I wasn't going to write up anything, because Clark was more of an influence on my parents' generation than my own. They called him "The World's Oldest Teenager," and I liked that. I would dig being called that too, as long as it was a compliment and not, well, the truth.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4gJWFGvwredgZMX-Uy33dclSCfpzwGkrb2HhZTOQ1W6SdEgBiXPz7rJGoxUZtvyeF32uKcpb3QNWCIVRcXNnJgksCLpnu-VizoflNhCfkwwwG5Z931T0Zgh4PHPSvbtcAJ_3x/s400/Dick+Clark+Then.jpg)
And that's the thing, the reason I decided to go ahead and blog about it: Dick Clark is significant for me because he was the voice of New Year's as a child, and as an adult, he was sort of the ghastly voice of inevitable death.
I remember that year a post-stroke Kirk Douglas spoke at the Oscars, or the year (1996?) that Christopher Reeve came out in his wheelchair and-- You know, that's a much better example for me. Reeve was frigging SUPERMAN, for Zod's sake, and to see him unable to walk, wave, or even hold himself up was like a wake up call to morals everywhere, telling them "As you are now, I once was. As I am now, you soon will be."*
That the eternally young Dick Clark could be ravaged by time, and struggle with making his jolly New Year's greetings understood was a not-so-subtle reminder that we are all bound for the grave, and that, sooner or later, it'll be us mumbling our words, or on that slab, or in that oblong box.
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The second? What is that dark figure standing just outside your peripheral vision? Turn, look directly at it, and it's gone.
But one day, it won't be.
One day soon.
Rish "Mister Brightside" Outfield
*I saw this on a headstone in a photograph once, and it nearly caused me to brown my Fruit of the Looms.
P.S. In trying to grab a photo of Dick Clark for this post, I was informed that I had done a pornographic picture search and had to enter my birthdate. I wonder how many others had that problem at work today.
1 comment:
Getting old does suck - but it beats the alternative.
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