Tosh at 70

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Today, I turned 70. My father died on his 50th birthday, and it strikes me odd that I (so far) have survived him for 20 years. Since my dad’s birthday/death, his passing is something I think about a lot. When I first reached 50, my thoughts were that I would immediately die, but when that day passed, I was pleasantly surprised to be still there. Nothing changed, and I’m still Tosh, and I feel like I’m 49 years old. Today, I turn 70, an age I couldn’t even imagine existed for me. I still shake and rattle to garage-like rock, with Punk overtures, and my political philosophy is somewhere between 60’s era Black Panthers and Jean-Luc Godard’s interest in Marxism. In other words, I haven’t changed. Physically, I’m not so bad off. There will more likely be health issues I have to deal with in my 70s, but that is part of growth and coping with change. So far, I have been doing that for my whole life, so there is nothing significant there. Death is closer to around the corner and very much in the neighborhood, but like everything else, and even experiencing death through others, that is not a significant concern of mine.

I’m aware of time, and I used to be more easygoing about schedule changes or the passing of moments not necessarily noted. Now, I’m aware of each minute, and I obsessively think of how to deal with time passing so quickly. I have a list of writing projects, and I don’t see how I can do it all before my body or brain collapses. I feel mentally like I’m middle-aged than a senior, but I do think being an older man is a lot cooler in the image, both visually and sexually. The odd thing is when I look at youth, especially at gatherings, I feel like I have done that and been there already. Why repeat and do the rinse again? I only ask that I age like Dirk Bogarde in his films, and I will be perfectly happy.

I was born in 1954, the year that Elvis recorded at Sun Records in Memphis, and I lived through Beatles-mania, which was really something, and nothing like that ever happened again. Of course, there are popular artists/groups, but the Fab Four were beyond a musical unity; it was more a pin-up of the changes that America was in the process of doing, and that image and music is tattoed on our brains of whoever lived and went through that era. In my lifetime, I went through Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, (another) Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. So far, I lived through and with 13 Presidents. None of them were that hot, but if I had to choose one, it would be Johnson for his work, among others, to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his Great Society. Under his leadership and vision, my family was able to receive Food Stamps. Beyond that, he also started The National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). So, here and there, my family was affected by Johnson’s Great Society.

My goals for the next ten years are to cure my anxieties and have a steady amount of money coming in, allowing me to keep writing. I have family in Japan, so I want to be able to go back and forth from Los Angeles to visit them. I also want to support my wife, Lun*na Menoh, in whatever art or music she makes. I’m a fan of her work and feel that what she’s doing and contributing to this world are essential. I also want to do more work or guidance for the Wallace Berman Estate to keep his art out and about. But back to writing, I can’t think of anything with my name attached as something so important. When I die, I die, and I don’t have strong feelings about my books being in print or not, but more to the fact that writing for me is always in the present. It doesn’t matter if I’m writing about my past or someone else’s landscape; it is the act of forming words in your head and then putting them down on paper or the computer screen. When, and if I do, reach 80, I plan to wash and rinse again and keep on doing it.