I Am Resolved to Grow Fat and Look Young
and the glory that is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released on June 2, 1967 (once my favorite Beatles album, though now I favor Revolver or, in my cynical moods, The Beatles):
Also celebrating (?) a 40th anniversary this month is the Monterey Pop Festival, one of the few music festivals of the late 1960's where the music was actually worth listening to without pharmacological enhancement. Check out the DVD if you don't believe me.
One of my other favorite albums, Radiohead's OK Computer, celebrates its tenth anniversary this month (released on June 16, 1997), Star Wars (or Episode IV, if you prefer) just passed its 30th, and Brian Wilson, the tormented genius behind the Beach Boys, despite whatever Mike Love thinks, is still kicking at 65, and he is (or was) twice as coked out and depressed as I am (I think he's better now). Woo-hoo!
I'm afraid I have no pearls of wisdom to share, no words of advice to you younguns with your iPods and your Pogs and your Transformers. My right knee aches all the time. I'm still considering what my career will be. I have survived two car crashes, exposure to numerous deadly substances, a UFO, two alcoholic parents, a year in a meat-packing plant with an ex-con co-worker, several psychotic roommates, and The Phantom Menace (or Episode I, if you prefer). I am 3/4 of the way toward a PhD, I have thousands of CDs and vinyl albums, I dream about the future, I teach college classes, and I try to avoid writing whenever possible. I miss my cat and my grandmother, who both died last year around this time. What can I tell you? I'm glad I made it this far. And if you're reading this, chances are I'm glad to know you. It's my friends and my brother who make it worth hanging around. And the faint hope that The Simpsons movie will not suck.
Good luck to you for the next forty. Let's hope we all make it that far, huh?
posted by Chazzbot at 10:43 AM
5 Comments:
Happy Birthday, Sir Charles! I would wish you all your heart desires, but when one's desires mainly include the occasional pint of beer with friends, and maybe a new action figure/comic book/LP every week or so, it hardly seems worth the effort. So as the Spanish say: Health, love, money, and enough time to enjoy them. Cheers!
Can we recreate that picture this weekend? We'll take it in black and white and everything. I'll bring the baseball.
Happy birthday!
Hey, not to worry Chuckles, the 40s are the new 30s!! Happy Birthday! I hope it was a great day!
Happy birthday, my friend. I'm finding my 30s preferable to my 20s, so I'm anticipating my 40s with relish!
Charles, I can't believe you're 40 already. I guess I never thought about how you're eleven years older than me. It never felt like you were, you know, eleven years older than me. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult. I'd say compliment, but I've always been the glass is half-fun kind of a girl. Happy birthday!
Post a Comment
<< Home