Retirement Updates — Long Tail of TV

You may be familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller The Long Tail. His book talks about how marketing has changed since the time when the best way to reach your audience was by advertising on the big three networks. The Internet provides the chance to finely target your audience in the long tails of a bell curve, and at a much lower cost. Apparently, cable now provides the opportunity for affordable niche TV programming, resulting in some highly unusual shows.

I must give credit up front to Nat Ives for reporting on this for Advertising Age, a marketer’s favorite trade publication. Difficult as it may be for you to believe, these are all genuine reality TV shows. Trust me, even I could not make this stuff up.

My absolute favorite, and what lured me to Nat’s story, is Hillbilly Handfishin’. It airs on Animal Planet and the promo photos show… well, hillbillies, with huge catfish in their arms. They have apparently dredged these out of the mud on the bottom of the river in which they are immersed up to their gloriously hairy chests. The website includes videos of episodes such as “Noodling Catfish” and “Monster Catfish Wrestling.” Talk about “must see TV!”

Another not-to-be-missed reality show is Spike TV’s Tattoo Nightmares, brought to you by the same folks who unleashed Jersey Shore on us. Nightmares chronicles “the horror stories behind people’s unfortunate tattoos and their attempts to fix them.” The tattoos range “from the hilarious to downright disturbing.” Reenactments demonstrate “how these people wound up with their ink.” Sounds like the stuff that dreams are made of.

A related show that may provide backstory on some of the nightmare tattoos is Tattoo School, coming to TLC. True to its name, TLC provides an educational service for students who want a career in tattooing. School promises they’ll learn in two weeks “what most tattoo artists spend years learning.” Does that mean “Mom” in a heart, and butterflies and “Sue Ellen 4Ever”? Or will they become experts at massive dragons, bald eagles and warriors? The suspense has me on pins and needles.

Speaking of warriors, get your macho on for Full Metal Jousting on the History Channel. The website describes it thusly: “HISTORY is bringing back the most dangerous collision sport in history… but with a twist: Traditional armor is replaced by modern suits of steel. Each episode features full-contact jousts in which jousters charge and collide at 30 miles an hour.” Jousts require courage, strength and “nerves of steel… as this extreme sport is reborn.” Sounds positively medieval.

Look for these last two shows to be merged into a winning spin off: Tattoo Jousting. Contestants on horseback will tattoo one another as they charge and collide. OK, I made this one up. But just this one.

There are numerous reality shows on hoarding, including one from Animal Planet titled: Confessions: Animal Hoarding. As you would expect, there are episodes about cat hoarders (and no, I’m not featured), dog collectors, and fanciers of snakes, lizards and other reptiles. According to profiled hoarder “Pat,” this last group responds to his conversations and he takes his snakes out walking. And I’m not referring to one-eyed trouser snakes.

Yet another popular reality show genre is one that features little people (the PC way to describe what folks used to call dwarfs.) Some of these are on TLC and follow families of little people, including Little People, Big World and The Little Couple. The latter is curiously featured on the TLC website under their section “How Stuff Works.” I didn’t drill down to see more; it sounded like TMI to me.

Finally, there’s Rat Bastards, also on Spike TV. Like a curiously high percentage of reality TV shows, this takes place in Louisiana.  There a group of ‘Cajun Commandoes’ “hunt down a nasty invasive species of giant swamp rats wreaking havoc on the Mississippi wetlands.” These rats are actually nutria, a species that was once prized for its fur, but have now become 40-pound menaces. I hope those hunters don’t actually go commando. Those nutria look like they’d get all squirrely over nuts.

I just know that somewhere in this list of shows is your new favorite guilty pleasure. Likewise several future Emmy winners. Or more likely, People’s Choice Awards. It’s almost enough to make me put some money into my retirement budget for cable TV. Don’t hold your breath.

Retirement Tools — Senior Spreadsheets

A recent Facebook exposé features a young man who keeps a spreadsheet on women he meets thru Match.com. He rates their appearance and other qualities, and comments on the dates. The guy told one of his matches about the sheet and—no doubt feigning serious interest—she asked to see it. He sent it to her and she posted it on Facebook. You can imagine how things went from there.

I understand the kerfuffle over his stupidity in sharing the document, but the fact that he has it makes perfect sense to me. I consider myself the queen of spreadsheets. There isn’t a job that can’t be made easier thru using one. At least half the aliases (shortcuts, to PCers) on my desktop are Excel files and they’re revisited almost daily. As part of my retirement planning, I created several spreadsheets to help smooth the way.

Some of you think I must be obsessive-compulsive to be waxing poetic about this tool. Or else that I’m getting nerdier in my retirement cocoon. Not so. That is to say, I may be getting nerdier, but that has nothing to do with my obsession. Spreadsheets are all around us, but most of us take them for granted.

Consider the spice cabinet that used to be on my kitchen wall. (My stager took it down when the house went on the market.) There’s a spreadsheet on its door. The column headings are meal categories and the rows are herbs and spices. Where they intersect shows what spice goes with a given meal. Under Fish-Game-Poultry, you’ll find that caraway works well in tuna casserole, whereas cinnamon goes with boiled fish. Neither of which do I fancy, but good to know if ever I have to gum my food.

Not convinced? Look at one of your vitamin bottles. Unless it’s a supplement sold only thru TV ads that air in the dead of night, it has a label with a three-column spreadsheet. The first is the vitamin name, the second is the amount per tablet and the third is the percent of daily requirement (RDA).

Spreadsheets are great for organizing large amounts of information into easy-to-read charts. But their real strength is in performing repetitive calculations. Some sheets come already populated with formulas and you just plug in the data.

I prefer to create my own, like my daily journal. It has categories for every expense and it keeps track of the average per month. This data in turn is fed into my retirement planning spreadsheet. It helps me figure out whether I can afford to buy more wine.

I also have a sheet that tells me a fair price for my house. I update that regularly, since the housing market still seems to be going down the toilet. It gives me prices per square foot and also as a percent of the assessed value. The trends are not encouraging. This spreadsheet generates the amount I’ll have available to put into a condo in Vermont. Naturally, that means I have a similar sheet on what condos are going for up there. None of this helps me sell the house, but it sure keeps me busy.

I’ve also been kept busy creating spreadsheets for seniors and retirees. A particularly useful one helps those who are colorblind or sartorially challenged put together outfits that won’t get them into trouble with the fashion police. Wondering if you should wear that checked jacket with those plaid pants? If there’s no “X” in the cell where the row and column intersect (and there won’t be), don’t do it!

Then there’s the game of Clue chart. If your memory is no longer up to Clue’s challenge, use this to keep track of what cards others are holding. The players’ names go down the left. The potential culprits, locations and weapons go across the top. When you figure out who has Colonel Mustard, put a check in that square by the player’s name. Eventually, you’ll have just one empty square for each clue. If you feel this is cheating, just think of it as leveling the memory playing field.

There are so many other uses for spreadsheets, like keeping track of how many calories are burned by each minute of each type of exercise you do. Not into exercise? I’m sure you’ll think of something worth charting, but be sure to keep yours to yourself.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want my wine consumption chart plastered on Facebook. What if I want to run for president of our condo association when we downsize? Which, if it finally happens, will raise the question: what should I do with all my spreadsheets? I haven’t got a clue, and I doubt Miss Scarlett does, either.

Retirement What Ifs — Lottery Dreams

All the mega-million-dollar payouts have put the lottery in the news lately. When the jackpot passes $300 million, Jagdish and I usually throw $5 or $10 at it. We have no expectations of winning, nor have we expended energy discussing, or even thinking about, what we’d do with the prize money. A recent quote that caught my ear has changed that. The winner interviewed hit one of my hot buttons when he said the first thing he’ll do is buy a Dyson.

I realized that I, too, would buy a Dyson. Until recently, I had three vacuums, but the bagged Hoover upright (Hoover1) finally fell apart after about thirty years. It was a shame, because if I held it just right, lifting the rear about 2 inches off the rug, and pulled it toward me instead of pushing it forward, it picked up the best of the three. R.I.P., my friend.

The canister that I rescued from my mother’s house (also a Hoover and decades old) is great for nooks and crannies, but the power head meant for rugs is long gone. Jagdish burned out Hoover2 in a protracted battle (with motor still running) over who would get the rug fringe. The rug won.

That leaves Hoover3, a bagless upright. I’m not as brand-loyal as it seems. It was on super-sale and light enough for me to lift easily. Turns out it doesn’t pick up as well as Hoover1 did and its hepa filter needs replacing about once a month. Not the bargain it looked like. I would definitely try a Dyson if I had bucks to spare.

One of the main things I’d do with my winnings is set up the Daisy and Tulip Foundation, named for my first two cats, and a longtime dream of mine. It will provide financial support for elderly folks who have difficulty keeping their pets as they age. That includes helping them pay for a place to live that allows pets. And of course, food and vet bill subsidies. I’ve added three more cats since Daisy and Tulip, so the foundation (especially its name) is a work in progress.

Herewith, my other lottery dreams. I’d buy all my groceries at Whole Foods. I love that store. I love just walking around in it, which is pretty much all I can afford, now that I’m retired. I love it so much that I wouldn’t even have my groceries delivered, except in winter. Which in Vermont probably means about six months of the year.

While I’m on the topic of food, I’d hire a personal chef, so Jagdish and I could eat healthy meals. We’d try out all sorts of special dietary changes that we’ve talked about, like going vegetarian. Not vegan—we’re not fanatics. But lots of beans and lentils and non-carnivorous sources of protein. We’d also try a gluten-free diet to see if that does all the good things my niece claims for it.  If, after all of this, I didn’t lose weight, I’d throw caution to the wind and hire a pastry chef and join an artisanal cheese club.

Of course, I’d spread some of my lottery winnings around to friends and family. How deep I’d go into those lists would depend on the size of my jackpot. And on who continues to admit they know me now that I’m retired and have entered my gypsy phase. (Bonuses to those who refer to me as “artsy.”) I suppose I’d have a means test, too, to decide who really needed my lucre. Or maybe a contest. A contest could be fun.

Assuming I’ve won big bucks (highly likely, since we play only when there’s large pots), I’d do all sorts of crazier things. I’d go to a spa and get my first-ever massage and facial. I’d have my elbows buffed. A friend has that done regularly and I’m in awe. I’d get the fat sucked out of my double chin and the goat hairs permanently removed. (TMI, I know. Sorry.)

I’d buy condos in a half dozen or so wonderful places where friends and family could visit (even if Jagdish and I were somewhere else). Piedmont or Tuscany. Provençe. Maybe somewhere out West. On a beautiful lake in central Switzerland. On an island—Kauai or Antigua or Barbados; I hear Costa Rica is beautiful and island-like. Submit your suggestions now. BTW, if you invite us to your dream condo before we win the lottery, you’ll be on the short list to come to ours after we win.

I could go on and on, but that would really be dreaming. Which is what winning the lottery is all about, isn’t it? Sweet dreams!

Retirement Warnings — Search Me!

By now almost everyone has heard about the Supreme Court decision upholding the right of correctional institutions to strip search those arrested for even minor infractions. The concern is that they might be hiding weapons in their nether regions, which could cause havoc once they’re mixed in with the general prison population. This type of search is uncomfortable to contemplate in the abstract, but when you hear some of the specifics, it’s downright frightening.

I’m glad my mother didn’t live to see this. It was bad enough having her lecture me on wearing clean underwear in case I got hit by a truck and had to be taken to the hospital. She would most certainly be telling me: “You never know when you might get arrested and strip searched.” Never know indeed.

It seems unlikely that the person out riding his bike “without an audible bell” was prepared for being arrested and strip searched. Likewise the guy driving around with a noisy muffler who was arrested and subjected to “the humiliation of a visual strip-search.” Thank you, dissenting Justice Stephen Breyer, for sharing the above from the briefs submitted to the Supreme Court. Not to be confused with the briefs submitted for inspection as part of a strip search.

The muffler on my sixty-seven Volkswagen Beetle gave out when I was driving the New Jersey Turnpike with a friend, headed to Colonial Williamsburg. It was my first car, so on we went, mortified by the Harley Davidson noise we made, but clueless re what to do. Mercifully, one couldn’t drive in the Colonial sections of town or we might have been tarred and feathered. At that carefree age, that might sound charming. For most of us, it would be something else altogether.

As part of his humiliating search, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case had been told: “Spread your cheeks.” Without getting into TMI, I can tell you that if my cheeks were to spread anymore, it would not be pretty. We’re all perilously close to that humiliation, so choose your underwear accordingly.

Think you’re immune? Are you sure you’d never get stopped for driving without a license? Or violating the local leash law? You’d better hope so, because those are some other no-nos that have led to strip searches. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted with the majority, noted that “people detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.”

Let’s put that to the test. See if you recognize any of these "dangerous criminals" among your retired friends. Because if they’re arrested for their deviant activity, they’d better hope they have a spare pair of Depends handy.

Letty Lou was caught growing sunflowers that stood above the six-foot height limit for her retirement community in North Carolina. She was arrested for sowing the seeds of anarchy and her bloomers became the talk of the local police station.

On Long Island, Henry bent over to retrieve the morning newspaper from his front walk. The over-extended elastic in his twenty-year-old sweat pants gave way and his plumber’s butt flashed his neighbor. He was arrested for indecent exposure and had his plumbing inspected for hidden weapons. The fashion police are also looking into his case.

Need to hear more? Oliver was nabbed for driving into Boston in the HOV lane with a blow-up doll in the passenger seat. Not only was Ollie strip searched, but “Lola” was, too. Oh, the indignity! They take illegal use of the HOV lane very seriously in Beantown. Lola hasn’t been herself since.

The Philadelphia Ladies Investment Club descended on City Hall, demanding to hold their meetings at the American Legion Post. They were charged with civil disobedience for assembling without a permit. Every one was stripped naked as a jaybird and forced to expose her assets.  Shades of what happened to the nun who was arrested for “trespassing during an antiwar demonstration,” another case cited by Justice Breyer. You never know what those nuns have under their habits.

And in case you’re feeling safe because the bicycle you ride has an “audible bell,” consider what happened to Martha. She had a Texas-sized bell installed on the handlebars of her three-wheeler, and she rang it liberally as she pedaled through her Houston suburb. Turns out, her clanger was a tad too audible. She was arrested as a public nuisance and stripped of her bell and everything else she had on. Don’t mess with Texas.

Yes, my friends, the Supreme Court decision on strip searches will most certainly result in the long arm of the law eventually reaching out and touching us all—both figuratively and far too literally. The best advice I can give you is to stay current on your local statutes, be vigilant and always wear clean underwear.