The Man at the Typewriter Goes Clickety Wham Bam

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Have I told you about the bad fall I took one morning a few weeks ago coming out of a breakfast café in Chicago, a café called Nookies, the morning after a show I did there? I have? Are you sure? I was coming out the door and there was a step down, which turned out to be two steps down and I crashed down on my right hip and right arm and two guys stopped and hauled me to my feet. I think what caused it was the fact it was the best breakfast I’d had in a long time. You go on tour and unless you’re Paul Simon or Bob Dylan, you stay at economy motels that serve a free breakfast of scrambled eggs that comes in tanker trucks from Hoboken and has nothing to do with chickens, it’s made from sawdust and cornstarch and recycled cellophane. This breakfast was one you’d serve to Paul Simon. Bob Dylan wrote hundreds of songs about being mistreated and misunderstood but when it comes to breakfast, he does not put up with sawdust and cornstarch.

So I told you this story already. Okay. I’ll take your word for it. When you’re my age, 103, your life spans a great deal of American history and culture such as civil rights, the women’s movement, rock stars destroying hotel rooms, the internet, Microsoft Word as a cause of bipolarity, bottled water, gender liquidity, ecology, ultimate fighting, A.I., women’s fashion that employs nudity, motorized kick scooters, Grubhub and DoorDash, urinals that automatically flush when you step away, that it’s hard for one man to keep all of it in mind.

Anyway, as I was about to say, I’ve been using a cane recently and discovering what a pleasure it is. It gives a man a sense of nobility. Dukes and barons, counts, squires, carry canes, and so did Fred Astaire in top hat and tails when he sang “Puttin’ On The Ritz.” My beloved urged me to use a cane so as to avoid crashing to the pavement, but instead it has given me a sense of superiority and elegance that, as a Democrat, I’ve been resisting all my life.

I grew up with Pete Seeger singing “The banks are made of marble with a guard at every door and the vaults are stuffed with silver that the farmer sweated for” and we empathized with the workers and downtrodden and oppressed, and now, with a cane, I feel free to wear a tux and dine at swanky joints that employ orchestras that can play “Begin the Beguine” and “Cheek to Cheek” and if I see a lonely blond at a table in the corner waiting for her beau to show, I just sashay over and give her a grin and hold out a hand and onto the dance floor we go and we start with a graceful waltz with a shuffle or two tossed in and some tap steps and suddenly I throw her in the air and we’re doing swing ballet and the waiters form a dance line behind us and then the patrons join in, old nabobs and tycoons and dowagers who a moment ago were worrying about a Wall Street crash and now they’re dancing up a storm because isn’t that the secret of happiness — to face the music and dance? Hard Times? Of course there’re going to be hard times but life goes on and the band still plays and the rhythm is irresistible and once you hit the dance floor with her in your arms, you’re on East Street again.

Fred kept dancing into his eighties because dancing keeps you young. Democrats set aside dance in favor of panel discussions, but a party isn’t a party unless people dance.

My baby’s a Democrat
But when I wear a top hat
And carry a cane, I engage her,
She forgets I’m an English major.
Yes, I’m a bibliophile
And I’m old but I’ve got style.
When I’m in a subjunctive mood,
I don’t sit in the dark and brood,
I let the music fill my senses
And conjugate my tenses.
A gentleman of grace and glamour
Who can dance with perfect grammar,
I like to practice seduction
By elegant sentence construction.

That fall in Chicago was the luckiest thing to happen to me in years. You wait and see. This could be the start of something big.