‘From an early age, getting old always felt like it was sneaking up on me’

During my teen years, on the odd occasion in which I smoked, rather than taking my cues from men like Humphrey Bogart or Danny Zuko — gritting the butt between my teeth like I meant business and ashing often with forceful taps — I chose to smoke like David Bowie, circa 1972, allowing my cigarette to hang limply from my lips, pretending to be too whacked out on goof balls to care that my ash was six inches long.

My obsession with ’70s Bowie, a languidly, androgynous glam rocker, wasn’t something that troubled my father so much as it simply wasn’t anything he could understand. Buzz Goldstein preferred singers like Joe Cocker, men who delivered their lyrics as though painfully screaming them from a locked toilet stall. In his day, liking someone like Bowie would have been the domain of degenerate officers in old movies about Nazis. But to this day, whenever I’m over at my parents and Bowie’s on Entertainment To

night, my father will call me over and say, “your pal’s on TV,” at which point we will both sit silently watching the screen, each of us wondering what the other could possibly be thinking.

Now at the age of 45, I think I understand what he was thinking. It was probably something along the lines of “I don’t understand anything anymore.” Because that is my thought as I watch the Katy Perry Superbowl halftime show.

From an early age, getting old always felt like it was sneaking up on me, suddenly 15 when I thought 12 would last forever. At 16, I already felt past my prime, that life had passed me by. “How old was Jimi Hendrix when he was declared a genius?” I wondered. “And I can’t even play the guitar yet.” For the record, I still can’t.

At 23 I thought, “what a weird age to be. Nineteen was cleaner somehow, had more songs celebrating it.” At 24, I couldn’t imagine how awful 29 would be, so close to 30 — contaminated by 30. And then I was 32 and pining for those late twenties. At 34 I began to go bald and thought, “What is the use of success of any kind now without my hair?” I believed a photograph of myself on a book jacket would only repel and depress the young.

At 35 I thought, “This has got to be it! How much more aging can a person take?” And then I was 37 and believed myself firmly in the domain of the absurd. “Thirty-seven is like juggling eggplants. With boxers around your ankles!” And then the years get cramped together. Small and quick like cockroaches. 39, 40. 41 and 42. 43. Even the word itself sounded stupid: 43.

Now 45, I’m old enough to know that aging is a privilege denied to many, that in life there are no guarantees; but I’m also young enough to learn to play guitar and headbang. Even if the head being banged is a bald one.