Priorities
As mentioned in a previous post, this is my Birthday Week. Most people just have Birth Days. Sometimes less, depending on how they feel about it. If they’ve been dying their hair and having a bit of reconstructive surgery done, and especially if they’re working in Hollywood in almost any capacity, they may deny having birthdays at all.
I know pyrotechnicians who dye their hair and lie about their age. That’s how paranoid people are about graylisting. And in truth, they have reason to be.
I dyed my hair for a while, just like everyone else who works in Children’s Television and is afraid of being perceived as “no longer able to relate to our target audience.” I was also encouraged by my agent at the time to become a “landed Canadian” since Canadian writers were in demand due to some technicality of Canadian subsidies. It actually would not have been that hard; I knew people that did it. And I certainly have nothing against Canadians. Hell, I was married to one for a while.
But I looked at myself in the mirror one morning and I thought “Y’know what? This just ain’t me.”
I’m an American, born and bred. And I was born and bred a significant number of years ago; enough of them so that my hair has a certain lightness of color that I can no longer claim is “ash blond.” It would be different if I was an actor, making a living on my looks; or if I was for some reason deciding to move to another country on a permanent basis. Then sure, dye my hair, or change citizenship, or both.
I’d love to have a good, solid reason to live in a cool foreign country, though I doubt they’d want me. But to sell out who I am just as a gambit, a dodge, a way to hopefully make a bit of extra money by discarding a few principles… well, where to you stop? Where do you draw the line? At what point, bluntly, do you become a whore?
Personally, I decided not to find out.
This is just my opinion, and only as it relates to me. It certainly doesn’t apply to women. Hell, from what I can determine, nothing applies to women, especially my wife. If you or anyone you know has started trying to look younger via artificial means and/or has become a landed Canadian for business purposes and they are fine with it, then I am also fine with it.
But as for me, I am openly and enthusiastically having a Birthday. And it lasts all week. Because that’s how I roll.
— Bob out
