Me too old?

Long work day Sunday. Lots of downtime. I finished The Long Fall by Walter Mosely, read a few news stories on my phone, and looked around for something else. I found a recent issue of Us Weekly.

I haven't seen this publication in decades, and I was immediately struck by the fact that I only recognized one person on the cover. This was a shock. Seriously. I'm not completely out of touch. I'm exposed to cable news daily, and I watch at least two nightly monologues. I check Google news and Reuters several times a day.

It's true I don't watch TMZ, or anything on E!, and I've never seen American Idol or Dancing With... anyone (you just never get that time back), in fact, I watch no reality television at all (unless cops or opilio crab are involved) but, seriously... who are these preening children?

Intrigued and somewhat alienated, I flipped slowly through this montage of cheerful, chirpy banality, (What is this? Tiger Beat?) growing increasingly unhappy. Big, pretty pictures. Short, choppy headers and captions. Much like this sentence. (Yes, that one.) Page after page. This is who we are? This is us?

Really?

Conde Nast was forced to cancel Gourmet, but this drivel sells? Will someone please take me back to my home planet?

I was beginning to think I was just too old, and then I turned the page and saw an ad for what appeared to be a sister publication. Us Hair.

Us Hair. The world of celebrity hair.

It's a magazine. People buy it. On purpose.

Me too old? That might be the wrong adjective.

Pointless Celebrity Encounters. Part One.

It was the eighties. The non-specific, generic 1980s. Shoulders were padded, and coiffures were high. All the cool kids with cable were glued to bulbous 27" Trinatrons, where a temporary art form -- the music video -- could be enjoyed in heavy rotation. Reagan was in charge of the country. Or, rather, whoever was in charge of Reagan was in charge of the country.

I was working as a full-time graphic designer-slash-illustrator for an outsized former Green Beret medic with a modicum of talent and a soupson of patience. I enjoyed the work.

We were visiting the studio of a man named Hovis, who functioned in the advertising business in a capacity I no longer recall. I think we had produced a series of storyboards for his brother, Larry, who was in Houston to pitch a proposed syndicated game show to one of the network affiliates. I had never met Larry Hovis, although his brother was a reasonable facsimile.

For those who know Houston, the studio was in a converted three-story house, spitting distance from Baba Yega. Make up your own joke. I like Baba Yega.

The house was huge. And yellow. It might have been a boarding house in the twenties. In the eighties, however, it was a collection of small studios and offices sharing a pair of large restrooms on the second floor. It was in one of these restrooms that I met Larry Hovis.

When I entered the room, he was leaning over a stainless steel sink, rubbing wet paper towels over a dark blue ink stain on the pocket of his white shirt. He looked at me in the mirror, and his ears turned bright red. He smiled sheepishly, and shook his head. There was a nervous laugh.

A few minutes later I was at the adjacent sink, washing my hands. Hovis continued rubbing the stain, which seemed to only get bigger.

"I have a meeting," he said. Another nervous laugh.

"Maybe your brother will trade shirts with you."

This was when he realized I recognized him, and the redness in his ears spread to his face. He shook his head again, either to reject the suggestion or merely to dispel nervous energy. It really didn't matter. All he was really doing was making a stained shirt wet.

And, all I really knew about Larry Hovis was his role on Hogan's Heroes, and his first game show, Liar's Club. That, and the fact that my boss sometimes got work from his brother. But, I liked this flustered little guy at the sink, mechanically engaged in a hopeless pursuit. He reminded me of me.

"Anyway." I paused at the door. "Break a leg."

That suggestion seemed to calm him down.

I found myself in an argument last night at Lovejoys, with a guy who insisted that Ted Kosinski was not a sociopath. He also kept reminding me that I was older than most of the other customers in the bar. My age seemed to be an issue.

At one point, he tried to fabricate a Vietnam vs. Iraq competition, suggesting that, because of my age, I represented the older war, which, in his mind, was nothing more than a footnote. Since neither of us had ever been in combat, it was a pointless and idiotic conversation, and I declined participation.

Eventually he was cut off and skulked away. I was allowed to stay, even though I was the idiot who had been arguing with him.