I'm Not Gonna Lie (14 page)

WHEN
I turned fifty, I decided not to think about the future. I mean, what if I didn't
have
a future? The future is
now
, man. I live in the moment. I try to be as present as I can. I don't like to plan and I hate to anticipate. That's why, when I came across this Web site that asked people over fifty what they would like to accomplish now that they've reached this milestone—things that they'd never done but that they finally might be willing to try because it's pretty much now or never—I thought, “You know what? I'm pretty adventurous. I'm game. Let's try some of this. Bring it on.”

So, here we go.

Here's the first thing I found on that Web site list that people wanted to do. The first adventure.

“Ride something bigger than a horse.”

Okay, let's think about this.

For starters, I paid a fortune for these teeth. My luck, I'll get up on a bull or an elephant, the thing will buck and throw me, and I'll swallow one of my veneers. I am not losing those $100,000 Chiclets. I'll have a surgeon go in after it, cut me open, and pull my veneers out. I'll wash it off and pop it back on. Those teeth are expensive, man. Plus they look good.

So, what would I ride?

Got it.

I'd ride a camel.

I would.

At least I think I would.

Camels can be nasty. They spit and they sweat and they smell like shit. They also have a lot of dander, and I'm violently allergic to dander. I know I'll inhale that camel dander and start sneezing and coughing and throw my back out. I can't handle camel dander. I know that sounds made-up, but it's not. That dander wrecks me. If I have to, I'll get a doctor's note. You know, like the kid who brings a note to school that says he can't get anywhere near peanuts. I can't get anywhere near camel dander.

But there's actually something else about riding a camel that makes me even more nervous. There is something I dread.

What if I didn't fit in between the humps?

That would get to me.

Okay, I may not look fat to you—and I may not actually
be
fat—but I am fat in my mind. Seriously. I'm fat.

So, yes, the worst thing would be if I approached the camel and the camel wrangler looked me over and said, “I'm sorry. This camel won't work. Can you come back Thursday? We have a camel in Phoenix that I think would fit you.”

That would crush me.

If the camel wrangler informed me, “We don't have a camel on hand that's your size, but we can special-order one for you. An extra-large. You don't want the space between the humps to be too snug. You want some room to breathe. A too-tight fit can be extremely uncomfortable. Jostle your balls. Cause some permanent damage. You might upset the camel, too. You do not want that. So should I put through the special order?”

Yes, that's my fear: that I would be too large for the camel.

I'm also a little concerned about getting up on a camel. My first thought was that I would need a ladder, but I'm too old for that. I don't want to be halfway up the camel, he turns around, smells me, makes a face, and bolts, leaving me in midair holding on to the ladder like I'm Francois the Clown in the Cirque du freaking Soleil.

I know that most professional camel riders and people living in the desert who ride camels all the time don't use a ladder. They mount by getting the camel to sit on the ground. They make a clicking sound; then they say, “Jit, jit, jit”—which is how some Mexicans pronounce the word “shit,” so I know I can handle that—over and over, until the camel bends his knees and slowly lowers himself onto the ground.

This sounds great, except that after the age of fifty, your range of motion starts to go. When I was a kid, I used to climb trees and hop fences, no problem. I was as athletic as anyone. I even learned to climb the rope at school. Everyone hated climbing the rope. I did, too, at first. But I was determined to conquer it. Took me weeks. Every day in gym class, I worked my way up the rope a little more, then a little more, literally inch by inch, until I got all the way to the ceiling. I remember that feeling of triumph and accomplishment. What a rush! I felt like a fireman. Then I realized I had to get down. I hadn't factored that in. I came down, shinnying hand over hand, but I went too fast. I burned the hell out of my palms. I walked around with salve on my hands for a week. I smelled like an old person's ass.

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I'd be able to climb onto a camel even if the camel was sitting on the ground. I think I'd need a hoist. Or I'd have to wear a harness and have some kind of pulley lift me up, move me over, and drop me down onto the camel in between the camel's humps, assuming I fit. And then once we got going and I was up and riding, what if the camel didn't listen when I said, “Jit, jit, jit,” and the fool wouldn't sit down? What if he got pissed and went ballistic and reared up and threw me and got dander all over me and I got an allergic reaction and I started sneezing uncontrollably and my back went out?

You know what?

I'm not riding on a camel.

What's next on the list?

“Spend twenty-four hours alone in the jungle.”

Yes. Absolutely.

This would be an interesting challenge, because I'm from the city. I'm normally not a fan of wildlife or big game or rashes. I'm not a fan of smaller game, either. I've never held a frog or a lizard and I never want to. Those things creep me out. And ever since I heard that rumor about Richard Gere years ago, I won't get anywhere near a gerbil or any kind of furry little rodent. There are also a lot of snakes in the jungle, and I hate snakes. They scare the crap out of me. I also don't like strange-looking plants, even if they're full of beautiful flowers. I'm sure the one flower I touched would either be filled with poison or be the one plant in the world that had teeth.

Maybe instead of staying overnight in the jungle, I'd consider spending a night in MacArthur Park in L.A. Actually, that's more dangerous than the jungle. I'd get killed in that park. No lie. I don't know what's going on in there, but I know it's bad. For one thing, you never see anybody walking in L.A. So if something terrible happened to me in the park and I tried to run out for help, I know that there would be nobody around. It's unbelievable. How is it possible that in a city with a population of more than three million you never see any people? Where the hell are they? And all the cars have tinted windows, so you still don't see anybody. The only people you see are walking their dogs. Those people are really dangerous. You can't approach them, because they all carry Mace or some shit, especially near MacArthur Park. So, no, I'm not spending twenty-four hours in the park, because I don't want some crazy person to spray me in the face with something that I'd be allergic to and then I'd start sneezing uncontrollably and throw my back out.

Actually, wait a minute; I did see one person walking on the street.

My neighbor.

He walks all the time.

He's an older guy, my age, maybe even sixty.

He's in pretty good shape. You can tell because he walks with shorts, no shirt.

But he's old-school.

He reads a book while he walks.

Not an audiobook. He doesn't have a headset. He holds an actual book. A
book
book
.
With a cover and a binding and pages and everything.

The guy's a dinosaur.

He walks and reads. Pretty fast pace, too. Head down, eyes focused on the page, never looking up, walking and reading, reading and walking.

This guy is gonna get killed.

Cars whiz by him. He doesn't notice.

Someday a guy driving a car is gonna see this guy walking and reading, and the driver is gonna say, “What is that guy doing? What is that in his hand? What
is
that?” And he's gonna lose control of the car and jump the curb and run him over.

Death by reading.

I guess it's not a bad way to go.

Next.

“Set foot on each of the seven continents.”

Okay, this I can do.

Let's see.

I live in North America, so that's one.

I've been to Europe.

Two.

Then there's South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.

You know what?

I don't have time.

I'm too old.

By the time I set foot in the other five, I'll be seventy-five, easy. I can't plan for something that far off. This one shouldn't be for people over fifty. This is a goal for somebody in his twenties. It's like a lifetime achievement goal.

Actually, I can cross off Antarctica, because growing up in L.A., I've already been there.

I grew up in a tract house with no air-conditioning and no heater. The summers were never the problem, because the days were warm and bearable. We would have what everyone called a dry heat, but with a breeze, and at night the temperature dropped. I slept with the windows open to allow the cool air in. There were only a couple of weeks a year, usually in September, when the temperature rose and the heat hit you so hard that you couldn't move and your clothes stuck to you.

Winter, though, was brutal.

Maybe it was how our house was built, but once winter came and the temperature at night fell into the forties, the walls seemed to lock the cool air in tight with no escape. Our tract house became an igloo. Some nights it got so cold that I'd get into bed and run in place. I'd pull the blankets up to my chin and kick like I was treading water, trying to warm up the one spot that I confined myself to. Sometimes I could see my breath in my bedroom. I'd go, “Huh,” and blow out air on purpose so I could watch a cloud form from my breath. I thought, “Damn, this is crazy. I'm in my bedroom, lying in bed—in
Los Angeles
—and I can see my breath as if I was outside in North Buttrash, Alaska.”

Once I got the bed nice and warm in my one spot, I'd lie there without moving, like a corpse. Because if I accidentally rolled over in the middle of the night and hit a part of the bed that I hadn't warmed up, it felt like I'd rolled over onto a freezer door. I'm telling you, this room was
cold.

So, as far as I'm concerned, yes, I've already experienced Antarctica, every night during every winter I lived in that house.

I should've put a flag in the middle of my room, like an explorer sticking a flag in the middle of an ice cap.

Okay, let's see what else these people wanted to do after fifty.

“Cross the country on a bicycle.”

Oh, this is a must. Positively.

One hitch.

Not sure I can make it across the whole country. In fact, my ass couldn't take fifteen minutes on a bike seat. I know, because I bought some workout equipment and it sits in my house pretty much unused. I did buy a stationary bike. I tried to ride that thing. I set it up in front of the TV. I know you're not supposed to do that. Some guy at the gym I used to belong to, a trainer, I guess, told me that watching TV while you exercise distracts you from focusing on the exercise you're doing. Your mind and your body should be concentrating on the same thing at the same time. The hell with that. If I don't watch TV, I'm not doing exercise. I
want
to be distracted. To me, that's the point.

And once you get out on the road, you're taking your life in your hands. I don't want to be pedaling my ass off on my bike and all of a sudden I get blindsided by some kid driving a car texting his girlfriend asking her, “Hey, where you wanna eat and what are you wearing?”

It's bad enough that after you turn fifty, your body starts to fall apart all on its own. I don't think you should give it any help. You don't need to stress it out.

I seriously don't want to tempt fate. I don't ski, I don't run, and I don't ride a bike outdoors, because these activities are just too dangerous. I know a guy in his fifties who ran all the time. Great shape. One night he decided to go for a run. He stretched, because he didn't want to pull anything. Then he set his watch and began running. He hit the street, picked up speed, turned a corner, stepped in a hole, flew up in the air, landed on his head, crushed his skull, broke his cheekbone, snapped his collarbone, and tore up his knee. Somehow the dude lived, even though he went in, like, seven different directions at once. Forget it. Do your workout indoors.

Next.

“Run a marathon.”

Bingo. I actually have some experience with this.

I took up running right after I turned fifty.

Well, briefly.

In fact, I ran a 5K race with my buddy RJ.

RJ had been married for about a year, and like all newlywed husbands, he'd ballooned up. Put on a good forty pounds. I'm not sure why newlyweds always gain weight, but they all do. I did. It's automatic: You get married and a year later you're forty pounds heavier. And it's not just men. Women, too. It could be that you're giving off a different vibe, a married person's vibe, an unconscious signal to the world that announces, “Hey, everybody, I'm out of action.”

As soon as you make that unconscious announcement, you give yourself permission to let go. You no longer feel pressure that you have to keep in perfect shape or stay trim. You're done. Off the market. You have scored. No more sad and lonely nights. No more singles scenes. Say good-bye to barhopping, clubbing, and, best of all, your friends' horrible fix-ups. You're married now, and you're content (that's the key word:
content
) to chill out at home, watch some TV, and . . . eat.

I remember when my ex-wife and I had that first conversation about staying in. It was in the fall of 1993. The world was a different place then. We were speaking to each other.

“You know what?” my newly beloved said. “Let's not go out. Let's have dinner together here, just the two of us. Let's have steak. You run the barbecue.”