RICKSTER IS THE COLUMNIST FOR THE WEEKLY PUBLICATION, "THE SOMERS RECORD"

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Monday, February 11, 2013

OUT FOR COCKTAILS

I like to go out and have a cocktail on a Friday night, but I can't stand the fact that everyone at the bar is half my age, and they seem disdainful that people older than they are cluttering up the place. I feel vaguely like a chaperon for a school field trip, like I should be over near the door checking everyone’s permission slip. Every generation thinks that they will be the first one not to age.

So I Googled "over 30 bars," and through the magic of the internet, over thirty bars came up. I changed the search to “bars for older alcoholics and/or people that don’t know how to use their own cell phones” and came up with a bunch of jazz bars and wine bars, totally inappropriate for me. I ended up at the same place I usually go, and I realized that “over-30” is still 20 years younger than I am.

Once in a while I see a mother out with her daughter for one of their birthdays, posing for self-photography with an outstretched camera, a timeless memento featuring both of their faces and one of their forearms. Mom looks at me as if I was planning to eat her young, and I scoff at her. I’m not going to eat your stupid baby, lady, I have gum.

I asked a girl if she wanted to dance, and to my surprise she said yes. She was pretty good at it so I watched her for a while, then found myself a beer at the bar. I don't dance very often, usually only if someone is shooting at my feet, or if a Michael Jackson song comes on, an old one that he recorded when he was still alive. It always amazes me how many songs people come out with after they are dead. I flail around on the dance floor in a haphazard way, moving various body parts to perfect rhythm in conflicting and disturbing directions, like a traffic cop at a twelve-way intersection.

In the tiny bathroom I am trying not to make eye contact with the attendant; the bathroom is
THE most inappropriate place for small talk (“Sooooo… How’s it hangin’????). I wash my hands and he hands me a paper towel. I tip him a dollar and I realize that paper towels in nightclub men's rooms are the most expensive anywhere. He looked thankful that the bathroom did not have a hand blower instead. What would I tip him for a blow in a nightclub men's room? Remind me to look that up somehow.

A chick came up to me and yelled, "TOM PETTY!" Jesus, really? Have you taken a good look at
Tom Petty? I may have the hair, but the guy has buck teeth and no chin; he looks like a chipmunk. No offense, because he is one of the most prolific songwriters of my time (Tom Petty, not the chipmunk), and when all is said and done people will realize how many great hit songs he had. They will also realize how little we got done.

I'm always getting told I look like a famous person. Someone once said I looked like Todd Rundgren. Seriously- Todd has a long, rubbery face that looks like it was made of Play-Doh then left for many years on a planet that has much more gravity than ours. The last time I saw him he was wearing a skirt, which was fine, but for god’s sake SHAVE YOUR LEGS. A guy recently said that I look like Paul McCartney, and I’m not kidding you can ask my wife. The only thing I have in common with Paul McCartney is that during the 70s we were both rumored to have been dead. Even a cartoon character I apparently look like: Shaggy from Scooby Doo, Where are You? I had an animated response to that one. A couple times I was told I look like the guy from “Dumb and Dumber.” “Jim Carrey?” I asked. “No, the dumber one.” Thanks.

Incidentally, the part of Scooby-Doo was played by voice actor Don Messick. “Mom! Guess what! I got the title lead in a network show!” Not content with that, he landed several other major network characters, notably, Astro the dog in The Jetsons, Muttley the dog in Wacky Races and Boo Boo the bear in Yogi Bear. Scooby-Doo’s name was originally to be Too Much, but programming executive Fred Silverman changed it, reportedly after Frank Sinatra’s scatty ending to “Strangers in the Night.” Thank goodness Fred Silverman was not a huge Little Richard fan, or the show would have been named Whomp Bomp a-loo-Bomp, a Lomp Bam Boom, Where are You?

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