BLUE HAIRS AND BLUE ZONES: LIVE LONG AND PULCHRITUDINOUS

TYSON (SOUND GUY EXTRAORDINAIRE) AT B-SHARP

Grains and greens and nuts and beans,

And sweet potatoes in between

Long walks.

Old age can signal grumpiness and lethargy and frailty and dementia. Old age means blue hair, and blue-hairs are known for their gatherings at either Swiss Chalet or Denny’s. Old age means driving your car down the highway noticeably slower than the speed limit and with the left turning signal blinking and blinking and blinking. Old age means holding up the line in the grocery store sorting through loose change and coupons and then quarrelling with the clerk over the price of a can of corn. Old age means having the strange social ability to frustrate family and neighbours and friends on any given day over any given selfish thing.  Being a senior citizen has rather negative connotations and yet knowing this crux … I want to become one.

I want to become one because I want to live as long as I can.  I do not want to die.  I am not yet prepared to meet my maker, which is quite strange considering I am the quintessential existentialist. I have already met my maker/s, my parents, and both are dead (and gone).  Oh sure, according to current physicists, their energy is still orbulating among the trees in the forests and among the fishes in the seas of the universe, but their human essence and sentience extinguished.  

I do want to live a long, long life and to accomplish such I’ve read a bit on the subject.  It just so happens that on our planet there are five longevity hotspots, having the highest concentration of centenarians, all of whom are enjoying life in a healthy fashion.  These five regions, Sardinia (Italy), Okinawa (Japan), Loma Linda (California), Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica), and Ikaria (Greece) are known as the Blue Zones.  And they are known as the Blue Zones only because Dan Buettner, trade marker of the Blue Zones, circled them on the map with a blue marker when he was researching and identifying them.

Without any collusion amongst any of the peoples of these regions, all five Blue Zones inhabitants have things in common with regard to diet and exercise.

Grains and greens and nuts and beans,

And sweet potatoes in between

Long walks.

Notez bien que:  It could be the centenarians of these regions do indulge other foodstuffs and such as alcohol, meat, and fruit, and other exercise such as lifting weights, but grains and greens, and nuts and beans, and sweet potatoes in between long walks are the common intake and exercise restrictions.

I am a Blue Zone fan and attempt on a daily basis to replicate their diet, so much so that I read several articles on the five Blue Zones and created this skinny of commonalities put these to poem:

  

Grains and greens and nuts and beans,

And sweet potatoes in between

Long walks … I wrote it and recite it (often).

Now to busking:  Any busker worth his weight (pun intended) can easily follow this Blue Zone diet.  Grains can be gotten from any whole or ancient grain cold cereal.

Raw fruit and vegetable are always plentiful at farmers’ markets, a common pitch for buskers.

Peanuts and peanut butter is cheap and easy to eat on the go, and so are cans of beans cheap and easy to eat.  Besides a guitar and harmonica, and/or didgeridoo, or a pencil and sketchpad, a can opener and spoon are really the only essential tools, necessary to be a busker.

Sweet potatoes are a bit more complicated and I’ve not a real appetite for them, unless they are mashed and smothered in golden melting butter and coarse black pepper.

Long walks are commonplace for most members the buskerhood, as they move from street pitch to street pitch.

MY KIND OF VACATION

Grains and greens and nuts and beans,

And sweet potatoes in between

Long walks.

Now to my busking.  In wintertime portrait busking is the way for me to go.  I have fancied myself as a brutto tempo busker but in doing so I know I am delusional.  I hate thrumming in the cold (but could love it if it were profitable).  From the economy of time and money, busking in winter is not worth the strum or the drone or the draw.

In wintertime I reside in the snowbank-blue Canadian sastrugi.  When I become a blue hair I will not golf my winters away in Arizona, nor will I bask and imbibe on some corporate Mexican beach in Puerto Vallarta.   

Rather, I will continue to fritter as a planetary busker, biding my time to take long walks and dine as a blue hair in a Blue Zone!

 

These above portraits were drawn by my good friend, DUSTIN RITTER.  (GOOGLE him:)
Dustin is a great guitar and harmonica guy and ... an excellent portrait artist!

LEST WE FORGET

REMEMBRANCE DAY AT VICTORIA PARK CENOTAPH

This blog entry is dedicated to my friend, Kevin, and his far-better-than-half, Sherry.  Kevin and Sherry, this past year, have lost two young adult sons. Somehow it seems fitting that I started writing this entry upon my return from the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Victoria Park Cenotaph in Regina, Canada.

To begin, dying is never a positive topic.  We collectively decide to think about death only when the time comes.  One such popular time, it seems, is every year on Remembrance Day, even though everyone knows that DEATH is always on stand-by.

Not-so-surprisingly, most of us do not want to delay even thinking about death for as long as we can.  (I mean, really, I’m far too busy in my vitality to be contemplating my own departure right now!)

And not-so-surprisingly again, we all are aware that there does come a time when we must emotionally come to grips with death.  And at such time it is necessary to clear our negative thoughts about death, in an attempt to cultivate some positive and practical reckonings in order to deal with death.

One example of such a positive citation is an edited poem I recollect from high school:

To An Athlete Dying Young

By A.E. Housman

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

A most tragic fate is the death of young person in the prime of life. In To An Athlete Dying Young, British classical scholar and poet, A. E. Housman, suggests that death, especially for youth, is a victory over the impending disappointments, and all the tragedies and heartbreak that accompany everyone’s life.  The young athlete in this poem, because he has passed at his prime, never has to experience any more life struggles.

Normally death is never regarded as something joyous or enviable but this poem shows that death has the advantage to make the athlete’s glory permanent.  And so Housman spins that dying young does have at least this one benefit.

Factoid:  We, as living beings, are only durable and doable for up to about 100 years.  Along our way to the greying years we become frail; our self-concept lowers, and therefore so lowers our self-esteem.  In our senior years some of us become bitter because we are so limited both psychologically and physically.  It is certainly not unusual to grow old feeling sorry for ourselves.

Just imagine if there were no such thing as death.  You can imagine then that there would be nothing in life that is urgent. Think of never dying.  Our immortality would render life to be meaningless.  We’d have no need to learn or do anything.  We’d have no need to eat, work, or exercise.  We’d have forever to do anything or to do nothing.  Whether we existed as a gourmand or a guttersnipe, a royal or a rake; or whether our lives were magnificent or mundane … we’d have no need to be alive!

• “To live is to suffer.” This phrase is the skinny of Zen.  As long as we are breathing we have angst.  There is always something to overcome, something over which to suffer. 

• “Why should I fear death?  If I am, death is not.  If death is, I am not.  Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?”  The ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus, uses simple logic to make his point.  One cannot be alive and dead at the same time, and so our typical fear of being dead is totally irrational.  

• “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”  Victorian novelist and poet, Mary Anne Evans (alias George Eliot), suggests that our notions about death are based upon our remembrance.

Sherry and Kevin, I hope you find solace in knowing that your sons will always be with you.

LEST WE FORGET.

LOST BUT NOT FORGOTTEN ... JORDAN AND JERAMY OYSTRICK

I'M ALWAYS IN THE MOOD: A BELLYFUL OF WISDOM

PLANETARY TONY

I have an issue. Every day following our afternoon weight training and Muay Thai sessions I weigh myself on the scale at the YMCA.  If I’m over 167 pounds I freak out (psychologically not physically).  And to help prevent me from such a disturbance I’ve this week created my newest motto:

Grains and greens and nuts and beans and sweet potatoes in between.

My narcissistic nature creates certain angst about my imaginary future.  I do not want to look like this:

And I don’t want to look skinny-fat like this:

In my mind I continually run the mantra:

Grains and greens and nuts and beans and sweet potatoes in between.

At 5 o’clock my daily food regimen always begins with two Americano coffees, two cream one honey, while reading Psychology Today blogs and replying to workplace emails.

At 7 o’clock I always swig a protein drink mixed with milk, while watching CNN.  (I am not a Trump fan.)

At 8 o’clock A.M. I partake in our work morning tea meeting (to be confused with our bosses thinking we have morning team meetings), during which I have a Robins black tea, two cream one honey, while discussing our collective plan for each of our 17, 18, and 19 year old clients (young offenders who will be transported to our facility at 9 o’clock).

Lunchtime at 12 o’clock is a community affair having all staff and clients mingle for an hour.  Either whole grain cereal with milk or one vanilla yogurt or crackers and hummus is my table fare for such.

My 5:30 suppertime means a gourmet cuisine of veggies and small portions of meat, prepared by my wife, Carol.

My late night snack at 9 o’clock is usually a slice of old cheddar cheese and a glass of Adam’s ale right out of the kitchen tap.

Weekends I’ve not the of-the-clock weekday pattern. My quirky nibbling schedule consists of one can of Coca-Cola while attending a Western League Hockey game with my favorite NHL scout, Brad Hornung, and I should confess my habit of red licorice, either raspberry or strawberry, at Brad’s before and after going to the game.

Saturday I gormandize an Italian sandwich from one of my favorite places, the ITALIAN STAR DELI.

And just what has this diatribe on eating and nutrition to do with busking?  I shall explain in not-ashamedly narcissistic me-me-me fashion.

Every successful busker knows that buskin’ ain’t easy.  Factoid: Busking demands a great deal of physical stamina.  Tramping from buskspot to buskspot and then standing and strumming a guitar for a couple consecutive hours at each, it is fundamental to be in decent physical and mental shape. Another factoid: One’s physical presence can be shaped by 10% exercise and 90% nutrition.  

Grains and greens and nuts and beans and sweet potatoes in between can be the main chews to maintain the intake for fine physical fettle.

As a busker, projecting a healthy image is paramount.  As a busker, I chews (choose) so I need not to be cosmetisized.  As a busker my cap-a-pie persona is a tight white t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and steel-toed work boots.  My fantasy, as a busker, is to be a planetary busker.  (One cannot be so intrepid while being unfit.)

To be a successful busker I believe one has to be vain.  If either one’s self-esteem (your measured 

self-worth) or self-concept (how you think others are measuring you) is low, so will the take from your passer-by consumers be low.

Knowing you are physically fit and believing that you look good obviously contribute to both self-esteem and self-concept.

Eating nutritious food will get you to that look-good image you want to present.  It takes moxie to be a busker and it takes positive self-esteem and self-concept to exhibit such aggressive energy as moxie.

Following a healthy diet is not a stalemate.

Following a healthy diet is not a zero-sum game strategy.

When it comes down to the skinny of YOU vs JUNK FOOD and if the junk food wins … you will metaphorically lose the battle and you will literally gain the belly.

 As a self-certified buskologist ... 

My tantara of trumpets heralding my beliefs ...
always happens to be my blog!