To start, I was at the grocery store this morning, stocking up on watermelon, hummus and flax seed chips for our picnic at Astoria's famous Socrates Sculpture Park on the Hudson this afternoon. It was a gorgeous, 75-degree day, and I was in a great mood. Until I saw Harrison Ford's old ass wearing a crumpled Indiana Jones hat on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Ugh. I wasn't even hungry for flax seed chips anymore.
It put me in quite a state, I must confess. I mean, that man and his grizzly white chest hair needs to give it up. Christ! the EGOS on these old ass actors! Take a page out of Wilfred Brimley's book, and play a grandfather, will you? For the love of all that is holy?
I hate to sound all feminazi and shit, but women actors simply do not do this. Perhaps I'm being naive about the Hollywood machine that puts the metaphorical bullet in actresses heads once they reach the age of 35, but it does seem to me that these ladies at least have the dignity to slip into age-appropriate roles when they're, like, sixty. Name me one actress who is still reprising a role she originated at 30 when she is 60 and I'll gladly retract this statement.
But I bet you can't.
Let's look at Stallone, for christsakes. Standing in that boxing ring, his eyes bulging out of his head from the amount of steroids he's injected into his ropy, protruding veins, he looks like he's one punch away from a massive coronary explosion.
But does that stop him from sodomizing our collective conscious with yet another Rocky movie?
NOOOO.
I have a problem with all of this, I guess. This fighting-the-age thing.
Now, take me for example.
This morning, while brushing my long brunette locks (which I have continually resisted the urge to cut for the last two years), I noticed a strange foreign glint, as if someone were perhaps creating a glare against my head by holding a small mirror against it. A closer look made me gasp, as I realized what I was looking at was a single white hair. A long, lonesome, hateful, horrifyingly misplaced white motherfucking hair that somehow must've jumped ship from some elderly bitch sitting next to me on the subway and landed on my head. Quite certainly by accident, of course.
I went to brush it away with my fingers but it would not budge. Because it was growing from my scalp.
It really and truly was.
Now.
Did I panic? Did I see this as a sign that my newly-35-year-old-ass is suddenly entering the age of Nice 'N' Easy?
No. I didn't panic.
But I did yank it out with a tweezers and take a pic for y'all.
Gross, right?
But I'm not upset. No sir, not me.
I didn't even get upset when, while getting her hair brushed out after her bath tonight, Lily stated frankly, "We have the same hair color, you and me, Mama. Except I don't have any white hairs because I'm not getting old".
Nope. Not upset. Not one bit.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to run to the Rite Aid. I have some hair dye to bye. Crap.
16 comments:
Usually I would agree with you on this one....but not Indy!
Ok, Stallone... Stallone is a little uncool. Harrison Ford? He isn't pretending to jump to the other side of whatever. He actually... CAN... jump to the other side of whatever.
Stallone can't box without being killed or hospitalized.
There's nuance here, and Sharon Stone certainly is not going quietly into that good night. I feel that with the increase of healthiness and life spans, we need to adjust our perceptions here.
Hair color be damned, chances are you are gonna rock out when you are in your sixties, and beyond.
Bunny and Scoot,
OK, I get it. We love Indy.
And Scoot, you are totally on point with the Sharon Stone thing. I totally forgot Basic Instinct 2 (humbly tuck tail between legs).
But still, she's not, like SIXTY!!!
I have no sympathy for your 1 gray hair. I've been doing nice and easy since I started going gray at 24. Okay, a little sympathy, but at least it wasn't a pubic hair. I think I have one of those now too.
Anonymous...my oh my. I'm sorry about your one pube. Who, pray tell, is this?
They could put that hat on him while he was in a wheelchair and still take in half a billion. I'm surprised they didn't try that with christopher reeve.
Underhill, it might have been tough to tie the Superman cape around his neck with that breathing tube he had.
you'll forget about that gray hair soon enough, i bet.
the elderly tend to be a forgetful lot.
I have like 20 white hairs already :0(
Jeremy, I bet you're right. I have much important things on my mind anyway. What I can remember, anyways.
Kelly, luckily gray looks a lot better against red than it does against dark brown. Damn it. Isn't Keira going to be here any second? OMG...can't wait to meet her...
man we have got to get you a better shopping list. you must be starving!
yeah they are comin out with a new indiana jones...interesting...
Yes, I would have to agree. The whole slew of the past-sexy-a-long-time-ago bunch needs to either retire or act their age. This includes, but is not limited to:
Harrison Ford
Michael Douglas
Richard Gere
Granted, they were totally hot back in the day. Who could deny how warm and fuzzy Richard Gere made me feel in Officer & A Gentleman..... But, age is bitch and gravity is an evil whore. They need not deny it any longer.
Ms. P...but flax seed chips are so yummy.
Diva...Richard Gere's got that hot old zen buddhist guy thing going on though, so I can give him a free pass. What about Al Pacino though? Eeeew.
I got all the gray hairs I currently have while I was in college. Fucking lousy-assed research-oriented university couldn't teach for shit, so I got to teach myself and earn a lot of gray hair before I was 25 thanks to those assholes. Luckily, brown hair grows faster than gray, so after a haircut I look like a silverback, but give me a few weeks and I'm all brown again. Yay!
I actually can think of a few actresses who refuse to stop playing their sexy characters even though they've grown WAY past the time when nudity is appropriate or desirable from them. Crazy Sharon Stone comes to mind, but then she truly IS crazy. Anyway, I don't think it's a sex-specific thing. I think it's a Baby Boomer thing. I think those old fucking Baby Boomers so enjoyed being the hip generation in their youth that they just can't admit to being elderly. And so we get these hilarious yet vomitful portrayals of old fogeys pretending to still be youthful heroes. This is why I admire Clint Eastwood so much. He's always saying how people keep asking him to do another Dirty Harry and he says, "what am I going to do, play an angry old retired cop running around with a .44 and a walker, wheezing as I try to chase down badguys? No thanks." And the things is, people who work in his movies say he's still in great shape and could easily play the role. He just doesn't think it's appropriate. That's a man who ages with style.
A word of advice, which is pointless now for you, but maybe I can help the next woman who finds their first grey hair... DON'T PLUCK IT!! It grows back stiff and will stick straight up! I discovered this at 21. :) Leave them on your head and pretend you want to change the color of your hair every 3 months.
I got to Harrison Ford can play indy til he's 90 and I wouldn't give a hoot.
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