Big Mike: Growing Older — And I Do Mean Growing

A personal message to Milo: Thank you, thank you, thank, you. I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Yesterday, if any of the seven of you recall, Milo confessed that the mug who greets him from the mirror each morning isn’t the same king of beasts who grinned at him a couple of decades ago. And all this time I thought I was the only one who was turning into the subject of an Ivan Albright painting.

Good Morning!

It’s embarrassing, I tell you, this business of getting old. Swear to god, I used to fantasize that firm young females would be peeking in on me as I showered. I’d pose for my pretend audience. Just look at those bulging biceps. That flat abdomen. Those springy legs. I’d lather up as if I were the star of a soap commercial. Better, I was the lead actor in my own soft-core porn movie.

Me, Then

Now, though, I try to shower with the lights off and my eyes closed. The less I — or any imaginary audience — sees, the better. I hate to start the day weeping.

It’s a goddamned shame. See, now I have the confidence of a middle-aged, graying veteran of the love wars.  I’m not afraid to talk to any woman. I don’t get tongue tied around pretty dames like Rat in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Rat

Maybe it’s because the object of the game isn’t to convince them to watch me lather up sensually and languorously in the shower anymore. I’d rather have them laugh at my bons mots now, not my ballooning belly and my saggy glutes.

When I was first dating The Loved One, we’d go out to dinner and I’d eat like a sparrow. I wouldn’t even finish my entree. Heaven forbid she’d think I was a glutton. Now, though, I can swiftly dump a couple of heaping plates of baked rigatoni down my gullet and then tell her I could go for some bread and butter.

Then the next morning I force myself to look in the mirror and wonder why I’m turning into a sphere. If, as they say, I am what I eat, then I must be one colossal meatball.

Me, Now

Amazingly, The Loved One tells me I’m alluring to her no matter what I look like, the silly fool.

To look at her, you’d hardly believe she’s now middle-aged. She’s still quite a dish. When people see pix of her, they often make the winking comment that I’d robbed the cradle. I wonder what her friends tell her — that she’s taken a hostage from the nursing home?

And what about Benny Jay? The son of a bitch runs every day, for pity’s sake! He’s more fit and trim now than when I first met him in the early ’80s. It’s not fair.

My brother Joey is in his sixties now, yet he’s thinner than he was when he had a bushy white-boy ‘fro. Damn him.

My pal Danny, who turned half a century old in November, has a magnificent head of salt and pepper hair. Richard Gere or Michael Douglas could play him in the story of his life. He’s distinguished looking. Women still occasionally follow him with their eyes as he walks through a restaurant. I’m beginning to despise him.

Richard Gere As My Pal Danny

The Loved One could doll herself up, don a short skirt, and still turn heads down at the wine bar. Benny Jay, Joey, and Danny could go out tonight and sweep the tomatoes off their feet.

Me? All I’ve got is tomato sauce stains on my shirt.

But I’m not alone. I’ve got a friend in Milo.

Oliver Platt As Big Mike & Lauren Graham As The Loved One In The New Movie “When Do We Eat?”