Better street cred than dead

John Mahoney by By liz bustamante
from chicagoland - CC BY 2.0

Now we return to our regularly scheduled inanity and general lack of soul-searching . . .

The actor John Mahoney died over the weekend. I'm sorry to hear of his passing at 77. I thought he was an entertaining actor both on Frasier and other shows. He was charming in the movie The Broken Hearts Club, which I saw at a LGBT+ film festival back in the day in 2000 in San Antonio. Then 50 in real life, he played an aging, sexless gay man who clucked like a mother hen around his "kids," the younger, sexually active and attractive gay men, like Zack Braff, Timothy Olyphant, and Dean Cain.

But perhaps that's just my interpretation . . . .

I intend no disrespect to Mr. Mahoney in the previous passage nor in what follows, but there is a consistent theme. Let's see if you can figure it out.

Yesterday I had to chuckle at some Twitter wag noting that Mahoney didn't turn to acting until the age of 37, after careers in teaching and editing. The conclusion by the scribe: It's never too late to make your own opportunities!

*Thirty-seven*! Good golly! How did he do it? At 37 I'm surprised he had the mental acuity to leave the house to show up for rehearsals! Did he have to wear Depends through every scene? Could he chew his own food? Had his prostate shriveled up and died by then making love scenes out of the question?

Seriously, good on him for changing his life, taking chances, and starting over. He did it more than once, having moved from England to America in his late teens. But 37, thirty-effing-seven, now appears to be the new 57. Our youth-obsessed media (or chicken/egg our youth-obsessed youth) are shocked that you don't have Alzheimer's by 31, that you're not in assisted living by 33, that you're not shopping for his 'n' her shrouds and coffins by 35. You want further evidence? Everyone thinks that the current president, AKA He Who Moves on Her Like a Bitch, aged 71, does crazy shit because he has dementia, not just because he's a lifelong asshole with years of practice under his size 48 belt. And apparently Justin Timberlake is washed up, no longer has "street cred," and now makes "dad pop"--all at the ripe old age of 37. RIP, Justin. The Grumpy Cats of culture giveth, the Grumpy Cats of culture taketh away.

I should point out that yours truly, at the ripe ripe ripe old age of 53, emigrated to Canada. I took on a role in management, god help me, moved in with my partner, and spend my waking hours converting every measurement to metric and adding a stray 'u' to words that are already spelled correctly. I won't say I'm not somewhat exhausted from the effort, but I suspect that has more to do with six months of winter hibernation and too much meaningless, operational work. Would you like fries with that Zoom meeting reservation?

So maybe 53 is the new 29? Yeah, sure, let's go with that.