Another Tooth Bites The Dust

Getting old is not pretty.

And it's pretty damn weird.

This week Nathan Hubbard disconnected from Ticketmaster. And I didn't care.

Don't get me wrong, Nathan's a friend of mine. I'm concerned for his future path. But once upon a time the shenanigans, the comings and goings of the music business, were my lifeblood. But now I know CEOs come and go, and very few are remembered. It's the way of the world.

Same deal with the records. So many of those albums I drooled over in the sixties and seventies will never be heard again. Certainly not after I die. Yes, you've got a better chance of lasting if you're an artist, but that does not ensure longevity.

Kind of like this summer's movies. I read a great article about them. How you can't even remember this summer's hits! It's not a whole hell of a lot different in the music business. Top Forty songs are fodder, they go up the chart, fall off, and deleting them from your hard drive is even easier than trashing the physical product. Then again, with streaming you never have to own it, you've got no investment, so if you abandon a record or an act...c'est la vie!

But when you're younger everything's so damn important. You're still figuring out how the world works. It's all brand new. Then it gets old, and you die. Would it be different if we lived to 120? Would the arc change, would we still be invested in the evanescent or...

The bottom line is you age and your body just can't do it anymore, never mind your mind. You've got aches and pains. And the reason the original band can't get back together is someone is sick. It's like we're all Yugos, built to fall apart, in a zillion different ways. And some people can't even afford a mechanic.

So I'm trying to figure out where I'm going. I ain't got time to waste. And there are plenty of people doing just that. What's important?

And I was contemplating all this when I noticed a sensitivity in my tooth.

Huh? Another one? I'm still not sure the one on the left side, fixed in Colorado, is copacetic. I've been chewing on the right side and then...when I brushed my teeth the cold water made me jump. When I ground my teeth...I got sensitivity. But I'm a hearty chap, I can tolerate pain. But when I was eating a salad for dinner last night and got the pain, and it returned when I went to brush my teeth, I wondered...did I need to do something about this?

I'm the king of anxiety. I'm going out of town next week. Is this just a fantasy, psychosomatic pain, that is here today and will go away?

That's what I want to believe. I want to believe there's never anything wrong, and if I just tough it out, I'll prove it.

But that's gotten me into a lot of trouble.

So I bounce between being unable to sleep, staying up until the crack of dawn when I can call the dentist, or forgetting about the whole damn thing.

The dentist... Mine is in Alaska, boating. He's not back until September. And his old associate started up his own practice, should I call that dude?

I became completely paralyzed. But when I crunched on a piece of cauliflower at Whole Foods and got the pain I felt I needed to do something. But I couldn't. So I called Felice.

Her issues are completely different. She can be calm, cool and collected. She said she'd go to the dentist.

So I decided to do this.

At quarter to four on a Friday afternoon.

He couldn't see me today.

He doesn't work on Monday.

I'm solidly booked on Tuesday.

Could I come at 8 or 8:30 tomorrow morning?

Huh?

I'm a late night person. This is like asking Tom Waits to do his act at 10 A.M...

But at least they were willing to see me.

I called Felice again.

I called back and said I'd come at 8:30.

But now they said 8 only.

Huh? What happened in three minutes on a Friday afternoon?

And I know not to push, but I asked again, and they said I could come today at 5, but I might have to wait.

SURE! I'll wait all day! Just don't make me get up in the morning!

And I didn't have to wait at all.

And at first the dentist couldn't find the pain.

But he had the wrong tooth. I had the wrong tooth. I told him it was the second from the back.

But it was in the rearmost position. And there was a crack. Deep and...

Got to give this guy credit, he gave me a whole education, and I won't bore you, but just get to the bottom line.

I either need a crown or an implant. And the odds of a crown working are 30%.

So he shaved down the tooth so I wouldn't grind it and sent me on my way, with an appointment in September and...I'm still in shock.

I'm always wondering. Did I play it right? Did I make the right choices, did I do enough research, would someone else say something different?

And don't bombard me with your guy or your snap judgment. I'm invested.

But that doesn't mean I won't keep contemplating the situation, keep running the facts and the possible scenarios through my brain like a PGA golfer analyzing yesterday's mistakes and trying to suss out tomorrow's cup placements.

So what does this mean? Do I have to give up trail mix?

I did. For months.

But I decided to go back. And it was the day I went to the market and bought some that I got this pain, Sunday ten days/two weeks ago.

I mean I don't smoke and I don't drink and I can live in denial, but...

Did you see that guy Allen Lanier, of Blue Oyster Cult, died? He smoked himself to death.

And I'm on this health thing more than anybody I know.

But I seem to have more problems than anybody I know.

Then again, seemingly everybody I know got cancer in the last two years. Oh, that's an overstatement, but it was prevalent, and as Led Zeppelin put it...your time is gonna come.

You're gonna die. Sure as shit. We used to love you, but it's all over now.

And some people are rewriting history. They coulda, if the world weren't stacked against them. Hey, the world's stacked against everybody. If you think the winners lucked out, you've never played the game.

And some delusionally still believe they're gonna win, even though they can't because they're either afraid or don't know how the game is played.

And some just invest in their kids. And I'm into that, we're all just animals after all, isn't that what David Byrne sang? Just as long as you don't go on pontificating how great your progeny are, I'm cool. Tell me you're watching TV with them, having a laugh, then I feel like I'm missing out.

And then there are some who try to deny aging. You know, they get plastic surgery and exercise ad infinitum, as if God and biology were listening.

They're not, just in case you're wondering.

And the one thing you don't want to do is miss out on opportunities, you don't want to live your whole life and end up with regrets. And the dirty little secret is it takes your whole damn life to do one tiny thing, just maybe. And too many people are trying to do everything and accomplish nothing.

But the closer you get to the destination, the less it means. Money, power, they're worth something, but not everything.

Hell, there was a great Steve Wozniak article in "New York" magazine. Kim Kardashian called him to do a favor for Kanye. Woz was game, but he didn't know who Kim was and had never heard any of Kanye's music. Yup, you think you're so damn important, with photogs bugging you at LAX, but the truth is most people don't care. If you're doing it to impress others, boy are you wasting your time.

So, we baby boomers want to believe we'll be young forever.

But this is not true.

But equally weird is we're living longer than previous generations. What do we do with the time when we don't want to hear the music, don't want to go to the movies and know that the younger generations, still beholden to the cardboard reality constructed by the media, have already written us off.

I'm trying to figure it out.


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