Author: mfnnews
You can’t be 50 in Hollywood
I had been living in New York for several years, writing young adult novels. But I wanted to move to Los Angeles. I needed a change of scenery, and I wanted to try screenwriting.
A friend connected me to a guy who had spent several years in L.A. pursuing film and TV writing. I called the guy and told him my plan.
The hair dye felt like it was burning my scalp. After I rinsed it out, my whole head glowed. Did it make me look younger? I guess it did. But it also made me look like a clown.
He said: “How old are you?”
I said 49.
He said, “That’s too old. You can’t be 50 in Hollywood. You’ll need to lie about your age.”
Then he asked me if I had gray hair. I said I did. He said I would need to dye it.
I said, “But George Clooney has gray hair. Doesn’t it look distinguished?”
He said I would definitely want to dye it. “Everyone dyes their hair in L.A. Get a good hairdresser.”
*******
He continued relating his experiences. He listed the dangers of Hollywood. They steal your ideas. They lie. They pretend to be your friend. I would need a good lawyer, and a manager, and an agent.
Most of this I already knew. But the “you can’t be 50 in Hollywood” part: I hadn’t heard that before.
Reelin’ In the Years
After we hung up, I thought about the age problem. I had already “adjusted” my age once while I was writing young adult novels.
I did this after attending a book festival, where I saw that all the other young adult authors were generally in their 20s and 30s. I was at least a decade older than most of them.
So I shaved five years off my Facebook age. Just in case anybody looked. And then I did the same thing when I filled out the publicity questionnaires for my publisher.
But the age problem got worse when I arrived in L.A. The first screenwriter I met with was 24 and looked like he was in high school. When I got home from that meeting, I went on Facebook and shaved three more years off my birthday.
When I did this, a little notice popped up, informing me that this would be the last time I would be allowed to change my birthday on Facebook.
So now, I was 41 according to Facebook, 44 according to my New York publisher, and 49 according to my driver’s license and the IRS.
This was a lot to keep track of. It made for some awkward moments on first dates.
Gray matters
It didn’t take long to realize that in Hollywood — where lying is considered “self-care” — what people really judged you on was your looks.
So then I considered my appearance. My hair was pretty gray. Should I try dyeing it?
I went to Ralphs and bought a box of Clairol Nice’n Easy hair dye. I went for espresso brown, which seemed closest to my original hair color.
I set up shop in my bathroom. I put on the gloves and followed the instructions on the box, mixing the chemicals and smearing them onto my head. It was a messy business.
The hair dye felt like it was burning my scalp. After I rinsed it out, my whole head glowed. Did it make me look younger? I guess it did. But it also made me look like a clown.
*******
I flew back to New York soon after, and a female friend immediately noticed the change. She said: “It’s true what they say; you look 10 years younger!”
That was nice to hear. But I was alarmed that she noticed it instantly. From 50 feet away.
Another friend didn’t believe me when I told her it was dyed. She had to look closer and touch it until she saw that I was telling the truth.
I was still trying to get used to it myself. Every time I saw my reflection, I startled myself. Who’s that guy with the dye job?
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Blake Nelson
Pro tips
Back in L.A., I spotted a sign in a hair salon near my apartment: “Dye and Haircut $80.” Maybe this was the solution: getting your hair dyed by a professional.
I would like to say this was a luxurious, pampering experience. It was not. The hairdresser roughed me up pretty good. And then I had to sit there for 40 minutes, in sight of people walking by the window, with a giant plastic covering over me and my thinning hair wrapped in tin foil.
And then, after all that, it looked no different from the Clairol dye job I had given myself for $9.99!
*******
Still, I stuck with it, re-dyeing it every six weeks — like it said on the box — for most of a year.
During this time, I kept a watchful eye out for other men with dyed hair. I was definitely not alone. At the beach, you would see aging “surfer dads” with dyed blonde hair and a skateboard under their arms. It wasn’t a terrible look. As long as you wore Vans and board shorts.
And of course, men who were on TV or acted in movies always dyed their hair. I’d see these men everywhere. Or I’d see guests on late-night talk shows who looked like they had just had it done an hour before. Their hair had that blurry, fresh-dye glow.
I became skilled at spotting dye jobs on either sex. I hadn’t realized how many women dyed their hair: basically all of them, after about 30.
The good news was that nobody thought less of a man for dyeing his hair. This was Los Angeles. Dyeing your hair meant you had a job.
All is vanity
This wasn’t the case on the East Coast. New York City was the land of the silver fox. Being a well-dressed, gray-haired, 50-year-old male was highly desirable. It meant you were rich!
In fact, it was in New York that a couple of female friends intervened and informed me that the hair-dye thing wasn’t working. I looked better being gray.
After that, my vanity took over, and when I returned to L.A., I shaved my head and released myself back into middle age.
Once I let myself go gray again, another Los Angeles acquaintance told me she thought I looked much better. She said the dye job made me look untrustworthy, like a used-car salesman.
*******
So that was a relief. But the real relief didn’t come until many years later, when I retired from writing and went back home to Portland and returned to total normalcy.
In retirement, I didn’t have to be young; I didn’t have to be cool. I could just be an old, gray-haired person like everybody else.
Though on Facebook — thanks to its birthday-changing restrictions — I remain a slightly younger and livelier version of myself.
‘Going to get someone killed’: Democratic AG shocks with talk about shooting ICE agents in ‘stand your ground’ Arizona
Republican lawmakers, the Arizona Police Association, and the Trump administration castigated Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) this week over her suggestion that it may be reasonable to shoot masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Mayes made no secret of her contempt for ICE in her interview with KPNX-TV’s Brahm Resnik, suggesting, for instance, that ICE officers are engaged in “thuggish, brutish behavior” and causing chaos, confusion, and anxiety in Minneapolis.
‘How do you know they are a peace officer?’
“It’s a combustible situation, let’s be clear about that,” said Mayes. “It’s a combustible situation being caused by ICE right now, wearing masks.”
After noting that she was “outraged and sickened” to see ICE agents outside her building and claiming that “real cops don’t wear masks,” the Democrat — who is seeking re-election — made a point of stressing that Arizona is a “stand your ground state.”
“We also have a lot of guns in Arizona,” she said with a smile.
“You know, it’s kind of a recipe for disaster because you have these masked federal officers with very little identification, sometimes no identification, wearing plain clothes and masks, and we have a stand your ground law that says that if you reasonably believe that your life is in danger and you are in your house or your car or on your property, that you can defend yourself with lethal force.”
Resnik pumped the brakes and said, “I want to be careful with that and understand what you are saying because you know how that could be interpreted.”
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(Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Image
“But it’s the fact,” said Mayes.
While Mayes clarified that you still cannot gun down peace officers in the Grand Canyon State and that she was not giving anyone license to start doing so, she appeared to give would-be killers an excuse, stating, “How do you know they’re a peace officer?”
“If there’s a situation where somebody pulls out their gun because they know Arizona is a stand your ground state, then it becomes ‘did they reasonably know that they were a peace officer?'” said Arizona’s top law enforcement officer.
When Resnik once more pressed her for clarification that she was not “telling folks you have license if you are threatened,” Mayes said, “Well,” and smirked.
“No,” she continued, “but again, if you’re being attacked by someone who is not identified as a peace officer, how do you know?”
Republican Arizona Rep. David Schweikert noted, “Let’s not pretend this was some careful legal seminar.”
“This was the attorney general of Arizona freelancing a scenario where bullets start flying and then shrugging it off as ‘just the law.’ That is reckless on its face,” wrote Schweikert. “If your job is to enforce the law, you do not go on TV and hand out a permission structure for violence, then act surprised when people hear it as a green light. Words matter. Especially when they come from the state’s top lawyer.”
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R), who is running for state attorney general, noted, “Mayes should be fully aware of her dangerous rhetoric — and how people will construe, apply, and execute her comments. Mayes’ comments were reckless, dangerous, and disqualifying.”
The Arizona Police Association also condemned Mayes’ remarks, emphasizing that “words from elected officials matter.”
APA Executive Director Joe Clure stated that the Democrat’s framing was “deeply troubling and dangerous” especially as “law enforcement officers at every level including state, local, and federal agencies do not always wear traditional uniforms” — including members of Mayes’ own investigative teams.
“This does not diminish their legal authority or status as law enforcement,” said Clure. “Publicly speculating about how someone might legally justify shooting an ICE agent sends a dangerous and irresponsible message, particularly in an already tense and polarized environment.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the New York Post, “This is [a] direct threat calling for violence against our law enforcement officers — this kind of rhetoric is going to get someone killed.”
Blaze News has reached out the Justice Department for comment.
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