Posts Tagged → culture

Boomer Courtney Cox Throws in the Towel on Youth

2B82A13E00000578-3206106-Something_has_changed_When_Courteney_Cox_stepped_out_to_the_Amaz-m-21_1440166392558

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/courteney-cox-regrets-cosmetic-procedures-that-made-her-look-horrible/ar-BBvY4ev?li=BBnb7Kz

In my world, well maintained women of 50 look great.

50, still. But great.

And while, by comparison to average women, they look years younger, I can see them coming and going.

Problems arise when women lose touch with what people around them actually see when they look at them.

It’s kind of like older men in arrested adolescence who express shock when women half their age call them daddy.

Self-actualization is a hard pill to swallow, and it cuts both ways.

This is why therapy should be a part of maintenance. alongside dental visits and annual physicals.

Fame, Power, Money and SEX in Entertainment

make-competition-irrelevant

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3754559/Fox-News-host-Andrea-Tantaros-files-suit-claiming-network-operates-like-sex-fueled-Playboy-Mansion-like-cult-Roger-Ailes-Bill-O-Reilly-unwanted-sexual-advances.html

Newsflash: It’s not just Fox, and it’s not just entertainment, but mostly entertainment because people who choose this route are most often dealing with some form of psychiatric disability.

This aside, when I was a budding young actor in NYC [and before i chose photography and writing], this kind of thing was commonplace.

If you wanted something, you have to surrender something – usually your dignity.

I mean, come on! You weren’t just asking for a job as a bagger at Whole Foods for god’s sake.

You wanted fame and fortune and everything that goes with it.

That was then.

The great thing about being older is that you can look back at all the shit you had to swallow to get ahead and know that no one will ever pull that shit on you again, not least of which because you’re no longer a hot 22-year-old model with your hands out.

Psychology and the Retirement Nest Egg

heart-moneyMost of us Baby Boomers have launched retirement calculators a thousand times. Almost every financial institution has one, and invariably, the ones we tend to go to offer the most optimistic outlooks on how much we can spend until the day we die.

The problem is that no one knows exactly when they’re going to die, or if they’re going to die for those of us who’ve opted for cryogenic sleep.

Nonetheless, there is still an annual charge for keeping a body on ice, perhaps for a thousand years or more, so there’s that.

So here’s the dirty rotten obnoxious and existential nightmare-provoking truth: You probably won’t outlive your money.

As I stated in my book, Urban Dystrophy, The Perverse Truths About Mid Life in the Big City, a starter portfolio is $5,000,000.

I know I know. How the hell are you supposed to save $5,000,000 on a $500,000 annual salary over the course of 25 or 30 years?

After taxes somewhere in the 39% range, you’re only taking home somewhere in the $300,000 range.

If you own a home that costs $1,000,000, you can expect to pay $25,000 in property taxes and after a 20% deposit, approximately $60,000/year on a mortgage.

Now add electricity and other related home expenses and you’re down to $200,000 — and you haven’t taken a vacation, bought a single meal or paid a single car note.

Back out those expenses and with luck you have approximately $150,000 left over.

If, however, you have 2 kids, you have basically nothing left over.

So, for the past 25 years you’ve made $12,500,000 and don’t have a dime left in the bank.

Even if you were frugal enough to contribute $75,000,000 a year to a retirement account [for 25 years], you would still only have $1,875,000 in contributions, plus investment interest at an average of around 5%, so $2,800,000 – $3,000,000.

Seriously?

If you retire at age 65, that’s not even close to enough for anyone I know.

The reason for this is because you want to live the same way you did before you retired, which means you’ll need a few million more to generate the income you need to avoid running out of money before your time is up.

For most men I know who give a crap about living well in retirement, the number is around $7,000,000.

At a 5% return, you’re still at 350k/year.

If, however, market crashes, feel free to put a bullet in your head because being broke isn’t worth the struggle for older people.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MONEY

Most men my age validate themselves based upon their relative financial security.

And while every psychiatrist on the planet will call bullshit on this because it’s about as unhealthy a perspective as one might have given the vagaries of money.

But nothing is going to change it unless you plan to join a monastic congregation in Burma.

Money is kind of like a living thing that follows you around wherever you go.

When it doesn’t, you have a big fat fucking problem.

Walk into a car dealership, new prospective home…or hell, the Apple store, and see what happens when the money monster isn’t with you and smiling.

Then you know true meaning of nausea.

The reason you feel the hubris of filthy rich older men with the tans, snow white veneers and $3000 suits is because they’ve beaten the system.

They’ve overcome whatever life can throw at them, shy of a brain aneurysm, stroke or stage 3 cancer.

In other words, they can ride out the highs and low of the stock market, or pay marginal tax increases and still live their lives without making any changes whatsoever.

This is where you want to be, but unfortunately, probably won’t be.

The media is always talking about wealth; who has this or that.

Magazines feature $5,000,000 homes like they’re normal abodes for anyone who’s led a reasonably successful life.

But this is a lie.

The only way to afford a home like that is to inherit it or sell something.

Salaries don’t pay for homes in that price rage.

Investment capital does.

Psychologically, this is a massive hurdle for otherwise success older men facing retirement.

You look down the road at the rest of your life and you don’t see the picture you’ve been sold…and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.

Many men lose their younger girlfriends and/or wives to cut backs in lifestyle.

The ones who don’t tend to be with women their own age who have little to no value on the dating market, who and just sty put.

On top of all this we have a government hell bent and determined to tax out of existence everyone in the middle to upper middle class – including the bottom end of the top 3%.

This is because there are more of them than there are people with $100,000,000 or more who don’t feel any tax increases whatsoever.

So now we have an oligarchy and you’re on the wrong side of it.

WHAT TO DO

1] Figure out how much you absolutely, positively need to live the way you want to live and carve your expectations accordingly.

2] Accept that fact that as you near the end of your life, your retirement savings will be nearing the ends of it’s life.

3] Add 5 years to your anticipated lifeline and then hope and pray you don’t outlive it.

4] Find someone in your personal life who can handle stock market turbulence.

5] Don’t marry a gold-digger unless you’re in the $100,000,000 demographic.

Surrealism Reins in the Gym

grid-cell-24048-1424205844-5I have to tell you people how ridiculous, not to mention surreal, this world of mine has become.

Most 60-year-old guys are not replicas of what they were at 25 no matter how in-shape they are … unless of course, they’re on pharmaceutical steroids.

The fact that an astonishing number of them are [on steroids] has changed the dynamic of gym life these days.

Now, working hard is no longer a necessity in order to bleed body-fat and gain lean muscle mass.

You’re a simple injection away from eating whatever you want and spending a fraction of the time in the gym.

Of course, getting most men to admit to taking steroids is another matter altogether because no one wants to feel dismissed for cheating.

Yes, it’s true, most older men can’t put on all that mass and drop precipitous amounts of body fat by the grace of God.

No, it’s actually the grace of Big Pharma.

It took a while for the gay community to come out of the closet, and this is no different.

My ‘Private Idaho’ of Gym Eccentrics

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My health club is like an outpatient psychiatric facility where patients attend daily group therapy sessions between med checks.

It’s a free-floating phantasm we all play a role in creating.

The list of characters that make up this world are as colorful as the disorders that drive them.

Here are my top 10:

1] …

[up next]

 

 

 

The Urban Dystrophy Virus Spreading Among Millennials

dubois

Mason [on the right] wears the mark of truth [Urban Dystrophy t-shirt].

He is also 1/3rd my age and already gets it. 

Hopefully, the general narrative will serve he and others of his generation well.

proof1-1~~~

I’m the first to admit – brag, frankly – that I don’t cavort with a politically sensitive crowd no matter what their ages happen to be. 

Nobody places boundaries on free speech and/or expression.

If someone is offended by something someone says, they let them know it and just move on.

I find this refreshing.

Every human being, both old and young, knows what’s acceptable and what’s back from the time they were kids — not since the last political convention.

As a parent to animals, I don’t know much about raising human babies. But what I do know is that the way I was raised didn’t kill me, and, in fact, probably led to my avoidance of federal prison.

With this in mind, here are 10 lessons parents should hammer into their kids heads before it’s too late:

1] Corporal punishment is a good thing when kids act up. As long as you don’t put your kid in the hospital, beating them with belts, paddles and boxing gloves is the way to go.

2] Tell your kids the truth about everything. If he or she looks like a tramp  – or complete idiot – let them know in no uncertain terms before they learn about it on the playground where wolves will be wolves.

3] Hammer into their heads that the most important thing in life is financial security followed by health…and then love.

4] Life is a food chain. Everything you say and do can and will be used against you in the court of popular opinion, including job applications.

5] Take care of your health using exercise, particularly weight lifting, to help mitigate your psychiatric problems.

6] Sex is good. More of it is better.

7] If you have sex with someone, just know that they now have leverage over you, so always keep #4 in mind.

8] People are rarely altruistic unless it benefits them, which may also benefit you. So there’s that.

9] When guys get older, they don’t necessarily get weaker. So keep that in mind when you decide to fuck with a guy 3 times your age.

10] Holding onto money is always tougher than earning it, so earn a lot so you can play the odds without ending up under a bridge.

🙂

Aniston Goes Nuclear at Middle Age

Jennifer-Aniston-People-Most-Beautiful-Woman-2016Jennifer Aniston is tired of being judged on her appearance.

I don’t blame her.

At some point we all bend over whether we like it or not.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3688255/PIERS-MORGAN-dear-Jennifer-fed-having-body-judged-stop-trying-make-look-Photoshop-perfect-magazine-covers.html

Bottom line here is you can’t have everything, always.

We get youth and beauty, but no money or experience.

Or we get them all at the same time, and then land in jail or rehab or dead.

But the way it usually works is we acquire money and experience over time, but fall apart physically, even if it just looks that way.

For people [like Ms. Aniston] who leveraged their looks to sell a brand, it’s a battle she will lose no matter how much she bitches about being objectified.

Nobody cares what her reaction to aging happens to be.

They only care about what she looks like, as she knows, hence the attitude.

Retirement Bliss? Hardly.

fp0123_familyfinance_c_mfDeath or boredom?

I’ll get back to you on that.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirement/retirement-is-making-people-more-miserable-than-ever-before/ar-AAhNNSI?li=BBnbfcL

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.

4 Nannies + 2 Twins = How Money Evens the Playing Field

35ABB34800000578-3660312-Happily_ever_after_Rolling_Stones_musician_Ronnie_Wood_69_and_hi-m-113_1466900894627

Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, 69, and his wife Sally, 38, tend to their newborns, Gracie Jane and Alice Rose. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3660312/Full-house-Ronnie-Wood-69-hires-FOUR-nannies-help-wife-Sally-Wood-38-tend-newborn-twins-Gracie-Jane-Alice-Rose.html

~~~

In days gone by [lots of them], a man of 69 was, for the most part, on his death bed.

The very last thing he was doing was having children with a woman 30 years his junior.

Then something happened [a lot, actually], and this same man is now clean and sober [for the most part, I assume], propped up by the miracles of medical science, and thus, living like there’s no tomorrow.

This is what fame and fortune [fame + money = relevance] does for most men.

It’s like a blood transfusion that just keeps giving and giving.

You’ll note that many of the comments under the article are dismissive of him and his “relationship.”

People simply can’t resist the temptation to criticize his motives, and hers.

Nothing is real. It’s all one big endless past time for a man who has nothing left to do with the time he’s not touring.

Well let’s get real.

No one in their right mind has kids at 69 without the ability to afford nannies…lots of them.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be a part of their lives, just not all of it.

As for his young wife, she’ll do her part, with lots of help, while her husband does what he does when he wants to do it, because like he’s Ronnie Wood and the scales have to balance somewhere.

Wealthy older men have reached a point in their lives where they just don’t give a crap what other people think about them and their lifestyles.

For one thing, they don’t have to. Nothing rides on their reputations in the office.

This is the beauty of success. No one can fault you for it no matter how you choose to live out your years.

It’s like a golden wrapper, a force field that follows you around wherever you go.

You walk into a restaurant, hotel, resort property – even local liquor store – and there’s a kind of parting of the waves.

It’s something you get used to, which is one reason men who find themselves suddenly without it blow their brains out.

The story here is really about what it’s like to feel validated for everything you ever dreamed of as a little boy.

For young men there is tremendous pressure to amount to something, to achieve.

And as we age we gauge our success by those around us, hoping that we’re still close to the front of the line, relevant, valid.

All older men validate themselves on their achievements whether they admit it or not.

They subconsciously sum up everything to a series of equations and derive a number that determines their relative worth.

And while some men do not base their lives solely on financial success, I don’t know any.

While vicariously living through one’s children is a fallback position, it really sucks to rely on their financial support.

The moral of this story is that life is a food chain no matter how you dice it.

You have to fight for every scrap, and then live to tell a very tall tale that you and people around you can easily quantify.

It is unforgiving, savage, and brutally objective.

This is why reality television focusing on the super rich is so popular, while anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults…and counting.

Now you know why people beat up on Ronny Wood…and why Daily Mail published it in the first place.

Concluding Remarks and Data Points

  • 1% (2 out of 233) became wealthy before the age of 40
  • 3% (6 out of 233) became wealthy between age 40 and 55
  • 16% (38 out of 233) became wealthy between age 46 and 50
  • 28% (66 out of 233) became wealthy between age 51 and 55
  • 31% (73 out of 233) became wealthy between age 56 and 60
  • 21% (48 out of 233) became wealthy after the age of 60

So yes, Ronnie was one lucky SOB.

Confessions of a Recovering Middle-Age Exercise Addict

6c261afc-e516-11e5-9142-f1bda08aded3Yea, I was there.

Thankfully, I lived to tell the tale.

The following is a true story and the world I describe is an accurate portrayal of addiction in motion.

~~~

While not a standalone DSM-5 disorder, exercise dependence is closely associated with individuals who struggle with eating disorders, for example.

Many use exercise as a way to compensate for binge eating (bulimia nervosa) by tacking on extra activity to compensate for all the empty calories. It’s not like they’re gorging themselves on chicken breasts and broccoli for God’s sake.

Those with anorexia [extreme caloric limitation] use exercise in a compulsive way to control their weight.

Medical complications from exercise dependence are legion: Cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes, absence of menstration, stress fractures, osteoporosis and other overuse injuries.

While some don’t suffering clinical eating disorders, they may still engage in compulsive exercise, spending excessive time engaged in physical activity in the name of health – or to ward off uncomfortable feelings – clinical depression high up on the list of usual suspects.

Typically, these individuals feel guilty when they miss a workout and experience signs of withdrawal, like irritability, anxiety, or depression when their exercise schedules are compromised.

In my world [successful middle-aged urban men], this is considered normal and healthy.

I’m joking of course.

The following are the most common signatures of exercise addiction among older men:

1] If I don’t work out all the time I’m going to fall apart like everyone else my age.

2] If I skip a day, I feel like crap…both physically and psychologically.

3] Though I’m in denial, existential pain is a bitch, and working out 5 hours a day is healthier than heroin.

4] I want people to be proud of me, respect me, give me something I can no longer find within myself, like youth. 

5] My marriage is falling apart. What do you expect?

6] I may be gay after all…at 40 or 50 or 60 or 70…

7] When people ask me why I’m always at the gym, I tell them “what else do I have to do?” In addiction-speak: My world is devoid of balance.

Okay, you get the point. 

So which exercises are most closely associated with addiction?

ANYTHING INVOLVING EXTREME ENDURANCE, LIKE LONG-DISTANCE RUNNING, SWIMMING AND CYCLING.

As everyone in their right mind knows, strength training in combination with flexibility work, cardiovascular conditioning for no more than an hour at a time, combined with a weekly recovery schedule is the healthy way forward for all aging athletes, not 10k runs in 90 degree heat…week after week after week.

And people wonder why most top athletes drop out of Hell Week of SEAL training – and these people are already top athletes in their early 20’s.

I know. Reality is a bitch.

~~~

I used to be one of those people, training 3 hours a day, 7 days a week, and nothing whatsoever to talk about but diet and exercise.

We tend to feed the addiction through camaraderie with other addicts.

In psych circles it’s known as codependency.

But whatever you call it, my little party was about to end.

One week after my 49th birthday, I awoke from a fitful night’s sleep with a raging fever of 102 with extreme inflammation from head to toe.

I knew right away that Tylenol wasn’t going to cut whatever this was,  so I dragged myself to a nearby emergency room where I was diagnosed with Rhabdomyolysis [extreme muscle tissue breakdown that results in the release of a protein (myoglobin) into the blood], which can and will damage the kidneys if not contained.

Fortunately for me, I caught it just in time.

After I was stabilized, my personal physician and I had a heart to heart. he told me in no uncertain terms that I had to stay out of the gym for 30 days, get a personal trainer…and, if necessary, see a psychiatrist before it was too late.

I didn’t ask him to elaborate. I didn’t need to.

After a couple of weeks, the inflammation began to subside, but now depression took it’s place.

I felt like I was climbing out of my skin.

In drug addiction parlance, it’s referred to as the DT’s [drug withdrawal tremors].

While the actual symptoms are different, the downward spiral isn’t.

~~~

When I started with my trainer, the first lesson I had to learn was moderation.

This didn’t mean that my training wouldn’t be tough, but that it would take into account every aspect of what it means to be human.

1] I’m no longer 21.

2] Recovery is a critical component of performance. 

3] A balanced life is a life well lived. 

4] I will never be perfect, nor will anyone else. 

5] Life gives and takes, but mostly takes when you don’t respect its boundaries.

~~~

How did this happen to me?

It happened to me the same way it happens to everyone else: Over time exercise becomes a reliable escape from existential pain. 

You don’t have to take a pill or go to a therapist or even engage in discussions that lead to that rabbit hole of self awareness.

All you have to do is run, swim, bike, lift…crawl if you have to.

But nothing about extreme athletics is normal for anyone not involved in professional sports; particularly hitting the middle years and beyond.

After pulling through this nightmare myself, while at the same time losing close friends to exercise anorexia, I guess you could say I’m a bit resentful of the denial.

~~~

ARTICLES WORTH READING:

http://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/treatment-for-eating-disorders/special-issues/athletes/long-distance-runners-high-risk-to-develop-eating-disorder

http://breakingmuscle.com/endurance-sports/endurance-training-is-bad-for-your-heart

http://www.businessinsider.com/is-short-intensity-exercise-better-than-endurance-training-2015-1

I could go on and on and on and on.

But I’ve known junkies who’ve wanted to kill me over a conversation, so for many, this is an exercise in futility.