What Ever Happened to Showmanship?

"There's a party in my mind and I hope it never stops." From "Memories Can't Wait" by Talking Heads.

Besides being in my 60's and mildly psychotic, the impetus of the title of this blog, Sexagenarian Psychosis, comes from two sources: Septuagenarian Stew, a collection of stories and poems by Charles Bukowski, and Rockabilly Psychosis and the Garage Disease, a compilation album from 1984 that influenced Psychobilly recording artists such as The Cramps (The Cramps also have a cut on the record).

I voraciously read Bukowski in the late 80's who had a big cult following. Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness, Women, Post Office, and Factotum to name a few of his works. His writing is hilarious. I was underemployed at the time and could relate. Unfortunately, his books didn't translate well into film, and as a result, are downright depressing. Barfly starring Mickey Rourke comes to mind.

The Cramps were one of the best live bands from the 1980's. Notwithstanding The Name of the Band is Talking Heads, The Cramps live at The Peppermint Lounge EP, Smell of Female, is one of the best live recordings of that era. A song from that album "You Got Good Taste" was recently featured on a Michelob Ultra commercial. I'm not 25 years old, so I don't know if the song holds up, but Anheuser-Busch seems to think so. Seeing is believing. Check out the YouTube clip of The Cramps performing "Call of the Wighat" in 1983 Detroit if you want a snippet of that old balls to the wall Rock and Roll. Although "Smell of Female" isn't a politically correct phrase in the current environment, and it probably wasn't in its time either, the album is a landmark in counterculture performing arts. And yes, there was a woman in the band, Poison Ivy, guitarist and wife to lead singer Lux Interior.

You couldn't get The Cramps on traditional radio back in the day. It was definitely a word of mouth phenomena, boosted by the cassette mixed tape era. I'm not sure if their videos were ever broadcast on MTV's 120 Minutes, but they were in the same vein as those artists. There are many excellent bands that fly under the radar today, too. In Ithaca, there's always terrestrial radio with WVBR and WICB. Plus you can stream those stations if you are so inclined, but being 60 and having an older car, I just go left of the dial where you find college radio.

There's a thriving business in Ithaca that features the kind of music I prefer: Gimme! Coffee. They pipe everything from The Yardbirds to electronica and trance through their loudspeakers. Although they have locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, their home base is Ithaca with three sites in town. Besides overindulging in food, coffee is about the only vice I have left, and you're not going to get a better cup of coffee than Gimme!. The regular roast is smooth and delivers a kick, like it's got a shot of espresso added. I still enjoy a Starbucks venti dark roast with room, but it pales compared to what Gimme! has to offer. In fact, I don't frequent Starbucks except when I'm in Barnes and Nobel.

Barnes and Nobel is like an animal on the verge of extinction. I like to go there because I enjoy book stores, but full confession, I've been on Amazon for twenty years. The books are much cheaper on Amazon, they always have what you want, and they recommend writers you've never heard of with their sophisticated algos. I buy trade paperbacks and new release hardcovers at a 20% discount just to help Barnes and Nobel stay in business. Nevertheless, they're probably going the way of the record store, which would be a shame. I feel no sympathy for the management at Barnes and Nobel because they are the big box corporate behemoth that put the majority of independent booksellers out of business two decades ago. They just got acquired by a hedge fund that also owns Waterstones, Britain's largest bookseller and turned that around successfully. Let's see what they can do stateside.

If I go to Gimme!, or the cafe at Barnes and Nobel, it's usually in the slower times when it's not so crowded. Tip a dollar, too. Five years behind a counter when I was in my 20's gives me empathy. Tip jars are a relatively new phenomena, and I know the extra money would have helped me out. Let's face it, those baristas aren't making a king's ransom. They're students, artists or working class poor. I know it's popular, but I don't want to hang out in a coffee shop with a laptop like some Drugstore Cowboy. Would rather interface with people and listen to music. Realizing we are in a college town where students are writing papers, coupled with workers slaving away 24/7, I try to be objective about it. The economy is booming. People gotta work.

What I can't figure out is why is everyone on a computer? Are they like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame writing code for a new Website or mobile app? Or are they like Mark Zuckerberg hacking Tyler and Cameron Winkelvoss? Are they on social media? Texting friends and family? Maybe on a Tor site scoring black market narcotics? Just makes me wonder. It's the same way when I go to the gym with people on their smartphones listening to music with the earbuds in. They're constantly checking their phones. Even when they're taking a piss in the bathroom.

You can't escape it. WiFi is ubiquitous now. From Panera Bread to McDonald's, people are bent over gawking at their smartphones or laptop screens. It's gotten so pervasive that humans are growing horns on the lower back of their skulls caused by bone spurs from being bent over. It's called text neck. I kid you not.

Don't Bullshit a Bullshitter

"And you know that you're over the hill when your mind makes a promise that your body can't fill." From "Old Folks Boogie" by Little Feat circa 1977.

Sixty is the new forty I keep telling myself, but don't believe a word of it. My daily workouts do nothing for my love handles. They help keep me alive, but that spare tire is not going anywhere. Nevertheless, if I can buy myself twenty or thirty more years, the exercise routine will be well worth it. That's if I want to live that long. Quality of life is important, but the arthritis is starting to kick in. You start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and yes, it's an oncoming train.

All the excesses in the 1970's and 1980's help contribute to "Senior Moments" on occasion. That pie in the sky fantasy of being on Jeopardy is just that, a fantasy. Some jaded pipe dream because I'm just not quick enough anymore. It's not that I'm slow, it's just that it takes a millisecond longer to process things. Millisecond is being generous. I lost my fastball. I haven't had a drink, smoked, or, done drugs (unless prescribed by a doctor) in over a quarter century, yet I am feeling the effects of the inevitable. Just like the aging athlete pining for another shot at glory, but given your walking papers because you can't beat Father Time.

Crow's feet, laugh lines, crepe skin, and more chins than a Chinese phone book. This is the world I live in, and I don't mind, either. If you are young, you may not understand, especially the manner in which youth culture is glorified in advertisements and any other visual media. I'm still alive, and that's better than the alternative. I'm not here to adulate the Golden Years, just report some of the vagaries in seeing the song and screen sirens of my youth donning the cover of AARP Magazine, or even worse, being used as clickbait for a "Whatever Happened To" feature on a Website. What can be even worse is when these bygone celluloid divas are forty years old. That was twenty years ago for my contemporaries. Just makes you feel ancient. What's it going to be like in 2040?

I live in Ithaca, New York, a small college town in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Cornell University and Ithaca College are here along with a thriving community college. It's a young demographic with two kick-ass college radio stations, WVBR for Cornell and WICB at Ithaca College. The stations are fairly free form, so it's hit and miss with the DJ's, but when they're on my wavelength, I can listen for hours. I've preferred alternative or indie bands for the past thirty-five years. Trying to keep up with the music scene is a young person's game, but I can enjoy the music vicariously. I stopped listening to Classic Rock in 1979 when the CBGB sound and New Wave came into vogue. That morphed into alternative bands in the 1980's. I stayed with it. Led Zeppelin to a twentysomething today is like Bing Crosby was in the Jimmy Carter administration. A land far, far away.

I am not too nostalgic for the old days, but there are aspects of previous decades that I prefer over the current environment. For instance, when I was a kid, only the Marines in Vietnam carried assault rifles. Now there's a gun cult with zit faced cherubs mowing down high school classmates. Active Shooter Drill wasn't part of the lexicon. Something's got to give. There are other aspects of yesteryear that I long for, like fiction and movies, but that's just my personal preference. I still enjoy the movies, but not as frequently as I used to. I still read a lot, too, but haven't read a contemporary novel in years. In order not to sound like a grumpy old man, I am going to skim over this subject...for now.

Although it leans left to a fault (activists protested Hillary Clinton's fundraiser here in the last election cycle because she wasn't progressive enough), Ithaca and its surrounding area are a microcosm of the country. For every crunchy granola townie, there's a cracker with a Confederate Battle Flag and gun rack on his pickup truck just ten miles out of town. The same urban vs rural conundrum that goes coast to coast. From here to Portland, Oregon and Maine. What's that old line about Pennsylvania, "Philadelphia in the East. Pittsburgh in the West. Alabama in the middle.". I plan to use Ithaca as the main focus of this blog because not only is there a plethora of students, retirees are flocking here to take advantage of the cultural options of a college town without the inconveniences of a large city.

The brunt of these posts will be random observations about movies, books, music and contemporary society in a small college town. I don't know how many I will publish, or, how frequently. I've already done a few paragraphs, so that's a start. As the old Chinese proverb says: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.". Thanks to technological advances and Google Blogger, it costs me nothing but time to write this. For now, time is all I've got.