Geezer—By Kelly

Bono With Violet Glasses, watercolor by Kelly Eddington, 2019

Geezer

Kelly Eddington

My best ideas come to me in the shower, but sometimes I use the time to think about mundane things related to this website, such as what to post on Instagram and Twitter. 

What haven’t I posted? 

Does repetition annoy people? 

Have I posted the one where Bono’s looking especially old?

Ughhh I don’t have the energy to field geezer remarks from Average Dudes tonight.

This watercolor was based on a 2018 reference photo by the great Inchy,  who is known for their colorful, gritty, and jaw-droppingly detailed concert photos. I was drawn to it because Bono is showing every single one of his (then) 58 years, but beneath the wrinkles and the scruff lies that audacious spirit we all know and love. It was a challenge to paint each complicated feature here, and it’s not my most popular painting—I’ve sold only one print of it—and I’m sure that’s because (to some) Bono looks distressingly old.

Hey, that’s your cue, Average Dude!

“When did Bono become such a geezer?”

This was a comment I received from some unremarkable shlub who had no business criticizing anyone’s looks, especially women, and especially honorary women. But, like all negative comments, it’s the only one I remember word for word a couple of years later.

I’ve painted Bono for almost two decades, and believe me, nothing is as flattering as a watercolor filter applied to your face by someone who admires you. For me, my Geezer Bono painting was a three-day meditation on the beauty of interlocking lines and textures. His face has so much character now, and I always enjoy mapping his freckles and evolving wrinkles. 

Parents sometimes tell children to stop making funny faces or they’ll freeze in place. Try to visualize Bono singing. Doesn’t it seem like a seismic event is occurring on that face? Bono has spent his life as a singer making faces that convey ecstasy, rage, sorrow, and in general, passion. It’s inevitable that the wrinkles fell where they did. 

Onstage, Bono knows how to find the light and move in ways that make him look his best. Tall, even (sometimes)! But when he’s performing, he contorts his face and body and is caught up in the music to the point where maybe he’s not constantly monitoring every aspect of his appearance. I think we’ve all experienced the social media horror that is a friend tagging us in an unauthorized photo. For Bono, a U2 concert is a celebration of the band’s music, of course, but it’s also an unauthorized, two-hour photo session where 18,000+ cameras take aim while he sweats, makes extreme faces, and ages.

Kim Kardashian doesn’t smile because she doesn’t want to get wrinkles. I’m sure Bono would view this as ludicrous. The lines on his face suggest a man who’s lived a fun and adventurous life. He can seem vain regarding some aspects of his appearance while he lets other things slide. I assume he’s simultaneously humble and cocky enough to feel like he doesn’t need to make changes. (Can you imagine the condemnation he’d receive if he did, though?)

Does anyone else mark their lives according to U2’s milestones, good and bad, from albums to injuries? I’m at the Still Recording Songs Of Innocence stage of my life, i.e. my early fifties. Luckily I didn’t need emergency back surgery at age 50 like someone did, but I’m still worried that in a couple of years I’ll be involved in a catastrophic bicycle accident, and if I survive that, later on I’ll experience another near-death event so harrowing I won’t even talk about the details. The changes a woman my age has to face and accept are already completely unfair as it is. 

If we’ve learned anything from Bono, it’s that you’ve got to be resilient if you want to survive your fifties. Prince didn’t seem to age, but Prince didn’t make it. We’re lucky that Bono is still here in all his timeworn glory, with the same beautiful eyes and the same iconic  nose and the same wondrous voice that has only grown more expressive with age.

There’s something very punk rock about getting older unapologetically, and this is something I’m coming to grips with artistically in a new series of self-portraits called Menomorphosis. My sole New Year’s resolution for 2022 was to stop hating my body. I decided to track the number of negative thoughts that were invading my mind during an average day (you know, just for kicks) and I stopped counting when I had reached six and it wasn’t even 9:00 a.m. Later on as I was finishing up a yoga practice on YouTube, the truly wonderful instructor asked us to whisper “I love you” to our bodies, and when I did that, I started to cry. My body was starved for acceptance. So I’ve made a concerted effort to shut down the negative thoughts as soon as I recognize them. I don’t let them in, and it’s working.

And as I sit here contemplating the above painting of my dear, wrinkled muse, I wonder, Why can’t I be okay with myself, too? And oh, if I could hear myself when I say it, Maybe I should be as kind to myself as I am to this man.