For some of this to make sense, you would need to know me personally. But let me try to lay it out for you.
Funny Talents – Dangerous Talents
I walk into a room and tell a good friend and colleague of fifteen years that it must be hard to bend over, given how old he is. He looks back at me with a scowl and waits for the punch line. After a brief pause, I break into my old man voice saying, “Freaking whipper snappers . . . thinking they know everything.” And he starts to laugh.
Having worked in radio for several years, being a voice actor and having a talent for voices, I have about 15-20 voices in my repertoire that my children get to choose from including: The Old Crotchety Man, Gollum, Gomer Pyle, Ronald Reagan, Bing Crosby (singing) and quite a few less politically-correct voices. In short, if I can hear a voice, I can usually reproduce it with some accuracy.
Now, I have used my vocal talents for ever
ything from my video trailers to getting my father to pull the car over on the interstate by doing a realistic siren from the back seat – things that, in the moment at least, can be quite amusing.
Mental Breakdowns
One thing I’ve been watching lately, sadly, is friends whose parents have been aging, often developing dementia or Alzheimer’s. It’s very sad watching someone who was vibrant with life deteriorate and become less of the person he was, eventually remembering nothing of his life.
So what worries me?
I fear for the individual who cares for me, should I ever follow that path. Just picture the poor nurse who walks in one day to make a meal and sees me hovering over the dining room table saying, “My . . . . precious . . . . we swears to be good to the prrrreeecccious,” and then the next minute breaking into my best K-Mart intercom voice announcing, “Ladies and gentleman, please make your way to the front counter and take advantage of our eighty percent sale off Maxi Pads! Get them now, before the sale is all dried up!”