Physical Problems and Retirement

[David Mason]

If you want to feel great your whole life, you gotta die pretty young. All those happy fun smiling dancing old people on television ads - they're LYING - they're ACTORS... and when they blurp about some 80-year-old running marathons, people like that are every bit as much freaks of nature as Cindy Crawford's cheekbones or Roger Federer's eyeballs, not only seeing 120mph serves but hitting them back. 40 is not the new 20, 40 is 40 and 60 is 60. Advertisers who invest a great deal of effort and money just to make old people feel bad so they'll buy some crap that isn't going to help anyway are really quite willfully evil, if you think about it.

They used to talk about "the cult of youth" in America, specifically pertaining to the marketing efforts devoted to younger buyers - and trying to trick older people into buying things that are associated with youth. But it's morphed into something more like "the cult of old people who are too stupid, vain and desperate to admit they're old people." Buy me! Buy me! I'll keep you young!

And between the lack of actual warfare on our own soil for 150 years (Yay!) and some amazing medical advances (Yay!) and the notion that really old people are creepy and they need to be warehoused off in "retirement" centers where they can't creep around bumming us out (Hey!) - Americans have gotten pretty stupid about death too. It's just in such bad taste to up and croak - "eee-yew!"

Better off you put the reaper on your beeper, IYKWIM - you can be absolutely 100% sure he's got your number.

(I am trying to polish up my grumpy old fart thing, comin' along OK, huh?)