I’ve been credibly described as “morbid” when it comes to my birthday.

While I don’t entirely disagree with that assessment, I do not believe it to be wholly accurate. But I also do not discount that I may appear to be morbid about it to anyone outside of my head. Which is everyone. And count your blessings for being out there and not in here.

I turn 51 today*, which is a remarkable series of words to write for someone that once could not fathom being 21 or 30 much less now closer to 100 than to my birth. Much like all of human life, it’s a blessing and curse to get older. It certainly beats the alternative, but the road (much like Michigan’s various thoroughfares around me) isn’t particularly well paved and it’s rutted with potholes.

The morbidity accusation stems from my annual tradition of assembling and posting on social media a list of celebrities and notables that died at the age I just surpassed. I do not do this out of any melancholic fascination with death. Instead, it stems from my wonder at having lived to the same age as people I once saw, and often still do, as adults. Authority figures. Grown-ups. Professionals. They are people remembered for accomplishments (not always positively) and they achieved a measure of fame. Did they view and experience life and the world as I do, or were they equally confused and suffering from imposter syndrome? Am I not really an actual adult but merely a large, chronologically middle-aged child that is unable or unwilling to crash through the painful barriers to true maturity?

Do I want to be truly mature? To be honest, it sounds pretty awful. There’s nothing appealing in sitting around talking about ailments, mortgages, taxes, mutual funds, doctor visits, upcoming procedures, divorces, shitty jobs, shitty bosses, shitty co-workers, war, fascism, and how today’s music sucks and today’s kids suck and everything not from 1975 or 1985 or 1995 sucks. I already spend too much time on all of that calcifying shit, and I’d much prefer to remain childish, silly, and happily foolish (with an good credit score so that capitalism will allow me to continue to exist).

I did look at a rainstorm this week and nearly say aloud, earnestly, “We needed this.”

Oof. Can’t let that creep in. But the lawn was getting yellow. See? It’s creeping!

So, I am astonished every June at the list of names of people I’ve out-lived. Why? Because I still see the world, and maybe they did, too, with a brain and persona and outlook of a baffled, mischievous teenager. The reflection in the mirror’s changed a bit, but the movie playing inside my head, and the internal monologue that never shuts the fuck up, is still that weird kid from Ohio. I cannot possibly be the same age, or older, than some of these people. Yet I am.

Enough prattle. You can find my previous essay on aging here. And hey, at least I am not writing about Trump and fascism today, which I guess is a birthday present to myself and my fragile mental health.

Here are the famous people that died at age 50, in no real order, with links to biographical or related information.

• Michael Jackson … you know who he is
• Capt. James Cook, British naval explorer who probably hated being the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands and discover the real Curse of Lono
• Errol Flynn, a swashbuckling degenerate actor that shares a June 20 birthday with me
• Catherine of Aragon, first ex-wife of Henry VIII
• DMX … between us, we’ve been nominated for four Grammys
• Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, who caused World War I by rudely dying from a bullet
• Czar Nicholas II, who caused both World War I and the Russian Revolution by rudely existing
• Jim Varney … know what I mean, Vern?
• Hervé “Tattoo” Villechaize … de plane! de plane! (a Grumman G-44 Widgeon seaplane that also was used to run drugs, for real)
• Rod Serling … an incredibly interesting and cool dude who you should read up on
• Joe Strummer … also an incredibly interesting and cool dude who you should read up on and listen to his music
• Virgil, nerdy wallflower Roman poet whose actual name was Publius Vergilius Maro, and you know one of his bros totally called him Virg
• Veronica Lake, one of the more famous avatars of Hollywood cruelty and booze
• Isadora Duncan, an icon of modern dance and choreography, and wow she died gruesomely
• Dee Dee Ramone, the best Romone after Joey
• David Graf, better known as Tackleberry in all seven “Police Academy” movies, and an Ohioan
• Basho, best known as Ty Webb’s favorite 17th century Japanese philosophical poet (the image atop this essay, FYI)
• Maj. Gen. George Pickett, perfumed fop, cruel asshole, and failed traitor
• Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, aka the first Mrs. Napoleon Bonaparte
• Carson McCullers, famous enfant terrible Southern alcoholic writer
• Raymond Carver, famous Northwest ex-alcoholic short-story writer that probably should have also stopped smoking
• Jean-Paul Marat, warm bath enthusiast and radical Jacobin
• Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV and victim of Marat’s excesses (and subject of a decent recent film)
• Kurt Weill, composer of a Doors cover song
• Billy Mays, TV huckster and beard haver
• Prince Józef Poniatowski, Polish hero and one of Napoleon’s marshals
• Danny Sugarman, co-wrote the first Jim Morrison bio (I have a Doors essay in the works)
• Mike Webster, ex-Steelers player whose death led to CTE study of NFL players
• Héctor “Macho” Camacho, famous boxer who’s post-ring life was tragic
• Clement Vallandigham, traitorous newspaper editor and racist asshole from Cincinnati banished by Lincoln to the Confederacy

So that’s it. There are probably some notable people who died at age 50 that I missed, but this is a pretty solid list. Some years are more vivid with famous names than others. I am always flabbergasted by some of the names and have a hard time grasping that I have out-lived someone so famous and accomplished. While I’m not feeling morbid about it, I do feel a bit deflated. I’ve not done as much as I’d hoped after a half-century … but also have done more than many in 51 years. Maybe one day I’ll write it all down.

I still have more to do so that I can end up on someone else’s morbid birthday list – a long fucking time from now, hopefully.

Today, I am celebrating my half-century-plus-one by driving to the Cleveland Margaritaville because I want nothing more than that chain’s club sandwich while listening to songs from one of my favorite musicians. In my beloved hometown, where I last celebrated a birthday in 1980.

Last year, I turned 50 in Key West, in my fav bar on Earth, then early the next morning flew to Havana. I turned 40 in Thailand. I’ve also had birthdays at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, at Norman Mailer’s house in Provincetown, a surprise party in Jacksonville, and some less exotic locales.

I’ve been a lucky boy.

And if I make it to 52 — outliving Napoleon, Robert “Quint from Jaws” Shaw, Balzac, Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke, Clausewitz, and Billy Carter  — then I’ll be thankful for another year and for all those that made it possible, wherever I am at.

* I am writing this on Tuesday-Thursday so if I perish before my birthday on Friday, then never mind.

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