Although I was quite attached to my admittedly pretentious original title (“The Sorrows of Old Boomer”), and wish I’d included the line “…more ‘I’s than a Mexican porno…”, which only occurred to me after I hit send.
Joe Bodolai was a true boomer, born in 1948. I’ve heard of show-biz types becoming parodies of themselves, but when you become a virtual parody of someone else—say, a character in The Big Chill—maybe killing yourself is the only option. (…)
His narcissism, boastfulness, and self-pity make for excruciating reading, exquisitely encapsulated in the near-final sentence: “The shelter I am volunteering in will be my new home.”
