The other day I heard this song in a cafe and thought “it’s really sad they don’t make music like this any more”. Damn it made me feel old to know I’ve started thinking this way.
What makes you feel old?
Or talk about whatever.
Open thread
by DougJ| 105 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
elmo
What makes me feel old?
My stepdaughter, whom I met when she was barely two years old, is now 29, married, with twin stepdaughters of her own. That makes me feel very, very old.
c u n d gulag
What makes me feel old?
Well, I’m 55, so, every damn thing makes me feel old.
But especially when the children of some of your favorite athletes when you were young, retire themselves, then you feel really, really ancient.
Mr Stagger Lee
When NPR did a story of the 40th anniversary of Seseme Street, damn that made me feel old.
John M. Burt
Telling someone about local history, and noticing how large a fraction of it I can remember personally.
scav
three flights of stairs
flukebucket
I caught myself riding down the road going about 45 in a 55 and listening to Frank Sinatra. I looked in the rearview mirror and it looked like I was leading a funeral procession. It was at that point that I first thought, my God I am an old man.
maurinsky
I feel old when Turner Classic Movies shows films I saw in the movie theater when they first came out.
I’m good with 3 flights of stairs – it’s the fourth one that kills me.
srv
See, you 2nd Amendment haters, the free-market is quite capable of coming up with practical solutions.
shortstop
Seeing the “You must have been born on or before this day in…” signs in liquor-purveying establishments. I’ve been refusing to look at them for years.
Amir Khalid
The President of The United States of America is younger than I am. (By only two and a half weeks, but still …)
cleek
arthritis
khead
Hooping in the over 30 league. Hooping with the neighborhood kids who called me “Pops”.
Edit: Calling playing basketball “hooping”.
cathyx
I started feeling old when I got a gray eyelash. Of course I plucked it, and now I feel young again.
Yutsano
Having both my hips need to be replaced. Getting the bionic hardware is enough to make anyone feel old.
Michele C
Remembering Watergate as news not history.
Actually, per Kay’s earlier post, hating Scalia when he was appointed (which was a while ago now).
Oh, and, yes, music like that. Definitely. I met a university student who had never heard of Motown. I was actually speechless, mouth open, dumbfounded.
Omnes Omnibus
Accidentally finding myself in a college bar. And that is not so much feeling old as feeling that it isn’t my scene anymore.
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: He’s not much older than I am, and the same age as my sister, but I find that exhilarating, not sad.
On the other hand, when I ended up in the ER after a bad car accident a dozen or so years back, I looked at the circle of young faces above me and wondered where all the doctors were. Then it hit me that these people had medical degrees.
Comrade Mary
@Amir Khalid: Same here, but the gap is about 6 months. He has more grey hair than me, though.
clussman
What makes me feel old?
The people that report to me that call me “Old Man Clussman”
The stiff leg I wake up with every morning
The sound I make when I’m trying to get off the couch
The fact that I’m clueless to half of popular culture now (mostly the under-25 half)
My gray beard
My kids
I could probably spend a good chunk of my afternoon on this list. Worst part: I’m only 39.
shortstop
@Comrade Mary: Sister, five years in the presidency with this Republican caucus and an endless supply of slack-jawed critics would turn your hair white, too.
Michele C
@shortstop: Yeah, seriously. The cigarette ones particularly freak me out. Honestly, 18 years ago does not seem that long ago to me.
Violet
Meh. I’m already feeling down. Don’t need to add the I’m ancient mournology on top of it.
clussman
I used to live in the Bahamas. I was 26 when I went to a club during Spring Break. I was cutting through the dance floor to get to the bar when a girl bumped into me. She turned around, saw me, and said “Excuse me, sir.”
I kept right on walking. Past the bar and out the front door, got in my car and drove straight home where I proceeded to have a glass of milk and went to bed.
That was the first time I felt old.
Ben Cisco
My knee sounding like a bowl of Rice Krispies when I get out of bed.
Also, remembering when Rice Krispies was a thing.
Gray mustache hairs on ONE side of my face. (OK, that makes me feel old AND weird).
JWL
I knew I was getting old the first time I saw a cop and wondered, “Why on earth do they let a kid carry a gun and badge?”.
The old chestnut, “how old would you guess yourself to be if you didn’t know how old you are?” is always a decent barometer. Some days I still feel a spry 21, other days I’m the old man of the mountain.
Schlemizel
I have lost nouns. I can complete any sentence, no matter how complex, as long as there are no nouns in it.
The aches & pains I can accept but being stopped in mid-sentence because I can’t remember the correct noun of what-is-name or that thing-a-ma-bob is driving me nuts
Amir Khalid
@srv:
As I remember, bulletproof vests can stop a bullet but don’t diffuse enough of its kinetic energy to keep an adult from, say, breaking a rib. That much kinetic energy might do much more serious harm to a first-grader. I wonder, is such protection really beneficial for small kids?
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemizel: Use “fucker” as a replacement noun. People will think you foul-mouthed not forgetful.
? Martin
So, who will be first pundit to compare Tebow being released from the Jets to Jesus being crucified?
Schlemizel
@clussman:
The first time I knew how old I was we were at the mall & there was a group of kids in letter jackets. From their graduation year on their sleeve I was able to deduce that they had been born the year I graduated from High School.
Ben Cisco
@? Martin: My money’s on Nooners.
gogol's wife
Funny thread. I spend a lot of time with 18- to 21-year-olds, so I feel old constantly, but also they keep me young in a strange way. But when a student giving a presentation had to explain who Greta Garbo was, and clearly all the other students really, really needed his explanation, I felt quite old.
The first time happened a long, long time ago, when I asked a class to tell me who was the president who said he had “lusted in his heart,” and they looked at me with blank incomprehension of something I thought was common knowledge.
? Martin
Oh, and on the topic – I’m not in bad shape for a 44 year old: 5’11” and 160 lbs. But a weekend of working on the yard irrigation has left me damn close to being unable to move – there isn’t a single muscle I can identify that is not screaming at me right now.
shortstop
@Schlemizel: And why nouns?! I never lose verbs or adjectives. Not even adverbs.
ranchandsyrup
Aching back after a day at the waterpark with my daughter.
Michele C
@Schlemizel: See, I try to blame that on learning too many languages, so how am I supposed to remember if that’s a chaise, kursi, uija, chair, or kiti. I’m not sure I’m not just hopeful though.
The Moar You Know
The creaking and groanings of my body; whatever the hell biological horseshit that insures I can no longer get a good night’s sleep, a nagging sense that I should not have spent twenty years of my life as a debauched, promiscuous second-tier almost-famous musician, but rather as a forest ranger. My expertise at obsolete technologies. Kids that have never heard of Motown. Or Van Halen. Military guys that I work with that think of Vietnam in the same way I used to think of World War II. Or World War I, for that matter.
And the body count. That’s something that nothing prepares you for, that starting in your forties people you know start dying off, and it ain’t a one time thing, that number of ghosts that will forever follow you just keeps getting bigger every year.
Comrade Mary
@shortstop: You have obviously never met my ex-husband :-)
Michele C
@Amir Khalid: That much kinetic energy could certainly knock the kid over, causing his/her head to crash into something that actually kills him/her. Or, as I assume you’re also saying, smash his/her little spleen causing terrible internal bleeding. Or, or, or.
Terrifying.
oldster
Hey, look, I can tell you a million reasons why I’m old.
But loving Marvin and Tammi ain’t one of them.
The music they made for Motown simply *is* classic. Recognizing that doesn’t make you old, any more than recognizing that Bach wrote some good tunes makes you old.
Furthermore, we are still living in the shadows of Motown–half the damned rap songs ever recorded were based on rhythm tracks laid down by the Funk Brothers, or the JB’s, or by people who played with them. (Even Rick James got his start with “Gordy Records”, a Motown spin-off. And once you include the “Superfreak” groove, you have a good quarter of rap grooves right there.) Ditto for Winehouse and Adele–I love them both, but it’s all just hand-me-down Motown.
So: it’s really sad they don’t make music like this anymore. But that’s not because you are old. It’s because they don’t make music like this anymore, except when they are shamelessly ripping it off.
handsmile
Mailings from the AARP. Being asked whether I’d like the “senior discount.”
(“I’m years away from such things,” he protests, waving his cane. Maybe it’s the white hair.)
Getting out of bed each morning is a vexing reminder. As is…um…uh…wait a sec…what’s it called….I know this….
fuckwit
@Schlemizel: That happen to me too. I can’t stand it. I feel like an idiot.
Then again, as I get older, the details seem to all blend together, the nouns change but are insignificant, and the PROCESS, the verbs, seem like the only thing permanent and meaningful.
People are people, and haven’t changed in over 100,000 years. The details change but don’t matter. The process is still the same.
It is said in Chinese culture that the wise are Confucian in good times, Buddhist in bad times, and Daoist in old age. THe older I get the more Daoist I get. It’s all just a process, a Dao.
Violet
Since it’s an open thread, turns out God doesn’t like Tim Tebow all that much. The Jets aren’t picking up his contract.
? Martin
@Schlemizel: Yeah, that started for me about 3 years ago. Damn annoying.
shortstop
@The Moar You Know: The increasing body count really does suck. Before, it was improbable accidents or unusual illnesses. Once you hit 40, people start going down from cancer or heart disease and you can’t really call it a freak thing. Too young, yes, but no longer in the realm of highly unusual.
Cacti
That I’m 1-year away from my 20th high school reunion.
That I have visible gray hairs now in my temples and chin whiskers.
IowaOldLady
What makes me feel old? Yesterday, an online friend mentioned “Fergie’s” wedding and I thought she was talking about the woman who used to be married to Prince Andrew. Nope. Turns out it was a singer for the Black Eyed Peas.
I am so old.
catclub
@flukebucket: Were you wearing a hat?
bemused
When the age I feel I am in my mind doesn’t resemble the age of the person I see in the mirror. Oh well.
Cassidy
Jesus…sounds like I need to set up a Metamucil stand. I’d make a killing in here. How about some organic prune juice? Do I need a license for that?
Michele C
@IowaOldLady: Thank you for making me chuckle out loud at work. I really needed it today, as I’m about to quit my job but the boss has been on such a long lunch that I haven’t had a chance.
Ken J.
People I don’t know keep calling me “sir.” The white hair must have something to do with it. I look in a mirror and someone approximating my late father looks back, except he wasn’t as fat and didn’t have a beard.
To steal from Atrios on music: The distance between today and “Please Please Me” is the same as the distance between 1963 and Archduke Ferdinand being alive.
Comrade Mary
@shortstop: Sandra Shamas on losing nouns.
Cacti
That I’m closer to 50 than I am to 21.
Comrade Mary
@Ken J.: I hate you. Or Atrios. Or both of you.
scav
@fuckwit: Luckily, my random noun substitution unit was installed early, in near single digits. Stuck on swap-with-same-first-letter setting, but no matter. Any further degredation in the system is just put down to more-of-the-same personality quirk.
DFH no.6
In keeping with DougJ’s “pop” music vein, what makes me feel old (mostly because I am in fact fairly old, pushing 60 and all) is going to Coachella to catch some really excellent new music. So far I’ve been to about half the Coachella music festivals (first one in ’04) including the most recent a couple weeks ago.
The old 60s, 70s, and 80s stuff has nothing on the music kids are making these days. There’s more good, and even great, music of the overall “rock/pop” variety being done today than ever before. Sure, plenty of crap, too, but it has been ever thus.
So, what makes me feel old being at Coachella?
Well, being in a crowd mostly made of scores of thousands of twentysomethings, for one.
And needing to occasionally sit down on the grass in the course of three 12-hour days in the sun and fun, for another.
Used to be I could just plop down on the ground, and pop back up, whenever I felt like it, without a thought. Now I have to carefully consider what body part I put where, both on the way down and on the way up, like on old game of Twister.
Maybe someday I’ll be of the mindset of “music was sure better back when sometime” like the majority of my Boomer cohort seems to be. But not just yet.
shortstop
@Ken J.: A lot of people I know hate being called “sir” or “ma’am.” It doesn’t bother me at all. (Well, no one calls me sir.) Half my family’s southern and thus I never associated those honorifics with advanced age…more with not knowing the person and wanting to err on the side of respect. Like not calling an Italian woman “signorina” unless she’s REALLY young.
Baron Elmo
There is still good old-school soul being made, Doug… you just have to dig for it.
In particular, fans of vintage Motown should drop a tenner on a used copy of Raphael Saadiq’s The Way I See It album from 2008. He has that Motor City sound nailed. (I’ve fooled oldsters with it more than once.)
For the harder stuff, check out damn near anything on the Dap-Tone label. A special fave in my crib is 100 Days, 100 Nights, by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. If you can score a early pressing, you’ll get a bonus full-length Dap-Tone sampler CD called Binky Griptite’s GhettoFunkPowerHour, set up like a late-60’s radio soul show (complete with fast-spielin’ DJ), like no one does anymore. Good god!
Okay, now that’s something that makes me feel old — hearing mainstream music radio and loathing it. Anyone who recalls the pre-1974 airwaves will know of whence I speak.
Comrade Mary
@DFH no.6: Did you catch Grimes? I feel old that I only heard of her, but not her music, until the last week or so.
Oblivion
Genesis
shortstop
@scav: That was a clever, and far-seeing, move on your part.
The third baseman once sent me a text that said, verbatim, “Honey, I left the [noun] in the [noun].” How sad that I was able to fill in the blanks with no trouble.
Mike E
Looking around at a Rush concert, the Grace Under Pressure tour, and being the oldest one there as far as I could tell. I was 20 years old then.
shortstop
@Comrade Mary: Funny!
Mr Stagger Lee
@? Martin: I forgot to watch Skip Bayless’s reaction. Here it is Bayless is delusional! Jacksonville Jaguars!?!!!! BAWAHAHAHAHA!
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken J.: @Comrade Mary: Franz Ferdinand is still around. I don’t know WTF Atrios was talking about.
ranchandsyrup
@Comrade Mary: Grimes is awesome. My wife’s current obsession.
Comrade Mary
@Omnes Omnibus: Ha! Very cute, boychick.
Just found this FF and Debbie Harry gem recently.
clussman
@Schlemizel: Oh yeah, kids graduating from college this year were born the year I graduated HS.
Amir Khalid
@shortstop:
Now that you mention it, another thing that makes me feel old is twenty-somethings calling me “uncle”*. Even though, at just shy of 52, I know I’m easily old enough to be called that.
*In Asia, this is the informal but polite way to address a man roughly your dad’s age.
Mike G
I work on a college campus, so everything makes me feel old. This year’s freshmen weren’t even born when I graduated college.
Also, mentally losing track of entire decades, confusing things that happened 18 years ago with events of 8 years ago.
The Moar You Know
@Mike E: Saw that one, I was 18. Seen ’em all since 1980. Been to one recently? Lotta families, but the thing I was a bit surprised by is that NOW pretty consistently about 30-40% of the audience is Hispanic guys my age. Didn’t know Rush was so popular with the Mexicans.
There’s a band that earned their fanbase the hard way.
flukebucket
@catclub:
LOL! No. That was all that was missing I guess. Once I snapped out of my day dream I did at least push it up to 55 MPH.
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: Would it help if you resolved to be the fun uncle who lets everyone stay up late and eat candy if they promise not to tell their parent/your sibling?
Flying Squirrel Girl
Realizing I am now too old to die young.
Amir Khalid
@shortstop:
Alas, the nephews and nieces are outgrowing that stage even as we speak.
lojasmo
I did a 5 K trail run, and walked 10K this morning.
I feel old.
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: But there’s a never-ending supply of younger people calling you Uncle in the street! You could get your second wind!
Kyle
We’re approaching the time when college students will have been too young to have personal memories of the turn of the millenium, or of 9/11.
Origuy
I discovered last night that I can order off the senior menu at IHOP.
gelfling545
Pretty much everything, but then, I am old.
Cassidy
Hehehehe…oldz. lol
Omnes Omnibus
FWIW I am happy to finally be getting some gray hair. I am old enough that people were going to start presuming that I was coloring.
Clussman
Another one…
My nephew is married and my niece is expecting. I still think of both of them as little kids.
gelfling545
@srv: Driving down a street in one od the main commercial areas yesterday I spotted a sign in front of the local paranoia (spy & security goods) shop:
Bullet-proof your child. Attend our free seminar.
I guess there’s a buck to be made off anything.
GlenInBrooklyn
As I’ve asked contemporaries: When did we become our parents?
PurpleGirl
Watching an old Criminal Minds; one of the guest stars is Cybil Sheperd. This makes me feel old right now. Cybil Sheperd was the model du jour and taking classes at NYU when I was there. Not that she knew me, but we took a Shakepeare Survey course together.
jl
“What makes you feel old?”
Right now, life is doing a good job.
But, having a bad Monday, so hope I’ll snap out of it soon.
Ben Cisco
@Cassidy: A warrior’s drink!
JCJ
@Amir Khalid:
Ha! I get the honorary “uncle” from The children of my wife’s friends in Thailand. I am 51 and I do have nephews in the US and nieces in Thailand who call me uncle but it definitely has some bite knowing the context when it comes from people who aren’t relatives.
TriassicSands
Physically? Getting up in the morning.
Mentally? Nothing. Or at least nothing I can think of…or remember.
ruviana
I identify with almost all of these. Things I expect my students to know as referents are unknown to them. They were fairly young during 9/11. They mix up Viet Nam and the Civil War (they’re both really really a long time ago). But what makes me feel YOUNG (but is actually a mark of aging) is that the age indicating “old” to me is going up. “He’s 75!” Oh, that’s not so old. Now 81–that’s OLD.
Gravenstone
@Cassidy: Son, do you have any idea how much it hurts to get smacked about the head and shoulders with a cane? Keep that shit up and you might just find out.
First time I jokingly felt old was when the Playboy Playmate of the Year (Penny Baker) was younger than my little sister. I was only 21 at the time …
Now, it’s seeing all my HS classmates on FB talking about their damned grandkids. *sigh*
Joey Maloney
What makes me feel old? Being old.
That, and training with my local Roller Derby league, a posse of fit young women half my age.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
When I was in my late-teens/early 20’s and my older cousins started having kids and/or family friends had young kids, they’d dub me as “uncle”.
I felt honored to be considered so “mature”.
Now…meh…
What makes me feel old is looking at 20-somethings with full beards. Most of the hair on my head’s not grey yet, but my beard’s 75% grey, so though I sometimes want to grow out a beard, I don’t because it just makes me look sooooo much older with all the grey hair.
I hate the 20-somethings, who haven’t started greying yet and can get away with beards and no Just For Men.
Kathleen
@oldster: Amen!!! Marvin and Tammy’s music was some of Motown’s best (love the Funk Brothers, too). What really makes me feel old is when my almost 40 year old daughter posts a Facebook rant about how today’s music can’t hold a candle to 80’s music (Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson, et al). And the fact my oldest grandson is a junior in high school. And that I nod off in front of the TV every night. And when people at races tell me, “I hope I’m doing what YOU’RE doing when I’m YOUR age.” One young whippersnapper told me I motivated him to run faster because I was ahead of him in a race and he couldn’t bear the fact that “someone my age” would beat him. Oh, yeah. Sigh. (Plop face into gruel).
Ruckus
Having high school kids pass by while waking back from the store calling me gramps. What really hurts is that if I had had kids at 21 and my kids had done the same, my grandkids would be older than that.
Ruckus
What makes me feel old?
Wondering what the hell 75 is going to feel like if this is what 64 is like. The last 10 years has been going downhill at a rapidly increasing rate and I just wonder if the next 10 keeps up at this rate, am I likely to exceed the speed of sound in body part failure?
jharp
“What makes you feel old?”
Not being able to hold farts. And really not caring 98% of the time.
nicteis
What makes me feel old?
Too many weeks away from my grandkids. They rejuvenate me.
Being able to remember when most Republicans weren’t buried six fathoms under Loon Lake, that’ll do it too.
dance around in your bones
@nicteis: I live with my grandkids. They make me feel old.
They have so much energy, it wears me out! 6, 4 and 2, all boys. Jehoshaphat, it can be exhausting. I love them all but – I am not in my 20’s anymore, or even in my 40’s, like their parents (who also seem exhausted at times. Face it, kids are exhausting at any age).
There’s a couple more factors that I have shared here before, so I won’t inflict them on y’all again. Plus the body kinda breaking down. Damn.
mvr
When Joe Strummer died. Depressed me more than lots of things that were more personal.
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
Never threaten physical violence. Just do it.
I always use the “You’ll be sorry sooner than you think” line. And “If I’m still around when you reach my current age, I’ll laugh my ass off the first time you say one thing about being old. Fucker.”
Thymezone
“What makes you feel old?”
I dunno, being old?
Roger
Everything makes me feel old.
Mr_Gravity
I am older than my grandfather was when he died.
And the distant memories I have of him were mostly that he was very old.