March 1, 2024 – Prosper, TX
Now that I’m retired from radio I’ve kept busy writing a weekly online column about radio. I get to sleep four hours longer than I used to and I work at home in my sweats but I’m still focused on radio, just from a different perspective. Nothing wrong with that but I want to expand my world so I’ve been exploring some options.
I have been thinking about going back to school. I never graduated college, maybe I should go back and be the one old fart in every class. Still mulling that over.
Writing fiction is my passion and though I can string words together nicely I don’t know anything about the craft. I wish I had gotten a writing degree when I was young but I didn’t. Now I’m looking into some online classes but they’re expensive. And what I do know from my experience is that in the end you still have to be willing to do the work. I’ve been mulling that over for decades.
The other thing I would love to do is act. I did plays onstage for 20+ years when I was much younger. At the time, when castmates of my age were trying to get professional acting careers started I said, “I’m going to wait until I’m old. You see the same old people in movies and on TV all the time. There aren’t many of them. I’ll wait until the competition is dying. ”
I have arrived. No, not as a professional actor, I have arrived at old.
I signed up for a free subscription to a casting call website for actors. Some of the jobs are unpaid, and some claim to pay very well. They all describe the actors they’re looking for, mostly young people. Over 50 is rare and calls for actors over 70 are nonexistent. That’s fine, I never expected to burst into Hollywood in a leading role at 72. I figured background acting (still referred to as “extras” if we’re honest) and maybe a sentence or two here and there would be great fun.
But here’s what dawned on me this morning as I was looking at the casting notices and writing courses:
Creativity is imagined to be a young person’s ability. All the websites I’ve looked at for writing courses feature pictures of happy young college types. Casting notices are the same. For some reason, our society assumes brains wither as bodies age.
Years ago in my 40s and 50s, I entered some playwriting competitions and was incensed to find contest entries restricted to “young playwrights”. Some actually specified “under 30”, or words to that effect. It pissed me off, and rightly so. I just lied about my age. It’s none of their business, right? I don’t have an expiration date.
Not incidentally, I won four of the half-dozen playwriting contests I entered.
(Paul McCartney, now 81, was asked ten years ago if he shouldn’t consider getting off the stage and letting younger performers have their place in the spotlight. “Fuck ’em,” he replied. “Let them work their way up like I did.”)
Here’s my point, and I think this may surprise you because I’ve written several ageism rants in this blog over the years. That, in itself, makes the point: I’m still learning and so will you.
I have gotten to an age where I don’t think ageism is a big deal. It’s a state of mind based on the perspective of the observer. It’s normal and natural, and sometimes it is reasonable and warranted.
I can’t portray a man in his 40s no matter how much time I spend in makeup. I’ve talked about this recently on the radio, about radio. You can’t hire a 60-year-old on-air personality for a Hot AC music station, you just can’t. 30 years is a lifetime. Inevitably the old guy is going to impart some of his life’s lessons into his shtick. Just as inevitably, the young audience will roll their eyes and say, “Okay, Boomer.”
This is how life works. When we’re young we think old people are stupid because they’re old. Old people think young people are stupid because they’re too young to know what they’re talking about.
They’re both right.
I understand the need for laws banning hiring discrimination of all kinds but you can’t legislate reality. Life experience and perspective can’t be ignored. It’s the result of personal growth through aging. It’s what keeps us fascinated by learning and passionate about life.
I’m a fat old fart looking for a TV or movie walk-on. Hell, I can even deliver lines believably.
But don’t tell me I’m too old to write. I’ll kick your young playwriting ass.