(TV) Beat Topic To Death / A Fly Ball To Deep, Deep, Center Field / On the Street / Nice Little Project / Face & Destiny

["Casey, Leo J" <Leo.J.Casey@Volpe.dot.gov>]

Hi,
I was a surprised that as many women responded to the 
question, thus sparing the List a detailed psycho-analysis 
of my recent TV and The Cars (circa-1978) dream.
Laura wrote
>Don't agree he looks bad now. Still pretty real in appearance.

Seena wrote
>I have always thought Verlaine was very good-looking.  I've 
>run into  him on the streets of NYC, and although he's older 
>like we all are, I still  think he looks great!  

I didn't mean to imply that he's still not a very striking 
looking individual, and yes he looks very real--but IMHO, he 
has aged dramatically in last 7-8 years; to my eyes he looks 
older than the *average* man does who's in his mid 50's [he 
looks 10-12 years older to me] I know a lot of men his age 
and most (didn't say all) don't look like they're in their 60s.

Granted, the entire topic itself is rally silly--it doesn't 
matter what he looks like---just as long he just keeps 
putting out his 2-3 albums a year as he has done every 
year (except for 1985 and 1994).

That being said, I still think he looks unhealthy. T
he other 3 members of Television 
have certainly aged (e.g., a little paunchy) [except 
for Ficca, who seems ageless despite his life-long cig 
habit--unlike Tom, Billy made a deal with the 
devil so that he'd be immune to benzene---or maybe he's 
part vampire], they don't look unhealthy. Also---e.g.,  
Bowie, Springsteen, Reed, Ferry, and P. Smith are all 
older, but look much younger and healthier than 
TV--although Bowie, a former cig man who had a death-wish 
lifestyle, probably has had a face lift.

I think my [unhealthy?  morbid?] interest in Tom's 
relatively recent appearance stems from:

1) I'm just a selfish bastard: I want him to live for 
a long time so he's recorded oeverve will be large. 
As we saw when the remastered MM and Adventure albums 
came out, there was surprisingly little of other 
stuff in the vaults. I always hoped when Tom left this 
world he'd finally get more of the recognition he 
deserves as a guitarist, musician, and very often 
overlooked:  as a composer/arranger. Andt as was the 
case with Hendrix, they'd later find all this great 
(and not so great) unreleased stuff. 

2) I 've probably read too many articles [1970s-2000+] 
containing too many photographs of TV---and I probably 
still have too vivid memories from all his 1981-1992 shows, 
so I may be over-sensitized to even moderate physical changes. 
Analogous to Ty's reactions to Nick Cave " [he]..exudes 
an actual, physical force-field of cool ...", on-stage, Tom 
had this *presence*, an aura---a life-force beyond 
corporal--an otherworldliness (but in the best sense of 
that word); it was ineffable duende that was almost spooky.  
(I can 'almost' hear Dennis laughing if he reads this, as he 
knows the real Tom , the funny, sometimes goofy, ordinary[?] 
guy he actually is  :>) .) But sorry, that's what I've always 
felt/saw whether imagined or real).  But now's it's gone; I 
don't see it in photos or feel it's there anymore at 
concerts--but maybe that's a good thing. And maybe it as never 
existed in the first place--------but it did.

"He's the kid in the back of every high school classroom--the 
one you never thought could talk. The one you try to remember 
(and can't) when you see his face in the newspaper because he's 
had a tragic accident or committed some shocking crime. You'd 
least expect to find him a rock cult hero, purveying terminal 
romanticism to an amplified beat. But Tom Verlaine isn't your 
run-of-the-mill rock hero. He refuses to swagger; he couldn't 
strike a pose if he tried. If he's the Jesus of Cool, it's 
because, as he says, 'I don't care.'"

3) You might've thought I just went way, deep to center-field, 
esp. on the nuttiness-scale, but this one may sound like I've 
positively gone off the 'deep' end of the pool:  
Probably totally obvious[?], but-- I remember reading an author 
who said when we [or at least Christians, or ex-Christians] 
go to wakes and we stand/knell at the casket, we think more 
about our own deaths than the person's before us. (The same guy 
wrote that the degree that a culture is obsessed with sex is 
almost directly related to the degree to which its members avoid 
confronting their own mortality). So, I'm probably worrying too 
much about TV's cigs and life-span as a way to avoid thinking 
about the mortality of people close to me--and my own.) 
OTOH, a long time ago, another guy wrote, "The wise person 
thinks less about death than anything else."

To break the funereal tone, here's a joke (answer below):  
What's the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake?

Nancy wrote:
> ... and I'd say he's about average now (if we were all honest, 
>we'd admit that most of us look pretty effin' bad these days). 
>I've been about 20 feet from him at least five times in the 
>past couple of years  ...and while he doesn't look the picture 
>of health, He looks like he's done some livin', which is, of 
>course, why we all love him.

Very well put.

	Leo

PS: A nice little project for someone (I'd do it, but as was
obvious from my previous post, I lack the necessary skills 
to manipulate electronic files of photos), would be to get 
together a large number of photographs of Tom in chronological 
order (from the one in the Chinatown loft were he looks so 
scrawny a good breeze would have blown him over, to the 
ones in Brazil 2005), and then cleverly make an interactive 
web-page [using SQL , of course :>) ] so that the computer 
flips thru the photos fairly fast so that we get to see Tom 
age/morph before our eyes :>). Kinda like in that neat little 
creation that was on Public tv about 10 years ago, where the 
entire history of the US from 1776 to 1996 flashes by in 90 
seconds of images (or something like you used to see on Monty 
Python). 

PPS: All those women who said they run into Tom on the 
streets occasionally---just curious, what do you say when 
you run into him? And if he doesn't respond to you verbally, 
does he give you a wink of his eye, as he did once to Philip?

PPPS:  
B.:  It's an interesting face.
B.:  (Now frustrated by lack of response). I'm surrounded 
by cattle. They wouldn't know an interesting face 
from a sow's belly.
------------------------------------
Mr. A: I believe your name will be a household word 
when you'll have to go to the Museum to find who I 
was. You're the most extraordinary man I've ever met. 

TV.: Leave me alone! 

Mr. A: What? 

TV: Leave me alone! 

Mr. A: Well, that's a feeble thing to say. 

TV: I know I'm not ordinary. 

Mr. A: . That's not what I'm saying. . . 

TV: All right! I'm extraordinary! What of it? 

Mr. A:  Not many people have a destiny, T.; it's 
a terrible thing for a man to waste it if he has it.
--------------
To post: Mail tv@obbard.com
To unsubscribe: Mail majordomo@obbard.com with message "unsubscribe tv"