Melanie Hamrick, 29, is mother to Jagger’s 8th child.
BTW, who cares if it’s his 22nd child? He could father a nation and still support them so shut the hell up.
As for the rest of you, try having just one you can afford.
The rest of us are sick of paying your bills.
Death or boredom?
I’ll get back to you on that.
The concept of retirement has been around a long time. But since it’s inception it’s evolved.
In days gone by [around the time the Stones started touring the U.S.], most people were happy to work pretty much anywhere and die pretty much anywhere, because working and dying soon thereafter was considered a normal part of the human experience.
The short time between the day one decided to leave work behind forever and the day his eulogy was read was no more than a few years, so it made sense to take a few last walks on a beach before lights out.
Now a 60-year-old man in good physical and financial health is like an adolescent all over again, and, as you may remember, keeping them quiet for 5 minutes was a pain in the ass.
You’d have to lock them in a room and bolt the doors and windows.
Fast-forward 40 years or so and they reemerge, this time around with bucket lists that include 1] climbing specific mountains, 2] getting new and improved wives, 3] starting new business ventures…and/or finding ways to keep doing what they’ve always done, but on their own time.
You can’t walk a beach forever when you’re in your 60’s or you’ll be walking for the next 30 years.
I only know one man who still does this, but he’s in his late 80’s and didn’t officially retire until about 5 years ago, mostly because he ran out of funds to keep playing the game.
So no. Retirement is a premature death sentence to most people of retirement age who still feel very much alive and well.
As I’ve said so many times before that I’m blue in the face, people don’t die off at 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 the way they used to.
In fact, some don’t seem to die at all as evidenced by the number of childbirths attributed to men in their 80’s with wives in their mid-20’s who’ve been known to add another 20 years to a man’s life.
The reasons men of means have difficulty finding true love has everything to do with them, and nothing whatsoever to do with the relative health of their investment portfolios.
~~~
The following is a conversation between yours truly and one of these men.
By the time you’re half way through it, you’ll understand the dilemma.
“John” is a nom de plume.
JOHN
“I just met this woman who is perfect! Perfect body, nice skin, teeth…and she has a perfect ass. A little flat on top, but I can fix that.”
ME
“Where did you meet her?
JOHN
At a really nice steakhouse. She was at the bar having drinks with a girlfriend.
ME
Is she from here?
JOHN
I think so. She’s in school.
ME
How old is she?
JOHN
33
ME
So she’s getting a graduate degree or something?
JOHN
I don’t know all of that, but she is really into fitness and wants to workout with me at the club.
ME
I’m sure she does. What does she do for a living? Does she have a job?
JOHN
Yea, she’s in medical sales or something like that. She’s really smart.
ME
I bet.
~~~
So this is how it all starts.
There’s a checklist that runs in the blood.
You’ll notice the same list in 22-year-old men who don’t have resources and children that must withstand their poor life choices.
Such men can ebb and flow with the tides, relatively unscathed.
But when an older man of means gets caught up in what feels like a rip current, it can drag his entire life straight to hell before he has time to repair the damage.
The point is older men of means have a tendency to forget their age and financial station relative to the women they choose to date.
In their minds, they’re still at Stanford, and the women are on a field in front of them carrying lacrosse rackets.
This is the delusion that settles in like virus and hides out in their spinal columns for the duration of their lives.
It’s incurable, but it can be contained.
Unfortunately, containing it is akin to death to many, so it just does what the hell it wants until there’s nothing left to do.
I can’t tell an older man that his choices are ass-backwards. He doesn’t want to hear it.
What he wants to hear is that a beautiful young woman of unknown origin and lifestyle will love him for who he is.
He wants it to all the be same way things were 30 years ago.
This is the psychopathology.
This is also why these men rarely – if ever – find the “right” women.
They don’t exist anymore than the person they were 30 years ago exists.
Now they’re standing at a steakhouse bar in the middle of a massive metropolis, hallucinating.
And who takes advantage of their hallucinations?
You guessed it.
5 Bullet Points of Note
1] Never choose a woman based solely upon her appearance thinking you can fix the rest of it. In her mind, the rest is not broken. You are.
2] If a woman in a steakhouse says she’s in school at 33, she is in class where you’re standing.
3] Your fantasies are public knowledge, which means that the women you meet have your number.
4] Line items are fine, but not particularly practical.
5] Imagine your world without money and then place that template over the women in your sights.
“…all older women hear (and thus believe) that older men are only looking for much younger women. OK, many of them are. But are they getting them? Not really, unless they’re wealthy and powerful. (And I have always believed that it’s good to identify those men and remove them from the 50-something dating pool ASAP; I’m not interested in men like that so move along, men, and good luck!”). Vicki Larson, journalist
I hate to tell you people this, but a simple fact can save you a lot of heartache:
Reasonably attractive, healthy and successful older men have lots of choices when it comes to choosing partners.
Too many, in most cases, which is why so many of them are single or serial monogamists, the emphasis on serial.
~~~
When it gets down to it, money and power are the great equalizers.
Conversely, youth and beauty are also commodities openly traded on the human stock exchange.
Whether you’re young or old, you have different assets to barter, but something is always for sale.
Most of the older successful guys I know have an exacting set of standards they apply to the acquired women in their lives.
These are the very same standards, by the way, they applied to their ex-wives before they divorced them 20 years later.
The fact is successful men prefer to date younger women is because THEY CAN.
Generally speaking, women over the age of 17 are not attracted to youth.
They’re attracted to confidence and power.
Therefore when a beautiful woman in her 20s or 30s meets a man who is in his 50s, with the world in the palm of his hands, it’s sexy and alluring to her.
His age becomes irrelevant.
Walk into any upscale restaurant or bar and what you will see are drop-dead gorgeous women accompanying successful older men.
These women were not forced at gunpoint, believe me.
To many men I know, it’s almost irrelevant whether these women are truly in love with them or merely out to make better lives for themselves.
It matters that they are in the company of a beautiful, intelligent and uncomplicated young woman.
The rest they leave to a suspension of disbelief.
She is everything their wives once were before time took its pound of flesh and soul.
No wonder so many middle aged women without much to leverage scream and yell about all of this.
But put them in the position to do what these young women are doing and you wouldn’t hear a peep.
The fact is average men and women receive average returns, and exceptional beauty and youth will always win out where successful older men are concerned.
Is it fair?
No.
But pretending that “real men” don’t want younger women is delusion. That they want an equal is naive at best, disastrous at worst.
According to one NYC matchmaker, this is the normal course of things:
“I recently had a 78-year-old client who wouldn’t even consider a woman older than 50. If you are 25 years old as you are reading this, let me put this in perspective: That would be like dating a 55-year-old.
That brings me to why I can’t take on women as clients; and no, misogyny has nothing to do with it. In this tough singles market, if a man pays top dollar for a matchmaker, he expects nothing less than a 29-year-old model. As a result, I cannot find a husband for a 47-year-old schoolteacher with two kids and three mortgages.”
So where do relatively pretty, average 40-plus women find men of means?
They don’t.
What they can and do find are men of equal value, which is not a particularly palatable prospect for most.
My recommendation to such women:
1] Join a book club.
2] Enroll in a continuing education class at a local college.
3] Attend art openings.
4] Get out of the house – maximize exposure.
5] Go back to therapy.
Nature is neither kind nor compassionate, but the good news is that there are exceptions to every rule.
Just not very many.
Alessandro Manfredini, Model
Ask most women to name an age when men start losing their sex appeal and most would say 39-40.
What would you pick?
The consensus from pop culture and social science seem to agree that 40 is the line in the sand when men start to become “invisible” to opposite-sex potential partners, and especially to younger ones.
But how young?
Most teens don’t look at men over the age of 25, so it’s all relative.
British Crown in Manchester, a hair transplantation clinic, paid for a study started all this crap.
It’s findings were that men 39 or older are more likely to be identified by women as a “father figure” than a “sex symbol.”
In my world, that’s considered advanced adolescence.
Needless to say, the clinic had an agenda in mind.
Since most men lose hair along with color, we need to book an appointment at our earliest possible convenience in order to avoid suicidal tendencies.
The web is littered with this ridiculous “study,” mostly because no one else has bothered to commission a legitimate one.
What I have found through personal experience is that women consider “ideal” and “perfectly acceptable” to be the same things.
Again, I’m not talking about teens. Their objectivity is palpable. But they can afford it, so there’s that.
For everyone else, here’s what women I know cite as critical to a man’s enduring sex appeal:
1] Maintaining Your Hair, no matter how much – or how little – of it you may have.
So, in other words, get a decent haircut and let the gray do its thing.
http://metro.co.uk/2015/02/17/10-reasons-grey-haired-men-are-hot-5065945/
The alternative is to shave your head, which many women like, but only if the head in question does not resemble an egg.
If it does, you’re screwed.
2] Stay Fit and Healthy
I don’t know anyone my age who doesn’t stay fit, no matter what their hair looks like.
3] Take Care of Your Teeth
Most men I know have straighter, whiter teeth than they did at 25, real or fake.
4] Chill & Stay Confident
The men my age who’ve done well in life tend to be confident.
Thus, successful men are attractive to women at pretty much any age.
~~~
SUMMARY
All of these “studies” are complete bullshit.
They play out in abstraction, not reality.
In reality, where the rest of us reside, young men attract women because they are physically flawless and ripe with potential.
Older men, on the other hand, attract women because of their level of success and the maturity and confidence that comes along with it.
People say a lot of things from a distance, but in the end, women see with their ears.
And yes, nice neighborhoods do sound pretty damn good to most of them.
What I’m about to tell you cuts a deep swath between what you were and what many of you are becoming.
Most men don’t have the balls to say [out loud] any of what I’m about to tell you, but saying it is the only way to help catalyze change in what’s often a foot-dragging passage into twilight.
Buckle up.
~~~
Over these past decades I’ve learned a few things about being a man that weigh on all of us after enough water’s under the bridge.
#1
The first is the personal assessment quiz, where we sum up all of our perceived accomplishments and hope that our backstories are sellable on the open market.
I say ‘open market’ because unless you live in a vacuum, you have an audience that determines your viability. I know. This sounds like every psychiatrist’s worst nightmare, but it’s still true.
We live in a society filled with people, not open land filled with livestock.
Remember, this is a blog about urban life, not rural isolationism.
In this world, our world, we need to matter. Some call it relevance. And while many claim this to be an exercise in pure nihilism and self-destruction, it’s critical to our emotional well being that we see our lives as having been well spent.
The resulting self-esteem becomes our fuel, our motivation to go on long after the glory years of imagined immortality and endless promise have passed.
But let me reiterate that we must pass muster with the world around us before we get the fuel. We can’t just fantasize it into being.
The world around us is a cold, objective force. It sees us as fully formed entities, each with a script in our hands that we read to ourselves before closing our eyes at night, hoping our dreams don’t contradict the plot lines.
Appreciating the gravity of this is an essential part of maintaining dignity no matter how much you try to ignore or deny it.
Okay, so let’s say we’re happy with what we’ve done with our lives up to this juncture. We have financial security and we’re proud of what we’ve done.
Great.
Now what?
#2
Now we have to figure out how to maintain what we’ve built so it doesn’t all come crashing down on top of us.
I’m talking about our physical health, and more specifically, our physical being; how we see ourselves relative to those around us, no matter what their age.
Like everything else in my life, I need to feel in possession of myself physically, to be physically strong, in control, and able to defend myself.
I’m sure that more than a few of you reading this will wonder why men our age [Baby Boomers] should give a crap about what sounds like an older man’s delusions of grandeur, but I don’t know any of you.
The men I do know care. A lot. They don’t want to be walked all over like party confetti. They live with purpose and dignity.
And while a few engage in endurance sports, especially anorexics, who swap one addiction for another, the answer lies in the weight room. Yes, being a man means lifting heavy weight. I know I know. I’m a superficial jackass who has no idea what brings true fulfillment to anyone but myself, but you’re still dead wrong.
Many of the men I’m around are luminaries in their respective fields, ranging in age from late 40’s to early 80’s. But one thing they share is a desire to build and/or maintain physical strength. In other words, no matter what they’ve done, if they’re wasting away it’s irrelevant. Soon, self esteem will erode away all that they’ve built, and they’ll end up dead long before you read about them in the obituaries.
This brings to mind a guy in my gym in his early 80’s who is not only a celebrated surgeon, but a world champion masters power lifter.
You think he feels irrelevant?
The respect he receives from people around him is palpable.
My motto: Be strong, live well.
#3
Our personal lives are the final cog in our wheels of fortune. While I cannot pretend to speak for gay men and their relationships, I do know a thing or two about living with women, which is kind of like living with an extraterrestrial biological life form, identical human DNA, notwithstanding.
Like #1 and #2, how we feel in the context of our relationships is inextricably tied to how we feel as men.
The first thing we men know about ourselves is that our egos are fragile, particularly when we feel vulnerable. Thus, we need our masculinity validated daily. We need to feel loved; we need to feel attractive; and we need to feel capable.
That’s a lot of need, but miss an ounce of it at your peril.
Memorize this list so you don’t lose it:
A] Admire Us.
Compliment us on the things we’re good at and our physical qualities. Beat on us and we’ll stop making the house payments.
B] Brag on Us
The first time I heard a woman complaining about her husband’s “many” shortfalls, I suggested he leave her. In my mind, she breached the trust and left him out to dry.
C] Ask For Our Help
Ask us to show you how to do something or to give you advice on a tough situation. We’ll be more than happy to show you, believe me.
D] Never, Ever Cut Us Down No Matter What.
Make you man feel like an idiot and he will show you the door. Men have massive egos. Why this is I don’t know, but suspect it has something to do with having to kill things so the rest of his primordial family didn’t starve to death.
Never, ever discredit us or make snide comments about our appearance, abilities or performances, particularly around others.
E] Learn How to Listen.
Men may not be as talkative as women are, but we still have things to say and emotions to vent or bad days we want to discuss. While we’re more about fixing things than just talking for the sake of being heard, sometimes we like being heard so we can justify fixing things.
F] Respect Us.
Respect builds the foundation of our relationships. Without it, we will look for it elsewhere, believe me. Incessant nagging comes to mind. It’s like rat poison for human relationships.
G] Believe In Us
We want the women in our lives to be our biggest cheerleaders. We’ll do anything for someone who believes in us. Even if what we try to do doesn’t succeed by someone else’s standards, the fact that we gave it our best shot deserves praise and love.
H] Do Little Things For Us
Whether you leave a love note somewhere we’ll find it, stuff an Oreo under our pillow…or just wear something that we can’t seem to live without, JUST DO IT!
FINAL THOUGHTS
As men get older it’s even more important to affirm us. First, because we are no longer 25. Second, because no matter what we act like, we’re no longer in college and running track for NYU.
Of course, back then we were flat broke, our trust factor was zero, and and our apartments resembled the wolf dens you see at natural science museums across the country.
As women who’ve spent your fair share of time with men, you already know all these things.
This is just a reminder.
George Haywood, 63, took home the gold in the 300-meter hurdles at the World Masters Athletic Championships last summer in Lyon, France. (Katherine Frey / The Washington Post)
Drug testing will be conducted at Perth 2016, following the procedures outlined by World Masters Athletics.
If selected for drug testing Competitors must declare any/all medications being used by them on the doping control form. Any athlete using a prohibited substance as defined in the Regulations, must apply for an exemption (TUE) to the WMA Anti-Doping and Medical Committee. Athletes taking or requiring exemption for a prohibited substance must apply to the WMA Medical Officer (Dr. Martine Prévost) for a TUE exemption (17 rue Léon Roby FR-87000 LIMOGES: FRANCE. Tel: 0033 607 949 507, email: prevost.ma@wanadoo.fr ) If an exemption is refused, the prohibited substance(s) concerned must not be used and should you be selected for testing and the test proves positive this may result in a suspension. Please note that no other medical certificate(s) will be accepted in substitution for a TUE certificate. If you are granted a TUE exemption certificate, this must be with you at all times along with proof of identification, and must be produced at the Doping Control Centre if you are selected for a drug test. Details of prohibited substances and all Anti-Doping procedures are available on the IAAF (www.iaaf.org) website, the WMA (www.world-masters-athletics.org) website and your IAAF Affiliated Federation. The Competitor’s Handbook in Perth will also contain details of the Anti-Doping Procedures to be undertaken during the championships.
There was a point in my life where I enjoyed eating. It was a long time age.
I’d workout, then devour a pizza – or bucket of Popeye’s friend chicken and french fries – and was no worse for wear.
My body would cycle through it and I’d be on to the next great meal within a few hours.
Now I can’t get within block of Popeye’s without suffering withdrawal symptoms.
I know that the days of eating like that are long gone no matter how much the cravings scrape away at my resolve.
At this writing food is fuel and nothing more. Sad, I know.
I get up in the mornings to write and completely forget about eating, until I start losing consciousness from low blood sugar and am then forced to head to the kitchen.
I consume 6 egg whites, a bowl of oatmeal with a banana in it, and a glass of water marinated in lemon juice.
Needless to say, the last place I want to be is in the kitchen.
If I could pop a pill and be done with it i wpould, but I can’t, so this is what I’m left with.
Lunch is the same: Salmon over greens and an iced tea.
Totally sucks. Horrible.
What I really want is a thin crust pizza with cheddar, ground beef and onions.
This vision sits in my head as I eat what I know is better for me, what will make me look and feel better … and maybe keep me alive longer – or better.
Now we come to dinner, and it’s usually sitting in glass Tupperware containers in the fridge: Pre-prepared foods from Sunday, when we cook things I hate for 5 hours.
But here’s a little secret: I still manage to cheat!
After dinner I get to enjoy a fruit Popsicle.
But it gets better!
Before bed, I prepare a bowl of frozen organic fruit with a small slice of low fat cheese and a few pita chips!!! Awesome!
This is what life is like for those of us who have had to convince ourselves that eating healthy is about how it makes one feel rather than how it tastes.
Hopefully, most come to a place of peace about this.
I haven’t.
~~~
I found this amusing in light of the above…
While there has only been a two percent overall increase in plastic surgeries from 2009 to 2010, the number of male cosmetic procedures have increased dramatically, say statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
The number of liposuction procedures performed on men rose seven percent, and the number of male facelifts doubled, by 14 percent.
Why such a relatively high increase in male procedures?
1[ Economic woes [i.e., keeping their jobs]
2] Media bombardment [i.e., if you can afford to look your best, why not?]
People often consider cosmetic procedures to be just for women, says northern CA-based men’s mental health expert Will Courtenay, PhD, LCSW, and author of Dying to Be Men.
Just as sex roles between men and women are changing—more fathers are active parents than they used to be, he maintains—so is interest in cosmetic surgery. “The fact is, manhood in America is changing rapidly,” Courtenay tells demo dirt. “And at least one in four men says he’d consider cosmetic surgery. And another one in five says he might. And for men, it’s often about staying in the race.”
Washington, DC-based facial plastic surgeon Houtan Chaboki, MD says that he has noticed an increase in men getting procedures, even though they still comprise less than ten percent of cosmetic patients.
Most common, he notes, is rhinoplasty, which people get for various reasons.
However, the fastest growing market is face lift surgery, Chaboki says.
“More men seeking plastic surgery want to appear younger and compete in the workplace,” he says.
“Some working men who actually feel full of energy have the perception that others at work may see them as older, [and] less adaptable to change in a fast-moving economy.”
Dermatologist Debra Jaliman, MD started doing Botox in 1991 and says that more and more men have been requesting the treatment, among other things.
“I find that now many years later more men are doing Botox and fillers and lasers and freezing their fat, “she says.
Jaliman agrees that the main reason is the economy. “We are in a competitive business environment and it’s also become more acceptable,” she adds.
The problems emerge when cosmetic surgery can’t remedy deeper-rooted self-esteem issues.
“Cosmetic surgery can be a misguided attempt to feel better,” Courtenay maintains. “Research shows that men who are dissatisfied with their physical appearance are more likely to suffer from poor self-esteem and depression. So, for these men, cosmetic surgery may make them look better, but they won’t feel better.”
The best surgery candidate, Courtenay says, is a man who is generally secure already.
SUMMARY
Whether it’s to gain that competitive edge, or just bolster an already healthy self-esteem, nips and tucks appear are the way forward for most urban men I know.
Get used to it. I have.
Nothing is as it seems anywhere, anymore.
When you get older, you expect to be depressed.
By “older” I’m referring to Baby Boomers stuck between the 3rd and final chapters, or Purgatory in the absence of an obituary notice.
But I’m hopeful because I have one weapon up my sleeve capable of blowing a gaping hole in hell…
EXERCISE.
In the minds of many, however, what I undergo is hell.
But as everyone knows, if you want to stop feeling like crap you have to punish yourself.
Eventually, you’ll learn to enjoy it like the rest of us.
It’s kind of like healthy eating. You learn to appreciate the way clean food makes you feel, rather than focus on its taste.
Soon, you’ll convince yourself that steamed quinoa tastes better than a Big Mac.
As implausible as this may sound, it is critical that you embrace certain delusions at any and all cost.
Understand that nature wants you dead. Thus, it’s your job to earn it’s respect in order to stay alive.
Many guys throw in the towel because it’s just too much on top of everything else.
But there is nothing else without it.
A FEW FACTS
http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2015/01/23/brain-benefits-exercise.aspx