Popular New York journalist/blogger Choire Sicha has a profile of Alec Baldwin in the L.A. Times today. Here’s an excerpt:

Sitting in the room, Baldwin discovered the photographer’s computer. He played Chopin through iTunes. “A man turns 50 and he has a funeral for the skills that he never had,” he said. Baldwin just had that birthday in April. “He says goodbye. I’m never gonna be a cop, never gonna be a professional baseball player, never going to play the piano, a ballet dancer, the leading rusher in the NFL. All those things gone. But! There’s other things to do. The world is run by men in their 50s. So I’m trying to decide what to do when I quit this business.”

Politics, perhaps? “What would I run for?” he asked. He has a smart squint when he asks questions. Comptroller? He barked his loud laugh. “Yeah, I do have to find another career,” he said. “I don’t want to do this [acting]. . . . I don’t.”

You can read the full article here and as a bonus, Choire offers an unedited bit on his blog that didn’t make it into the paper.

Still craving more? Alec Baldwin appears at the Y on September 24—the day after his new book A Promise to Ourselves: Divorce, Fatherhood, and Family Law lands in bookstores—with New York Times critic Janet Maslin to talk about his life and career.