component, then injecting raging diarrhea, triggering serial “dumps” in pristine bridal gowns.

“Relationship movies” are great.  But the money’s in pooping in your pants.

Long Shot couldn’t wait to get into the game, thereby making the only mistake worthy of comment.  A small point, perhaps, but to “sidelines shmegeggies”, it’s key.

The narrative template is:  “Lovable goofball gets ‘serious woman’ to ‘lighten up.’” 

For the classic prototype, think Ninotchka.  Better yet, watch Ninotchka.  A superior experience all around.  You can stay home, and see a much better movie.

Anyway, early in Long Shot, you hear the woman who ostensibly needs “lightening up” dropping “F-Bombs” all over the place before encountering the guy who’s supposed to “lighten her up” enough to drop “F-Bombs.”  Blowing the arcing trajectory, underlying the concept.

In layman’s language,

The structural pillar has termites.

Assiduous filmmakers would not have done that.  But these guys were too eager to look “cool.”

Reliable Rule of Thumb:  When you try to be cool – like when you try to be funny – you aren’t.

Do I think I could have done better?  I don’t do anything.  (Except this.)  But I could have told them to hold back on the “language” till after the “hook up.”

They might well have responded, “That’s ‘Old School.’  We’re doing it our way.”

Okay.  But from this man’s perspective – possibly suspect ‘cause I watched the movie at the Landmark – they did it their way.

And it was worse.

(Note:  If I sound inordinately grumpy today, it’s ‘cause I am protective about comedy.  I may be out of the house, but I want the new owners to take care of it.)