This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

My most lasting hearing damage from a show was Mastodon and Baroness in a venue too small for their sound system. It took my left ear about a year to mostly recover, and I doubt it ever fully has.

I don't think I can assign responsibility for my hearing damage to any one show, but I saw some fucking loud ones in my day, many of them at Tonic. Both Khanate and Borbetomagus (who were co-billed with Merzbow) literally caused amps to catch fire. I saw Sunn O))) and Fushitsusha there, too. I remember I could hear Borbetomagus soundchecking from Houston Street (about three blocks away). And when Merzbow's set started, he hit the space bar on his laptop and instantly it was like standing next to a jet engine. Keiji Haino and John Zorn at CBGB (Haino solo guitar at first, then a duo) was pretty eardrum-frying too, and I wasn't wearing earplugs that night.

Worst time was when I went to a club already so riotously drunk that I didn't even notice how loud the music was. I woke up the next morning with both ears whistling and they didn't stop whistling for three days. That was back in the early 2000s. Currently there's a slight hearing loss in my right ear, mainly top end frequencies. I had a lot of earwax when I was younger and I attribute the relative lack of hearing loss to that.

when Merzbow's set started, he hit the space bar on his laptop and instantly it was like standing next to a jet engine

That sounds so awesome I woudn't care about the potential hearing loss.

How many pills do you take every day?

only band that really hurt and left a mark was of all bands the jayhawks in the earlymid 90s. from then i take care at shows. and use an ear trumpet in quieter places, as classy graybeards do

Mine were Dino Jr. back in the day and GBV on the 2011 classic lineup tour. I only started going to shows again regularly in 2019 (doh).

A while ago, I realized that when my ears ring, they ring in the key of E. Which is mildly disappointing, because it is such a stereotypical rock guitar key.

I would prefer a folkier key, like G or D. Even C would be okay.

I bet Peter Buck’s ears ring in Em.

(They’re called REm for a reason)

PEmter Buck

REmckoning

Fables of the REmconstruction

Emonster

Out of TiEm

Etc.

It's the Emd of the world as we know it

Okay I will stop now

A while ago, I realized that when my ears ring, they ring in the key of E. Which is mildly disappointing, because it is such a stereotypical rock guitar key.

Would harmonise well with Glenn Branca guitar symphonies however, which I think are all or mostly in that key.

well i never.
for my recent 56th birthday i got a kit from the NHS re bowel cancer checking.
i.e. a poo kit.
had no idea that this was a thing until it turned up.
got the "all clear" letter today, albeit with a lot of legally required caveats.

*Hums riff from Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law"*

SHIT IN A BOX! SHIT IN A BOX!

I didn't get a poo kit.

Everyone aged 60 to 74 years who is registered with a GP and lives in England is automatically sent an NHS bowel cancer screening kit every 2 years.

The programme is expanding so that everyone aged 50 to 59 years will be eligible for screening. This is happening gradually over 4 years and started in April 2021 with 56 year olds.

The programme has also started to include 58 year olds, so you may get a test before you're 60.

weird.
i got the letter a few days after my 56th birthday.
guess it depends on your surgery that you are registered with.

(x-post)

Looks like it's been devised by the same NHS team who decided:

From 1 September 2023, you're eligible for the shingles vaccine when you turn 65....You'll remain eligible until your 80th birthday.

Information:
If you turned 65 before 1 September 2023, you'll be eligible for the shingles vaccine when you turn 70.

oh right 56th birthday - looked like 50th to my 50 year old eyes.

ahh, yeah,
seems to kick in once you get beyond the mid-50s groove.

I'm in Scotland and I got my first poo test in today - less than a week after my 50th birthday.
I find this mildly amusing given I had to have surgery for bowel cancer towards the end of last year.

I feel like poo-kits-in-the-mail is one of those things Fox News will circulate next time there's a debate about universal health care. "In SOCIALIST countries, you have to POOP in a BOX and MAIL it to the GOVERNMENT!!!"

You don't even get pictures of the inside of your colon! Total ripoff. It's like the Willy Wonka experience all over again.

Different chocolate factory.

lol

lol nickn, kudos

I owe it all to tipsy.

New varifocals, had them 24 hours, hello headache.

I was worrying about the state of the planet's ecosystem, as you do, and then I thought "well I won't be around to see the worst of it". And then I thought "Right - I'll be dead in no more than a few decades and will never live to see The Future."

Which isn't in any way profound but it was the first time it had hit me in such an irrefutable manner. Hello middle age fartdom! You kids today etc

I was worrying about the state of the planet's ecosystem, as you do, and then I thought "well I won't be around to see the worst of it". And then I thought "Right - I'll be dead in no more than a few decades and will never live to see The Future."

I had a similar thought right around the time I turned 50, that I am not "middle-aged" but am in fact in the final third of my life. And I'm good with that, I guess. My biggest thought re death is that I wish it would be possible for my wife and me to both die at the exact same moment, because I don't want to be without her and I don't want to leave her alone.

Widows seem to do better than widowers, if that is any consolation.

I just had a thought about where I was a decade ago, after I split up with my ex and moved out.. and I thought how stunningly brief a decade really is. I remember doing laundry after I moved out, and the article I was reading in the laundromat, like it was yesterday. A decade is a blink of an eye, and I'm not sure how many I have left lol

i think i'm finally starting to make my peace with things and people leaving this world. even being okay with people forgetting the things and people that have passed. it used to freak me out that you could be here and then be gone and eveything went on as if nothing had happened. that you could still laugh and joke and eat sandwiches after someone you loved had died. i was talking to my kid who is into fashion and i brought up virgil abloh and i thought damn he was everywhere and blowing up and all that and i can't even remember the last time i heard or saw his name. he's just gone. but its cool. everything goes. people go on. animals crap in the woods and trees fall on them. its all okay. i don't mind the idea of being forgotten anymore.

Widows seem to do better than widowers, if that is any consolation.

thats not consolation for some of us.

sorry Halfway, i am feeling a little fragile at the moment, so that comment hit hard.

"Things are as they are, and end as they must." Heraclitus, I think?

But yeah deaths have been accelerating in my world... mostly parents and pets and niche celebrities, but it's just the start. I know it is coming for me too but I do not feel done.

*hugs* to you mark.

I had a similar thought right around the time I turned 50, that I am not "middle-aged" but am in fact in the final third of my life.

My science-teacher mom calls it "the terminal third" — a phrase she read somewhere. She started saying that when she was in her 50s, which at least gave me time to get used to the idea. Now I'm in my 50s and she's about to turn 78 and the "terminal" part is undeniably creeping up on her and my dad. My mom was 23 when I was born, so I can look at her and see where I'll be in 23 years — I mean, assuming I'm still alive. And 23 years isn't that long! I remember 2001 pretty clearly.

My science-teacher mom calls it "the terminal third"

Hah! When I turn 50 I told people that realistically speaking, I had crossed over into the Mortality Zone.

My mom was 23 when I was born, so I can look at her and see where I'll be in 23 years — I mean, assuming I'm still alive.

Same here. My mom turned 75 in February. She travels a lot these days. She was in Mexico for her birthday (my wife and I joke that she goes down there to see her secret other family) and is going to Europe in May.

My parents mostly don't travel at all anymore. Though my dad did fly out to see his sister this year, so that was good. But I wish they did more. Definitely something I would prefer to do at that point in my life, to whatever degree possible. I have friends and family in their 70s and 80s who travel a lot, I think there's a lot of benefit to it, experiencing new things. But I guess that's driven by personal preference.

My mother is 85, and she travels a lot to visit her other children. I'll probably never see her in person ever again, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't feel comfortable contacting her for reasons I can't really figure out.

As for feeling comfortable about dying someday, I'm not. One of the last things I think about each night before I fall asleep is wondering if tomorrow will be the day I die. And I don't like it at all.

This will sound corny but I've had a couple of very real-feeling dreams of dying that I think seriously helped with the acceptance. Like, last-minute-of-life type dreams. I wonder if it's at all similar to the effects psilocybin can have for terminally ill people, in terms of looking right at it.

i've got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind
i'm just fifty-two and I don't mind dying

Townes Van Zandt died at 52. Would have been 80 today.

presumably the sooner i die, the fewer regrets i will have? which suggests that i'm a solid decade overdue

*deletes a lot of honest opinion*

i don’t wanna be around longer than necessary.

sorry Halfway, i am feeling a little fragile at the moment, so that comment hit hard.

― mark e, Thursday, March 7, 2024 7:30 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Oh, it's absolutely hard, from whichever side you take it.

As for feeling comfortable about dying someday, I'm not. One of the last things I think about each night before I fall asleep is wondering if tomorrow will be the day I die. And I don't like it at all.

Yes, I have to agree strongly with you on this. I can't think too much about the end or else it becomes difficult for me to think about anything else at all.

It is an odd realization to have an idea of what the rest of your future looks like, having been alive and alert for the past 40+ years and seeing how that all went.

I don't think I'm ever going to see flying cars or flying scooters. Cancer's not going anywhere before, say, 2050. No one's going to go to Mars and come back before I'm gone.

I'm not disappointed! I'm also getting to the age where I'm not huge on surprises!

At 58, I’m hoping that UFOs become IFOs before I go, along with getting another Paul Buchanan album and/or Prefab Sprout 18cd box set of unreleased projects. What hits nowadays, besides family and friends ailing, is the lost companionship of art from Mark Linkous, Johann Johannsson, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, etc.