Fighting Back the Years

Let’s launch into some punches. Fighting back. I clench my fists, my arthritic fingers forming a fist, each bone painfully locking into place. It’s just a fist, you’re not being asked to do cartwheels. I just finished my daily exercise, except it’s not daily. That is the goal. We are working our way back to that fighting weight, the Gold ideal, fighting back the years, one day of exercising after another. Just keep it moving, because move it or lose it. That is the secret of these Golden Years.

If you got years, you gotta listen, old men sweat, young boys glisten. So said the Captain. The one and only Don Van Vliet. Except he said old women and young girls. We’re changing it up for the new century.

As we stumble into these golden years, we note the basement is flooded with memories. My older brother Brent once cautioned me at the start of a phone call, “I may repeat myself.” There are only so many routines. Don’t quit your day job, we used to say. Remember Pat Sajack and his late night talk show? For those too young to remember or so old they have forgotten, he had a talk show. But he didn’t quit his day job at the Wheel of Fortune.

We used to sing about that in our Jazzmanian Devil song Sayjak.

Sayjak

Put the money in the sack

Say Mis V

Say what’s it going to be

Sayjak

Put your hand on the wheel

Let’s roll!

A fan reminded me of this song this morning, asking about the upcoming show. Was Pat Sayjak going to be there? Pat is busy taping episodes. How many of those episodes in a day does he do? The answer is hidden, revealed letter by letter. Can I buy a vowel?

We rehearsed the other day. I scheduled 4 hours, we did it in three. Organized. Manny brought the charts. Ah yes, the charts. What would we do without the charts? Rely on physical memory to know where to place or fingers? I started to tell a story, and Moische cautioned, Yeah we know. We’ve heard it before. Many times. Nice to be called out by your old chums on the repetition of your storytelling. That’s ok. It’s like shorthand. We can jump to the punchline. Or start with the punchline. Or do we just get in line?

Jazzmania is a strange world where the young pretended to be old, and now they are old. We wind up the musical box, and wait for Jack to pop out. Or Sayjak. Hopefully there are no wardrobe malfunctions.

Put your hand on the wheel.

Let’s roll!