- A Sunday Afternoon Visit With Howard
- A Comment Addressed
Hey have you checked into your social security account? The minimum that you could start collecting at age 62 is about $750 a month. That would be a ton of money compared to what you're getting now.It's funny how, being 56 years old and thinking that I will live to be maybe 92, it won't be long before I won't be able to help counting down the months before I reach the magic age, which was determined back when the life expectancy was 72, when I will be able to draw social security.
I think the both of us are just marking time until we're social security age. -Alex In California
At some point in the future, the retirement age is probably going to be pushed back at least 5 years, once it becomes evident that "70 is the new 50," and the life expectancy has to be adjusted.
Right now, it is based upon the average age of the people that are dying now.
But maybe people 20 years younger are going to live an average of 30 years more.
The person who is 72 today was born in 1947. His likelihood of dying today is based upon his having lived through the dark ages of the 1950's, when things like McDonald's restaurants flourished, and when Americans were force-fed the "4 food groups," in which meat and cheese were actually separate groups.
It's almost like the Food and Drug people saw the pitfall of putting red meat and milk in the same group out of fear that people might have one or the other, but not both, and that it would divide the profits between the beef cartel and the dairy producers.
So they made them separate groups and disseminated the hogwash that one had to have all four, and every day, too, in order to have a complete diet; and live to be 72.
It's not that I am "riding things out" and waiting until I am able to get social security, but that I feel like I will have a lot of youthfulness left in me at such a time that I am eligible for the thing.
I do fear though, the age being increased in the near future. Maybe the very near future if Trump gets a second term. I have a nagging feeling that I am going to be 61 years and 11 months old when they put the age up to 67.
And how would they do that. Would they tell the people who are turning 62 the next day that they have to wait 5 years, while their friends, who happened to be born one day earlier got their benefits?
They will probably tell people at some point that the age has been raised but then tell them to look on the bright side in that they will all be getting the higher amount that people used to have to defer for 5 years in order to get.
I remember when the drinking age in Massachusetts went from 18 up to 21. I was 18 at the time. I had been using a fake ID which made me 2 years older since I was 16, but I would still have to wait a year before I could use that. I wonder if that was a premonition...
But, that makes me feel even better about the fact that I have kind of quit smoking over the past 3 weeks, even though I have been vaping. I suppose a long healthy retirement might be a worthwhile goal. Being hit by lightning while hiking in Nepal at the age of 93 would be the end all end.
Six years is way too far ahead to be thinking, in my opinion. I'm thinking about this afternoon, that's about it...
Our retirement age is keyed to the years we were born, so even if the age is increased to something like 72 for the young whippersnappers, it'll still be the "full" retirement age at 65 or 66 for us. Actually, I believe for people our age, the "full" age is 67. You can go to the Social Security site and key in your info and find all this out, how much you can expect to get, whether you're eligible for benefits at all (you have to have put in 10 years as a member of the above-board work force, and have made a regular amount of money, not just a few thou a year).
ReplyDeleteIn my case, I put in enough time and earned enough working, then working while in college, then working as an electronics tech, that I just squeak in. Then my few good years with Ebay, closer to 10 really, that I paid into SS at least half of those years to a decent amount, and now I'm paying in again. In fact, I'll be writing a check for at least a couple thousand today.
I am also hoping to have a lot of "youth" left when I retire, but I am also assuming my existence will be just one step above living in a stand of American red cedar trees.
ReplyDeleteAs I keep saying, to people's astonishment, I can find plenty of rooms in the area around the University of Hawaii for around $300 a month. There's no parking and parking's a nightmare if you think "street parking" actually exists, and there's a lot of petty theft in the area, but I don't plan on owning a car, and there might be some pretty neat electric scooters in 10 years. Or I'll get one of those folding bikes, that can be stored indoors. Or just get a bike that's so ugly no one wants to steal it, like my old blue Fuji I had that I eventually stopped even locking up when I was at home and parked it outside.
The cost of living is something like half what it is where I am now, and being a largely Asian culture there, old people aren't looked upon as useless and stupid, but are respected.
I should clarify; as it stands right now, in all cases, you can start collecting at age 62, you just take a big hit. I can collect at age 62, but I'll take about a $300 hit. One one hand it seems sensible to take the money and run, but I'd rather wait until 65 where I still take a hit, since for me the "full" age is 67, but it's something like a 5% hit. I'd get a bit over a thousand. It's more "sure" money coming in a month to tell a landlord I'm getting.
ReplyDeleteThe social security site is pretty helpful in planning these things.
I have the same feelings about SS, just about the time I get close qualifying they'll yank it.
ReplyDeleteOn standing performance, I think it more importantly increases energy, promotes better blood flow as well as that esoteric kind of energy described in the practice of Chi Kung (Qui Gong, whatever). The flow of 'Chi' from the 'Tan Tien' up the spine to the brain and back down through the limbs and organs. I know it can be a tough transition if you haven't played standing for long periods. I had a buddy/guitar student once that had never played standing. He nearly passed out the first time I forced him to stand for a whole tune! (Ha, his very potent Ganja didn't help)
They say sitting is the new smoking! I still smoke tobacco (lightly) but I firmly believe that activity is the key to health and longevity.
On the "Queen of England" thing (your previous post): fuck what people think, it's really none of your business. Do what you do and forget about it. Performers will always be judged one way or another but in my experience most people respond more positively to an outgoing posture and attitude than not. Stay happy and strong, people desperately need that example more than ever these days.
Remember, you are not just providing musical entertainment, you are making people happy, you are giving them joy! Few wage slaves can say that.
I'm the kind of busker who plays standing like, 99% of the time. I'll get sore feet after a couple of hours and tell myself to sit down and next thing I know I'm popping up again.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, I've always been very active, and every job I had involved lots of hustling around, and the first sit-down job I had, electronics technician, marked the time when I first had trouble with ... the reason Preparation H is in business.
Playing trumpet is just asking for 'em to flare up though, and as of a couple of days ago, I sold all of my trumpet stuff down to the last used mouthpiece and pull-through, to a guy who's in the Buddhism study class I go to. It's all gone.
Next goes the uke stuff, because since I was given a PVC student shakuhachi, I feel like Charlie Parker getting his first saxophone. No, I sure don't sound like Charlie Parker on the thing, but I feel like I don't want to let go of this thing.
I don't think they'll yank SS away - too many oldsters are vets and know how to fight.
ReplyDeleteAlex: Oh, you don't have to blow that hard on a trumpet, it's all about efficiency.
ReplyDeleteI mean, it only took me 15+years to figure that out... (yikes!).
And could you pick a harder instrument? Shakuhachi are very cool for what they are intended (meditational) but they are nearly impossible to properly intone diatonic western music. By all accounts, lot's of tweaking and fractional hole covering to even get an eight note scale, accidentals be damned! {laughing}
I did hear a master (Japanese) player once do 'Take Five' (Brubeck) but goddamn what a feat.
I could barely play a note when I tried one, power to you if you can play anything pleasing to the ear anytime soon, heh, saxophone would be a vastly easier instrument in comparison.
I dunno I just don't find it to be that hard. I can do the first say, 1-1/2 octaves, and yeah, you change notes by a combination of partial-holing, moving the chin forward and back, etc. But it's really cool!
ReplyDeleteWestern music is actually simple compared with the traditional Japanese music played on these things. I'll be able to play "Take Five" on this before I'd ever be able to play it on trumpet.
They are pretty cool but what I'm saying is they are not tuned for equal temperament scales.
ReplyDeleteThey sound cool when played in the traditional fashion but extremely difficult to play in tune with western instruments.
Shakuhatchi are best played as a solo improvisational instrument with the purpose of inducing personal 'sartori' or 'kenshÅ'
Well, the book I've got starts out learning little sets of notes, and learning the notation which is Japanese and reads down vertically and right-to-left, not at all like Western musical notation. And then the student moves on to Japanese folk songs, simple things children sing. Then on to traditional pieces. I plan to learn all of this well, as apparently while the Japanese notation is different, it's no harder and some say easier, to learn than the Western kind, and I always played by ear anyway.
ReplyDeletePeople range from having a very keen musical ear to being just about tone-deaf. So, one guy could tell me, a couple of weeks later, that he'd heard me playing "Moondance" which is a tricky tune, and someone else might barely recognize "Louie, Louie".
In some ways it's almost like, "It's not what you say, it's how you say it".
... a coupla quarts of beer will fix it so the intonation will not offend the ear...
ReplyDeleteBut then I'd be running off to use the bathroom!
ReplyDelete