Category Archives: Personal History

The Life Expectancy Calculator

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Have we talked about Carol yet? Some years ago Carol started greeting friends she had not seen in a while with the number of months (actuarially speaking) they could expect to live. “Steve, how have you been? You’ve got more than 300 months left, that’s great!” According to the IRS Life Expectancy Table , I have 29.5 years left but that sounds much longer than 360 months. You’d think Carol would have few visitors but she shares her macabre calculations with such warmth and enthusiasm, it’s not as depressing as you’d think. I think it’s because she never expected any of us to get this far.

If you’d rather not travel to Kennett, Missouri, to find out how much time you have left, you can find what you need online. The Life Expectancy Calculator will “calculate your future life expectancy based on a mortality table for retired individuals.” Less, I would think. The Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator was designed to “translate what we have learned from studies of centenarians and other longevity research into a practical and empowering tool for individuals to estimate their longevity potential.” Roy said it best in Blade Runner. I need more.

The first eighteen years

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I started working for Clyde Lear in May, 1984. My second job in 30 years. Clyde Lear and Bob Priddy are easily two of the nicest and most talented people I’ve ever met. I’m reminded of the character in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 who played horseshoes all day. He hated the game and it made the day (and his life) seem longer. I’m having way too much fun and it’s going way too fast. One more movie reference comes to mind. In Broadcast News, William Hurt asks Albert Brooks, “What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?” Brooks: “Keep it to yourself.”

Blogging life.

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If I were 22 years old and making regular blog entries, what would it look like thirty or forty years later. Almost 11,000 entries. Your life online. True, a lot of the shit we put in our blogs hardly seems worth the keystrokes. But the idea intrigues me.

I think my mom would have been up for a blog. She kept journals during the latter years of her life. I can see her sitting at the kitchen table, writing in her tiny, perfect longhand. When we asked what she was writing she’d say, “Oh, things that happened yesterday… things I’m thinking about.”

One more scary thing for today’s teenagers to deal with. Mom blogging away the intimate details of her 13 year old daughter’s life. “Hey, Amber. Did you see your mom’s blog today? She said she thought you were getting your first period.” Not good. As George Costanza told his mom, “You can’t be out there. I’m out there, so you can’t be out there.”

Captain Banana

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I loved that Peter Parker sort of threw together his first Spider-Man costume and it looked like it. And it would be silly to waste precious screen minutes establishing where he got his official outfit. But didn’t you wonder? We have to assume it didn’t come off the rack, so it was custom made. Maybe by the same tailor that makes all the WWF costumes.

While Superman’s costume was indestructible, we saw –in the final battle with the Green Goblin– that Spider-Man’s is not. So, did he have a few extra made? And what happens when they get dirty and pitted out. Wash or dry clean? Hangers or folded?

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I’ve had some experience in this area. For several years I lived a double life, too. Captain Banana was one of my alter egos during my radio days. My mom made my costume for me. Thermal underwear, Day-Glo cowboy boots and a plastic motorcycle helmet. It was one hot mother. I wore it for a charity Bike-a-thon and nearly died.

I really liked the movie. I’m not sure how special effects can get much better than the final 40 seconds of Spider-Man. If there was a weak spot it was probably Willem Defoe as the Green Goblin. But I respect the guy for taking the part. I mean, he played Jesus for Christ’s sake.

TV audition tape

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July (2002) will mark my 30th year in broadcasting. Sort of. I spent half of that time doing affiliate relations for a statewide news network. But I’ve been around radio for all of that time. Longer, really, since my father was a “radio announcer” (I like that so much better than “broadcaster” or “DJ”). I’ve now reached the point, however, that all those years are a liability rather than an asset. It dawned on me as I was filling out a profile of my experience. Ten or fifteen years is “experienced.” Thirty years is…too much experience. So I lied and put down fifteen years.

There was a time I thought I might try my hand at TV. I mean, it’s just radio with pictures, right. I rented a little studio time at a local station to make an audition tape  They pulled some stories from that day’s news and threw them up on the tele-prompter. The stories were: Rape and Carnal Abuse; 70-year-old Man Beaten and Robbed of Life Savings; Elderly Woman Dies in Head-on with Tractor Trailer Rig; Another Fatal Traffic Accident. I sent that tape to a few friends in the TV business and can onlly guess at the hours of laughter it must have produced. “More news after this…” Uh, no thanks.