Retirement

Thinking vaguely about retiring. Or, to be more precise, about drifting into retirement. Gradually becoming more selective about the kinds of things I do. Turns out this is one of the benefits of being self-employed: You can retire gradually.

I expect I’ll keep writing for the music magazines for a long time to come. For one thing, I love getting free software to play with! But some recent physical problems with my left hand have shown me that my days as a cello teacher are numbered. I don’t know the number, but the number is writ in the place where such things are writ.

I’ve always enjoyed good health, and I’ve always (in recent years, anyway) had a very positive attitude about my activities. My plan for growing older is, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing.

It occurred to me last night that I’m operating under a false assumption. The assumption is that for as long as I live, I’ll be able to keep doing what I’m doing.

Today I love playing the piano. I play for an hour or so every day. But I’m remembering my parents’ friend Roger. Roger switched to electronic organ as he got older, because the sound of the piano became harsh as his ears deteriorated.

Today I love playing the cello. But why put myself through the wringer by playing in a local pit orchestra? That’s not a peak music-making experience, it’s a grind — a pit experience, if you will. Every hour I spend playing the cello should be an hour of unalloyed pleasure.

Today I love reading. And my eyes still work. But the truth is, my left eye works better than my right one. At any moment I could find myself otherwise healthy but unable to read. Yeah, there are books for the blind, but it’s not the same thing. For one thing, a lot of the things I read are not mainstream. They won’t have been recorded.

So as I contemplate my piecemeal retirement plan, I need to be conscious of the need to create more free time to do things while I’m still young enough that I can physically do them.

Responsibility Run Amok

Headnote (not footnote): The analysis of the contract shown below is, for the moment, still accurate, or as accurate as I know how to make it. But today I spoke to an individual at the City Attorney’s office who seemed to be more than willing to make changes in the contract. So for now, I’m very optimistic. To continue where we left off:

Two weeks ago I wrote about being asked to sign a contract that included an indemnification clause. I would have been required to sign this contract in order to be allowed to teach cello at a local music studio. I said no, thanks.

Today we have an even more amazing example of creeping indemnification.

I contacted the local library and volunteered to give a free 90-minute presentation to interested library patrons on the subject of interactive fiction. The librarian in charge likes the idea. She sent me two pieces of paperwork to fill out and return. One is a simple equipment checklist; the other is entitled “Hold Harmless.” (Ominous rumblings in the timpani.) Here’s the text of the latter document, in its entirety:

“The undersigned shall defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the City, its officers, officials, employees, agents, and volunteers from and against all claims, damages, losses, and expenses, herein, caused in whole or in part by any negligent act or omission of the undersigned or anyone directly or indirectly employed by any of them or anyone for whose acts any of them may be liable, except where caused by the negligence of the City, its officers, officials, employees, agents, or volunteers.”

Below this text (which was pasted into the .doc file as a graphic, so that it can’t be edited, thereby saving them, I suppose, the trouble of having to proofread it to make sure the signer didn’t try anything sneaky) is a space for my signature.

By doing a little research online on indemnity and contract law, I was able to spot ten or twelve separate problems in that one seemingly simple paragraph. And it was given to the librarian, for her to pass on to prospective volunteer presenters of free (that is, unpaid) programs, by the City Attorney’s office.

The individual I spoke to today (Sept. 22) said, in the course of the conversation, ”That’s a standard form. We’ve been using it for years, and no one has ever asked about it before.” What I didn’t say to him, because he seems a very nice, reasonable person, was, any time someone in an attorney’s office says the language in a form is “standard,” check your wallet.

The biggest problem with this contract is so huge that I read the document a dozen times before I noticed it. Have you spotted it yet? The difficulty is

Idiots Who Vote

The practice of using literacy tests to qualify (or, more likely, disqualify) voters got a very bad name in the United States during the years (roughly from the 1870s through the 1960s) when such tests were used to deny the vote to African-Americans. From what I’ve read, even quite well-educated black people generally failed the tests (which were, of course, administered by whites), while white people who could barely write their names were routinely judged literate.

My goodness, do we not want to go back there!

If, however, a literacy test could be administered in a truly color-blind way, with the results tabulated by judges who did not know the race (nor the political affiliations) of the person being tested, would it be desirable, as a matter of public policy, to require that those who are to vote in elections be able to demonstrate not only basic literacy but a basic understanding of the world in which we live? This is a question that I think can legitimately be debated.

If you’re going to cast a vote on matters that affect fiscal policy, shouldn’t you be required to demonstrate that you know how to balance a checkbook? That you understand the manner in which interest on a loan is compounded?

If you’re going to cast a vote on matters that affect foreign policy, shouldn’t you be required to demonstrate that you know the names and locations of, perhaps, twenty prominent foreign nations, the names of the languages spoken there, and the names of the current leaders of those nations?

If you’re going to cast a vote on matters that affect the environment, shouldn’t you be required to demonstrate that you know a bit about water circulation, toxins, microbes, and the role of the oceans in the life cycle of the planet?

Shouldn’t everyone who aspires to have an opinion about public policy (starting with newspaper reporters) be required to demonstrate an understanding of statistics? The science of statistics matters. The “statistics” reported in most newspaper stories are meaningless. They’re gibberish. Why? Because the reporters, even if they understand statistics themselves, know perfectly well that their readers don’t understand statistics and don’t see why they need to. As a result, the level of alarmist misinformation being spread around is just staggering.

And if you’re going to cast a vote on any matter at all, shouldn’t you be required to show that you can read a newspaper and understand the content of newspaper stories? Not only that, but if you’re going to vote in the United States, would it be too much to ask that you demonstrate

That Windy City

Doing a little historical research on Chicago in the 1880s. If you were awake during American history class, you may recall the Haymarket affair, at least vaguely, but the more I learn, the more I want to know.

The labor movement in the U.S. is responsible for little niceties like the 8-hour workday, paid vacations, and paid overtime. Without the labor unions, we’d still be … oh, wait. That all changed, didn’t it? Today you have to work two jobs to support your family, so we’re back to 16-hour workdays. If we still had a strong labor movement in this country, maybe things would be different, but the moneyed classes have managed to tar labor with a broad brush. Exactly as they did 125 years ago, though generally with a little more gentility. The brutal campaign directed against the workers in Chicago in the 1880s left a lot of people (most of them ordinary factory workers) dead.

A lot of other things were going on in Chicago at that time. It wasn’t all riots. The world’s first skyscraper (10 stories tall) was built. And when the police weren’t taking bribes or hitting the unemployed with their billy clubs, they built an impressive city-wide network of dispatch call boxes. If there was a fire, or thieves, you could run down to the corner and pull a lever, and only a minute or two later a police wagon (drawn by horses) would dash down the street to answer your call.

The police force was predominantly Irish. My bet is that that’s why those wagons came to be called “paddy wagons.”

So there were technological innovations, banks, factories, taverns … it wasn’t all riots. Life went on. It’s important to remember that historians focus on the most dramatic incidents. The lives of ordinary people are generally ignored. Except when they’re rioting in the streets because they’re unemployed and starving, of course.

Advanced Techno-Babble

Poking around in craigslist tonight, glancing at ads for writer/editors. A company called Sybase is looking for a writer. I don’t think it’s me, but I was curious about what they do. Their home page is designed with all kinds of little pop-up widgets — very sexy. One of the widgets says “Afaria.” I had no idea what that word might mean, so I clicked on it. Figured I might learn something.

Here’s what I learned:

“Afaria provides comprehensive management and security capabilities to ensure that mobile data and devices are up-to-date, reliable and secure.”

Mobile data — there’s a concept to make your head swim! What I think maybe they’re talking about is, your CEO is using his Blackberry while on a flight to Singapore, and Afaria makes sure he can access an encrypted database. But that’s a pure blind guess on my part.

“With Afaria,” the body copy goes on, “IT has the level of control and visibility required to proactively manage and secure multiple device types, applications, data and communications critical to frontline success, regardless of the bandwidth available. By putting control in the hands of IT, frontline workers are freed from the burden of management tasks, which increases user adoption and productivity. Afaria uniquely combines mobile device management and mobile security from a single console, providing the best protection against security threats and compliance issues.”

I think I’m getting a sense of why they need a writer. Not that I’m tempted to apply. What does any of that goop mean? I have no idea what a frontline worker is, but it seems clear that Afaria is going to ensure that they remain peons, “freed from the burden of management tasks.” And I guess we’re talking about orphaned frontline workers, probably under-age ones, if they’re in need of adoption.

Mobile security, that’s another interesting idea — now your security is here, now it’s gone somewhere else. And compliance issues are something a psychologist would have to sort out, right?

Teaching cello can be frustrating at times, but it has the enormous advantage that I’m dealing with utterly concrete matters. “You used your 3rd finger instead of your 2nd finger.” “You skipped ahead during that rest.” “You’re lifting the bow from your shoulder. You need to learn to use your wrist.” I seem to be on an entirely different planet than Afaria. And frankly, I’m very happy about it.

Indemnity We Trust

Until today, I was planning to start teaching cello this fall at a sort of high-end private music studio. Unlike the three teaching studios I’ve been associated with most recently (including Ingram & Brauns in Pleasanton, where I still teach), this new place wanted me to sign a contract.

They didn’t bother to tell me about the contract last November, when I initially agreed to teach there; they only emailed it to me two days before my first scheduled lesson. This was perhaps just a wee bit unprofessional on their part, especially considering that the student whose lesson I was scheduled to teach had already paid for a full month’s lessons on the mistaken assumption that the studio had a cello instructor on the roster; but never mind that.

The contract, while sensible enough for the most part, included this charming language: “Instructor shall indemnify, defend and hold harmless [the studio] from any and all damages, claims, liability, unpaid taxes, and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising from and related to Instructor’s obligations under this Agreement and any services provided by or activities of Instructor.”

This is pretty typical of contracts drawn up by lawyers. I’ve rejected contracts in the past because of indemnity clauses that the company in question wasn’t willing to strike. The trouble with an indemnity clause is that it asks me to push my life savings into the middle of the poker table and BET that nothing bad will happen. Since my life savings is also my retirement plan, you may imagine that such a wager might not seem entirely prudent to me.

Let’s suppose, for instance, that an insane parent decides to sue the studio because they feel (quite wrongly) that a representative of the studio promised them that little Bobby (who is tone-deaf, dyslexic, and has

Nakedness

For a long time I’ve wondered why people go in for tattoos. I mean, what if you change your mind?

The charitable interpretation is that these folks are celebrating the fact that all of the decisions in your life are real and permanent. There are no do-overs. But somehow I can’t convince myself that their thinking is that sophisticated.

This morning I saw a wacky little ad on Facebook — something about tattooing your Facebook home page because it’s naked. And the lightbulb went on. That’s why people get tattoos! They’re scared of being naked.

Our culture places a huge emphasis on outside things as markers of identity. All human cultures do. When you’re naked, you can’t define yourself in terms of your job, car, shelf of bowling trophies, or whatever. Okay, you’ve still got your haircut, but that’s it. In the absence of outside markers, we suffer a loss of identity — a loss of self. We don’t know who we are, apart from those things. Indeed, most of us probably have a lurking suspicion that we’re not anybody. Or at least, not the person that we’d like to be.

So a tattoo is an admission to the world that on some inner level you’re afraid of being overwhelmed by loss of self — of being revealed as nothing, as nobody. Thanks to the tattoo(s), though, even when you’re naked you’re still wearing the Nike swoosh or the Raiders eyepatch or whatever marker helps you construct your identity. Not saying anybody actually gets a Nike swoosh tat, that would be lame. But how is that barbed wire around your ankle really any different?

Healthy Choice

I haven’t been watching the health care shenanigans on Capitol Hill (and around the country) with any assiduity. It’s too depressing. Also, I don’t own a TV, which is a nice way of filtering out the noise.

Personally, I’m strongly in favor of a single-payer Canadian or European plan. But I have reluctantly concluded that what is belched forth by Congress as a result of all this hoo-ha is likely to be no better than what we have now, and very possibly worse.

Our ostensible leaders do not know how to lead, or are blocked when they try. The system is broke, and Washington ain’t gonna be able to fix it, because Washington is what’s broke.

My prescriptions for how things ought to be are diametrically opposed to the prescriptions offered up by “conservative” knuckle-draggers, but my observations of the deficiencies of the present system may be similar to theirs. We all feel a profound sense of frustration.

Here in California, the busy bureaucrats in Sacramento are powerless to balance the budget, so they’re slicing the educational system to ribbons. Never mind that producing an entire generation of poorly educated or uneducated citizens will eat holes in the tax base and make the problem worse — nobody in Sacramento is thinking that far ahead.

A considerable slice of the blame for the budget impasse lies at the feet of the prison guards’ union, which has ruthlessly championed harsher sentences and the building of more prisons. Cutting the prison population to 1/3 of its present level doesn’t seem to be something our legislators are able to contemplate, and it’s not hard to see why: Voters are filled with fear, and it’s easier to focus your fear on criminals running loose than to look at the root causes of the mess. Because who knows what to do about the root causes?

Every year, moving to Denmark seems like a better idea. I’d have to learn to speak Danish, and I guess the climate is a little crisp. But hey, I’m a smart guy, learning a language shouldn’t be a problem. And I can buy a warm coat.

Just don’t y’all follow me, okay?

Digging It

Archaeology is how we come to understand who we are. The traces that remain of the distant past are being obliterated across the globe — submerged behind new dams, bulldozed to make way for freeways and high-rises — and that’s a horrifying tragedy. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

Other sites that would have yielded up priceless knowledge were looted in the 19th century, before the rise of modern archaeology. The human race is heedless. Who was it who said, “What we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history”?

And of course the soft bits rot. With a pitifully few exceptions, we have not a shred of evidence about what people wore 10,000 years ago. We know what kinds of meat they ate, because they left the bones scattered around. But we don’t know what they may have carved from wood — toys for their children, perhaps? — because the wood is gone. We don’t have their dances, their songs, their stories. All we have, for the most part, are

When Failure Is Not an Option

I’m not at all sure what I’d like to do until the gravedigger comes, but I’d like to be doing something. So I did what any good 21st century geek would do: I googled “setting personal goals.”

Most of the advice that’s on offer reminded me of an old Steve Martin comedy routine. The routine went something like this. “Listen: I’m going to tell you how to make a million dollars and pay no taxes. First, you make a million dollars. Okay, that part’s taken care of. Now, here’s how to deal with the IRS…”. And so forth.

Most of the websites that discuss setting goals start by saying, in essence, “First, set a realistic goal. Okay, that part’s taken care of. Now here’s how to organize your action so as to reach the goal…”. What I’m trying to do is find a worthwhile goal, so that advice is no good at all.

One site, however, asked a possibly useful question: “If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you be doing?” This is an invitation to give your imagination and desire free rein.

After mulling it over a bit, I’ve decided that if I couldn’t fail, I’d start a band. We’d play original music in concerts once or twice a month, in good venues, for appreciative crowds. We’d rehearse every week. Everyone in the group would be dedicated to sounding really good, and they’d all be excellent players. We’d get paid decent money for our concerts. We wouldn’t tour, because touring is a drag. We’d record and sell a few CDs.

If you’re not chuckling already, it’s because you’re not a musician. Starting a working band is very, very difficult. It’s hard enough if your goal is to play covers of crappy pop tunes in clubs. Originals? Who’s going to sign on to play originals, when there’s no money in it? Also, it helps if you’re 20 years old, first because you don’t mind staying up til three in the morning loading out after a gig, second because you look sexy onstage, and third because you don’t care about scuffling around and being poor. Starting a working band to play originals when you’re 60 …

Hey, I have a better idea: If I knew I couldn’t fail, I’d ask Alyson Hannigan to marry me. That’s just about as likely to work as starting a band.