I was at the Whaler last weekend. Big surprise. I know. There was a very interesting gentleman who sat down next to my drinking partner Colby at the bar on this rather ordinary Sunday. His name was Mad Dog. Obviously it wasn’t his real name. He worse cargo shorts, flip-flops, a Hawaiian shirt, and a red skull earring dangled from his left ear. He had to have been local surfer dude back in the 70s. He was with a woman who I am assuming was his new main-squeeze because they got into a little tiff about the women he used to date. (Apparently she wanted to know about his old squeezes.)
He ordered a drink which I can only assume he invented, appropriately titled a “Mad Dog.” It was comprised of Jameson and milk. Shaken, not stirred. Not sure about you, but milk and alcohol doesn’t really seem to want to hang out in my stomach together, but this guy took like four of them right to the dome.
Anyway. What struck me about this guy, and what sparked this posting, was his skull earring. He had to be in his sixties, and he was still rocking it old school. I love his commitment to style. Neither age nor changing fashion would stop this man from killing it in his favorite stylee.
The question I asked myself was (which many of you can presume): What will I be like when I get older?
Can you imagine it? Say I’m fifty-five years old. Obviously I will still have any and all tattoos I decide to get plus the art I currently have. But what about my earrings? What if I decide to stretch them more?
Imagine I’m still sitting at the Whaler, big holes in my ears, rocking cut off shorts, a tank top, nipples pierced, listening to loud and fast music, cruising around Venice on my bike on any one of the gorgeous Sunday afternoons which arrives during that decade of my life. My local Venice compatriots still yelling “Mallick” as I enter, as if I was Norm arriving at Cheers just in time to have a cold Stella slide across the bar to quench my afternoon thirst.
Imagine my friends there with me. Will Pascual still go by Murderface? Will J-mar still be J-mar? Or will he make all his contemporaries call him Jason? What nicknames will come and go with the years?
It’s very strange to look that far into the future and wonder where we will all be and who we’ll be friends with and who will be married and who will leave town for families or whatever.
Whatever is about to happen, I’m not too worried. Life right now can’t really get much better. It’s another B-E-A-UTIFUL weekend in Venice. The Phillies are playing in Game 3 of the World Serious, in Philadelphia. (A little rain delay pushed the game back a few hours, but what can you do?) It’s Mike C’s and Johnny’s last weekend in Venice before they head back to NYC to complete this season of Flight Of The Conchords, so we’re gonna hop some bars, grabs some beers.
I leave you with one simple thought:
GO PHILLIES!!!!
It’s like we never knew each other at all…
