MANICHAEAN
09-20-2011, 11:56 PM
A DIRTY OLD MAN.
Doha Airport Lounge 8.9.11.
11.35pm.
What does it take to become a dirty old man? An obvious requisite is to be of an adequate dotage with an appreciation of the opposite gender that precludes any consideration of age difference. Why are there no “Dirty Old Women?” Perhaps there are. Are they those that go under the exotic name of “cougars?” If so, there is still not that denigration applied to an older gentleman with a nubile young bit on his arm.
The problem with being a dirty old man is that it creeps up on you. Mentally, you still think like a 20 year old stud, but then invariably there comes a stage, ( look at Hugh Hefner for example), where the mind makes appointments that the body can’t keep, whatever the quality of product being dished up.
I was always a great fan of the American comedian George Burns after Gracie had died and he based his humour upon his great age. “Why do you play around with young girls George?” was one interviewer’s question. “Because I can’t find any my own age!” was the checkmate riposte. He laughed straight in the face of advancing years and achieved a mental equipoise denied to many. “I know how to treat a lady,” he was once reported as saying. “I invite her back to my place in Beverly Hills. A candlelit dinner, good wine, haute cuisine & a piano being played in the background. At 11pm its time for me to say goodnight, go to bed & I leave her to the piano player!”
When I broke up with my first wife, I never forgot what my old Dad told me. “Go and get yourself a young bit of stuff son.” Perhaps a Harley Street psychiatrist would have recommended the same and charged me an arm & a leg for the consultation. As it was, I took Dad’s advice and it was as sound then as it is today. A younger woman keeps you young. Ten years difference in age I find to be quite appropriate. Anything more than that and you are helping them with their homework.
Edward Gibbon had a great line somewhere in “The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire,” where referring to a Byzantine potentate he informed us that the aforesaid gentleman possessed a library of 1,600 books and a harem of 200 concubines,” all of which he proceeded to elaborate “ were designed for usage as opposed to ostentation.” Bless his cotton socks. He was the sort of writer that could find humour in the Book of Job.
Doha Airport Lounge 8.9.11.
11.35pm.
What does it take to become a dirty old man? An obvious requisite is to be of an adequate dotage with an appreciation of the opposite gender that precludes any consideration of age difference. Why are there no “Dirty Old Women?” Perhaps there are. Are they those that go under the exotic name of “cougars?” If so, there is still not that denigration applied to an older gentleman with a nubile young bit on his arm.
The problem with being a dirty old man is that it creeps up on you. Mentally, you still think like a 20 year old stud, but then invariably there comes a stage, ( look at Hugh Hefner for example), where the mind makes appointments that the body can’t keep, whatever the quality of product being dished up.
I was always a great fan of the American comedian George Burns after Gracie had died and he based his humour upon his great age. “Why do you play around with young girls George?” was one interviewer’s question. “Because I can’t find any my own age!” was the checkmate riposte. He laughed straight in the face of advancing years and achieved a mental equipoise denied to many. “I know how to treat a lady,” he was once reported as saying. “I invite her back to my place in Beverly Hills. A candlelit dinner, good wine, haute cuisine & a piano being played in the background. At 11pm its time for me to say goodnight, go to bed & I leave her to the piano player!”
When I broke up with my first wife, I never forgot what my old Dad told me. “Go and get yourself a young bit of stuff son.” Perhaps a Harley Street psychiatrist would have recommended the same and charged me an arm & a leg for the consultation. As it was, I took Dad’s advice and it was as sound then as it is today. A younger woman keeps you young. Ten years difference in age I find to be quite appropriate. Anything more than that and you are helping them with their homework.
Edward Gibbon had a great line somewhere in “The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire,” where referring to a Byzantine potentate he informed us that the aforesaid gentleman possessed a library of 1,600 books and a harem of 200 concubines,” all of which he proceeded to elaborate “ were designed for usage as opposed to ostentation.” Bless his cotton socks. He was the sort of writer that could find humour in the Book of Job.