How To Kick Your Old Age In The Ass And Rise Up Like A Rocket Ship
First off, don’t listen to these sharpies on T.V. trying to sell you shit that’s gonna get rid of your E.D. or flush the bad chemicals from your gut or cure your stage 4 cancer or infuse you with a brand new youth. Fuck youth. You don’t need youth. You’re old. Be old. Don’t let the punks fuck with your head.
Here’s the guy you should listen to:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
1914-1953
Okay, granted, he didn’t make it to old age. No big deal. That aint my point. You can make it to old age. No problem. Just don’t put up with the old age shit. Don’t admit it. Bury your head in the sand. Fuck em if they can’t take a joke.
The beauty of youth is overrated
Look at these punks. Fresh as dew kissed daisy’s on a bright morning.
Kind of makes you sick to your stomach, right?
Beauty sucks when you take time to look at it. Nothing but clean skin and firm eager bodies. Makes you want to toss them out with the green bananas. Or those Avocados you bought at a buck a piece and they never ripen properly.
Toss them out!
Then get yourself a hat like this one.
You think I’m kidding? I wear this hat.
put on the hat.
Put on the hat and take a real bad picture of yourself.
Stare at the picture.
Stare repeatedly at the picture. Stare at the picture until words of rage spill out of you,
“I’M OLD AS HELL AND I’M BAD!”
“I’m bad. I’m not just bad. I’m glad I’m bad. I’ll find a big stick and kick your ass.”
“Understand rubber band?”
Then, go and find yourself a big stick.
Carry that stick around with you like you own the street.
Because you’re old.
You’re old and you do own the street.
People get out of your way.
Shit. Even Crips and Bloods get out of your way.
They know you mean business.
That’s the beauty of being old. You mean business!
Let the shit happen to other people
That’s right. Let the shit happen to other people. They want to get old and fester let them. Don’t accept the fact that you’re old and festering. Bury your head in the sand. Go out and scream I’m old and I don’t give a shit. And while you’re at it, scream, I’m fit as a fiddle, motherfuckers!
Wave that big stick.
You can do this no matter what shape you’re in.
You can have stage seven or eight eczema compounded by a heart that beats like a badly tuned banjo and your feet are wiggling like water baloons. The fucking priest is waving his stupid palms in the air. Your cousin you used to beat up is spewing heartfelt bullshit. Somebody whispers, “Oh, god. Look at him, poor thing. Oh, my god. Oh, god. Oh…”
And it’s now when you need to rise slowly from your hard pillow and shout,
“I’ll dance on all your graves, you bastards!”
That’s what you need to do.
You need to practice it. Don’t wait until they’re emptying your closet. Staring at all those youth pictures you hoarded. You need to work at RAGE now while you can still cash a check without getting permission from a conservator.
Practice makes a bad ass. Believe me. I’ve spent my entire life pretending to be badder than I actually am. And I think I’ve come a long way. Nobody at the rest home will fuck with me.
Nobody fucked with Vincent the Chin, either….
Choose a vice and stick with it
This will legitimize your badness and contribute to your rage.
A gambling addiction is great for promoting rage. Especially if you’re a loser. Which you are. You’re a loser so get mad and scream at people.
Pick whatever vice you like.
Booze, for instance, is a popular one.
And easy to facilitate.
Working her way into a real bad rage stupor.
Still young and pretty but she’s doing her homework
Tequila! This guy’s got energy. I think he beat the shit out of somebody in the parking lot.
This pathetic old mooch screamed at me because I wouldn’t serve him thirds. So I did. You see there? Rage works. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease….
This old fart’s 95.
I’m taking lessons from him because he knows how to smile while he twists the knife.
That’s right. I’m serving booze to the old farts. All day long at good old Safeway. Giving out booze to pathetic codgers and others with sinister motives. Yet this is not my vice.
I’m the gloomy boomer
My vice is writing these posts on how to improve your old age.
I’m doing this because it’s my vice. But I’m also doing it for you!
I’m a river for my people.
I was gone for a while…
I’m back into it now. I had to lay off until the Psych tech cleared me of charges.
I’ll be posting more as l figure out my next move.
Stay mad.
You earned it.
6 thoughts on “How To Kick Your Old Age In The Ass And Rise Up Like A Rocket Ship”
love this one!!! Rage on motherfuckers….
Hurah Hurah Hurah!!!
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Omg !!! đđđđđđđđđ
I’m not even kidding around….heh, heh
As a wanna-be poet in the MFA writing program at Columbia University in the 70âs, e.g.: Mark Strand, W.H. Auden, Carolyn Kizer, and Galway Kinnell, I stood at the White Horse bar in the West Village sipping my Roy Rogers, or the equivalent in those days, wondering why, at 37, Dylan Thomas, with his honey-flowing fountain of a voice and the success of his pending US book tour before him, decided to pour the equivalent of what would become the equivalent of ethylene glycol down his throat and raze the nursery of his genius.
All these years later, after having seen friends drink themselves to death overnight (Tom, homeless, with Judy, his Barbie doll companion, with a quart of Popoff vodka, one night outside my Santa Monica studio); and coming as close as I could to my own Mount Etna without falling over the rim, I still canât answer the âWhy ?â of Thomasâs self-destruction behavior — and whose cause of death, cited by the attending pathologist at St. Vincentâs Hospital was âinsult to brain,â as I did before. Thomas was phobic of recognition and fame. He knew his Id wouldnât betray him, his Ego would. He just wanted to write poetry and hang out with his mates. Fame found him first.
When a budding reporter asked Faulkner why writers drank, he replied, âFor the pain.â
The neophyte misunderstood. Faulkner meant to keep the pain alive. Still, 37 shots of whiskey down the hatch. Thomas didnât have to kill himself all at once. Death was in no hurry. Death could have waited as it does for everyone, in time. Thomas might have, could have, would have, should have gone on to leave more of his poetry as a gift to the world and to the English language itself. He didnât. He took his own form of hemlock to silence his gift of human music to the world. True, he left us Under Milkwood, plus the novels, all the prose, and of course, the wondrous poetry. Still, the unwritten remainsâŠunwritten
âBottoms upâ I say, then realize the expression may have become politically incorrect to the voyeurs of life who thrust their spidery fingers at Dylan Thomas self-immolation, his last night on earth, saying, âLook! What would you expect from a drunken poet?â
Poetry, courage and a gift of loss, I would reply, then ask the chorus of critics: âHow many poems can you recite? Whatâs the last poem you read? Ever written a poem?â
Cr
Crane, Heine, Kees, Berryman, SextonâŠ..high-wire acrobats crossing the abyss with a pen in one hand and a paper in the other. Can you blame them for wanting to close their eyes to forget there is no other side? Weâre all going to fall. At least, moth-and-flame poets are willing to relinquish the relative safely of the solid yet-ever crumbling reality of the world dropping away behind them and everyone else as you finish reading this.
Baudelaire was lucid when he said, âStay drunk.â If his spirit flitted into a local bar today, he would be shocked to find no absinthe and stunned by seeing fifty flavors of vodka. But I would sense he was there and would arrive, to offer him my own invitation to a voyage. âViens, mon pot,â I would say, offering him a drink or two. I don’t know if they had Tequila back in France during his time.
Concerning my previous response: in describing Dylan Thomasâs fate date at the White Horse Tavern, I failed to mention Dylan
had the bartender prepare a pyramid of shot glasses which, when filled with whiskey, Dylan started to drink , one after the other, until reaching the bottom tier, he began vomiting
blood and was rushed to St. Vincent, where he expired For me, tier is a homonym