Paul McCartney, Tom Waits, Johnny Carson and Peter Pan on aging

As I look at my graying muzzle in the mirror I wonder if I’m at a crossroad. There was a time when people guessed my age to be much younger than I was, but as I enter my 40s it’s looking less and less like I belong on the set of “21 Jump Street.”

Does Sir Paul McCartney feel too much
pressure to maintain the brand and remain the cute one?

Thanks to my flat caps and round wire-rimmed spectacles, I’m looking more like I belong amongst my favorite Moveable Feast writers from the 40s: Hemingway, William Carlos Williams, Samuel Beckett, Langston Hughes.

This metamorphosis wasn’t a conscious change on my part. I just looked in the mirror one day and it was like Eugene O’Neill was looking back at me.

If I were to shave my beard and get different glasses, I would look younger. But what would be the point? Taking it a step further, wouldn’t putting energy into looking younger eventually be to my detriment?

As Paul McCartney dyes his hair and continues to shout, “She was just 17 and you know what I mean” into microphones around the world he is looking sillier and sillier.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I would bet that my favorite remaining Beatle is feeling immense pressure to fend off the flow of time.

I’ve had my own Peter Pan complex through the years. I thought snow on the roof meant a brittle mind, so I fought against the idea of aging.

Enter Tom Waits, a throwback crooner in a porkpie hat who embraces all things old. To hear him sing “you’ll have a head start if you are among the very young at heart” is a blessing and a curse.

The snarl and crack of his voice illustrates all too well that none of us are going to get out of this world alive. But beyond the deterioration is something else—a hint of the light coming through the cracks.

Getting to the light in this case seems to mean accepting my fate. If I can’t turn back the clock, there really is no crossroad—just the chance to compose myself, get my bearings and proceed with dignity.

In his autobiography Steve Martin credited Johnny Carson’s longevity to a kind of dignity that one gets from knowing and accepting who they are. It’s what let Carson go gracefully through the years.

Have you seen Sarah Jessica Parker, Bruce Jenner, Madonna or Mariah Carey lately? You can only keep things together for so long.

Getting back to the Tom Waits example, I used to think the man who intentionally inserted the sound of vinyl’s pops and clicks into his CDs was the farthest thing from my Peter Pan vantage point.

Now with the advantage of age-given wisdom, I see him singing “Young At Heart” in a whole new way and I am thinking that spackling your face and dying your hair not only eats away at your time and money, it also gnaws away at your psychology.

Mental health professionals will tell you that giving mental energy to things you can’t change is a sure path to depression. Isn’t holding yourself to an artificial ideal doing exactly that?

Shouldn’t McCartney look more like a gray bard who has weathered a life on the road by now? Doesn’t he deserve the respect that would come with that?

We do have to pay the price of time, but who defines what that price should be?

Brandi Carlile: Doing things her way means staying young at heart

Fans may be used to Carlile's versatility. Her musical palette has always included country, rock, folk, pop and gospel — often heard within the space of just one song -- but the handclaps and bright background vocals on "Bear Creek" are another story. Her latest endeavor is decidedly upbeat.

Q: A lot of [lyrics] on the new album seem like they are from a kid's point of view. Is there a child that you were thinking of when you were writing the songs?

A: In general, I think me and the twins sort of have a childlike essence about us. We don't have regular lives or regular jobs and when we get days off we do childish things—jump in the lake and go fishing and try to find frogs and we go to Disneyland. We like to ride roller coasters. There's a part of us that's really in touch with that because in some ways we haven't exactly had to grow up and act like we're adults. You ever read the book “The Little Prince?” I love that book. But, it sort of speaks to that mentality. I turned 30 when we were writing the album and I think all of us do generalize, where we're kind of finding ways to bring that sort of childlike essence into our adult lives. Those kinds of things are coming out in our songwriting, for sure.

Q: Between the last studio album and this album, was there something you were thinking you wanted to try or do differently on the new album?

A: Not consciously, but in retrospect I could see how that happens. Our first three albums on a major label were all sort of in this pressure cooker of an industry, like when you're in school or you're starting a new job for the first time, you're just learning a lot of hard lessons and you're trying things that are difficult. There's this labored feeling — our records definitely aren't labored in a negative way. But I do feel like this record was free of any of that, just because of the absence of a producer and the fact that we recorded it in a town where there is no industry. It just felt very free and raucous and fun and despite the somber connotations that are attached to the songs in the lyrics, there is an element of fun. Maybe that was where some of this childlike essence is coming from.


Q: My son is 5. My wife was talking to him about singers and she told him there are stars and legends. He wanted me to ask, when are you going to be a legend?

A: I want to know the same thing. I think I would have to be at least 60 years old to be a legend. You have to earn that title.

Q: I'm thinking about “Just Kids” on the latest record. That keyboard-based, atmospheric song sounds very different from the other songs on the album. I can picture that song on an experimental electronic album.

A: Yeah, yeah. I love that song.

Q: But when you turn something like that in, do they look at you like, “Hmmm, where's the acoustic guitar?”

A: If you give 'em three to work with they let you kinda go crazy on the rest of the record.

An entry from my journal (picture)

On creativity and Brandi Carlile's new album, Bear Creek

Some people are able to separate the art they enjoy from its creator. They don’t care if a singer has mob ties or if they are at home popping pills and shooting their television in their spare time. I am not one of those people. When there is a singer, poet or artist that I like, I find myself worrying about them, hoping that they are able to keep their muse hanging around.

In order to keep the muse close at hand an artist has to chase their passions. This gives them a sense of purpose. Then they have to create enough space in their life that they can fan the flames of their curiosity. Eventually, they learn how to tie these components together into a process that works for them.

This is how any of us can remain engaged in our lives and feel young at heart. And this is exactly where I found Carlile during our conversation. On her fourth studio album, “Bare Creek,” she sounds comfortable with the skills she’s honed. Simultaneously, she is breaking new ground.

Read some of that conversation in tomorrow's post, taken from my latest interview with Brandi Carlile.

haiku that George Swede said was a "bull's-eye."

hills turning quietly to sky —

This poem was published in Frogpond and then "picked for praise in the Re:Readings" to appear in the spring/summer issue. A great email to get from the great haiku poet, George Swede!

When I'm on vacation the simplest things appeal to me

When I'm on vacation the simplest things appeal to me: the sounds of crickets in the trees, a breeze coming through the window, even the skyline above another town’s mall can look exotic.

Whatever book is in my backpack, whatever drinks we order sitting in whichever restaurant, all of it has the power to make me smile.

Why can't I get that same kind of satisfaction at home? When I am at home I am surrounding by my favorite things: my CD collection, favorite books, foods I like fill the fridge.

How is it that—more often than not—I take all of this for granted?

This Is Just To Say, poem by William Carlos Williams

This Is Just To Say (1934) imagist poem by William Carlos Williams.


I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

The hours we keep

“I have discovered that most of the beauties of travel are due to the strange hours we keep to see them.”

New Jersey poet, William Carlos Williams