I’m the Gloomy Boomer and I’m back blogging. But it’s been hard, knocking out a post. Mainly because I’ve been distracted lately with decisions I’ve been pondering.

Old Man moves.

Not Barbie Doll shit. I’m happy this Barbie Doll movie is doing well. I’m surprised and delighted it’s actually a very clever movie and worth the price of admission. I’ll probably watch it when it hits the streaming channels.

By the way, Barbie Dolls have been around forever.

A Babylonian Barbie Doll from 2000 B.C.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately

Too much thinking is bad for a Old Ass Dude.

Pondering shit. Shit I need to decide. But I can’t decide. My Brain won’t let me decide. Tells me, do this. No, no, do that. Wait a minute. Do This! No, wait a minute. Don’t do this. Do the other thing, you moron.

I can’t decide what to do.

I need help. My phone Therapist committed suicide.

I could ask Ulysses S. Grant for help.

He used to give me good advice…back when I was hallucinating.

General Grant said to me, once, long ago, when I was tripping on STP, and thinking about joining the Navy, he said: “You gotta decide, Kid. You can’t waste too much time thinking about stuff. Think it through, then decide!”

He didn’t fuck around, Grant.

He kicked ass at Vicksburg.

A Bad Ass like General Grant decided shit.

That’s how he beat the Johnny Rebs.

I could use his advice.

But old Grant, he hasn’t been taking my calls lately.

I pull over and get out

There’s shit in the road. I’m stepping in shit.

My brain is closing in on me.

I gotta get away from my brain.

Run like a Brother…

The Big Brain’s calling to us. Run, Brothers, run!

I make the office

Ah, the Brain wont follow me in here.

Here I’m safe and sound.

Free of thinking and deciding shit.

I’m among fellow travelers.

The Lobotomy dude and others of his ilk…

I’m with my people.

I’m at peace.

Here at the office, Habitués know who they are and what they are.

Here at the office, we don’t do any thinking…or deciding.

We graze.

No reason to think.

Hook up your devices, grab a coffee and graze…

Graze your life away.

Old Age Moves…

The reason I’ve been struggling with my Brain lately…I’m about to turn seventy.

I’m trying to make some Old Age Moves.

Not the moves the hero of The Old Man And The Sea was forced to make.

Ernest Hemingway and Henry (“Mike”) Strater with the remaining 500 lbs of an estimated 1000 lb marlin that was half-eaten by sharks before it could be landed in the Bahamas in 1935

The Old Man and the Sea is about this Old Fisherman, Santiago, who loses his Fishing Luck. He goes eighty something days without catching a fish. Then he takes to the sea and catches a monster fish. Bigger than the fish in the picture. A fish eighteen feet long! He’s not fishing from a Grand Banks. He’s in a row boat with patched sails. He fights this fish for I don’t know two or three days until he beats it. The fish is too big to fit in his boat. He ties it alongside the boat for the sail home. On the way back, Sharks eat most of the fish. He sails the skeletal carcass back to shore. At least he beat the fish. But catching it does him in.

“In the night I spat something strange and felt
something in my chest was broken.”

A young fisherman, a boy, loves him and wants to care for him. Wants to be his fishing partner once again. But his parents wont let him fish with a man who’s lost his fishing luck.

The Old man made it back and he’ll be around for a while. It won’t be the same. He gave the big fish all the fight he had left. He’s defeated and there is nothing left but to die. Not quite yet.

He falls asleep and dreams of lions.

“Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the
sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”

Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway is describing the Old Man, Santiago, here, but he might just as well have been talking about himself. That, is, before the voice in his head, the old man voice, got the better of him, and he…well, you know how Hemingway ended up. He didn’t take a death pill. The man was armed to the teeth.

(I gotta tell you, it’s hard for me not to like Ernest Hemingway. He was a real bastard, unkind to his friends, like Fitzgerald, vain, a real bully, but anybody that writes a book like The Old Man And The Sea….well, he can’t be all bad and it’s hard not to like him.)

My Problems

My problems don’t compare to those of Santiago, a man who’s lost his fishing luck. I mean, Santiago is looking at a stark reality. You don’t fish, you don’t eat. That’s the way it goes in a Cuban Fishing village. There’s no social security, no food stamps. (This was before the Castro government stepped in with crazy pay, free health care, etc…). In Santiago’s day, you caught fish or you croaked.

Me, all I need to worry about down the road is will I be forced to dumpster dive for my meals, and if so, will I have the strength to lift the lid off the dumpster.

A small portion of the food a typical Safeway throws away every single day.

Something to fall back on

Okay so I don’t gotta dumpster dive at my age. Not yet. Though I’m looking at the food they throw away at Safeway every single day. I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind doing a little dumpster diving. I even asked Manuel as he’s wheeling the grub out back to dump it.

“You throwing that away…all that good food?”

“We must. We cannot give it away.”

“Why not…shit, I’ll take it. Let me get a bag.”

No, you cannot take it. Not here. But follow me to the dumpster. Once I have dumped it the food is yours to take.”

“Those are the rules?”

“No. Diving the Dumpster is not allowed, either. But I will look the other way.”

“You will.”

“I will, Santiago.”

“My name is Don.”

“Is that so? I was led to believe your name is Santiago.”

“No.”

Anyway, like I said. Dumpster Diving is something to fall back on in a pinch…

The Geese are with us in our dreams

“They don’t struggle. Life for them is simple and direct. Once they land, they graze, then they fly off to another body of water.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask the Lobotomy dude.

“The Canada Geese. I often dream of the Canada Geese. What do you dream of, Santiago?”

“I’m not Santiago!”

“Yet you have dreams, do you not?”

“Christ. I’m trying to figure shit out. I turn seventy this month…” suddenly I’m gushing out all this shit to The Lobotomy Dude, like he’s my therapist. “…I need to make some moves. Sell off some shit. I’m thinking I’ll buy a minivan and do some stealth camping…maybe…and if things get real bad, maybe I’ll do some dumpster diving. That’ll save me a lot on food. You know, it’s been hard trying to think this shit through…”

He’s not listening.

He’s gazing right through me.

Like Tolstoy at the end of his rope.

Then, surprise, he focuses on me.

“Have you seen the Barbie Doll movie?” he asks.

“What?”

“I was told it’s a clever movie.”

A Phoenician Barbie from 1000 B.C.