Bruce the Blog

ROUTINE OR RUT?

I used to think 60 was old. But things change. Now that I’m on the cusp of my sexagenarian era (gotta like the way THAT sounds), I think 60 is r-e-a-l-l-y, r-e-a-l-l-y old.

Turning the corner on a biophysical (is that even a word? quick check of the Googleplex says … Yes!) decade, though, does have some usefulness.

As the reflexes lose a step, their synaptic message to the ol’ gray noggin is that it’s a time for reflexion (which, yes, is an alternative spelling of reflection, once again verifiable in a nanosecond thanks to Eric Schmidt & Co.).

I’ve been reflecting on doing things right the next 20 or so years (give or take a few years, acknowleding there but for the grace of medical science go I at some point in my sunset). The right things for me are the things I haven’t done right enough the last 59 years.

Let me ask you: Do you do the same things every day in the same way, or do you vary your pattern — knowingly or unwittingly? This notion struck me for some unknown reason as I was getting into my car this morning for the second time after picking up my java at 7-Eleven. (Sometimes, it’s Starbucks, when I’m feeling more socially adventurous, but of course you pay for that gregariousness. 7-Eleven is ideal for austere coffee consumption; Starbucks (accent on the second syllable) feeds the appetite in some of us for liquid ostentation: what good is getting overly caffeinated unless you can check out who else is overpaying for the privilege.)

In wintertime in my advancing years, I forsake my younger bravado when I shedded topcoat and paraded around in sportjacket and sporty scarf studiedly tossed about my torso to look like I’m not overly concerned with how I placed it when of course I am self-consciously concerned about how the devil-may-care accessoryware looks to observers. Funny how pretentious scarves can seem, depending on whom they adorn, where and when. Definition of scarf: poor man’s ascot.

My day is a string of routines within routines. Out of bed, coffee, shave-in-shower, make bed, pick out clothes, after-shower grooming, bag food for office, collect briefcase and articles for office, hat/coat/scarf/gloves. Garbage or rcycles. Wire hangers deposited in garage for later disposal.

In car, ignition, seat belt, sunglasses, earpiece, mobile phone placed in dash, pull out of garage, stop in driveway, affix seatbelt.

Sometimes, the sequence changes, but such movements become so reflexive and unconscious, you easily forget the details an hour later. It’s like the times we’ve all driven home from wherever, typically later at night, when upon arrival at destination, we realize we can’t mentally retrace where we just drove. It’s a black hole of time.

Let’s hope the rest of my years aren’t a black hole. That would be a tad depressing.

IF THIS GUY THINKS DICK CLARK IS OLD, WHAT DOES THAT MAKE ME FOR FONDLY RECALLING THAT LOMBARDO GUY?

A recent article in The Rupert Murdoch Journal (nee Wall Street Journal), part of the standing column “Moving On,” addresses the question of whether New Year’s Rockin’ Eve perennial host, 80-year-old Dick Clark (whose real surname is the same as his given name, per the archival student directory I have of his and my alma mater Syracuse University, which is to say, Dick Dick) is brave to stick with it even after a stroke a few years ago, or whether it’s more a matter of bravado that is wearing thin on the televiewing audience. In other words, should the once-ageless but now clearly aging “DJ” himself be “moving on”? Now that’s what I call the rare question that is at once pertinent and impertinent.

Ouch! Ouch! and Double Ouch! That’s how this angle struck me. I’ll tell you why (or why would I be blogging?). If “Moving On” byliner Jeffrey Zaslow (who, judging by the Journal’s quaint line drawing of his visage, looks 40-50ish) posits Clark as arguably too ancient to symbolize the newness of the next calendar, I pondered, where does that leave maturing youth like me (who’s probably only a decade or so older than Zaslow), who still thinks of Clark as the successor to Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, whom I more closely associate with the traditional New Year’s Eve on Times Square Ball. (And how is it after all these years, no marketing wordsmith had the obvious thought to call one of those televised dance soirees just that … The Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball? Duh!)

Or maybe somebody did and I just missed it, like I missed attending MTV’s first New Year’s Eve Party just off Times Square (I think it was 1981, MTV’s first year of existence), notwithstanding my excitement to even get an invitation (as editor-in-chief/co-publisher of what was at the time the first hobbyist magazine for the VCR generation). I arrived fashionably not long before midnight, but there was such a mad crush outside the venue (maybe it was the Hammerstein Ballroom, but I don’t think it was called that at the time; or maybe the old Astor Hotel?), with everybody else also holding invitations, I realized any effort to wait outside to try to get inside was futile.

Who knows? Maybe I went back to my apartment on 2nd Avenue at 23rd Street in the rent-stabilized ($550 a month for a spacious one-bedroom; those were the days) Cooper Gramercy and watched Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve instead. But I seriously doubt it.