Out of Focus

The MMXXI Birthday Post: Upon turning L

Why have Roman numerals endured, maintaining a hallowed (if not necessarily useful) place in Western culture?

Better: How many people read that sentence and either ignore it or answer, “No idea,” and don’t think twice about it; versus my predilection to flashback to a MCMXC’s Arsenio Hall-bit that infiltrated pop culture enough to inspire a C+C Music Factory hit single.

Like most of my curiosities, this question did not spontaneously emerge from a vacuum. Less commonly, I managed to stop my rabbit-hole deep-dive before my feet left the ground, though only after falling down the neighboring pit searching for why “L” equals “50.”

I won’t follow that tangent; suffice it to say, none of the numerals that seem to have developed intuitively due to Latin words like “centum” or “mille.”

Naturally, this curiosity resulted from the new ME year celebrated today by my personal Gregorian calendar: As of II:LVI am Pacific Daylight Time, I passed from XLIX to L.

How is this guy L years old‽
AND he hasn't stopped yawning‽

But back to the initial question, because the endurance of Roman numerals for over MM years, long beyond performing any practical, non-decorative function fascinates me. As I approached L, and as people have offered both well-wishes and congratulations, I began considering my own presence, perseverance, and fortitude (whatever they may be), and the representative nature of this blog’s staying power as opposed to simply fading away along with its activity level and relevancy.

I’ve always enjoyed Roman numerals. They’re little more than pretty to look at, but I suppose they provide a weightiness; a kind of numerical bolding, even? I remember II decades ago thinking one of the more monumental changeovers at the turn of the millennium and century was watching MCMXCIX in favor for the larger but more compact MM.

Super Bowls; copyright dates for films, TV, and books; clock faces; building cornerstones and historical plaques: What else regularly utilizes Roman numerals? And still, I’m pretty sure I learned the III most basic—I, V, X—along with, if not before, our standard (Arabic) number system.

For nearly a decade, these birthday posts were the only consistent element of this space, and I used them primarily to note the many interesting people who share(d) my birthday. That annual tradition became irregular and infrequent during the MMX's, even more so since I have II or III birthday posts that I drafted but never published.

My adherence to the birthday post has been its own thing-to-make-me-say-hmmmm. As I noted previously, I have not always enjoyed celebrating my birthday; sometimes, I don’t even want to acknowledge it. I get too self-conscious. I question the motivations of people who disappear from my life before reaching out on that single day with a brief kind (and generic?) word. I contemplate my relationships with those who forget (or don’t care enough to remember?) that it’s my birthday.

So why have I always called greater attention to it in this space? Once again, the contradictory nature of my every feeling reigns supreme. In other words:

I don’t want to be the center of attention; how dare you ignore me!

I would be remiss if I didn’t wish a happy Lth to my birthDATE buddies—Luke Wilson and Alfonso Ribeiro—but otherwise, this year I choose to focus on the some of the various media that entered and/or achieved some cultural significance on-or-around Sept. XXI, MCMLXXI.

For instance, we recently got a new car which came with a IV-month trial subscription to SiriusXM, and on our first long weekend drive, I discovered that the “LXXs on VII” channel reruns American Top XL with Casey Kasem, generally picking that Saturday’s or Sunday’s date from a corresponding year between MCMLXX-MCMLXXIX.

So when I started looking at what command the cultural conversations at the moment I began my true domination of my parents’ lives, I wondered what held the top spot on the Billboard Hot C was when I was born.

The 2022 (Belated) Birthday Post—The Day After ...

"i feel nostalgia for things i'd never known."

— I Keep a Diary    

It couldn't have been more than a few years ago, during the early-to-mid-Aughts-heyday of the independent blogger, I brought this little site to life. I did so out of boredom during my time occupying an undeniably cushy but wholly uninteresting job.

I have the urge to call it my "day job," but that would imply I had some other major activity occupying my time. I suppose I did once I began posting because I spent an inordinant amount of time dashing off opinionated missives while also reading and watching movies, TV, books, magazines, and, of course, other sites that could feed my snark, critiques, occasionally thoughtful commentary, but frequently other random nonsense.

However, before I faced the vital (2004) conundrum of Typepad vs. Blogger, I spent the majority of most work-days reading other blogs. For quite a while, I wondered if I should start my own, but on something just sub- of a conscious level, I was terrified that that a) My site wouldn't be as good as theirs and b) nobody would actually visit and read.

At that time, my lengthy blogroll included I Keep a Diary,, Brian Battjer's personal site in which he used photos to guide the stories he shared from his life. Of course, in 2004, the world couldn't imagine Instagram or even an iPhone. As of today, though he has updated his site on a schedule not so different as I have mine, his landing page—featuring the above epigram—remains unchanged from what seems like just yesterday, the day that I wrote "Pilot Post: Day Zero" seemingly just yesterday.

OK, sure. Somewhere in America, the anxious teens waiting to learn whether their complete stops, left turns, and lane changes scored high enough to secure that magic card of freedom bestowed by DMVs everywhere had likely just been conceived when that first post went live, but when "just yesterday" actually means the day I have to start answering "51" instead of "50," 16 years can also feel like "just yesterday."

Cliches exist because they're true, and so while time may not literally fly, the older I get, the faster it moves. Sometimes time moves so fast, and I seem to proportionally produce slower. Take this "Birthday post," for example, which I absolutely intended to publish on my birthday, i.e., yesterday.

And yet, here I am on Sept. 22, still writing, editing, finishing … thinking up "clever" ways to address my tardiness.

That epigram from Brian's landing page grabbed me when I first read it 17+ years ago, and frankly, it's never left. I think about it frequently, even if the triggers that bring it to mine have changed over the years. Now, though my own nostalgia may be rooted in events and actions I have known, too often, those moments have become so distant that they seem like someone else's life; or, even with specific clear memories, I feel like I missed out.

Before I began typing the majority of these words yesterday, I started reading Joyce Carol Oates's novel Blonde, and I ran across this line just a few pages in:

For what is time but others’ expectations of us? That game we can refuse to play.

After reassembling some of the pieces of my brain, I thought, "What marvelous synchronicity?"

Oh, you 365 days of yore, wherefore hath thou gone?

Facing 50: Deconstructing and re-editing my three-act structure

I was born in San Francisco 50 years ago tomorrow, and for the last several months when anyone has asked me that most terrible of conversation starters—“How are you?”—I have replied with some variable of the following:

“Hopefully, reaching the end of this 25-year midlife crisis.”

As my few most-recent attempts to resurrect this digital space demonstrate, much of my contemporary focus involves self-reflection. Because my constant curiosity seems to prefer the ever deepening meta-analysis best represented by Russian Nesting Dolls, I have also spent an inordinate amount of time considering the blurry purgatory separating healthy self-examination and narcissistic navel-gazing.

I wish my identifying a “mid-life crisis” was new, but no matter how little I have visited this space over the past decade, it appears that I left evidence of playtime in a similar mental sandbox just nine years ago:

Recently, more than usual, I have felt further away from myself, the things I enjoy, and the Aaron I know I am and have always been. A mid-life crisis. A journey of self-discovery. A bunch of blathering nonsense. Any and all of these. I’m hoping as I focus more on my writing – whether here, elsewhere or a combination of the two – that the answers will become more apparent to me.

“Hoping.” An ongoing story of inaction overshadowed by the busy-ness of any given moment; a trait that ever-present in my fear-center, but not one that resembles the “Aaron” I have always believed myself to be and often proven true to others as well. And yet, as nine years flew by, I too often neglected my aspirational child, allowing that that passive story to take roots and experience compound growth.

I wrote that 2012 birthday post and its excerpted passage less than six weeks after getting married; barely over 18 months before becoming a first-time parent; just four years shy of the three-month window during which I joyfully welcomed a second child before painfully saying goodbye to my dad.

And now, nine years later, on the eve of the conclusion of my first half-century, I ponder how much has changed, all that hasn’t, and where I am in life—personally, professionally, financially, socially, emotionally—as I turn older than either of my grandmothers were when I was born, and frequently, I feel more lost and confused than ever.

Of course, nine years ago, I looked ahead at a path that I have yet to follow in anything more than brief, occasional, irregular spurts.

More recently, I wondered how to edit or rewrite my story if I treat “midlife” literally; if I consider my truth-masked-as-humor answer to “How are you?” as descriptive, precisely where would I insert it within my three-act structure?

The “middle-of-my-life”? 25 years? The entire middle? Or just part of it? Have I reached the end of that second act mesa, preparing to begin the long descent, without brakes, traveling faster with each fleeting second.

OR, I could pursue a more optimistic storyline: Screenwriting gurus charlatans have different names for that central moment in the story where simple turns challenging or difficulties result in breakthroughs. “The Midpoint” is one common name for that crucial pivot point, placed in the middle of that second act, which actually contains the bulk of any story—half of it if not more, rather than just a proportional third.

That makes more sense for life too, right? During our first acts—infancy, childhood, adolescent, young adulthood—we develop and grow, hopefully determining the direction we want each of our stories to go. Then comes the long and most interesting (one hopes) second act, during which we establish ourselves in that story and the larger world, face challenges on the way to proficiency and expertise, develop relationships with others, and as time passes, hopefully determine the transition that leads to a satisfying conclusion in Act three.

For many of us, that might mean that Act 1 ends upon finishing school and beginning a career; Act 2 comprises successes and failures in that career as well as with our social and/or familial relationships, all represented with some major identifiable turning point somewhere in the middle; all leading into Act 3, with, if we’re lucky, some sort of relaxed and/or retired existence until the story ends.

At least, that’s a pretty clean, straightforward, and arguably sanguine possibility.

I guess it’s the one I’d like to model, even though my nature fights against it, because as I turn 50, very little resembles the path I foresaw or the story I believed I was writing when I was 25. I’d much prefer my 25-year midlife crisis conclude at a “midpoint” rather than a third-act transition, and the only feeling of certainty as I move through this moment in time, is that it will be one or the other.

In just over a month, I will mark another “birthday” of sorts: 25 years as a resident of New York City. I have and will always consider myself a San Franciscan, and yet, I will have lived in New York over half my life, and obviously longer than in either San Francisco (17 years) or Los Angeles (8 years). I believe I always saw my cross-country move as the start of my second act, and I know I anticipated a promising future. Still, I probably too often selected the less optimal next page in my “Choose Your Own Adventure” story.

Naturally, whether I push against or forcefully through the thin scrim between useful self-examination and counter-productive self-absorption, I inevitably start thinking about one of my all-time favorite films, Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. I haven’t actually watched it in many years, and as this collection of words has coalesced, I have realized it’s about time I revisit it. It feels extra-relevant as I face 50.

Thinking about Synecdoche, New York prompted me to wonder what—aside from love and awe—I thought and felt about it after walking out of the screening room following my staggering first viewing 13 years ago. Luckily (and somewhat surprisingly), I actually wrote about it.

Rereading my open letter to Charlie Kaufman offered its own unanticipated and powerful experience beyond any I could have intended when I quickly (I’d bet) put those thoughts into words and onto this blog. I called it “A Reaction, Not Yet a Review,” and now reflecting upon my past reflection could also count as too self-indulgent—certainly the commenter who suggested that I, “”Get over yourself, and most importantly, get a hold of yourself,” because, “It’s only a movie,” thought so back then.

Considering how often my film-related experiences have induced both “Uh-huh” and “A-HA” moments, scrutinizing how the film spoke to me, the reaction it stimulated, and the self-realizations it proffered at that moment in time—roughly halfway between my move to New York and the present, I must note—seems appropriate, especially since my experience of and reaction to the Kaufman’s film—along with my serendipitous attendance at two other theatrical productions that weekend—feels like a more profound episode in my story than I ever realized.

I guess the barrier between self-reflection and self-indulgence reveals itself only after discovering the results of the process: Positive change thanks to lessons learned seems a better path than continuing (and likely never-ending) curiosity that does little else than uncover the next nesting doll.

I know that I have and continue to somewhat indiscriminately amble down both paths; I always liked rereading those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and selecting different options. I love experiencing/watching/reading/studying different takes on the same story.

But as I face 50, I fear that my incessant curiosity and insatiable thirst for the new and the next are now luxuries because whether one considers 50 the new 40 (or even 30) or simply the age at which one officially becomes part of the AARP demographic, the likelihood is that most of my story is behind me, and if I have yet to find it satisfying enough, I really need to get to work.

The Return of the Birthday Post (My 6th Jack Benny Birthday)

Maybe the third time’s a charm. I mean for this post. I started it last night; restarted from scratch earlier this evening; and now as I get ready to close-out another birthday, I’ve started over once again. Why is it so hard? I can’t say.

The “birthday post” was long the one consistent and reliable mainstay of my little corner of the Interwebs, but then in 2014, even that didn’t happen. I posted nothing to this blog between Sept. 21, 2011 and Sept. 21, 2012, yet I managed to still take note of my birthday. I regained a bit of irregular momentum (Can I ™ that oxymoron? I love it!) in 2013, but all of 2014 passed by, and for the first time in this blog’s history, not a post – birthday or otherwise – exists to note that 2014 ever happened.

Failure.

My fidelity to the “birthday post” is odd, certainly to anyone who knows me well.

Trusting Douglas Adams on the Importance of 42: The 10th Annual birthday post on my fourth Jack Benny birthday

I did something different this year before sitting down to write this post: I read the previous nine. Since I began this blog in Feb. 2004, I can only claim one constant: Without fail, on Sept. 21^st of each year, I have written a post acknowledging, sometimes even celebrating my birthday. That's something I do much less frequently in the non-digital world, although this year, as I become 39 IV (or 42, that supposedly magical age that is the answer to "Life, The Universe and Everything" according to noted philosopher Douglas Adams), my wife is determined that we celebrate this day that marks my birth and recognizes my achievement in aging.

It's been quite a year, too, with some amazing highs, a few discouraging lows, a bit of misery but also a lot of hope. Since I wrote last year's birthday post – just shy of six weeks after getting married – we went on our real honeymoon: Three weeks (give-or-take) to Australia and New Zealand, a dream vacation that we desperately want to repeat if only because that is nowhere near the proper amount of time to visit one of those countries, much less both of them.

Then in April, after another lovely little vacation – this one to Hawaii to celebrate my father's pending 70^th birthday – I parted ways with my job at a previously mentioned, very important cultural institution memorializing the tragic events of just over 12 years ago (that's called anti-SEO language, FYI). This was an important occurrence of mutual necessity. As I mentioned last year at this time, I wasn't feeling very much like me anymore; I was pretty removed from everything I enjoyed doing, especially professionally.

This summer has been challenging: I'm still looking for more consistent work and trying to write a much more frequently. As I mentioned in what I guess was my latest "Hey, I'm back" post, writing has become more difficult for me than ever, but I continue to plow through, and I think I'm more satisfied with most of the results. At least so far.

As I journeyed through the majority of the past decade revealed by those first nine birthday posts, I was a little amazed at how well they represent each of the periods of my life from which they sprang, sometimes more subtly than others, but in ways that kind of astounded me. Just last year – in an epic entry that subconsciously must have been due to my not having added anything to this blog for the entire previous year – I wrote that "I never intended to regularly use this space as a public diary." That was a very true statement, and that intent hasn't really changed. But when I examine what those nine entries represent, my intent obviously doesn't hold as much sway as I would think.

The first birthday post, in 2004, was full of exuberance as I turned 33. Ah, the worries and anxieties that show themselves over the ensuing years as I got older; they all seem silly now, although only in that I had them then, since so many likely remain. But it is somewhat amazing how young 34, 35 and 36 seem when you're turning 42.

Dammit. I'm not carrying the Jack Benny mantle all that well when I keep forgetting the appropriate public age.

The Ninth Annual Birthday Post: Another first (on my third Jack Benny Birthday)

If a blog sits dormant, seemingly abandoned, without a new post, is it still a blog?

I’ve had a few big firsts since I last officially visited this space one year ago today. I’ve had several drive-bys here, but until now, have not stopped and left anything behind. Maybe not as important as some of my other firsts during the first year of my 40s, but never before in the shockingly long – if unspectacular -- history of Out of Focus have I ever gone an entire year without posting … something. Never before have I left one birthday and arrived at the next with nothing in between.

But this year, too, I continue this humble tradition: I’ve never failed at the birthday post. Like this one.

It’s my third Jack Benny Birthday. As I get deeper into my 39s, my relationship with writing as an act, action, activity and art develops in complicated ways that I don’t always understand.

For more than two decades, in an on-again/off-again fashion, I have kept a journal. Or rather, for the vast majority of the past 20+ years, I have actively not kept a journal: the off-again clearly overpowering the on.

A few nights ago, I was examining some miscellaneous crap I had under my desk at home, and I ran across the journal I kept in 1993. It was a UCLA-branded spiral notebook. I had ripped out most of the pages, but as I read the scribbles my 21-year-old self wrote on those lined pages with an extra-wide margin, I flashed back to those late nights, sitting on the unused sundeck – upon which nobody ever sunned – of my Westwood apartment, late at night, chain-smoking and trying to ignore the noise from the fraternities across the street.

An intense period in 21-year-old Aaron’s non-existent love-life, I spent many a witching hour on that deck during August 1993: One night, bemoaning my inability to figure out how to turn my infatuation with a friend’s friend into the courage to simply ask her out; the next, dreaming about my new – and gorgeous – upstairs neighbor; and when not flip-flopping between the two, discovering that I still couldn’t stop thinking about my high school crush, who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in over three years and who had essentially dismissed me from her life even before that.

What better time for me to mark my return to journaling?

The Eighth Annual Birthday Post: I'm turning 4! (My second Jack Benny Birthday!)

I have never been one to celebrate my birthday, at least not since my teens. I don’t precisely remember when I stopped regularly having birthday parties, but I do remember my last one: I had a party when I turned 30, precisely 10 years ago today; 10 days after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

I had a bit of a nervous breakdown the night before. I felt stupid for having a party while my home of the previous five years and adopted city still reeled from the previous 10 days. I felt like I had wasted my 20s, and here I was, truly and unambiguously an adult, having achieved very little of what I had hoped and planned to by that point. I was scared of 30. And even though nothing would really change when the calendar moved from 20 to 21, on that night, I sat outside my apartment building, under the awning, watching the rain pour as silly tourists waited outside to get into Café Lalo. I'm pretty sure I cried. All for turning 30.

Seems stupid now, I know.

This year, I’ve thought about dropping the “0” and just deciding that I’ll be four. But that’s not a real solution.

And actually, I didn't have a new nervous breakdown about saying goodbye to my 30s last night. My 30s were not always kind to me, but they were mine. And I survived them. And sadly, that’s more than many can say.

I can celebrate my second Jack Benny birthday; or I can look at the beginning of a new decade; or I can look at this as the final year of the last one. I told myself nearly two years ago -- on new year’s eve 2009 -- that I was going to celebrate this birthday, even though, it’s not what I do.

Doth I protest too much? I haven’t had parties, but in this little nook of the web, visited rarely but totally public, I have managed to announce -- pronounce even! -- my birthday every year, without fail. Last year, I intended to start posting more. And in fact, while the last active post is from February, I’ve written several since that just never made their way to the interwebs. I found myself spending more time on each post and not wanting to send them out to the world until they were ready. But they never were.

And then, after 18 full months of unemployment, I finally landed a job. One that has virtually taken over my life, especially over the last six weeks or so.

By 2001, was I yet a New Yorker? Some say we all became New Yorkers on 9/11. I had been here almost five years. I had no direct connection to what happened at the World Trade Center that day. I knew none of the victims personally. I did not work in lower Manhattan. I had been down to Century 21 and walked on the plaza one week before, but that was the closest connection I had.

I remember that morning; I remember seeing the smoke from the towers on the television and saying to myself, “How are they ever going to be able to fix that?” I remember going to vote that day. I remember walking from my Upper West Side apartment down to my office at HBO. I remember my friend and co-worker Allison getting very scared when she saw people running out of the subway, wondering what might be happening under us.

But that’s it. My 9/11 story isn’t that profound, certainly not compared to so many of the others I’ve heard in the years since. And yet, as I examine my past decade, it is shocking how intertwined 9/11 has become in my life — starting with my involvement with the Tribeca Film Festival from its first year through 2009; to my 18-month job-hunt journey that culminated with my joining the staff at the 9/11 Memorial in April. Coincidence? Sure. Synchronicity? Maybe. If I believed more wholly in Fate, I would certainly need to consider its power.

And so my promise to myself to truly celebrate this birthday became more difficult due to the amount of time I found myself dedicating to helping thousands of others commemorate a very different anniversary. The past six weeks have been rewarding and fulfilling at times, but also extremely exhausting. I have worked harder than ever before -- including many years of late nights and long days at Tribeca. I have yet to wake-up and not feel like the dog from today's "Pooped Puppies" calendar page, pictured above. At least not since July.

I'm looking for a return to normalcy; my normalcy probably appearing somewhat abnormal to others. I anticipate getting there. And I'm trying to keep my promises to myself, so I'm still trying to celebrate what people keep telling me is this milestone.

I thank all of my friends and family who have contacted me already today. I have yet to plan any sort of party, but it could still happen soon. You know, so that my celebrating involves actual other people. That seems to be the social norm, right?

I have spent most of these birthday posts examining events that have happened on this day or offering birthday wishes to the many others -- more famous than I -- who share this day with me. I guess that’s one way that, at least for now, I’ll celebrate this birthday differently. I wish all of us September 21sters a great day, but this year, when it comes to this post, I’m keeping the celebration for myself.

Happy 40th Aaron.

- 30 -

The seventh annual birthday post (and my first Jack Benny Birthday!): Happy World Peace Day!

Over the past six-and-a-half years, I have filled this space with plenty of thoughts, rants and ramblings, and over those same six-and-a-half years, I have also allowed this corner of the interwebs to sit dormant for extended periods of time. However, I've remained (somewhat ironically) consistent with one feature: I have never missed a birthday post.

I say "ironically" because during these past six-and-a-half years, these posts have really been the only way I have celebrated my birthday. For the vast majority of my 30s, which too quickly near their end, I have not been a fan of birthdays; or at least, not a fan of mine. I love other people's birthdays, but I have not generally enjoyed celebrating my own. I'm sure some might find the psychoanalytical underpinnings for this little factoid quite fascinating, but I'm going to disappoint them and refrain from that discussion. Besides, it's my birthday, and I'll suppress my emotions if I want to.

Still, for whatever reason, regardless of how much attention I've paid to this space, I have written a birthday post every year without fail. I'm not completely sure why. The posts have remained pretty similar, mostly discussing the interesting people who and events that share my birthday. (This annual search for new people and events has prompted me to consider developing a documentary that focuses on individual dates … sort of. At the rate I'm going, you should see it on the festival circuit by the time I'm writing my 30th birthday post. Not the post for my 30th birthday mind you; that would require some backwards time travel. Then again, H.G. Wells was born on this date 144 years ago, so maybe a time machine is in my future? Wait … where was I?)

So with that in mind, I hereby recognize, and maybe even celebrate, my first Jack Benny birthday. (For those of you who have no idea who Jack Benny was, thank you for making me feel even older than I am especially since it's not like he was a contemporary entertainer for my generation.) I even like the idea of this being my first 39th birthday.

That's right; it was 39 years ago, at Children's Hospital in San Francisco that I entered this world. I'm convinced that my late-night birth is why I remain a night-owl, more productive after the clock strikes 11 p.m. than any time before.

The Sixth Annual Birthday Post: Time for a reset

In five months, this blog will be seven years old, but at precisely 2:56 AM Pacific Time, I turned 38. I'd love to have a convention of Sept. 21 birthdays one of these years, especially if it could somehow include those who have passed away. H.G. Wells? He'd be 143 today. The imaginative and influential Chuck Jones? 97. The hysterical Henry Gibson? He sadly passed away one week ago, just before turning 64.

I could still have a phenomenal party with just those still alive. Leonard Cohen: Happy 64th. I wish I had half your lyrical talent. Stephen King: Would that I had your writing discipline and prolificacy. Enjoy your 62nd! Ethan Coen: I hope by the time I'm 52 like you I finally have at least a decade's worth of movies under my belt. Bill Murray: I strive for such a quick wit, but maybe there's only so much to go around for people born on our day.

Caleb Deschanel, Ricki Lake, Jerry Bruckheimer, Liam Gallagher, Larry Hagman, Faith Hill, Nicole Richie: Happy Birthday to us all. Luke Wilson and Alfonso Ribeiro both joined the human race on this day along with me. If we were triplets, I wonder who'd be oldest?

And hot off the presses, apparently, the latest member of the 9/21 club, the newborn baby of internet royalty Jason Kotkke and Meg Hourihan. Mazel Tov to you both.

The date has seen lots of other non-person births, some quite interesting to my media sensibilities. Three of the longest rated and (at times) most popular and influential series in TV history premiered on Sept. 21. In 1948, "Texaco Star Theater" came on the air hosted by Milton Berle. Berle became Mr. Television and hosted the show for 19 years, sometimes claiming as much as 75-80% of the viewing audience (of course, the total viewing audience then was less than many network shows still manage to achieve now, but that was because of lack of television sets, not popularity).

Perry Mason premiered in 1957, becoming the all-time iconic TV lawyer and helping to set the stage for courtroom dramas that has lasted more than half-a-century. The year before I was born, ABC took a major risk and in the process changed the face of sports on television premiering Monday Night Football. And apparently, J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" was first published on Sept. 21, 1937.

For me, 2009 has been a year of striving for new beginnings. Like most, I had my New Year's resolutions/goals/what-have-you that were going to start on Jan. 1. And then, realizing that with my work schedule, it's impossible to create new habits before at least mid-May, I decided to create Aaron's Fiscal Year, starting June 1, and then I went on to dedicate my summer to becoming ready for a Triathlon, but still not achieving anything close to the balance in all things personal & professional to which I strive.

Well, "all things" is an overstatement for sure, but putting all my faith in the cliche regarding "third time" and all its charms, we're going to start one last reset now. Why not? It's my birthday, and the beginning of my 39th year. It's also Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of the visually numerical pleasing while still slightly asymmetrical 5770. And, as of next Sunday, I will (hopefully) have completed that hard-trained summer goal of my first real (and long) triathlon.

Kurt Andersen's latest book is called "Reset," and I figure I'm in for one too. Third reset of the year; first one that takes? Let's hope. But I figure what better place to start than right here, in my own little corner of the internet where I can get all that crap out of my head that's been clogging it all this time. No promises; no grand statements of intent; not even 100% sure what it will be exactly (although I intend to refocus on film, TV, theater, media with maybe a dash of politics and sports but less of the personal), but the most important thing is for it to be at all. For me. And right now, I think that's the best birthday gift I can give myself.

So Happy Birthday to me and all my birthday mates. Here's hoping regardless of how good or bad the past year has been for any of us, the next 365 take us all uphill with downhill effort.

The 5th Annual Birthday Post

That's right ... regardless of how often I write, I can always be counted on to mention that I've become a year older. There was the first one in 2004 when this blog was still a newborn (and I included photos of me as the same), and each year since, without fail, I've included another one. This year, the day is almost over, and wow ... I can't wait. It wasn't my favorite birthday. I guess if I celebrated at all, I did that last weekend (more on that in the next post, tomorrow). It's nice of Hollywood and the TV Academy to throw a party for me and all, but looking at all those who share this date with me, I'm starting to think maybe it wasn't just for me at all. I mean, it's not like I got to unwrap Heidi Klum myself, you know.

I had a different experience this year as I turned 37. The life of this blog has seen me go from early-30s to late-30s, and I've never been 100% celebratory during any of those. I've always hesitated with the "getting older" thing. And yet this year, as far back as April, I believe, when people would ask my age, I would for some reason answer, "I'll be 37 in September." 36, itself, had a very brief shelf-life. Last weekend, as I was signing in to jump out of a plane (video TK), the sheet asked for name, age and weight, and I had become so used to stating, "I'll be 37 in September," I actually wrote 37 before realizing I wasn't quite there yet.

This year, I had enough excitement with the skydiving, so I decided against any actual celebration. Besides, I guess I tend to prefer people when they don't feel obligated to treat me special because it's my day. And that way, I get to guarantee my occasional misanthropic reputation at least one day per year. Being Jewish, Christmas wouldn't work, so every now and then for my birthday, I simply say, "Bah humbug."

But you know what? Let's celebrate all the other birthdays today. There are quite a few. There are my birthdaTE-mates, Luke Wilson and Alfonso Ribeiro, for example, all three of us entering the late-30s today. There's Stephen King, Ethan Coen and Bill Murray; Bridget Moynahan, Ricki Lake, Faith Hill, Liam Gallagher, Leonard Cohen, Chuck Jones, Nancy Travis, Angus Macfadyen, Cheryl Hines, Caleb Deschanel, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Cecil Fielder, Rob Morrow, Larry Hagman, Jerry Bruckheimer, Henry Gibson, Bill Kurtis, Dave Coulier, Nicole Richie (!), Rick Mahorn, and (how cool is this?), the long-late H.G. Wells who would be 142 today. Oh, and of course, my boss Jane.

So why should I care ... there are plenty of people hopefully actually having HAPPY birthdays today. I'll settle for happy every-other-days-of-the-year. Too much to ask? Ah well .... maybe I'll just go skydiving again.

THIS JUST MEANS I'VE BEEN WRITING THIS BLOG TOO LONG

This is the fourth time that I have posted on Sept. 21. That means it's the fourth time I've posted on my birthday. I remember when I started this blog a little over three-and-a-half years ago how I felt I was joining the party late. There were all these people who had already been writing in various forms on the web for one, two, three, even five years or more. And yet, when it came time for the indieWIRE film blogger panel nearly two years ago, Eugene Hernandez (who was moderating) introduced Andrew Grant and I as some of the first film bloggers about whom he, at least, had become aware. We were the old fogeys of the panel, and not just cause we were somewhere close to old.

I haven't exactly been the most consistent blogger or writer or whatever-I-should-be-called since I staked claim to this little corner of the webiverse in February 2004. I don't know if it's because of a weird degree of over-ambition -- always wanting to do more, but often not sitting down to do it -- or the fact that some days, I love to write, and others, there is absolutely nothing I would like to do less. I do know, however, that as I look upon this birthday, I think this blog is, in fact, somewhat representative of the last four years of my life. For better or (more often) worse. It's had its ups and downs. I've sometimes ignored it due to busy-ness; other times out of pure laziness. I've occasionally worked very hard on it and been quite conscientious covering and writing everything I've intended; other times, I've let things slide until they're so old, I just give-up on them. Some of the time, this blog has been exactly the way I've wanted it to be; others ... not so much, and in fact, exactly the opposite.

Today I'm 36 years old. That is utterly unimaginable. If I didn't know it was true, I would say it was also completely impossible. I've been in New York for nearly 11 years. I've had lots of ups and downs while here. So I take solace in reminding everyone that I share date-and-year with Alfonso Ribeiro! come on and admit it ... you're jealous! Me and Carlton! I wonder who's actually older. That's even cooler than the fact that I also share date-and-year birthday with Luke Wilson! Yes it is. Stop it. Yes. OK ... maybe not. But yes it is!