Not feeling well

My yearly physical is tomorrow morning and though I'm in excellent general health, I do feel compelled to tell my doctor about my gut. 

Because it ain't right. I know it ain't right. Not because my peptin and amylase and lipase levels are off kilter. But because my intuitase -- a name I just made up -- is not.

It's been like this for the past week and a half, since President Fuckface started a war. On my birthday no less. And I can't shake this feeling of impending doom.

Mostly because I am familiar with it. 

It happened roughly 6 years ago, March 20, 2020, a weird date now that I see it written form. Not only was it the 49th anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah, it was the day we heard the conclusive diagnosis, over the phone, that the massive tumor on Debbie's liver was cancer.

And...

It was the same day this country was thrown into a panic with the announcement of Covid.

Darkness ensued, both internally and externally. And thus began a slow incremental descent to a place I had never been before. My memory of those days is quite hazy. One vivid memory stands out.

The doctors in Santa Monica needed to get the X-rays of Deb's liver over to a doctor on the other side of Los Angeles, near Wilshire and La Brea. In the late afternoon, this 7 mile drive can take more than an hour. As I was stopped at a red light, I remember screaming at the top of my lungs and pounding on the steering wheel with both fists.

It wasn't the traffic that had me enraged. It was the feeling of powerlessness. For a Control Freak like myself (mostly in a benign and humorous way), it was deeply unsettling. 

The other thing I recall was Deb's fortitude and something she said to me. The tumor itself was not painful. She was asymptomatic about that. The treatments were difficult. The weekly infusions. The endless fatigue. And the weakness, though she continued the long beach walks with her friends.

"What bothers me most," she said, "is this thing inside of me. It feels like an alien. I just want to get it out. And I don't know how."

That's where we are today.

There is a cancer in the White House. And it's malignant. And painful. Slowly killing off the goodness of America and amplifying the worst of America, hate, greed, militarism and, well you know the rest.

We just want to get it out. But we don't know how. 

Addicted to Swim Porn™

According to my iWatch and my new smart swim goggles, I have logged over 70,000 yards in the past two months. That's about 40 miles.

That's a lot of time under the water, away from the Internet and secluded from the demoralizing news that pounds us every fucking day: war, inflation, sex trafficking by our highest leaders and a cratering stock market that has reawakened my fear of ending up in a dirty nursing home.

Is it any wonder I make a beeline to the pool as often as I can?

Swimming has become my newest obsession. My newest oldest obsession, as I've been a "fish boy" for as long as I can remember. Ms. Muse chalks it up to my zodiac sign, Pisces. Yeah, OK.

Lately however, the pool has started coming home with me. Allow me to explain. 

The algorithm knows I swim with FORM smart Goggles, which tracks and collects data on my heart rate, my 100 yard splits, my stroke rate, even the pitch of my head as I'm breathing. It also knows, thanks to Jeff Bezos, that I recently purchased a new Pull Buoy. As well as a new bathing suit, as the old Speedo was literally falling apart at the threads.

Accordingly, my Facebook reels are now populated by swimming tip videos. 

I call it Swim Porn™.

Bite size video snippets on how to improve the Catch, the Pull, the Return to Neutral, the Glide and the Rhythm of putting it all together. Who knew it was all so complicated? It wasn't when, 63 years ago, my rough-around-the-edges father taught me how to swim by literally picking my ass up and tossing me in the deep end of the pool at Fried's Bungalow Colony in Monticello, NY.

Now I'm hooked. Determined more than ever to improve the way I move through the water. And when all the details are added up, the results show.

When I started this new data-centric leg of my journey, my score was in the low 40's. The gains are coming slower now, but that just fuels my determination.

Even more importantly, since my swimming has been metaphorically put on steroids, my lumbar issues and my sciatica have all but vanished.

Of course that can also be attributed to the Gabbapenton, Cortisone and the Tramadol, mmmm, Tramadol.

You take your wins where you can get them.

My way

My friend Jim is in town. During one of our many lengthy discussions, we got around to talking about work. How we both had humble beginnings in the mailroom -- Jim actually hired me in 1983. And where that work took us on a life journey of ups and downs. And long demoralizing lateral slides that coulkd easily be attributed the ageism. 

But to what end?

Writers, it seems, get more downs than ups. At this point my skin, and Jim's skin, is thicker than that found on a polar bear. 

In the back and forth that brought about many laughs as well as conjecture of what would've happened had we not pursued the dream of writing for a living. I pictured myself as a doctor or an engineer, you know had I not been so lazy and actually applied myself as my father often scolded. 

Jim nodded off as I droned on about lives and vocations, that may or may not have happened in the multiverse.

As he was fading in and out, I relayed to him my recent meeting with opportunity. I had been offered a freelance gig. On a highly visible project. One that would have put significant bouyancy in my bank account. I wisely turned down that gig. 

For reasons that will shortly become abundantly clear.

I began thinking about what would it take for me to actually accept or consider accepting any new offers that might come over the transom for a 68 year old, sometimes ornery, freelance copywriter.  

At the risk of appearing like some industry Diva or simply an a-hole, here then are my pre-requisites. I could have said this was my "rider" but have always hated the use of the term "rock star' to anybody who works in advertising. 

1. The money has to be right.  And by right I mean the day rate has to be in the 4 figures. Like the plumber who comes to your house, spots a leaky gasket of a worn out washer on an S-pipe, fixes what needs to be fixed, and hands you a bill for $300, there is a price to be paid for my experience. 

I spent 40 some odd years in the ad business. Or is it called the content business? I like to think I learned a little. It's all kind of fuzzy, woo-woo stuff that can't be pinned down, or laid out on an Xcel sheet, but it's in here (pointing to head) and if you want some you gotta pay for it. Also, I'm not buying a car here. There won't be any haggling.

2. The hours have to be right. As noted above, I charge a day rate. Not a day and night rate. And certainly not a day that includes two sunrises day. When quitting time comes, I quit. I have a house that needs to be tidied up. I have salmon to marinate. Salads to build. And laundry from yesterday that has to come out of the dryer, including my three wrinkled Ronnie Shirts. 

I will not be fielding questions/requests/comments from Barbara in Accounting, just when Steven Colbert takes the stage. These days, my meeting with the Sandman is more often at 10 o'clock. Good night, I'll talk to you in the morning.

3. The work has to be right. Not to get all Alan Smithee on you here, but I'm not interested in mediocre. I don't want to put my name on anything I can't be proud of. It's not that my standards are so high, this blog with its countless typos, ugly syntax and occasional banality, is proof of that. 

It's not that I'm demanding the final cut. It's just that I'm unwilling to compromise. If I write a character in a spot to be angry, he or she is going to be angry. Likewise, if I put the word panoply or myriad in a headline, it stays in the headline.

This list is already long in the tooth and could get longer. But it doesn't need to because with this post, it's clear I have sufficiently warded off any future freelance gigs. 

And that's fine. I still have to get on the Peloton. And there are towels to be folded.

3300 posts and counting

 

Two days ago, I missed a golden opportunity. Unbeknownst to my occasionally misfiring brain, this blog marked its 17th year in existence. That should go recognized given the name Roundseventeen that I conjured up in less than a minute 17 years ago. On the eve of my 51st Birthday.

It began when I received a text from fellow Syracuse University graduate, one of the best Creative Directors I ever worked for, and all around great guy, Mark Monteiro. He texted me, and I'm paraphrasing here because I should've kept the a screen grab of the text and framed it, "Hey you seem to have a lot on your mind Rich, you should do a blog like I'm doing. I think it'd be good for you."

So I did. I wrote about a week's worth of random posts but never published them. The idea was to poke and prod my own brain and see if it produced any green sprouts. 

It didn't, but I published it anyway.

The eyeballs and web page hits started slowly, but continued to grow. Never to the level of my friend George Tannenbaum's Adaged.blogspot, which is widely held as the industry gold standard, but enough to feed my ego and keep me clickin' and clackin'.

As a former New Yorker with many, many, many pet peeves, I rarely found myself with no grist for the rhetorical mill. Work in advertising long enough, there's plenty to bitch about. And once I work up a good head of steam, I can dash off a pretty good rant, if you'll pardon the immodesty.

But as the 8 loyal readers, sorry 9 including Costa Rica T3, who jumped on board and now insists on being counted, I branched out from my original focus on advertising, and now cover a myriad (or is it just myriad) topics, from the challenges of fatherhood to Caganers, from Russian dating sites to Russian appeasers.

And seemingly, given my short and often weird attention span, everything in between.

To those that stop here every so often to those who for reasons unclear to me, or come here regularly, it has been my absolute pleasure to regal you with what passes for wit and put a smile on your face. 

Thank you to Mark for telling me to write.

And thank you, all of you, for reading and in effect encouraging me to keep on writing.

I couldn't have done it without you. 

Nor would I.

Thursday Photo Funnies

This is me getting all artsy-fartsy with my iPhone camera. 

It's a wickedly pointed succulent in front of my neighbor's house in Palm Springs. As some of you may know, I wintered at my airbnb house out there and found many shots worthy of a new Thursday Photo Funnies, which occasionally shows up on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or oddly enough, Thursday. 

It's all dependent on my sometimes-less-than-fertile mind. I think it's crucial to have a back up plan for when the grind out another blog post duty feels like opioid-induced constipation. 

Without going too much further into that, here then is a random collection of photos snapped in Palm Springs as well as other locations that constitute my current peripatetic life. 

Let's get going...

Some might think I'm a bit overzealous in the way 

I've used my front yard as a canvas for my anti-Trumpism, 

but a stroll in the Las Palmas area proves 

I'm not alone in this seething sentiment.

On a more whimsical note, 

I spotted this unusual license plate frame.

It's hard to tell what is real and what is not

real these days.

Ms.Muse has many suggestions 

for fixing up the Palm Springs house. 

In response to her idea of adding

a small reading lamp to the living room 

I thought the monkey valet would be fun.

Similarly, these were also poo-pooed.

And the feathered Flamingo lamp, 

which had a long stand and eliminated the need for 

an end table, brought up some fire issues.

Back to more pleasant items, this is a shot

of the new CV Link, which is a cyclist's dream.

If only Rancho Mirage would grant permission to 

go through their fair city.

These are my new favorite cycling socks.

They used to belong to my oldest daughter Rachel, 

who comes over to do laundry every week.

Now these curmudgeonly socks belong to me.

Recently, Ms. Muse and I did the Tour De Palm Springs.

This was the number I was assigned.

By sheer coincidence it's also the street address of the house,

which is available for vacation stays.

And here's a new photo taken of the backyard,

with the newly strung patio lights, the newly assembled patio furniture

and the new firepit to warm you up

when the desert nights get chilly 

and the temp. drops into

the low 70's.

Ms. Muse and I, joined by our good friends Rich and Paula,

to celebrate my recent birthday. If this picture isn't a testament to 

top notch American dentistry, I don't know what is. 

As you might imagine, it was a night of great laughter.

And finally, there's this dramatic shot that I captured

in Culver City, the crime capitol of the USA, according to

"Attorney General" Pam Bondi. 

 

Five myths about getting older

I don't really have 5 myths. I only know that from my time as an in-house copywriter of useless emails for Dollar Shave Club and even crappier emails for PayPal Honey, whose stock is now trading at nearly 1/10 of the price when I got my first vesting, people like listicles.

But you've come this far you might as well hang around for some thoughtful insight on the Big R -- Retirement.

Last week, while in Palm Springs, I was at their Swim Center. As I walked in, breathless from a non stop series of  50's, 100's and killer 200's, I heard two gentlemen talking. There's a lot of talking and camaraderie in the locker rooms of Palm Springs.

Older White Bald Bearded Guy #1: ...I don't know. I'm think maybe two more years.

Older White Bald Bearded Guy #2: If you ask me I waited two years too long.

With that, the first guy left. I turned to OWBBG#2 and said, "Let me guess, you guys were talking about retirement?"

He smiled and proceeded to tell me:

OWBBG#2: I love it. People ask if I miss the work. I tell them absolutely not. I don't care about the work. I cared too much about the work in the first place. Now I have time to spend with my cats and do my gardening.

OK, I thought. Your retirement looks a little different than mine. I have a black scythe where my green thumb should be. And I don't like cats. No one in my family likes cats.

But I also understand the shit-eating grin OWBBG#2 had on his face. That joy is contagious. And I try to talk as many of my similar aged colleagues and friends to pull the plug. There is no time like the present. Particularly with the threat of Armaggedon tomorrow. Or next week. Or the day after I mailed in my mammoth property tax bill.

Speaking of Armageddon, I'd be remiss if I didn't share this little gem from a long time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTrOb8zyrZk

I turned 68 years two days ago. I don't feel 68. When my lumbar region isn't acting up (Hello cortisone) and my sciatica isn't flaring up, I feel 48. Or even younger. 

And with my vigorous exercise routine of biking, swimming, lifting weights and walking I don't intend to ever feel my age. But I suppose my fleeting cartilage will have a say in the matter.

With regards to work, I don't miss it at all. Not one bit. 

Yes I was paid inordinate amounts of money to write silly ads and twist words around for maximum impact. But the truth is, especially if you follow me on social media, I still engage those writing neurons that helped put food on my table, but now I don't have to take feedback, make changes or water anything down. Or dumb it down as one PayPal middle manager was fond of instructing me.

I don't get paid as much money, in fact, I get paid none. But somehow, it's all the more rewarding.

Quit work when you can and in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Get busy living."