This is 50

Well that’s a 50-year-old boy, his wife and his childhood hero. The photo was taken shortly after my 50th birthday with full knowledge that a life goal of a grown adult man was to meet another grown adult man for a brief interaction, that meant everything to the 50-year-old and likely nothing to the gentleman sitting to his right. So as not to leave out the lovely lady standing next to the two gentlemen, without her keen eye, the moment would never have occurred, for which the author of this little essay is eternally grateful to her. (The list of things that the 50-year-old in question should be grateful to the lady for is long, elaborate and likely still too short to properly thank the patience, grace and kind acts that she performs daily in the suffering of the 50-year-old.)

The 50-year-old is me, Brandon Doughty, standing next to the legendary actor Kurt Russell who has been a huge impact on my life, let’s say creatively to avoid conversations of play-acting Snake Plissken and running around saying “I don’t give a fuck about your war, or your president,” which may be more meaningful now, than when he first uttered those lines back in 1981.

I’ve had three major creative idols throughout my life, Stephen King, Kurt Russell and George Carlin. It’s possible to throw Spielberg into the mix as well, but as a writer, I leave him out since his genius is in how he visualizes and captures motion pictures.

Now you’re saying, well, Russell is an actor so his entire gig is the visual performance in a movie, but I’ll disagree. The visuals are one part of what an actor puts into creating their performance. Most good actors can’t just turn “it,” on, whatever “it,” is that allows them to embody a character. There’s normally an in, and Kurt Russell has always had a knack of playing the best lone-wolf forced to partner-up characters. Most of his characters are men of few words with notable exceptions like Jack Burton, Captain Ron and, Cash of Tango & Cash. I like and appreciate the essence of his characters, and I also appreciate that similar to John Carpenter, he doesn’t give a fuck about Hollywood or fandom in general, he does it for the work. He’s a craftsman. And no I don’t need to hear other opinions on his acting ability.

That said, I’ve had the opportunity to meet both of my living heroes and carry the tiniest of hope that King might one day read something I’ve written and compliment it. While I never got the opportunity to meet George Carlin, arguably the greatest writer of comedy in my lifetime, I got to see him live twice and still have the ticket for that first show. Not that that really means much, but it’s an actual physical ticket still. We don’t have those anymore.

So, why write an essay celebrating a photo op with a celebrity who doesn’t remember my name from the literal hundreds (if not thousands) of people that stood next to him over the past weekend? Shouldn’t you be embarrassed that at 50 one of the highlights of your life is meeting some actor who arguably peaked in the eighties or early nineties. Well first of all bite your fucking tongue, that’s Snake Plissken, Jack Burton, R.J. MacReady and Elvis you’re sniping at and those are just the characters he made with John Carpenter (whom I’ve also met thank you.)

Second, because I want to celebrate in a way that makes me happy and writing makes me happy. Just as happy as I was in the few moments I spent with Mr. Russell. And to point out that 50 is just a number.

It has been a long running joke amongst our friend group that my love of Kurt Russell, kicked-off if you couldn’t tell by an idolization of the lone antihero Snake Plissken, would never result in a meeting because he has loudly and repeatedly stated that while he loves what he does, he does it for himself and hopes people like it, but he’s never done something because of the audience. And he detests celebrity and autograph hounds. If you grasp pearls at such a statement, perhaps think about your job and ask: Do you do it to impress those around you or to keep yourself fulfilled?

At 50, my wife and I went to a Comic-Con-like fan convention sans children, specifically to meet Kurt Russell which is a childish thing to do. And I’m not kidding, the entire trip was built around the fact that Russell was doing his first (and possibly only) con appearance. It was literally—up to now at least—a once in a lifetime opportunity and we took it. But along the way we got to geek out meeting a few of the Goonies, the Fratellis, Frodo (Elijah Wood), and Christopher “motherfuckin’ Doc Brown” Lloyd.

In short we ran around the convention like kids collecting treasures from our favorite childhood (and for me adulthood) films, all the while bitching like middle-aged adults. At a certain age, I don’t think there’s any avoiding the excessive dislike of large crowds and people who don’t respect line etiquette.

The key is we ran around like kids. At 50, I’m probably in the best shape of my life, though I could stand to lose a few pounds. I’m 8 years sober, I’m the strongest I’ve been physically, maybe mentally, and I get to do what I love for a living. I write. Mostly short stories but I’m querying my first novel and revising my second with high hopes. I have two kids that keep me on my toes in very different ways and a wife who not only saw that Kurt Russell was going to be available for photos, but in the midst of being angry with me, still told me about it as soon as she learned the details. That’s a lot to be happy about and so I wanted to write little about it.

Nothing more than that. I just wanted to share my thoughts as I cross that arbitrary Rubicon of fifty years on planet Earth. Who knows maybe I’ll decide to share my thoughts more often, though I do prefer to be the quiet guy brooding in the corner most of the time.