If you haven’t seen the billboards, saw the newspaper ads, watched the television or hear the commercials on the radio, if you’re completely unaware of what a rarified week this is then I’ll spill the beans and let you know that my birthday is this Saturday. 39, that’s the age I’ll be. What an odd year 39 is. On the surface it’s a nonevent, it isn’t 35, isn’t 40, it just sort of sits out there. 39 though, to me […]
Aging Hip Replacement
Aging Hip Replacement #12: Clothes Make The Man?
So I’ve already spent some column inches discussing clothes and the younger generation. This time I wanted to spend a little time talking about the clothes I wear and what I see others around me wearing. Monday through Friday between the hours of 7 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. (longer if I have to stop at the store on the ride home) I tell myself that clothes mean absolutely nothing. It’s what is inside that counts. I have to tell myself […]
Aging Hip Replacement #11: The One About The VMAs
I decided that I was going to write about something light this week. I’ve gotten a little flak from friends and family who have said my last few columns were a little too dark, a little too heady all in a row. Of course, I’m writing about my feelings of being flung towards middle age and beyond, not the happiest of experiences in my book. I wasn’t sure where I was going, started a few ideas (which all seemed to […]
Aging Hip Replacement #10: Defining Cool
“When is a person no longer interested in being cool?” That was the question asked at a business meeting I attended this week. As you know, I’ve been doing a little soul searching and research on that very topic here in this column so I was naturally interested. For some context—as you may know I work in radio. Don’t let the fact that it’s an all news radio station on the AM portion of the dial fool you: it’s still […]
Aging Hip Replacement #8: On Faith
“You are the first generation born without religion.” Douglas Coupland wrote this about my generation in Life After God. Of course he was correct. As much as our parents, many of whom were part of the hippie generation, attempted to live a nontraditional life in their youth, once they got a little older and married they fell into fairly conservative lifestyles. Church, and specifically the Judeo-Christian religions of the founding fathers, was a cornerstone of that conservatism. As much as […]
Aging Hip Replacement: I (Don’t) Want My MTV (Anymore)
So, MTV is 30. I don’t know any other channel that has had the ability to make one feel both old and completely out of touch with modern, pop society as MTV. The station has been in existence for the better part of my life. At this point we’re a lot like a divorced couple without kids still living in the same town—I know it’s still out there, I know it’s dating but couldn’t tell you word one about what […]
Aging Hip Replacement–Nostalgia Acts?
Is U2 nostalgia rock? Good question right? I’m going to see the band tonight (along with what seems like everyone I went to college with) so it begs the question, is U2 nostalgia rock? Are they The Rolling Stones? I think I can wonder this in my own column, it suits the parameters of what I write about. In my mind there are several types of nostalgia rock acts. There’s The Stones and Aerosmith. You know, bands that continue to […]
Aging Hip Replacement–What The Hell is He Wearing?
Skinny pants. That’s the dividing line for me, skinny pants. It’s where I was no longer able to understand the fashion that the kids are wearing today. I don’t mean tight jeans, spandex, leotards, tights or any other form of fashion that tightly hugs the contours of the body. I’m talking “hey check out the skinny pants I just bought at Hot Topics” skinny pants. Growing up in my formative fashion years, hard rock and later grunge ruled the airwaves. […]
Aging Hip Replacement 3: Body Betrayal
If you’ve read these last two columns then you know that I’m writing about what the aging process and how it affects us, I say us but really I mean me. I thought that my columns would all be about the heady psychological issues that are related to growing up and aging in the world but this week I’ve decided to write about something a little different—how are body betrays us as we start to get old. When I was […]
Aging Hip Replacement II: Compromise
College for me was supposed to be a stopping point on my way to international stardom. I grew up in a suburb about a half hour outside of Pittsburgh and spent most of my senior year in high school and all of the summer dreaming about getting the hell out of there and to the city. It didn’t matter that Pittsburgh wasn’t New York, it was a first step on my way to New York where real culture presided. My […]
