I’ve gotten some feedback about my comments last week concerning people turning 65 with nothing. If you did not spend five years of your early life doing intensive planning, yes, I probably mean you. If I had busted my ass in this life, I would have lost $76,000 of it over my second [uninsured] heart attack, another $72,000 over my preventative procedures, and faced another $60,000 over the planned pacemaker. No, it would not have made any difference if I’d continued working for that Canadian company, because in the 14 years since I quit, I would have had to pay at least $226,800 in taxes. I would have worked without ever getting ahead, lived worse off the entire time and wasted a perfectly good life.
The biggest fallacy about Canada is that medical is free. It is not, it is paid through taxation. When you work, you aren’t just taxed for your own medical, you pay for all the lazy, the crooked contractors, and the welfare cases, which is about 2/3 of the country. Worse, being a payer doesn’t mean you get preferential treatment when your time comes. You wait in line; many die waiting. If you want to live that way, fine, but I think it honestly sucks. On the other hand, the way I plan ahead (the missing element in most people’s lives) I need only step forward to get the very best medical care in this world.
Tell me again that story about working for a living. I keep forgetting that point you’re trying to make, you know, the moral. Remember to call me again when you are 65, if by then you can still afford a phone. Tell you what, take the idiot test and see if you can fathom this: while it is true that the system would not work if everyone was like me, if everyone was like me there would be no need for such an unfair system in the first place.
Was it Voltaire or somebody much earlier that said Democracy will only survive until special interest groups figure out they can vote themselves benefits out of the public purse.
“Leave Your Hat On” is my newest tune. I recall the melody from way back but never played it. It stands out for two reasons. One, the distinctive bass line, which is too slow to play in most of my venues (although it is a perfect sleeper for some musicians I know). Two, the bass line is a good measure of a bad bassist, which is normally a lead player who “thinks” he can play bass. He’ll get barely half-way through the second verse and start riffing off in Ukrainian mode.
You got several factors at work with a lead player on bass. First, he is usually too mentally sloppy to understand the requirement to play the same bass line throughout. If he’s a fried-brain (they usually are), he likely thinks his riffs are “neat”, that they spice up the song. In reality he is admitting that lead players lack the stamina to play a consistent bass line for three or four minutes at a stretch. It is not their inventiveness, rather their limited attention spans are what is causing them to “noodle” instead of lay down the track.
Last, we have a major problem. The people next door, a Frog (French-Canadien) and his Peruvian wife, have brought in a Chihuahua that barks 24 hours per day. Not just at night, but constantly. While this is not a retirement community, people are entitled to quiet enjoyment and these newcomers are causing plenty of trouble. I am not prejudiced, because as long as they behaved decently, I never noticed he was a Frog. Get it?
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