Boomer Randomness

Tickets to see Lady Gaga here in DC are on sale now (February). The concert is in ... November! Tim McGraw/Faith Hill tickets have been on sale since around October 2016.  The concert is ... October 13, 2017! This pattern is fairly typical and very different from our youth. More differences: as recently as ten years ago, you went to a location to buy concert tickets. It was the box office at the venue or a Ticketmaster location or a Ticketmaster partner. I bought concert tickets at a department store a few times. Now I buy tickets at my desk at work or my coffee table at home. Concert prices. OMG!  It seems like $20 - $30 dollars was a high ticket price just 15 to 20 years ago. Now the service charges can run that high. What's the most you've ever paid for a ticket?  I've paid close to $125 for three concerts in the past few years: U2, Coldplay and Dave Matthews.   These tickets were all purchased through standard vendors like Ticketmaster or Ticket ...

Don't worry, this post is NOT about suicide. This post IS about life and what our lives are or could be. At this point in our lives, many of us boomers are evaluating our lives and wondering if we are truly living the lives we want to live. Maybe we've been stuck in jobs or careers that were thrilling at first but are now merely the means to pay our bills. We might be so busy that all we do is work. Is that really living? Many boomers get to their 60s and attempt to finally do what they always really wanted to do. Fortunately I've been doing mostly what I always wanted to do for most of my adult life, but I would like to cut back the workload. Sadly, the only way that will happen is for me to retire. I'm not there yet, but I can picture it. My favorite movie line on this topic is spoken by Andy (the Tim Robbins character) to Red (Morgan Freeman's character) in Shawshank Redemption:  "I guess it comes down to a simple choice really: get busy living o...

India, Syria, Lebanon, the Philippines and the United States. Those are the countries of origin represented at our neighbor's home where we had dinner and wine on a recent Saturday night. Although we mostly avoided political conversation, we did talk about life and culture in these various countries. Of the nine people there, five are immigrants. All legal. All now American citizens. All college educated and employed in professional jobs. One lived through war in Lebanon. One has lived in at least two other countries. All five speak more than one language. They all love our country and all are appropriately critical of certain aspects of life here, as they should be. All love the freedom to be opinionated. All are grateful for the opportunities they have here. All are concerned about some family members who still live in their home countries and are sometimes mildly concerned about their own safety here. That is some awesome perspective and I enjoy discussing their take on is...

My family's weekend rituals during my pre-teen years included Saturday morning grocery shopping, afternoon lawn care, dinner and some television watching. Sunday started with church, then a tasty breakfast from a neighborhood bakery, reading the Sunday newspaper, a Sunday drive in the city or country or a visit to a grandparent's house. The weekend often ended with a dinner of leftovers, followed by a card game, scrabble or some family tv watching (Bonanza, Ed Sullivan). Reading a recent Sunday newspaper is what triggered this nostalgic journey, specifically the now 8-page Parade Magazine. Wasn't that section at least three or four times bigger, more like a real magazine? Many cities, including my hometown New Orleans, had two daily newspapers, one published in the morning and another in the afternoon. My parents subscribed to both and my stay-at-home mother often had time to read each one cover to cover. In some circles a daily newspaper still means something, ...

Warm Italian meatballs swimming in tangy marinara sauce fills the bowl, covering al dente rigatoni. Garlic bread sits at the edge of the plate, still steaming from from its tenure in the oven moments ago. The white and red place setting is flanked by a fork, a knife and a glass of fine Chianti Classico. Ok, so that's what my teasing brain sees. What's really there on the table in front of me?  A tall glass of bottled water, another glass filled with clear apple juice and a hot cup of black coffee. Breakfast. On colonoscopy prep day. Wait, excuse me, I have to pee. Be right back. Ok, so where was I? Mmmm, what's for lunch? Cold water, chilled Gatorade and a warm mug of clear chicken broth. Hang on, be right back. Dinner?  Sprite, water, broth, black coffee and the first dose of that stuff that will clear out nearly all of whatever is left inside of me. Oops, back in a sec. So when was the first colonoscopy done? I assumed twenty years ago, which is w...

Hillary Clinton started to believe the polls, her advisors and some in the media. She, like many of us, didn't really think Mr. Orange could actually win the election. She also forgot that her arrogance could be her downfall. She forgot to recognize that her spontaneous opponent could get a pass on some of his outrageous remarks because many people didn't take him seriously, yet her own uncharacteristically spontaneous remarks could be interpreted negatively by Trump supporters. Clinton's most damaging utterance was calling Trump supporters a 'basket of deplorables'. That arrogant comment lumped together some people who truly were stupid and fell for Donnie's con with smart voters who intensely disliked her and voted for him because they were voting against her. I can name at least four people from my neighborhood who voted for Trump. All four have college degrees and have professional careers. Three of them are over 50. None of them are deplorable. I ...