Thirtysomething...Fiftysomething

Thirtysomething...Fiftysomething

This current path is fascinating. I enjoy the irony of it; like a masochistic voyuer, I look forward to experiencing the vastness in this desert...not so much complaining as discovering...learning...and enjoying precious droplets of vanishing sustenance.

I'm inspired!

My desperation for quality entertainment has only gotten worse since I began using "Hulu" rather than regular television.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I so wish I could get past the "zeitgeist" of it, the current cultural abyss that infects everything written, portrayed, and composed. For the first time in literal years I watched "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon", just the "Madonna" excerpts because I happened upon a headline regarding her so called rebirth from the dead; an amazing spin on top of a spin manufactured by well paid media consultants that even had a perpetual cynic like me tuning in out of sheer curiosity (which tells you they earned their money).

I watched this man-child host and realized we are truly stuck at eight years old...collectively. Not only are the adults in pop culture dead, they are incinerated to ashes and buried deep in the soil, long gone. It was intriguing and I was profoundly sad...and not just for her...to see Madonna fighting with the ruthless cunning and viciousness in which she created her iconic image, now desperately and even convincingly fighting to not be...NOT be...the grand old matron; the almost used up and discarded old fogey who actually created and broadened the regressive child culture that has contaminated the entire world now. I mean Jimmy Fallon is eight years old hosting a television show! He's not even eighteen! He's eight years old, and so is his posse, and so is the audience! Not twelve...eight!

The commercials are even embarrassing to watch; cars having to be sold like they will be driven in video games, fathers being sold on thirty thousand dollar vehicles by envisioning driving them from their young child's perspective. Every product sold like it's a toy. Everything.

So, running wildly as if on fire, I stopped the insanity and searched desperately for adult content.

It took twenty minutes. I finally had to settle for 1989..."Thirtysomething" reruns. Yes, they are heavily dated. Yes, they also are infected with the latent germ of the nascent bug we now see at its maturity. Yet...though suspended in 80's big hair and suspenders, there exists meaningful dialogue, maturing introspection and writing that allows the mind to think rather than lick a Popsicle.

I forgot many of these episodes. I forgot one of my favorite, where one of the leads, Michael, struggles to rediscover his writing talent while unemployed, finds how badly it has been neglected, steals a rather personal story from a friend, and considers a job from one of his former business rivals. In this story; the story of a writer, writing about a writer, writing about a writer, I find immense joy.

Pop culture is this vast desert for me right now. I struggle with the fear of my just being a complaining curmudgeon while also realizing I am dying of thirst. I truly feel sometimes like a snob; some pretense of an arrogant elitist who portrays himself as being above it all, and yet when I try with all of my might, to enjoy what everyone else seems to be really enjoying, I just want to run screaming out of the theater! I can't help it. I truly wish I could.

And so, I end up on my bicycle, thinking my own thoughts, devilishly creating my own words, my own story and struggling to be the honest writer the character Michael wishes he were in that "Thirtysomething" episode. Tomorrow, I hope for another drink from the almost empty well, when I watch tonight's new installment of the almost dead "Mad Men", praying and pleading that it somehow keeps its legs, its depth of characters, its subtle entendres, it's hidden symbolism, rather than easily succumbing to "let's just get it over with" melodrama.

I have to wait until tomorrow because I am broke. I have no Internet and somehow, my AMC account with Xfinity was still active on my phone last week and I am hoping it remains that way.

The Thirtysomething episode I watched was, as almost every good piece of writing is in my life, so self "metaphoric". Michael comes to a crossroads and realizes his dream of being a writer is suborned by his love for his wife and family and ironically for him, the audience and profoundly, the actual author of this episode...Michael the character discovers that the best writing comes from the life lived rather than the life pretended.

So, here I sit, tapping away on my keyboard, moments away from another bike ride, riding my spare bike, flat broke, road bike hocked, terrified of losing it, yet, assessing the desert I am crossing and realizing I am writing the journey...right now.