PhotoDude.com

Fri. Sep 20, 2002

Today in History

Today in History – A year ago today, I was talking about Fear versus Confidence, a piece that holds up pretty well given the events of the past year. Two years ago, I was on a Quote Binge, focused on a topic I didn’t even mention a year ago, when it seemed even more irrelevant than it does today.

Nonetheless.

The following semi-celebrities have birthdays today: "comedian Anne Meara is 73. Actress Sophia Loren is 68. Bassist Chuck Panozzo of Styx is 55. Singers Gunnar and Matthew Nelson of Nelson are 35. Drummer Rick Woolstenhulme of Lifehouse is 23" [...] "Reid Stott, the editor of a Web log called PhotoDude" [source] is 44.

”Old men are dangerous: it doesnt matter to them what is going to happen to the world.”—-George Bernard Shaw

Well, it’s nice that at the age of 44, someone still considers me dangerous. Even if he is dead. And then, there’s the comforting words of H. L. Mencken: ”The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.” Of course, he also said, ”The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

For the most part, birthdays long ago ceased to be any kind of a big deal for me, as Samuel Johnson said, ”The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.” But I have to admit it was a nice surprise yesterday at the studio of Michael West, where I arrived to a special greeting, and a flaming eclair (which would also make a great band name, e.g., George Michael and the Flaming Eclairs).

What more could an old man want, at least that’s legal and won’t kill him?