Okay, when I had to write up the Inauguration of President Obama I decided to take a rosy attitude. I didn't tear down Mr. Bush, didn't bring up the manifold injustices of his reign. Nor did I talk about how - on a personal level - he ruined my twenties. I was approaching twenty-two when he got elected. My roommate and I watched in horror as he won, well...took the election. My roommate was less optimistic than I was, he went to bed irritated, as I patiently hoped for a coup d'etat on TV. We thought this was our "Where were you when JFK got shot," moment. We walked around depressed students that had hoped the Clintons would be followed by another Democratic powerhouse. The city stood still, in a way liberal New York didn't know that they were practicing for a greater tragedy to come.
Matt woke me that morning in September. At first when he said, "Wake-up there's a plane in the World Trade Center," I went back to sleep. I thought it was a dream or a ruse to get me out of bed. Then, when, he put my glasses on my face, lit cigarettes with a match and told me to watch the TV I knew he wasn't joking. He wasn't watching a movie either. The second plane hit. I was still seeking hope, thought it was a rescue plane, a preposterous idea in retrospect. Where would they have landed?
Of course that was the moment, the "Where were you when JFK was shot moment?" In a sobering conversation with an Israeli visitor to the dorms where I lived that day he asked us what could we really expect? Pressure was mounting. People from Europe to China were tired of us, hated Bush and Americans weren't getting it.
The wars that came, the collapse of the housing market, Wall Street and the like have not been - in comparison - as shocking as Bush and Towers. Granted I was stuck in a subway a year or two later when the power gave out in the city. Yet, even this I cannot attribute to Bush. Had he been behind it something far greater, more devastating, would have coincided with it. Perhaps all gay bars and art galleries would have become army recruiting stations or headquarters for Republican Party watchdog groups. Although the power outage experience was symbolic, foreboding, yet at the same time a testament to New Yorkers who had already been put through so much. We all gathered in Times Square, with flashlights and candles to see the brightest corner of the world as dark as night. Our candles glittered. Hope against the blackness that had descended...
But back to my twenties, and those in my generation, we have all had to struggle. Work for less pay, or more hours and the same pay. Made to take positions that won't, can't offer advancement due to the economy. Jobs have been sent overseas, which makes me wonder at comfortable individuals who fail to realize that those building blocks of our economy do indeed affect their positions. Salary, hours, bonuses, benefits, etc. As a job seeker now it is hard to find something that doesn't blatantly say their wages are terrible or is a total scam. Corporate jobs seem the scariest, as it is an exciting time for them, big companies. They know they can easily lock you into a low-paying contract position now, more so than ever, and keep you there until the economy picks-up. I remember an article in the New York Times, the Sunday Magazine and this was about seven or eight years ago. It showed a robber baron, complete with top hat, tuxedo, pocketwatch, maybe a monocle over one eye, you get it. He was an evil Vaudevillian, a rich, cigar-smoking tycoon. He was busy harassing a factory-working, tramp type of character, a tenement dweller most likely. I cant remember the full article but it basically said the rich seemed to be getting richer. Unchecked salaries, bonuses and the like, the very things that banking houses are now being scrutinized about, would keep getting higher while what Benjamin Franklin described as the "Middling Classes" might someday face being wiped out entirely.
And we all have Mr. Bush to thank. Thanks for ruining my (and maybe your) twenties. Thanks for the wars that drove the country's finances out of control. Thanks for taking contract positions and professional positions that imposed more work that salary. Thanks for my republican boss that did barely any work, often shoveling it onto us to go on vacation, who was blatantly ant-gay, in a state without workplace protection against such behavior. Thanks Mr. Bush, Bushy to be sweet, for the lives lost, the fortunes and spindly savings ruined, people worrying about their homes, and anything else I am forgetting. On that note I am going to press my black suits, learn how to make a perfect martini and shred documents. Because if you do know of any robber barons or tycoons please tell them all about me. Tell them I would make a perfect butler, valet, or gentleman's gentleman.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Panhandled!
Ok. Sunday was perhaps not the best day in terms of my looking respectable. The day went something like this. Woke up at Lance's place. Had black coffee (on ode to The Berlin Stories, FYI), then set out into the world. Notice I did not mention that I showered. It was a lovely day in the city, as it went to 50 degrees and I thought "Bloody Mary." I contemplated the idea of having one out, but given my budget and my love of the Bloody Mary I decided to pick up some mixer and some vodka on my way home instead to share with mom. However, as I left the wine & spirits shop on 12th & Chestnut what did I see whiz past me? Yup! The bus home. I waited ten minutes and when I received a phone call from Ms. L. Quigley I had a stroke of genius. Why not walk down to her place of work and have a BM there? Brilliant! She was quite game, given that her shop was fairly empty. Given the shop's location in Old City I decided a nice walk through Washington Square and Independence Hall was also in order. I got to her shop. We poured Bloody Mary. We chatted. The phrase, "Your hair looks greasy AWOL," was mentioned. I freaked out and attempted to do my hair is a manner that would make greasy hair attractive. Then I went back to my Bloody Mary. Then she had a customer. Not just any customer, the other ladies that came in were solo or shopping with her mother in one case. This was a customer with a bevy of children and husband. Given my well...I won't say fear of children but my...yeah, well fear, I went outside to sit on the shop's "stoop."
Nothing happened of note, except to say that my Loomstate jacket did garner a compliment from a hipster and his girlfriend. Then a late-model Volvo pulled into the spot in front of the shop. Within the car was an older man, bespectacled, grey hair and bear, mid-60s, and a woman in her 80s I suspected. The woman, her bob carefully dyed brown, beheld me, smiled as the man parallel parked, no easy job in Old City. They studied the sign above the car, regarding the parking zone for what seemed like an eternity. Then they carefully emerged. I thought from the flourish of activity involved when exiting the car that the man was going to help the woman out from her passenger seat. However, the man had difficulty in walking and produced an elegant cane, made of a knobby, amber-stained wood, a small bag, a slightly larger bag and a book from the back seat while the woman struggled to get out of the car. I wanted to help her but noticed the older man did not offer her a hand. Now, in dealing with my mother, an older woman, I know that little exercises like getting out of a car, walking up steps and the like are sometimes best left to them. It maintains dexterity and builds confidence, seriously, my mother moves sofas. (Shut up, yes I know that episode of the Golden Girls!) So I didn't help her thinking the man believed this too.
Our city - as I am sure you know - is the home of A&E's Traffic Wars. Our Parking Authority Folk (surely the proper name) are notorious. Some carry machetes! So the man reviewed the sign after he emerged with all of his gear, even though he had studied it carefully from the car's interior. He looked at me, then walked a few feet as the older woman began to walk north. She smiled at me again. He turned around, uh-oh, I thought, he wants advice on parking in Philadelphia. There was no hole to jump into, getting up and running into the shop behind me would also prove strange so I sat there. "Excuse me, could you tell me if I'm okay to park here? I never can tell sometimes," he said. The sun was shining and it was in my eye. I squinted and ran my fingers through my greasy hair, which in my defense was collapsed hair product, not grease. "Sir, I was raised in Philadelphia and went to college in New York. I've never even had my license." (Yes, I know I should get it and I will this year! I promise.) "But I think you should be fine," I said this as I got up to check out the sign, a complicated affair, as it had a second sign underneath that said you had to use a large meter nearby for two-hour ticketed parking. This confused me. I kept looking. There had to be something more. Sure enough it said this was only enforced Monday through Saturday, as it was Sunday, or Bloody Mary Day he was in the clear. Like a good chap, sent by Scrooge to purchase a Christmas Turkey, I pointed this out. "You're fine," I said. He thanked me, the woman had stopped her struggled walk up Third Street, she was only one storefront facade or so away from us and she smiled at me again. He with cane, her without they carried on up Third Street.
Then they stopped. Oh no, they had forgotten something. I wanted to stand up and help them but realized the older gent was intent on his independence. He carefully placed his cane on the front window, the bottom of the cane deposited into the gap between hood and glass as he supported himself on the car handle. "I'm such a kindhearted soul," he said. "That I didn't lock the door behind me." I laughed, said he wasn't in the neighborhood for that. Then the woman was on my side, her hands, as knobby as her companion's cane struggled with her bag. She withdrew twenty-dollars from her purse. I began to realize she was indeed handing it to me! It came to me like some sort of communion. "This is for you, young man." She smiled, she patted my head. She put her ancient fingers to her mouth, "Shhh, I don't want him to know." I didn't know what to say. Yes, as a writer and house cleaner I am consistently broke yet I didn't want to take the money. I didn't want to not accept it either. These are tough times. My hair was greasy. The woman wanted me to buy some shampoo at least. The man turned now, the lady was directly behind him now. "Thank you," I said. "I don't know what to say, thank you." I was flabbergasted, the twenty was in my left hand. When he saw it he laughed. "Ah, they don't make them like her anymore," he said to me. Then to her, "You didn't go to Church today, that was your good deed for the day." I had to make some explanation as to why I accepted the money. "I, well, I'm a writer, so it is appreciated." They smiled at me once again, they believed me, perhaps they were writers or artists or collectors themselves. Perhaps the man was a professor, there was something academic about his nattiness. "Have a wonderful day," he said before he began walking up Third Street out of my life forever.
I slipped the donation into my pocket, into the Loomstate jacket that the hipster had complimented me on. I sat there. I was giddy from the Bloody Mary and not-quite-sure how to deal with the notion that I had been panhandled on the street. I say panhandled because yes I was given money. Yet I had not "Stepped into that line of work," it was put onto me.
A few minutes later the young blonde, husband and bevy of children (TWO little boys mind you!!!) left the store. I was free to renter. The twenty in my jacket pocket I withdrew it. "Did you see what happened? Out there," I turned around to see what Lauren's vantage point was from her desk. No, she would not have seen any thing, except perhaps the man's head (he was quite tall) as he approached me. The sign he worried about was not within her field of vision at all, I noted. "What are you talking about? Why do you have a twenty in my face," she asked. "Thanks," I replied, feeling like a panhandler. "I guess you think I'm too broke to have a twenty." Which is partially true, the rest of my cash was in the bank and in a dresser drawer; not in abundance. "No, but why are you waving it around?" I told her the story. I went into the mirror. "God...I'm a panhandler! In this jacket," I screamed. "Calm down, you're not a panhandler. You just need to wash your hair," she assured me.
I went to the window of the store. I replayed the scene in my mind. Then, I looked out to their car. They were totally within their rights to be parked there. I smiled. Then I noticed something. They had forgotten to put up their disabled tag, and they were parked in front of the low, blue meter for the disabled. "When do you close," I asked Lauren. At six, less than an hour away. "Good they forgot to put up their disabled tag. I'd have to give back the money if they get a ticket and come looking for me." Although I fantasized with Lauren about becoming a panhandler, maybe even enlisting a friend to begin a panhandling company, clearly I would not be successful at it.
Nothing happened of note, except to say that my Loomstate jacket did garner a compliment from a hipster and his girlfriend. Then a late-model Volvo pulled into the spot in front of the shop. Within the car was an older man, bespectacled, grey hair and bear, mid-60s, and a woman in her 80s I suspected. The woman, her bob carefully dyed brown, beheld me, smiled as the man parallel parked, no easy job in Old City. They studied the sign above the car, regarding the parking zone for what seemed like an eternity. Then they carefully emerged. I thought from the flourish of activity involved when exiting the car that the man was going to help the woman out from her passenger seat. However, the man had difficulty in walking and produced an elegant cane, made of a knobby, amber-stained wood, a small bag, a slightly larger bag and a book from the back seat while the woman struggled to get out of the car. I wanted to help her but noticed the older man did not offer her a hand. Now, in dealing with my mother, an older woman, I know that little exercises like getting out of a car, walking up steps and the like are sometimes best left to them. It maintains dexterity and builds confidence, seriously, my mother moves sofas. (Shut up, yes I know that episode of the Golden Girls!) So I didn't help her thinking the man believed this too.
Our city - as I am sure you know - is the home of A&E's Traffic Wars. Our Parking Authority Folk (surely the proper name) are notorious. Some carry machetes! So the man reviewed the sign after he emerged with all of his gear, even though he had studied it carefully from the car's interior. He looked at me, then walked a few feet as the older woman began to walk north. She smiled at me again. He turned around, uh-oh, I thought, he wants advice on parking in Philadelphia. There was no hole to jump into, getting up and running into the shop behind me would also prove strange so I sat there. "Excuse me, could you tell me if I'm okay to park here? I never can tell sometimes," he said. The sun was shining and it was in my eye. I squinted and ran my fingers through my greasy hair, which in my defense was collapsed hair product, not grease. "Sir, I was raised in Philadelphia and went to college in New York. I've never even had my license." (Yes, I know I should get it and I will this year! I promise.) "But I think you should be fine," I said this as I got up to check out the sign, a complicated affair, as it had a second sign underneath that said you had to use a large meter nearby for two-hour ticketed parking. This confused me. I kept looking. There had to be something more. Sure enough it said this was only enforced Monday through Saturday, as it was Sunday, or Bloody Mary Day he was in the clear. Like a good chap, sent by Scrooge to purchase a Christmas Turkey, I pointed this out. "You're fine," I said. He thanked me, the woman had stopped her struggled walk up Third Street, she was only one storefront facade or so away from us and she smiled at me again. He with cane, her without they carried on up Third Street.
Then they stopped. Oh no, they had forgotten something. I wanted to stand up and help them but realized the older gent was intent on his independence. He carefully placed his cane on the front window, the bottom of the cane deposited into the gap between hood and glass as he supported himself on the car handle. "I'm such a kindhearted soul," he said. "That I didn't lock the door behind me." I laughed, said he wasn't in the neighborhood for that. Then the woman was on my side, her hands, as knobby as her companion's cane struggled with her bag. She withdrew twenty-dollars from her purse. I began to realize she was indeed handing it to me! It came to me like some sort of communion. "This is for you, young man." She smiled, she patted my head. She put her ancient fingers to her mouth, "Shhh, I don't want him to know." I didn't know what to say. Yes, as a writer and house cleaner I am consistently broke yet I didn't want to take the money. I didn't want to not accept it either. These are tough times. My hair was greasy. The woman wanted me to buy some shampoo at least. The man turned now, the lady was directly behind him now. "Thank you," I said. "I don't know what to say, thank you." I was flabbergasted, the twenty was in my left hand. When he saw it he laughed. "Ah, they don't make them like her anymore," he said to me. Then to her, "You didn't go to Church today, that was your good deed for the day." I had to make some explanation as to why I accepted the money. "I, well, I'm a writer, so it is appreciated." They smiled at me once again, they believed me, perhaps they were writers or artists or collectors themselves. Perhaps the man was a professor, there was something academic about his nattiness. "Have a wonderful day," he said before he began walking up Third Street out of my life forever.
I slipped the donation into my pocket, into the Loomstate jacket that the hipster had complimented me on. I sat there. I was giddy from the Bloody Mary and not-quite-sure how to deal with the notion that I had been panhandled on the street. I say panhandled because yes I was given money. Yet I had not "Stepped into that line of work," it was put onto me.
A few minutes later the young blonde, husband and bevy of children (TWO little boys mind you!!!) left the store. I was free to renter. The twenty in my jacket pocket I withdrew it. "Did you see what happened? Out there," I turned around to see what Lauren's vantage point was from her desk. No, she would not have seen any thing, except perhaps the man's head (he was quite tall) as he approached me. The sign he worried about was not within her field of vision at all, I noted. "What are you talking about? Why do you have a twenty in my face," she asked. "Thanks," I replied, feeling like a panhandler. "I guess you think I'm too broke to have a twenty." Which is partially true, the rest of my cash was in the bank and in a dresser drawer; not in abundance. "No, but why are you waving it around?" I told her the story. I went into the mirror. "God...I'm a panhandler! In this jacket," I screamed. "Calm down, you're not a panhandler. You just need to wash your hair," she assured me.
I went to the window of the store. I replayed the scene in my mind. Then, I looked out to their car. They were totally within their rights to be parked there. I smiled. Then I noticed something. They had forgotten to put up their disabled tag, and they were parked in front of the low, blue meter for the disabled. "When do you close," I asked Lauren. At six, less than an hour away. "Good they forgot to put up their disabled tag. I'd have to give back the money if they get a ticket and come looking for me." Although I fantasized with Lauren about becoming a panhandler, maybe even enlisting a friend to begin a panhandling company, clearly I would not be successful at it.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Thank God for Middle Names
The woman asked me to complete an online security check, criminal background, that sort of thing. I was a little surprised as the woman had yet to formally offer me a position writing for her. Of course I mentally went over my background, just in case I had indeed robbed a bank or committed check fraud. Nope, nothing. It wasn't until I pressed "send" that something DID pop into my head!
A few years ago I was busy googling my name, hoping to find it via my electronic articles which had just begun to appear. I did find me under the name I use, my middle name, Sebastian. I was much-teased by friends when I introduced myself as they considered it a pretentious idea. After reading this, however, you will see WHY it's a good thing I am known by my middle name! Upon finding my name on google I was thrilled! Had there been champagne lying around I might have cracked it open. "I'm a writer," I beamed. "And if someone doesn't believe me here I am, with a headshot below my name!" Quite happy at my find I began to google other long-lost friends, relations, school mates from grade school through high school and college. I found a few things, but for the most part I only found similar names on genealogy websites, a reference to someone's ancestor, a town in Europe where their family name originated, etc. Then I thought, "Why not google your first name, see if there are any other Anthony Fortinos in the world?" I thought I would get a massive amount of Anthony Fortinos from Italy. I didn't find any overseas though, because their Anthony is Antonio. I found an Anthony Fortino in - of all places - Upstate New York, Oswego to be exact. I say of all places because a great-uncle did indeed move there, and I spent many childhood summers in Syracuse. I know his children however, or at least know of them, and neither of them are named Anthony. Intrigued by this other Anthony Fortino, I imagined emailing him, just because we have the same name. I dreamt of a friendship established, of being asked to share the story at dinner parties. I imagined adding him to my myspace and facebook, sending him Christmas cards and birthday greetings, just so I could write our names in both the return and mailing addresses. I know my family name is relatively rare, so we were probably distantly related. Then (and yes this was all before I clicked on his information) my heart swelled! Not knowing anything about him I thought what if, what if he's gay? What if, what if we could have a sign in front of our house someday that said Anthony Fortino 2 (squared, you see)? "Hysterical," I thought. "We'd constantly be opening each other's mail!" (Of course all legal documents, bank statements and the like come addressed to me with my first name.) Then, the final ridiculousness, what if we had adopted a child someday together? Could we possibly name him Anthony Fortino as well? A house with three Anthony Fortinos! That would be amazing!
These were all moot points however. When I clicked on the link pertaining to him what did I find? This young man, this Anthony Fortino, this possible distant relation, this possible lover, this possible Anthony Fortino of the sign in front of the house who would open my mail and raise a child named Anthony Fortino with me was on trial for murder! Yup! Apparently he was involved with a murder in Oswego. I won't divulge all the details, as I don't really know them. Coming back to the criminal background check request I googled him again. Time has of course changed things, including my namesake's personal life. Whereas a few years ago when I stumbled upon him he had just been arrested, now however he had been put on trial and sentenced twenty-five years to LIFE! Instead of an article on the subject there was now an excerpt from a local, Oswego news station. I got to hear what it would be like to be sentenced twenty-five years to life, by a judge. I laughed, I reflected on my own life, and how my friends' teasing me for being pretentious and using my middle name had been a good idea after all. I posted the video on facebook and imagined friends say, "We always knew you'd come to a bad end!" Of course I am disappointed we didn't end up becoming friends. Sad there is no laughing at dinner parties when asked to repeat the history of our friendship and how we met.
Then...I remembered the lady and the background check. Having a momentary lapse of reason - i.e., our addresses and social security numbers and dates of birth are not the same and the fact that I am not IN prison - I emailed her straight away.
"Please, please realize I am not the Anthony Fortino of Oswego, New York currently serving twenty-five years to life for murder!" She responded within five minutes. "LOL, will keep that in mind! We look forward to getting your first piece!"
A few years ago I was busy googling my name, hoping to find it via my electronic articles which had just begun to appear. I did find me under the name I use, my middle name, Sebastian. I was much-teased by friends when I introduced myself as they considered it a pretentious idea. After reading this, however, you will see WHY it's a good thing I am known by my middle name! Upon finding my name on google I was thrilled! Had there been champagne lying around I might have cracked it open. "I'm a writer," I beamed. "And if someone doesn't believe me here I am, with a headshot below my name!" Quite happy at my find I began to google other long-lost friends, relations, school mates from grade school through high school and college. I found a few things, but for the most part I only found similar names on genealogy websites, a reference to someone's ancestor, a town in Europe where their family name originated, etc. Then I thought, "Why not google your first name, see if there are any other Anthony Fortinos in the world?" I thought I would get a massive amount of Anthony Fortinos from Italy. I didn't find any overseas though, because their Anthony is Antonio. I found an Anthony Fortino in - of all places - Upstate New York, Oswego to be exact. I say of all places because a great-uncle did indeed move there, and I spent many childhood summers in Syracuse. I know his children however, or at least know of them, and neither of them are named Anthony. Intrigued by this other Anthony Fortino, I imagined emailing him, just because we have the same name. I dreamt of a friendship established, of being asked to share the story at dinner parties. I imagined adding him to my myspace and facebook, sending him Christmas cards and birthday greetings, just so I could write our names in both the return and mailing addresses. I know my family name is relatively rare, so we were probably distantly related. Then (and yes this was all before I clicked on his information) my heart swelled! Not knowing anything about him I thought what if, what if he's gay? What if, what if we could have a sign in front of our house someday that said Anthony Fortino 2 (squared, you see)? "Hysterical," I thought. "We'd constantly be opening each other's mail!" (Of course all legal documents, bank statements and the like come addressed to me with my first name.) Then, the final ridiculousness, what if we had adopted a child someday together? Could we possibly name him Anthony Fortino as well? A house with three Anthony Fortinos! That would be amazing!
These were all moot points however. When I clicked on the link pertaining to him what did I find? This young man, this Anthony Fortino, this possible distant relation, this possible lover, this possible Anthony Fortino of the sign in front of the house who would open my mail and raise a child named Anthony Fortino with me was on trial for murder! Yup! Apparently he was involved with a murder in Oswego. I won't divulge all the details, as I don't really know them. Coming back to the criminal background check request I googled him again. Time has of course changed things, including my namesake's personal life. Whereas a few years ago when I stumbled upon him he had just been arrested, now however he had been put on trial and sentenced twenty-five years to LIFE! Instead of an article on the subject there was now an excerpt from a local, Oswego news station. I got to hear what it would be like to be sentenced twenty-five years to life, by a judge. I laughed, I reflected on my own life, and how my friends' teasing me for being pretentious and using my middle name had been a good idea after all. I posted the video on facebook and imagined friends say, "We always knew you'd come to a bad end!" Of course I am disappointed we didn't end up becoming friends. Sad there is no laughing at dinner parties when asked to repeat the history of our friendship and how we met.
Then...I remembered the lady and the background check. Having a momentary lapse of reason - i.e., our addresses and social security numbers and dates of birth are not the same and the fact that I am not IN prison - I emailed her straight away.
"Please, please realize I am not the Anthony Fortino of Oswego, New York currently serving twenty-five years to life for murder!" She responded within five minutes. "LOL, will keep that in mind! We look forward to getting your first piece!"
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Animals on TV
Animals frighten me. There I said it. No. Not animals in the zoo, not my doggie, while I am oddly petrified of cats I do not run for cover if I see a stray cat run past me on the street. What I mean...are the animals that are personified with certain human traits. A few weeks ago I was sitting in front of the TV, with my laptop, looking for jobs and writing. A commercial came on, that I am sure amused half the viewers. It was a lizard or a tree frog, a reptile of some kind. She was tending her apartment. If you do not remember the scenario she said something to the effect of: 'You can take the girl out of the Amazon but not the...' Yeah. You've seen it, claims her apartment SMELLS like a RAINFOREST. I found her story to be unbelievable! What reason would a happy, Amazon born reptile willingly leave her native jungle to live in a large city? Can we assume her husband got a good job in the city? (Pardon me if this sounds sexist, but the majority of these commercials do still pretend that all woman stay home while hubby is off at the office.) Can we assume they were paid to relocate to the city? Furthermore, what if they did not peacefully leave their abode in the Amazon? For I believe that they didn't peacefully move! No way, clearly they HAD to relocate because their darling Amazonian grove was most likely uprooted for the benefit of logging, or some other thrash and burn technique used to clear rain forests.
Yet...do we hear her story? No. We simply hear that she happily uses Glade air freshener. I am SURE her rainforest hideaway was land cleared by Glade, and she and her husband were awarded a good job and home in the city. They were exploited! You can't fool me!
Another commercial, which I frankly can't watch, involves a pair of giraffes of their wedding day. Preposterous! They are decked out in the typical wedding clothes, white gown & tuxedo. (I fail to notice every time if the lady is wearing a vail, do you know the COST of a vail long enough for a giraffe? ABSURD!) They have been re-imagined as bipedal creatures though, with their two front legs as hands, so that they can hold bibles, presumably exchange rings and - of course - receive some cough drops. Come on a Christian Wedding? Giraffes are no doubt a part of an Animistic religion, where they worship trees, nature and ancestors. The groom - apparently - has a case of a scratchy throat. He can't say 'I Do.' The giraffe of course takes the cough drop from (I think) the best man. It miraculously cures his throat. He is able to enter the bonds of Holy Matrimony. What if there was something behind the giraffe's lack of speech? How do we know they are entering into matrimony happily? Maybe this was a defense mechanism! Maybe the groom suddenly realized he wasn't over that awkward night! The camping night with his fiance and her brother, when he went down on his future brother-in-law! Maybe he was forced into marriage because he's only seventeen, and frankly he wants a paternity test. Maybe he found out how much the wedding cost and doesn't want to enter a union in that much debt!
Then again...maybe this commercial irritates me because (and I have looked) I found no pictures online of a giraffe in a wedding dress. This saddened me! Clearly this means the designers of the ad never got to use a real model to draw off of! So the wedding gown on said giraffe is NOT correct in terms of draping and proportions! See how they make us into willing children? Then again...maybe this commercial irritates me because I would like to see a giraffe dressed for a wedding. Maybe next time Vera Wang should design a gown. Dunhill, whose tobacco and clothing products doubtlessly got to Africa during the British Empire should (in support of Africa becoming a part of the global economy) design and donate a tuxedo.
Cats on TV bother me especially. I am startled whilst buried in my computer and hear a commercial for cat-food or litter because the meowing almost always opens the ad. However, there is one in the newspaper, the Sunday circulars, that I find MORE disturbing. Cats...with paws over their crotches. Cats...with another paw over their mouths. They are clearly upset about having to use the littler box, lest the results of said visit perfume the laundry room where the litter box is kept. Anyone who has lived with a cat knows that cats don't give a shit about their litter box smelling like...shit. Furthermore, what about the people who create their ads? Don't they know there is a certain litter box that hooks up to your toilet or other pipes in your home? This allows most of the offensive mess to be taken care of by the sewer. Yet the ad people, in their ivory towers, they continue to tell cat owners, "Sure, let them defecate, repeatedly! Then take their dirty little paws out from the litter box to carry germs all over your house. Sounds completely healthy. We've run tests! No fecal matter comes along with Mittens!" Indeed...
There were commercials aired a few years ago that involved dogs. They are forever sketched onto my memory, although in shattered images. It is a blur as to whether they tormented me during a long stay at home while I was living in New York, or if they were indeed running up there. It was for a local lottery. It showed dogs in all manner of human trappings. The dogs were dressed, in beds and on sofas, drinking coffee, brandishing remotes, if I recall correctly. The dogs mouths mouthed the words of the campaign, which was well and good. Barking with subtitles may have sent me running in the streets. These facts - the trappings, the talking - were mere trifles in comparison to what came next.
Hands. I refuse to remember if the dogs had human or dog-puppet hands. The sad thing is I am sure they were human hands! There, yes, they were HUMAN HANDS!!! These dogs didn't look like they were remarkably trained...they looked as if they came from the dog pound on the 'Island of Doctor Moreau!'
Another favorite is a roughly 2 yr old ad from the anti-drug council. It shows a suburban teenage girl just home from school. She heads to the refrigerator. Her dog hops up on the counter. He begins to speak to her. He really wishes she would stop smoking weed. God, if Sugar and I were in the same situation I might have a heart attack! No one would think the dog spoke, they would think I died of a marijuana drug overdose. If given the gift of gab Sugar would use the time instead to tell me to wake her up before I...masturbate so that she can leave the room. We have had MANY awkward mornings...afternoons...evenings...you get the point! Well, the drug-council dog's lips move, thanks to computer animation more developed I guess than the dogs with arms, very believably. Much more believably that the earlier lottery commercials. Now, the commentator on youtube.com says that if your dog is talking to you you're most likely smoking something other than weed. Nahhh, I've seen crackheads, they look nothing like the girl, Lindsey, in the ad. A crackhead would accept the dog speaking, and answer back, or else become violent with it. The question I ask, is if this dog is smart enough to tell Lindsey not to smoke...shouldn't he just go and tell her parents? The ones most likely on his ownership papers, who pay his bills? Talking to stoned Lindsey is not I feel the most intelligent choice he could be making. Please, let's give more credit to our animals than making them the subject of advertisers across the nation! Our animals don't deserve to look stupid when humanized...
Yet...do we hear her story? No. We simply hear that she happily uses Glade air freshener. I am SURE her rainforest hideaway was land cleared by Glade, and she and her husband were awarded a good job and home in the city. They were exploited! You can't fool me!
Another commercial, which I frankly can't watch, involves a pair of giraffes of their wedding day. Preposterous! They are decked out in the typical wedding clothes, white gown & tuxedo. (I fail to notice every time if the lady is wearing a vail, do you know the COST of a vail long enough for a giraffe? ABSURD!) They have been re-imagined as bipedal creatures though, with their two front legs as hands, so that they can hold bibles, presumably exchange rings and - of course - receive some cough drops. Come on a Christian Wedding? Giraffes are no doubt a part of an Animistic religion, where they worship trees, nature and ancestors. The groom - apparently - has a case of a scratchy throat. He can't say 'I Do.' The giraffe of course takes the cough drop from (I think) the best man. It miraculously cures his throat. He is able to enter the bonds of Holy Matrimony. What if there was something behind the giraffe's lack of speech? How do we know they are entering into matrimony happily? Maybe this was a defense mechanism! Maybe the groom suddenly realized he wasn't over that awkward night! The camping night with his fiance and her brother, when he went down on his future brother-in-law! Maybe he was forced into marriage because he's only seventeen, and frankly he wants a paternity test. Maybe he found out how much the wedding cost and doesn't want to enter a union in that much debt!
Then again...maybe this commercial irritates me because (and I have looked) I found no pictures online of a giraffe in a wedding dress. This saddened me! Clearly this means the designers of the ad never got to use a real model to draw off of! So the wedding gown on said giraffe is NOT correct in terms of draping and proportions! See how they make us into willing children? Then again...maybe this commercial irritates me because I would like to see a giraffe dressed for a wedding. Maybe next time Vera Wang should design a gown. Dunhill, whose tobacco and clothing products doubtlessly got to Africa during the British Empire should (in support of Africa becoming a part of the global economy) design and donate a tuxedo.
Cats on TV bother me especially. I am startled whilst buried in my computer and hear a commercial for cat-food or litter because the meowing almost always opens the ad. However, there is one in the newspaper, the Sunday circulars, that I find MORE disturbing. Cats...with paws over their crotches. Cats...with another paw over their mouths. They are clearly upset about having to use the littler box, lest the results of said visit perfume the laundry room where the litter box is kept. Anyone who has lived with a cat knows that cats don't give a shit about their litter box smelling like...shit. Furthermore, what about the people who create their ads? Don't they know there is a certain litter box that hooks up to your toilet or other pipes in your home? This allows most of the offensive mess to be taken care of by the sewer. Yet the ad people, in their ivory towers, they continue to tell cat owners, "Sure, let them defecate, repeatedly! Then take their dirty little paws out from the litter box to carry germs all over your house. Sounds completely healthy. We've run tests! No fecal matter comes along with Mittens!" Indeed...
There were commercials aired a few years ago that involved dogs. They are forever sketched onto my memory, although in shattered images. It is a blur as to whether they tormented me during a long stay at home while I was living in New York, or if they were indeed running up there. It was for a local lottery. It showed dogs in all manner of human trappings. The dogs were dressed, in beds and on sofas, drinking coffee, brandishing remotes, if I recall correctly. The dogs mouths mouthed the words of the campaign, which was well and good. Barking with subtitles may have sent me running in the streets. These facts - the trappings, the talking - were mere trifles in comparison to what came next.
Hands. I refuse to remember if the dogs had human or dog-puppet hands. The sad thing is I am sure they were human hands! There, yes, they were HUMAN HANDS!!! These dogs didn't look like they were remarkably trained...they looked as if they came from the dog pound on the 'Island of Doctor Moreau!'
Another favorite is a roughly 2 yr old ad from the anti-drug council. It shows a suburban teenage girl just home from school. She heads to the refrigerator. Her dog hops up on the counter. He begins to speak to her. He really wishes she would stop smoking weed. God, if Sugar and I were in the same situation I might have a heart attack! No one would think the dog spoke, they would think I died of a marijuana drug overdose. If given the gift of gab Sugar would use the time instead to tell me to wake her up before I...masturbate so that she can leave the room. We have had MANY awkward mornings...afternoons...evenings...you get the point! Well, the drug-council dog's lips move, thanks to computer animation more developed I guess than the dogs with arms, very believably. Much more believably that the earlier lottery commercials. Now, the commentator on youtube.com says that if your dog is talking to you you're most likely smoking something other than weed. Nahhh, I've seen crackheads, they look nothing like the girl, Lindsey, in the ad. A crackhead would accept the dog speaking, and answer back, or else become violent with it. The question I ask, is if this dog is smart enough to tell Lindsey not to smoke...shouldn't he just go and tell her parents? The ones most likely on his ownership papers, who pay his bills? Talking to stoned Lindsey is not I feel the most intelligent choice he could be making. Please, let's give more credit to our animals than making them the subject of advertisers across the nation! Our animals don't deserve to look stupid when humanized...
Monday, February 2, 2009
We Will Never Understand the Great Depression
It goes without saying that I am looking for a position in the worst economy since the Great Depression. Although - raised as I was hearing the stories of the Great Depression - I think it is callous, selfish of us to even consider this comparison. Things are not - from what I can tell - that bad! There is no way - even if we listen to stories, or watch old movies from the era - that we can experience the suffering, the hardships that they went through. I do not see children walking to school in three feet of snow, barefoot, selling rotten apples to passersby, happy to get to school because they had heat there. Then again we do not tend to get three feet of snow in Philadelphia...now or when grandfather was raised in Philadelphia, come to think of it. This may also put his teacher's name - Miss Ophelia Balls - into uncertainty. I'll have to check Philadelphia public school records from those days.
Also unseen are hatted newsies on street corners hawking newspapers and certainly none of them are bursting into song. No one is in black and white either I might add, we can apparently still afford color in these times. I do not see people lining up at soup kitchens, after hawking their gold rimmed eyeglasses at pawn shops. Men do not come calling with carts at six in the morning for rags, old bits of tin, etc and their wives are not taking in sewing and laundry. Although given our access to cheap clothes from Asia (even GOOD clothes are being made in Asia, don't let the designer fool you), since we sent most of our garment jobs there, and the commonality of washing machines we have knocked these two alternate sources of employment out of the water in these times. Sad...I could EASILY take in wash! Have any dirty knickers?
Furthermore, banks you know are insured now, thank you Mr. Roosevelt for inventing the FDIC. Granted...there has been an increase in commercials and websites offering to buy your old, unused gold jewelry. I did - briefly - think of selling the gold band of my grandfather's ring then turning the diamonds into a much more simple ring. However, it was stolen by a contractor's assistant, so perhaps he sent the ring into one of those companies, I don't know.
I understand the phrase Great Depression however and it's not understood by people today. I don't think we will ever be able to understand it because of the fact that private investments are insured. It is a product of our very selfish, materialistic natures that came out of post-WWII that even allow us to compare these times to those dark days. The Depression refers not only to the financial depression of our grandparents but the way working people felt. This was a country of factory workers! When they were unable to work they had no credit to fall back on. They had their identity taken from them. Yes, someone might only have been a seamstress or a pipe fitter but when you lost your job in those days - essentially - you lost your trade. In terms of education and society in those days you did not have the skill sets of the modern drone, the office worker. You could not therefore hope to reinvent yourself as easily. If you are unaware of the plight of the poor in the 1920s I suggest going to youtube.com and looking up 'The Kid,' bu Charlie Chaplin. It will make you cry perhaps! I cried because I have seen pictures of my daddy in his 1920s gear, familiarity made me sad. In that movie - you see these urchins, these paupers, with NOTHING! There was no aid as we have today. Watch that film, and you will NOT be able to say we are in a Great Depression. Granted the film was made before The Crash of 1929 (I think) but it gives you a TRUE version of their plight! The Great Depression of having to line up at soup kitchens, avoid bill collectors, take welfare, and the like made people much more depressed than most of us could ever feel today over this financial crisis. Today people will mourn the loss of the vacation, the new car or the new flat-screen TV that they can't buy. Not that their savings went because banks were uninsured. Today, as in the family stories, I don't see people taking in boarders to supplement their incomes (like my ancestors did) or keeping chickens in urban courtyards against the blind eye of local police. (Although I did find out South Philly was never dezoned rural and well...I might be buying some hens to keep in the garage, haha!) I wonder how many suburban back yards will grow vegetables this summer? Probably no one will do this, no one will consider that getting dirty to save money is the right way to go. In the early part of the last century everyone had a veggie garden, even in the city! Today, people would think that it wouldn't look right to have a vegetable patch near the swimming pool. Speaking of food, I hear of people making cutbacks to food budgets because gas is so high. Even in cities like Philly which have decent public transport, people would rather cut food budgets as opposed to taking the subway! It's unreal! Eighty-years-ago however I am sure the car would have been the first thing to be cut out of household budgets. I also know - full well - that we will never once again have the trust, the naivete, and the idea that we are all in this together that family stories (with the exception of Ophelia Balls) have conveyed. We have - in the strive to be individuals - separated ourselves from our brethren. People have become too insulated, thanks to iPods and cell phones so that even when on a subway or walking down a sunny avenue we shut ourselves away from our fellow man. In sum, no one will ever knock on my backdoor asking if he can sleep in the barn for a night, to be welcomed instead into the house, and into the kitchen to receive a free meal before he jumps a train to "look for work." Then again...the back door is separated from the house by a long, storage-choked garage. If they knocked we would not hear them in the rest of the house and...furthermore we don't have a barn. We live in the city. I don't think we would invite them in either, as my half-pit, half-fox terrier mix requires a criminal background check on anyone entering the house. If Sugar bit this wayfarer we would of course be sued, something else that would not have happened 80 years ago, I am sure! Oh, about the ring, the stolen ring. You might ask how the contractor's assistant got past her. Simple, he had a dog of his own whose scent must have been pleasing to Sugar. (Or, perhaps like I, she thought the contractor was the cutest boy to walk in here in AGES and for that did not hop onto MacBook to check his background!)
So as I look for jobs, as I search for them online, by word of mouth, by making phone calls I am still hopeful. For once we lose hope that is truly when we can expect another Great Depression. This might - dare I say it though - actually bring us closer together. This might be what can remove Americans, Western Europeans and the like, from our insulated worlds. We might instead be more willing to let people sleep in our barns, take a meal with us and commiserate together. It might make us realize that we must become more human to our friends, neighbors and strangers. Perhaps culminating into a democratic-socialism, the likes of which Europe adopted after WWII. Whether socialism is reinterpreted according to how we treat each or develops into a new form, a new interpretation of government, now is the time. Perhaps we need to erase our tablet, perhaps we need to become totally reduced so that we can rebuild afresh.
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