Bill Zimmermann's 60'th Birthday Message

Well tomorrow I'm going to be sixteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!

So! What else is new? Ha! While I love all the fanfare I'm loving this birthday like a colonoscopy. But wait a minute. Just hold your horses. Conversely (he said) it's also truly amazing that I made it this far you know? So many have not. For this I'm incredibly grateful. Grateful to be here right now. It's been a long road and I have had more than my share of the good life in terms of luck opportunity and the little bit of wisdom I've managed to glean from life. I've hit some highs and plenty of lows and now I'm hitting sixty at ninety miles an hour in a race I really don't fully understand.


To my loyal friends. I know I have not always been the easiest fellow to deal with and that I have an abstract view on life (just check out my crazy artwork!) but behind all of it has always been the steady knowing that I was going to be okay. I don't know if it's meditation, a great early childhood or the many gifts that adversity and diversity bring. But for one thing I am certain. My friends, the people who have walked into my life have made all the difference. Being different and designing your life on the fly is a road less traveled when there is no one to do it with you or for you. Being a true maverick in a very strange world had been hard - it was supposed to be. But it has been my friends that took the edge off sometimes brilliantly. So here we are well into our middle age and we are all thinking the same thoughts. Not so much "I wonder just how long I've got?" But rather "What can I do to make this the best year ever?" and "How can I continue to grow in leaps and bounds?" and "How can I leave a lasting impression on those who knew me?" These are the questions that bonk me on the head every day and have been since I turned fifty.

Certainly like most people I don't have the energy I used to. I may not change much in the years to come. And I will never suffer fools lightly, will always reject voluntary ignorance (especially my own) and I won't be coping with indifference apathy and unnecessary stupidity any better than I did last year. (again especially mine).

So if we are to move forward in the years to come what will make the difference? What is it that will set us apart? What great stuff can we bring? And where will we excel? What will we have to do to get there? And most importantly with whom will we travel? I'm no fan of cliques, like minds, snobbery or propriety - least of all congeniality. But I do like diversity and harmonics two seemingly conflicting ideas. But as we age it's important, I think, to expand. Especially if we've not had the opportunity to do so. I've never been a fan of depression, anxiety or isolation. The enemies of age. To combat them I believe retirement a dirty word and boredom to be death itself. So what are we waiting for? Lets rock this bitch and work our days like the boomers we are. And on the way maybe we should fix a few of the blunders our generation perpetrated on the world? And before we go... set the stage for the generations to come. And do it in a real and a significant way. That would be my birthday wish... that the next ten generations know more joy and beauty than we could imagine. And that we may remembered as the generation with balls. The one that fucked it up and yet played a major part in the repair and remediation that allowed the great unfolding for them. Not a bad goal those who want more than a good life for ourselves.  Remember we may choose to reincarnate into a future time (though this is entirely speculation) so logic reveals that the future we prepare for is the future we will live in.  Karma?  Kinda.  Probable?  Who knows!  But is it a good idea?  Absolutely.

Much love to you all. And best wishes on your birthdays all.