Category Archives: Essays

September 11, 2014 · 11:27 PM

Set Up

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“They’ve bombed the World Trade Center in New York,” my mother said.

“Who?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We just heard about it.”

It was a few minutes before 9 A.M. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, and her phone call had awoken me from a sound sleep. I had lost my job at the bank almost five months earlier and had taken to sleeping late throughout that summer. I had my alarm clock set for 11 A.M. My father had an appointment with his eye doctor at 1 P.M. Exactly one week earlier one of the doctor’s colleagues had implanted some radiation pellets into his left eye; another attempt to destroy a small tumor that had formed behind the eyeball. The doctor had made his first effort to eliminate it nearly seven months earlier by cauterizing the blood vessels around the tumor. But, it had regenerated. The pellets could only remain in his eye for a maximum of seven days.

After my mother had called me, I really couldn’t go back to sleep and finally got up around 10:00. Turning on the TV, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsing. It had just occurred, and I was watching a replay. “What the hell happened?” I kept asking myself.

I thought back to Memorial Day weekend, when I visited New York with a close friend, Phillip*, who had lived there for five years. He had attended New York University, beginning in 1991, and after graduating, decided to stay and try to build a long-desired career in the film industry. When that didn’t go as planned, he returned to Dallas. Yet, Phillip kept his tiny one-bedroom apartment in the heart of Greenwich Village; subletting it college students. He hoped to move back there one day.

I had first visited New York with Phillip over Memorial Day weekend 1997. We stayed with some friends of his who lived across the Hudson in New Jersey. I had no desire to patronize the World Trade Center back then. Seeing the Statue of Liberty from a boat was enjoyable enough, but a cluster of office buildings wasn’t exactly akin to viewing the remains of Tenochtitlán.

But, before our 2001 visit, I told Phillip I’d visit the World Trade Center complex – just to say I’d been there. Then, as we made our way to Manhattan’s financial district, I stopped. Literally. In mid-stride.

“What’s wrong?” Phillip asked me.

I was silent for a moment. “Nothing,” I finally said. I don’t know what it was, but I had suddenly developed a sickening feeling as I looked at those two gargantuan structures just a few blocks away. I don’t remember exactly what I said afterwards, but I shifted my focus to an Indian restaurant Phillip had wanted me to try out. My appetite had evaporated, yet we made our way back up to the Greenwich Village area. I grew hungry, though, by the time we reached the restaurant. I couldn’t explain to Phillip why I’d abruptly changed my mind about the World Trade Center. I couldn’t explain it to myself.

As I sat alongside my father in the waiting room, we stared at the TV monitor snuggled high up into a corner. An older couple sat opposite us, and, of course, we all wondered aloud who had wreaked such havoc on us and why. None of us actually cared why. We just wanted retribution.

But, thirteen years on, I know why Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. in so brutal a manner. It’s not like they all woke up one morning and decided to highjack those planes because they had nothing else better to do with their time and money.

 

Forgetting Afghanistan.

On December 27, 1979, the Soviet Union unexpectedly invaded Afghanistan. Back then, the average American probably couldn’t locate the landlocked nation on a map. It was the U.S.S.R.’s last concerted effort at a land grab. At the time, however, the United States was preoccupied with the Iran hostage crisis. Before then, most Americans probably couldn’t find Iran on a map either. In retrospect, though, the quandary was the U.S.’s first battle with radical Islam. President Jimmy Carter appeared thoroughly inept in his handling of it; a fact that cost him the 1980 presidential election. Ronald Reagan rode into the White House with a promise to help the mujahideen fighters drive out the Soviets. The Cold War was still very active; the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. locked in a never-ending battle of hearts and minds. In March of 1985, Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166, which allowed for much-needed financial and military support to the Afghan warriors. Within two years, the U.S. was shipping up to 65,000 tons of arm supplies and covertly spiriting a bevy of military operatives and specialists into Afghanistan via Pakistan. When the Soviets finally left Afghanistan in 1989, the Afghan people expected the U.S. to live up to its Reagan-born vow. We were supposed to stay and help the impoverished country move from its medieval environment into the 20th century. We never did. President George H.W. Bush simply didn’t see it as a priority. Neither did Bill Clinton. People don’t forget something like that.

Blindly supporting Israel.

The U.S. and Israel have one major thing in common: both were founded by White Europeans fleeing religious persecution who ended up displacing the indigenous peoples through violence and intimidation. As of 2013, the U.S. has been providing roughly $3.1 billion annually to support its only true ally in the Middle East. This small nation of 7.1 million was formally established in 1948 and now has the highest standard of living of any country in the region with a 95% literacy rate and an average life expectancy of 79. It’s not that its neighbors are bitterly envious of Israel’s global success. The harassment of non-Jews by Israeli police and government has always bordered on the criminal. But, any criticism of Israel’s actions is met with a harsh rebuke by its supporters. President Barack Obama is repeatedly accused of abandoning Israel; a declaration born more out of political partisanship and racism than fact. Yet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has received scant criticism about his refusal to acknowledge a “Palestinian state,” or a “two-state solution.” The ongoing battle between Jews and Palestinians is a little like the English-French divide in Canada, but more pointless. Israel’s assault upon Lebanon in 2006 was met with silence, even as news of atrocities at the hands of the Israeli military seeped out, along with images of civilians fleeing to the island nation of Cyprus. The U.S. also remains mum on Israel’s constant push into the West Bank; forcing out entire families and destroying Palestinian property. Other democratic nations always seem to look away.

 

The United States should have seen 09/11 coming. There were plenty of signs: the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; the 1996 assault on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia; the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October of 2000. There’s also plenty of blame to go around. On September 12, 2001, people kept asking how something so horrifically grand could happen. Didn’t anyone suspect that planes could be used as missiles? Didn’t anyone believe it was imprudent to overlook the expired visas of foreign nationals? Didn’t someone think box cutters and pocket knives could be so deadly? Didn’t somebody alert authorities to the curious behavior of Middle Eastern men at flight schools? Well, yes to all of the above. Various people at various times had already expressed concern about those things. And, it goes far beyond just the infamous “August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing.”

There’s nothing that can take back the horror of that late summer day more than a decade ago. People launching themselves from the top floors of the World Trade Center towers is one of the most blood-curdling things I’ve ever seen. We’ll never just get over it. And, while I’m no security expert, I know the U.S. should never set itself up for catastrophe through an imaginary veil of isolation.

09/11 Memorial.

*Name changed.

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September 1, 2014 · 10:39 PM

Laborious

Finally – some good news!

Finally – some good news!

A few years ago – about a year after I got laid off from an engineering company and while I struggled to find even a temporary job while trying to launch my freelance writing career – I told a close friend of mine via email that, when the economy improves, people will start switching jobs without giving much, if any, notice to their employers.

“True,” he replied.

It’s starting to happen. The recent economic crisis – the worst in this nation’s history since the Great Depression – almost completely destroyed our financial stability. Multiple factors were responsible for it: broad-based tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens and largest corporations; further deregulation of banking and housing; and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Between December 2007 (when the recession officially commenced) and June 2009 (when it officially ended), the U.S. economy shed roughly 8.7 million jobs. Employers began to add jobs in 2010. Only recently, however, have we regained all those lost jobs.

There’s no real cause for celebration. The after effects of such a prolonged economic debacle are as varied as the causes. People lost accumulated personal wealth; state and local economies suffered decreased tax revenue; and home values dropped. Wages, however, remain stagnant, despite increased productivity. People have always worked too damn hard for their money. Of course, everyone feels they’re overworked and underpaid. But now, we have statistical proof. But, according to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, the “Great Recession” actually was worse than the Great Depression. In a statement filed on August 22 with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, as part of a response to a lawsuit over the 2008 bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), Bernanke said:

“September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression.” Of the 13 “most important financial institutions in the United States, 12 were at risk of failure within a period of a week or two.”

When asked why he thought it was critical for the U.S. government to rescue AIG, Bernanke replied:

“AIG’s demise would be a catastrophe” and “could have resulted in a 1930s-style global financial and economic meltdown, with catastrophic implications for production, income, and jobs.”

Obviously, too-big-to-fail truly has become too big to fail! The Great Depression was exacerbated by the fact the Federal Reserve System didn’t take command of the banks. Billionaire financier Andrew Mellon was the U.S. Treasury Secretary during the Hoover Administration and – like a typical conservative Republican – believed the nation’s banks had gotten themselves into trouble and needed to get themselves out of it, even if that meant they failed and took their customers’ money with them. Which they did, of course, in very large numbers. At the time, though, we didn’t have a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to safeguard people’s financial assets. The federal government’s lackadaisical attitude at the onset of the Great Depression forced Republicans to lose both houses of Congress during the 1930 midterm elections and shoved Hoover out of the White House two years later. That same kind of ineptitude is probably what caused them to lose both houses of Congress in 2006.

Yet, as the economy continues to recover and employers continue adding jobs, I see my aforementioned prediction materializing. During sluggish markets, employers can afford to be picky on who they hire and can freeze wages and salaries at will. It’s almost cruel and inhumane the way some can behave. And, what’s the average worker to do? With children, mortgages, car payments and other debts, they’re often stuck. They have little power.

But, from January to June of this year, more than 14 million people quit their jobs. I would like to think they left for better jobs. And, I’d like to believe they gave little notice to their employers. After all, companies don’t have to give employees any real notice when they plan to let someone go; albeit, quite often, people can feel it. In 2009, there were approximately seven people for every job opening. As of June 2014, the ratio had dropped to 2-to-1. Overall, the number of unemployed has dropped by 5 million, while the number of new jobs has grown by 2.5 million. Now, there’s talk of a problem we haven’t seen in a while: labor shortage. Companies are starting to feel one of the adverse effects of an improving economy; there aren’t enough people, or at least not enough qualified people, to fill certain positions. Thus, it’s employees and jobseekers who can be picky.

And, that’s a good thing. It’s really the way it should be. Only once in my life have I had the pleasure of quitting a job I hate; in January 1989, I left a retail position, which I’d held for nearly three years. I just walked into the place and gave my immediate supervisor a typewritten note announcing my resignation. But, I’ve known a few people who, in recent years, essentially gave their boss the middle finger and walked out of a company. They recounted their experiences with glee. We spend a great deal of time at work; often more than with our own families. Work gives people personal value and a sense of accomplishment, and everyone who makes an effort to complete a job should be respected. Whether that person answers the phones in a call center; digs ditches for sewer lines; programs a voice mail system; or rings up items at a cash register, they should be considered important. They pay taxes and insurance and they put the rest of their money back into the economy as consumers.

Last week, an executive in the company where I’m working as a contract technical writer staged an impromptu meeting to announce a major organizational change. After presenting a variety of business details, he said something that I’d never heard from someone at his level: “Family is more important than work.” He emphasized that everyone needs to place greater value on their loved ones than on their careers; noting that he hadn’t done that and almost paid the price for it. I’ve heard some executives tell people on an individual basis the same thing – but never in such a large setting. He’s right. A company won’t collapse because you can’t make it to a business conference. You won’t necessarily recall that training seminar. But, you most likely will remember a child’s sports event. And, you’ll cherish it forever.

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August 17, 2014 · 1:40 AM

Now I Understand

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In the mid-1970s, Freddie Prinze was leading an extraordinarily successful life. In December 1973, at the age of 19, he had come to the nation’s forefront after a stint on “The Tonight Show” in December 1973, which led to him landing the first half of the title role in “Chico and the Man,” an NBC television comedy. He appeared opposite Jack Albertson, a stage and film veteran. Despite their age and cultural differences, the two became good friends, with Albertson serving as a mentor to his younger co-star. I remember the series clearly. Prinze’s character was a breakthrough role. For the first time, American television boasted a Hispanic figure who spoke English perfectly.

By January of 1977, Prinze had a rollicking standup comedy career with sold-out gigs wherever he went and a top-selling comedy album; “Chico and the Man” remained a highly-rated show. He even performed at Jimmy Carter’s inaugural ball. He was married with a 10-month-old baby boy, Freddie, Jr.

And, he was miserable.

Things had begun to spiral out of control for Prinze. He’d become addicted to Quaaludes and cocaine and, in November 1976, was arrested for drunk driving. Then, on January 26, 1977, his wife, Kathy, startled him with a restraining order.  Two days later Prinze planted himself at the Beverly Hills Hotel and began making a series of “goodbye” calls to his mother, a few friends and his manager, Marvin Snyder. Snyder rushed to the hotel to try to stop his young client from harming himself. But, it was too late. Prinze put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He survived the initial shot, but the next day, his family authorized officials at ULCA Medical Center to remove Prinze from life support. He was 22.

The news of Prinze’s death – a suicide, no less – shocked and horrified the masses who loved him. How could someone that young with so much talent, success and money, plus a beautiful wife and baby, be so unhappy? I was 13 at the time and couldn’t understand. He was popular, right? He had lots of money, right? Why would he kill himself? It just didn’t make sense.

The recent suicide death of actor / comedian Robin Williams exposes, yet again, a miserable underside that lurks beneath a life of outwardly blissful happiness in the entertainment world. There’s a reason why the symbol of the theatre is comprised of dual masks: the comic Thalia, smiling, and the dramatic Melpomene, frowning. They’re high and low; top and bottom; the moon’s bright side and its dark side. Intertwined and – for the most part – interchangeable. All emblems of life. One can’t exist without the other.

Both Prinze and Williams had a great deal of money and a great deal of fame. It seemed everybody loved them. If someone has those two things – money and fame – then everything else is inconsequential. They should be completely and totally satisfied with their lives. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?

Money may make life easier, but it really doesn’t make it completely satisfying. As cliché as it sounds, money truly does not buy happiness. No amount of money will make you like a job you hate. I love writing, for example, even though I haven’t made much money from it; a few freelance and contract technical writing gigs over the past few years. When I lost my job with an engineering firm in 2010, I was earning more money than I ever had before. Yet, in that last year, I hated the place. For some reason, tension had been building since the end of 2009, and I ultimately felt management was targeting me specifically. It was almost a relief to get laid off.

It’s difficult for people outside of artistic communities to understand. But, comics, actors, singers and other artists are people, too. We’re weird, yes, but we’re human beings first. We have the same emotional fluctuations and experience the same anxieties in life that everyone else does. We’re just a bit more expressive about it. Yet, because professional artists exist in the public realm, their lives fall under greater scrutiny. They’re magnified a thousand times for all to see. And, when someone makes a career out of telling jokes and doing impersonations, people assume they’re always happy. But, it’s difficult for most to imagine the pressure an artist must feel to perform and be “on” all the time. People expect a comedian to make them laugh – all the time. Entertain me, my little clown. I want nothing less from you.

And so, the entertainer does what they’re supposed to do – entertain. That’s why they’re paid – very well, sometimes – and thus, despite whatever agonies they’re facing, they pull the spirit of that entertainer deep from within the depths of their souls and put on a show. The writer, the singer, the dancer – all of them do what they’ve trained themselves to do; what they’ve wanted to do perhaps since childhood.

It appears artists, in particular, are prone to severe mood swings that often lead them to substance abuse and untimely deaths. Actors, writers, painters and the like experience the best and worst that humanity has to offer. That’s why the word “troubled” often accompanies the moniker of artist.

Jackson Pollock was one of the most innovative abstract painters of the 20th century, but he battled alcoholism his entire adult life. Ernest Hemingway was a literary giant, a larger-than-life persona who was the epitome of masculinity and steadfast courage; yet injuries he incurred during his raucous life apparently took a toll on his mental and physical health, and he committed suicide in 1961.

But, it’s not that every artist is troubled; we’re not all mentally unbalanced and destined for an early grave. We merely troubled; we’re not all mentally unbalanced and destined for an early grave. We just observe life through a more acute lens; we balance things out differently. We don’t see the world strictly in terms of black and white. We watch it move in all its colorful glory; the laughter and the pain mixed up together. That’s how and why we create the art that we do. If we didn’t experience the full gamut of human emotions, then we wouldn’t be so creative. We’d be … well, just like everyone else.

Fellow blogger Gus Sanchez touched on this very subject a few weeks before Williams’ death. “On Mood Disorders and the Writing Process” jumps directly into the fire of the artist-mental illness connection. As someone who’s gone through the manic highs and lows of creativity and dry spells where I feel the entire world is out to get me, I fully comprehend the realities of depression and anxiety.

It’s a blessing to be imbued with such creative elements. We can make other people happy, or make them think. It’s a curse in that we see the ugliest sides of the world glaring back at us and challenging us to do something about it. We often take up that challenge. Many times it works out for the best; sometimes, it hurts.

The Melpomene mask doesn’t conform to our vision of life in the limelight. Everyone wants to be around Thalia; we always demand Thalia be there to make us feel good about things. But, Thalia just can’t be a part of our world unless Melpomene is also present. They’re undeniably symbiotic; conjoined twins held together by the same heart. They can’t live separately. Without cold, there can be no hot. Wherever there’s a smile, there must also be a frown.

Towards the end of my tenure at the engineering company, I had a private meeting with my immediate supervisor. I told her that everyone was on edge and just didn’t feel good about things. She shot back, accusing me and the others of “creating all this drama.”

“There’s no drama,” I quietly responded. This wasn’t a soap opera. It was the real thing. I guess she couldn’t understand it the way I did. She was looking at the situation through a narrow, gray tunnel. I saw all of the sign posts, in blazing red and yellow, warning of danger ahead.

When Freddie Prinze passed away, my young mind couldn’t fathom such horror. But, as information about Williams’ emotional problems begin to surface, his tragic death seems only slightly more comprehensible. I keep thinking Freddie Prinze and other artists who died at their own hands reached out from the netherworld, grabbed Williams’ soul as it departed his beleaguered body and said, ‘Come with us. We understand. You’re safe now.’

So, I look at all the happiness and all the tragedy that make up this wonderfully unique thing called human existence, and I understand, too.

 

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

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August 1, 2014 · 9:48 PM

Frat Crap

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Thirty years ago this month I made one of the worst decisions of my entire life: I joined a fraternity. In August of 1984, I was a shy, naïve 20-year-old; the kind of person college social groups eat up and spit out. When I started classes at what was then North Texas State University (now, the University of North Texas), I hoped to complete my education within two years and begin a career in computers – anything to do with computers – like my parents had planned for me. I also hoped to break out of my shell of insecurity, make plenty of friends and find my future wife – after losing my virginity first. I ended up suspended from school for the fall 1985 semester, addicted to alcohol, maniacally depressed – and still a virgin.

Then, as now, I blame that fucking fraternity. I know the status of “Victim” has been a coveted one in America since the 1980s. But, hear me out on this mess.

I’ll say flat out that social Greek-letter organizations serve absolutely no purpose. They have only one function: party, which means getting drunk and having sex. Yes, they toss in the occasional charity function bullshit just to look good. For example, in November 1984, the frat I joined teamed up with the county to drive people to voting stations. In another self-righteous instance, we participated in a campus blood drive; where the director (a pre-med professor) walked around in a stupid vampire outfit. (Get it? Blood drive? Vampire?) Anne Rice probably would have killed him on the spot. Other than those two saccharine-laced, cringe-worthy exceptions, we just got drunk (they called it “enjoying alcohol – immensely”); tried to seduce as many unwary females as possible; engaged in quasi-macho antics; and partied at an aging two-story house on the edge of campus.

On my first day in the dorm, I saw a flyer advertising a party for the frat, which I’ll call Alpha Omega Dipshit (AOD). After I settled in – living away from home for the first time in my life, along with a flamboyantly gay roommate – I looked again at that ad for AOD and thought it must be great way to make new friends. I was desperate to meet new people. This wasn’t high school, which I hated. Life at a community college the preceding two academic years had been nice. But, I didn’t spend a lot of time with people. My social life during the my first two years out of high school revolved around whatever plans my parents had and my German shepherd. My dating life revolved around my hands and a bottle of baby oil. Things would be better now, I assured myself. North Texas was different. I wasn’t dealing with kids anymore. I was dealing men and women. I thought.

On a whim, I followed a guy I’d met and quickly befriended in the dorm to the AOD party, where beer flowed like the testosterone through my body. There were lots of beautiful people, and I tried making friends with every one of them. I really wanted people to like me. Being shy hurt and I had to break free of it.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed a federal law requiring states to raise their minimum legal alcohol consumption age to 21; otherwise, they’d lose highway funding. The law was a response to the growing anti-drunk driving movement. Before the 1980s, drunk driving was viewed with an almost humorously dismissive attitude. Despite fatal accidents involving alcohol, intoxicated driving still wasn’t considered nearly as egregious as interracial marriage or homosexuality. That all changed after the young daughter of Candy Lightner, a California woman, was struck and killed by a habitual drunk driver. She made it a national issue. Hence, the 1984 federal law.

But, then-Texas Governor Mark White essentially told Reagan to go to hell when he mandated the legal alcohol consumption rate wouldn’t be raised to 21 in the Lone Star State until 1985. Texas had enough money to fund its own highways without some former B-movie actor telling us what to do. (That anti-Washington sentiment has always sort of been part of the Texas identity. White, I might add, was a Democrat.) It really didn’t matter to me, though. I didn’t drink that much alcohol anyway at the time.

Three years earlier, 18-year-old seniors at my high school were upset because Texas planned to raise the minimum alcohol-drinking age to 19.

“They can give you a right,” one girl told me at the start of an English class, “but they can’t take it away.”

How profound. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get the fuck out of that high school.

But, when I stepped into the back yard of the AOD house, I followed the crowd to the beer kegs and started partaking of Coors Light. Even now, the mere smell of Coors Light incurs bitter images of college boys behaving stupidly. I had one plastic cup of beer. And then, another. And then, another. And then, another. And then, another. And then, another. And then, another. And then, another.

And, that’s where it began.

I wanted so much to Belong. My lifelong shyness had stunted my personal growth. Aside from my dog, I felt no one liked me. But, in pursuing that friendship goal – paying money along the way – I became a punching bag for most of those guys. More importantly, my entire academic regimen collapsed, and the university placed me on academic probation for the spring 1985 semester. That prevented me from becoming a full, active member of AOD. I still had to pay monthly dues, of course. But, I remained in the netherworld of pledgeship. That’s something like a glorified time out. Can you feel the hopelessness?

Things got worst that year. We had to put our dog to sleep in April, and then, the university suspended me for the rest of 1985. My parents were outraged, and I became suicidal. I felt I’d lost everything. My dog was dead; I didn’t have any new friends; and my future looked bleak. And, I was still a virgin.

My life reached a new low that October when I got arrested for drunk driving. I showed up to my waiter job at a country club already intoxicated one weekday evening. Carl*, my openly-gay supervisor, wouldn’t let me work, even though the gaggle of mostly-Jewish members wouldn’t have given me a second look anyway. Instead, Carl made me sit in the back office where I ate a meal he had one of the cooks prepare for me and admitted he had the hots for me. Great, I thought. After all my efforts at chic one-liners and coy humor, the only person interested in me was a middle-aged man with a beer gut. After I sobered up a little, he told me to go home. But, I didn’t. I felt I had nothing to live for at the time. So, I got into my little Ford Escort and went bar-hopping. Coming off Dallas’ Greenville Avenue, I stumbled into a police trap and then into a police car. I had never felt as much humiliation as the moment I called my parents from Lew Sterrett Jail in downtown Dallas. They bailed me out early the next morning. Fortunately, my blood-alcohol level tested below what was then the legal limit of .10.

I returned to North Texas for the spring 1986 semester and then again for the ensuing academic year. I left for good a year later; vowing to return and complete my education. I never went back. But, I finally did earn a college degree – 20 years later.

I made only two really good friends during my tenure at North Texas. One, Dean*, I had met through AOD. He was a tall, skinny guy with tousled brown hair and a penchant for short girls. We became close – like brothers. Not frat brothers. Real brothers. As an only child, that meant everything in the world to me. He became the kind of friend I’d always wanted. He was upset that I didn’t become a full member of the frat, yet he didn’t let that bother him.

But, AOD did get in the way of our friendship. In September 1986, after I’d settled in once more at North Texas, I ran into Dean in a parking lot, while headed to class. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year. We traded phone numbers, and later, he invited me to drop by an AOD rush party. Against my better judgment, I took him up on his offer. I went with a guy named James* who’d just graduated from high school and who I’d met at my new job a few months earlier. There, I ran into many of the people I’d known before. It felt so strange – being in that house – with those familiar faces – and the smell of Coors Light. But, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

At some point, I got into a heated discussion with a guy named Kyle*. He’d been part of the same pledge class as me and Dean and now, two years later, was AOD’s president. Kyle was already kind of a strange character; someone who did a great Keith Richards impersonation, but was probably the same type to walk into his workplace with a shotgun. I didn’t realize he could be such an asshole, though. I don’t know what prompted the argument, but a short while later, Dean asked me to leave. Actually, he had been told to ask me to leave. He was the frat’s “Sergeant-at-Arms” – a glorified Boy Scout-type role – and apparently, since we’d been such good friends, he’d been given the task to let me know I was no longer welcome. Fine. I didn’t need them. So, I calmly departed with James in tow; acting is if nothing was wrong.

Deep down inside, however, I felt completely dejected. I had wanted so badly to be a part of that group. The next night I scampered about the campus, ripping down flyers advertising AOD. I guess I showed them! Regardless, Dean and I stayed in touch throughout the remainder of the academic year. We just didn’t talk about the frat.

The other friend, Robert*, had actually attended the same grade school as me. We knew each other only sparingly back then. But, on my first day in the dorm in August 1984, Robert stepped into my open doorway and introduced himself; he was in the room just across the hall. He startled me at first, but I was glad people were so friendly. Or, at least he was. After another moment, though, I thought I remembered him. It’s one thing to reconnect with people from high school. But, grade school?!

Ironically, he joined AOD – at my urging – and did well with it. He wasn’t there the night Dean asked me to leave. But, Robert has remained one of my best friends ever since. He’s tolerated my moodiness over the years. For example, I had an alcohol blackout one night in the early 1990s and unwittingly called him to tell him “this was it.” I was determined to kill myself. (I seriously don’t remember the incident, but I trust he’s telling me the truth.) Being the good real estate salesman he is, Robert stayed calm and managed to talk me into exhaustion.

When he revealed that to me a few years ago, I apologized to him for making such a scene and taking up so much of his time. It’s not his fault I couldn’t get my stuff together and heal myself from depression and alcoholism. Which I eventually did. Several years later.

Over the past two decades, I’ve been dumbfounded – angered, actually – to learn of incidents involving social Greek-letter outfits on college campuses. They almost always feature severe alcohol abuse, hazing and, quite often, sexual assault. How is it, I ask, that colleges allow these groups to exist? I guess the frat culture is embedded that strongly in the realm of America’s higher education. What a waste.

In the summer of 2003, my employer hired three young female temporaries to assist with an ongoing project. One had just graduated from high school and planned to attend a major Texas university that fall. Shortly before she resigned her position, I warned her to stay away from social fraternities – and sororities. “They’re just no good,” I told her.

I last saw Dean on South Padre Island during spring break 1987. I’ve retained my friendship with Robert, but I still often think of Dean. Not long after he had ordered me to leave the AOD house in 1986, Robert told me Dean had gone on a drinking binge. He felt he’d turned on a friend, Robert said, and couldn’t handle it. I never knew that. I can only hope Dean didn’t descend into a decades-long battle with alcohol like I did. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.

It wouldn’t be fair, if I said that Dean and Robert were the only decent guys in that fraternity. In fact, most of them were great guys. It was the handful of assholes who ruined it for everybody else. Isn’t that the way it often works?

Yet, I wonder – where is Dean now? Is he okay? Did he succeed in life? I felt, if anyone deserved it, he did. I’m not so arrogant to wonder if he thinks of me, though. But, we had the kind of friendship that should have lasted a lifetime. If that damn fraternity just hadn’t thrown so much crap all over us.

*Name changed.

Image.

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July 9, 2014 · 10:23 PM

Bad Boys, Dumb Broads

Joke All You Can 051414

‘Nice guys finish last,’ goes the old maxim. Apparently, they also go home alone. At least the straight ones do. Recently, a photograph has been circulating on the Internet of a young man named Jeremy Meeks. This isn’t just a simple cell phone snapshot, or a Facebook post. It’s a mug shot. Meeks’ picture went viral in June, after his arrest on weapons charges; earning him the affectionate moniker of “handsome mug shot guy.” The 30-year-old Californian isn’t exactly husband material, though, and the dark spot on the outer edge of his left eye isn’t a birthmark. Meeks has a lengthy criminal rap sheet dating back to 2002; the tear drop mark is a gang tattoo.

That didn’t stop thousands of people from visiting his Facebook page and “liking” it, as people are wont to do in this digital age. It didn’t even prevent talent agent Gina Rodriguez from accepting Meeks as a prospective client. Rodriguez, whose gallery of talent includes such media gems as Nadya “Octomom” Suleman and Farrah “Teen Mom” Abraham, hoped to get Meeks a modeling contract as voluptuous as his lips. Knowing star potential when they see one, officials with a porn studio have also approached Meeks; offering him a $100,000 contract. Meeks has been held in the San Joaquin County Jail on a whopping $1,050,000 bail.

“Handsome mug shot guy” is married with a young son and, according to family members, has been trying to live a quiet life after spending time in prison and being involved with the “Northside Gangster Crips,” an offshoot of the Los Angeles-based “Crips,” one of the oldest and most violent street gangs in the U.S. He was arrested June 18 after driving away from a suspected drug house in Stockton, California that was due to be searched. Two others were with him in the vehicle, which also contained a loaded and unregistered semi-automatic handgun and two extended magazines in the trunk. Police also found marijuana in the car.

Insisting her son is an innocent “working man,” Meeks’ mother, Katherine Angier, seized upon his newfound celebrity to plead for help. She established a profile on the “Go Fund Me” web site to raise money for his legal defense, adding that her precious offspring has been stereotyped because of his past behavior. “He’s my son, and he is so sweet,” Angier opines.

Well, who could argue with her?! Unfortunately, more than just Meeks’ mother has come to love his face. Plenty of desperately lonely females have swooned over those cornflower blue eyes and chiseled cheek bones.

Just the right look.

Just the right look.

A second cousin of mine who’s an active-duty solider in the U.S. Army recently went on a Facebook rant about the lascivious response Meeks is getting; ending it with a deprecatingly bitter piece of advice: “Keep it classy, girls!”

I can empathize. This is the kind of crap that drives men crazy. While women often complain that men lust after the ubiquitous supermodel chicks, the reality is that most men usually don’t become infatuated with female criminals. At least most supermodels aren’t of a criminal bent – excluding Naomi Campbell. Indeed, two of America’s worst serial killers, Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez, developed legions of female fans during their respective criminal trials. It didn’t seem to matter that these monsters deliberately sought out and slaughtered untold numbers of innocent people. Some felt there was an angel inside each man and they had the ability to bring it out.

I wish I had purple eyes and stood six feet tall. But, I don’t. I just wasn’t born with those attributes. I wish I’d joined the U.S. Navy some 30 years ago; my life might have gotten into better shape a long time ago. But, I just never did. I’m not alone. People often want who and / or what they can’t normally have. Poets and psychologists have debated this issue for millennia; knowing it’s part of the human psyche to crave the unattainable. Modern science has deduced that dopamine, a chemical precursor to adrenaline, is the primary culprit. It’s a complex substance the brain develops naturally; one that generates feelings of pleasure and desire – but, not necessarily satisfaction. It may be a key factor in substance abuse, such as alcoholism. Researchers still don’t understand why some people respond more acutely to one set of stimuli than others. The brain may be the most powerful sex organ in the human body, but it remains a mysterious one.

Females who prefer the stereotypical “bodice-ripper” (think Rhett Butler carrying a shrieking Scarlett O’Hara up the staircase in “Gone with the Wind”) might want to confer with occupants of a domestic violence shelter; women who either fell for or stayed with a man they thought could change with a good meal and the right perfume. It’s amazing how stupid some women can be in genuinely believing their feminine charms are powerful enough to alter the core personalities of the worst men; a sort of hormonal alchemy that would be the “Holy Grail” for marriage counselors, psychologists and talk show hosts. But, with a few exceptional cases, it rarely occurs.

Such blind self-adulation can be fatal. There are countless stories of women dying at the hands of men who really didn’t have a Prince Charming hidden beneath those balled up fists and bloodshot eyes. But, when I contemplate such odd pairings, I recall the tragic tale of a cousin who took her own life in January 1983. Already a somewhat fragile soul, she had married a man with a drug problem a couple of years earlier; believing she could somehow cure him of his ailment. Her mother strongly opposed the union, as did most everyone else in the family. But, no one could stop it. After all, she was an adult. And, apparently no one – not even my cousin – could stop her husband’s drug addiction. So, she left him. That would seem a happy enough ending, but her marriage’s sudden dissolution plunged my cousin into a state of extraordinary despair. I guess she blamed herself for the guy’s inability to shake free from his wicked habit; shattering her vision of a bright and loving future for the two of them. So, she sat down in a closet one night after work and stuck a pistol in her mouth. He had been a very bad boy, and she was a very good girl. Yet, she’s the one who ended up dead. He had failed miserably, but she felt like a miserable failure. Where’s the justice, I asked quietly at the funeral. Where, in a decent world, is there room for something so twisted as that?

Wearing a San Joaquin County jumpsuit – in what I called “arresting amber” – Meeks made a court appearance on July 8 and received mixed news: he’s no longer facing multiple weapons charges. But, the state turned his case over to the federal government, and now, Meeks is looking at a single federal weapons possession indictment. As a federal case, it’s obviously much more serious, and if convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

And, knowing how desperate some women are for a man, there’ll be more than a few nitwits holding vigil for his sorry ass in the comfort of their delusional minds. Meanwhile, the truly nice men will still be at home alone.

Cartoon courtesy of Joke All You Can.

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July 7, 2014 · 11:10 PM

The Worst Legacy

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This past April marked twenty years since the death of President Richard M. Nixon, which came nearly two decades after he became the first Chief Executive in U.S. history to resign from office. That ignominious fortieth anniversary is coming up next month. It’s not something to be celebrated. The Watergate affair that brought him down has left an indelible stain on both American politics and the soul of the American people. Those of us in the 50 and under crowd have pretty much grown up in a world suspicious and even hostile towards all levels of government. The over 50 crowd helped build and fuel that distrust after a brutal sense of betrayal for a nation that set itself up more than two centuries ago as a beacon of democracy and freedom.

I’ve always said Watergate burned whatever bridges of faith and trust the American public had in their elected officials. But, the wicked uncertainty actually began the moment President John F. Kennedy had his head blown apart by an assassin’s bullets and Jacqueline Kennedy clambered onto the trunk of the presidential limousine in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The ensuing Warren Commission Report hoped to quell doubts that the murder was anything but the act of one deranged ex-Marine with delusions of grandeur. Yet, people saw it for what it really was: a rush to judgment. Americans weren’t so gullible anymore. The quagmire in Vietnam; the various energy crises of the 1970s; and the absolute failures of the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter Administrations (the latter burdened by the ineptness of the Iran hostage ordeal) only sealed the fate of Americans’ general distrust of their government.

Ronald Reagan fed off that fear like a lion gorging on a sick zebra and metamorphosed it into two successful political campaigns. One of his most popular statements, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’,” resonated strongly with the frustrated masses. Indeed, he had a point. But, Reagan’s own professional disconnect and ineffectiveness – Iran-contra, covert U.S. involvement in Central American conflicts, ignoring the AIDS epidemic, a pathetic war on pornography – placed him in the same pantheon of “Them.”

Almost from the moment Bill Clinton announced his candidacy for president, Republicans took retribution against their Democratic counterparts over Watergate by targeting Clinton every chance they could. They dissected the Whitewater deal and found – nothing. So, they turned to First Lady Hillary Clinton and manufactured something called “Travelgate.” When that didn’t work, they pounced on the events surrounding the suicide of Vince Foster; dragging the memory of a man who may have had severe emotional problems into their cesspool of arrogance and striving fruitlessly to twist it into an evil political plot. Alas, in 1998, they zeroed in on something totally unrelated to politics: the Monica Lewinsky affair and tried to impeach Clinton over a tawdry sexual indiscretion. The final report by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr read like a soft-core porn novel. I remember looking at that mess and thinking, “They want to impeach a U.S. president over that?! A blowjob?!”

We see that stubbornness now with the likes of House Speaker John Boehner and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. They complain that President Obama has no viable plans to help the U.S. economy, for example, but stand in their buckets of ideological cement and won’t budge. Thus, Obama (slowly growing some semblance of a backbone) has been forced to invoke executive privileges to get the work done. Now, Boehner is threatening to sue him because of it! I remember Boehner repeatedly asking, “Where are the jobs?” But, when Obama wanted the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans to expire at the end of 2010, Republicans balked and threatened to block extension of unemployment benefits, which were also set to expire at the end of that year; thus holding struggling Americans hostage. Obama relented, and the wealthiest citizens continued to see their after-tax incomes grow, while average Americans continued to lose their jobs and their homes.

The administration of George W. Bush solidified, in my mind, the corruptness and intransigence of the U.S. government. The 09/11 horror compelled many Americans to question what our government officials know and what they’re doing about it. That the Bush Administration then tied the 09/11 affair to Iraq’s alleged development of nuclear and / or chemical weapons convinced so many of us that our government is willing to go to extreme lengths to obfuscate and mislead just to embolden its own agenda. They tap-danced on the dead bodies of the innocent people who hurtled themselves from the World Trade Center’s burning Twin Towers and merely wiped the blood of soldiers from the millions of dollars they earned from oil revenue.

Bush was a puppet president; a doll adorned in designer business suits and propped up with ersatz ‘Mission Accomplished’ bravado. I almost feel sorry for him. Even he said, after leaving the White House, that he felt “liberated.”

Obama hasn’t done much better. At least he’s more verbally adept than Bush. But, I wish he’d make the time to rummage through his wife’s cache of designer handbags for his gonads before telling John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, “Fuck you. I’m president of the United States. I run this shit here – not you guys.”

It bothers me, for example, that we’re still entrenched in Afghanistan. I feel we should have bombed the crap out of them twelve years ago – damn their civilians, including the children and women, because they didn’t care about ours – and then leave. Maybe airdrop a few high-protein biscuits and bottled water into the mountainside, just to show we’re not complete assholes and go about our own business.

But, it bothers me even more that Obama hasn’t empowered Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the causes of the near-total economic collapse in 2008. The worst financial downturn since the 1930s didn’t happen because someone on the Dow Jones trading floor accidentally unplugged a computer before the end of the business day because they needed to do a software upgrade. It resulted from a multitude of events; such as hefty tax cuts for that “job-creating” 1%; extreme deregulation of the housing and banking industries; and the billions of dollars on the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. Except for a handful of notable exceptions – Bernie Madoff, Mark Dreier – no one has been held accountable for the “Great Recession.” But, if I walk into a local convenience store with a toy gun and rob the Pakistani clerk of fifty bucks, I could spend thirty years in prison. I believe there were other more diabolical machinations in play, beginning in 2001, that caused the economic downturn. Yes, economies endure cycles of bull and bear markets. But, this fiasco wasn’t just cyclical, like rainfall. Somebody did something, and it wasn’t by accident.

In February 2012, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe stunned her constituents by announcing that she wouldn’t seek reelection that year. She didn’t hesitate to explain why: the level of hostility and unwillingness to compromise in the U.S. Congress had become unbearable. To her, I guess, it wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. It was a shame. Snowe was one of the most level-headed politicians in Washington, regardless of party affiliation. She was willing to listen to and work with all of her colleagues. But, many of them just didn’t seem to share the same ethic.

I still say it all goes back to Watergate. Nixon and his band of henchmen were determined to keep the president in power, as the 1972 elections neared. Nixon had a modest tenure as Vice-President under Dwight Eisenhower, but suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the upstart Kennedy in 1960. When he lost the California governor’s race in 1962, he vowed to exit public life altogether, loudly proclaiming, “You won’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore.” But, he just couldn’t stay away. He loved the political game and desperately wanted the presidency. His dogged ambition put him in the White House six years after the California debacle – and forced him back out six years later.

Things have never been the same since. And, we still can’t bring ourselves to trust anyone in government.

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June 15, 2014 · 11:46 PM

Iraq Again! Oh, Hell No!

Zombie hand

“It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!”

– Colin Clive in “Frankenstein”

 

As the United States slowly recuperates from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans are suddenly beset with a very real horror show: the rise of militants in Iraq, as well as the collapse of the Iraqi government. Most of us keep smacking ourselves across the face; trying to wake up from what can only be deemed a nightmare. No – a night terror. This can’t be happening. There must be some kind of misunderstanding. The media has it all wrong.

No, they don’t. It is happening. And, we’re all wide awake.

I wish that the brewing fiasco is – at best – a really cruel, heartless joke. But, it’s simply not. The blatant reality is that radical Iraqi insurgents have risen from the crypt of hate and anger to launch an assault on that nation’s fragile government and hapless military. They’ve already taken over Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. It’s surely only a matter of time before they attack Baghdad.

President Obama, who campaigned in 2008 partly on the promise to end the war in Iraq, says another round of military intervention is not likely. But, almost in the same breath, he added, “We have enormous interests there.”

What happened to the good old days, when a president would say stupid crap, but still really believe it with all his heart? Many of us disagreed with George W. Bush, but at least we knew where he stood on an issue. Along with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, Bush hoodwinked much of the nation into believing Iraq had a role in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and was secretly building a nuclear arsenal. In the twisted logic that only a draft-dodging right-wing lunatic could manufacture, Bush forced the U.S. to switch its attention abruptly from Afghanistan to Iraq. Most of us level-headed folks saw the ruse clearly and still didn’t mind being labeled terrorists. We knew it was a lie. But, Bush was a puppet president for corporate oil interests (in much the same way Warren G. Harding was), so I don’t blame him completely.

But, with nearly 4,500 U.S. dead in Iraq alone – not to forget those who died from their injuries or suicide once back home – we’re faced with a bizarre quandary: sending troops back into Iraq to thwart what observers have ominously deemed the “threshold of civil war.”

Trick question: what’s the difference between the threshold of civil war in Iraq and a total conflict?

Answer: nothing!

The difference is in terminology only. Hearing military and political “experts” trying to define the two concepts is like saying there’s a difference between azure and blue. I knew a guy in college who got upset when people said he was Italian. He preferred the term “Sicilian.” Oh, of course! Silly me! And, just so you’ll know, I’m not Latino. I’m Hispanic! ¿Entiendes?

The U.S. put itself into a quixotic situation with Iraq more than three decades ago when it began funding its war with Iran. That came to an abrupt end in 1988, when Saddam Hussein launched a genocidal chemical attack on Kurdistan. The U.S. also placed itself in a quagmire with Afghanistan when it supported mujahideen rebels in their valiant fight against the former Soviet Union – and then forgot about the Afghan people. One nation doesn’t make a promise of that magnitude to another nation without owning up to it.

If, by some wretched chance, we do send our military back into Iraq, here’s what I’d like to see happen:

  • Initiate a military draft. Every 18-25 able bodied person (including women, Jews, Mormons, conservative Republicans and rich kids) will have to serve in some kind of capacity. No exceptions!
  • Raise taxes on the wealthiest 5% of American citizens. Since many of them are the ones who propagated the war in Iraq and subsequently benefited from it, we need half of their income to go into Pentagon coffers.
  • Cease all foreign aid. This includes Israel. Unquestionable financial and political support for Israel by the U.S. is another reason for the 09/11 attacks.

It’s only fair all of the above should occur, as the U.S. roars back into Iraq like a repo man going after a late-model BMW for the third time. But, I also think it’s only fair I should be rich and famous without working too hard for it. After all, I’m attractive (in the right black light) and intelligent. Why should I struggle so hard?

Will the U.S. boomerang its troops back into Iraq? I can only hope not. But, you know how that goes.

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June 11, 2014 · 8:48 PM

One Year Update: The Chief Almost Kills Himself

5zqsgm

Today officially marks one year since my near-fatal accident here at the house. Some of you might remember: I slipped on a wet spot on the linoleum floor the atrium in my parents’ home while carrying a gallon glass jug of iced tea. My feet literally went out from under me. Being airborne for a split second allowed my entire body to rotate 180 degrees and land face down on the floor; two shards of glass from the shattered jug piercing my right arm. After a three-day stay at Hotel Parkland, I returned home with multiple stitches, no feeling in my right hand and an overwhelming desire to bathe for two or three hours. I was still pissed that I wasted half a jug of that herbal tea because I didn’t watch where the hell I was going. It’s amazing how a simple misstep can be so life-changing.

I had surgery last September 13 – a Friday, to be certain – and I’m just now starting to regain function and feeling in the right ring and little fingers. The hand surgeon had told me it would probably take up to a year to regain full functionality and sensation – if that happens at all. At the rate I’m going, I figure I might get up to 75% by this September. It’s a good thing I can do a lot with my left hand. I always knew being bi-manual would come in…well, handy some day.

I note that my accident was near-fatal because of the severity of the wound in my upper right arm and the amount of blood loss. If my father hadn’t wrapped a towel tightly around it, just beneath the elbow, I could have bled to death. The only other thing I had going for me was that the glass cut a vein and not an artery. If it had cut an artery – well, let’s just say I’d have to change the name of my blog to “Chief Writing Spirit.” That would give a whole new meaning to the term “ghost writing.”

I’m fortunate, though, very fortunate. I managed to survive and live to see my 50th birthday last November. I still have great parents and a great dog, plus a good collection of close friends. I consider military veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq and realize I don’t have much to complain about. Why does it take such catastrophic events to make people realize how good they actually have it? I don’t know. I guess we need to get shaken up like that – sometimes shaken up badly, in a bloody painful way – to understand life can be good most of the time.

So, as I mark this unwanted first anniversary of stupid accident and a difficult recovery, I continue writing and enjoying the people I love the most. But, damnit, I’m still pissed off about wasting that perfectly good herbal tea!

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May 11, 2014 · 10:02 PM

No Thanks to You!

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Last week I received a notice from the National Republican Party announcing a fundraiser in my city, along with a request for a donation. It was signed by the Party’s national chairman, Reince Priebus. This suburban Dallas community where I grew up is, like much of the rest of Texas, staunchly Republican. A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide race since 1994, when Garry Mauro won reelection as state treasurer; the same year Ann Richards lost her gubernatorial reelection bid to George W. Bush.

Returning home from the gym late one Saturday night a couple of years ago, I noticed a “Tea Party” sign in a neighbor’s front yard. I wanted to stop and spray-paint a swastika on their walkway, but I didn’t have any spray paint on hand. Besides, they might’ve had security cameras hidden somewhere. For years now, there’s been a billboard off Central Expressway, just north of downtown Dallas, asking: ‘Where’s the birth certificate?’ It’s a blatant reference to the ongoing idiotic questions about President Obama’s birth place. If you know how much it costs to put up one of those signs, you might also realize the same money could fund a school lunch program.

Part of the problem is that, on average, only about a third of eligible voters in Texas actually make an effort to cast a ballot. I think many of my more centrist and independent-minded fellow Texans simply feel their vote won’t make a difference and / or Republicans will win anyway, so why bother. I certainly don’t want Texas to swing to the opposite side of the political spectrum, such California, Illinois or Massachusetts; where people are regulated and taxed into oblivion and political correctness is practically a part of the state’s constitution.

I’m actually put out by our two major both political parties – Republicans AND Democrats. I feel strongly that the Republicans are bullies, and the Democrats are wimps. President Obama has capitulated too much to the bull-headed GOP and lost any credibility, from my perspective. As I see it, the U.S. is essentially leaderless right now.

Hence, my disgust when I received the mailing from Priebus. I mailed it back, but with this handwritten message:

 

“Mr. Priebus,

Remove my name and address from your list. I have no desire to contribute money to the GOP. Your party screwed up our economy in the first place, but you won’t take responsibility for it.”

 

Off to the side, I scribbled:

“Trickle down doesn’t work. And, I’m no fan of Obama either!”

 

I included this last bit of verbiage, so Priebus and his gang will know I’m equally disgusted. I’d hate for anyone at that level to feel so targeted.

But, you must read between the lines. Here’s what I really wanted to say:

 

“Take my name and address off your fucking list, you good-for-nothing, piece of shit, Neanderthal! Your party fucked up the economy big time with your stupid tax cuts, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (wars started by a pack of fucking draft-dodgers), and total deregulation of the banking and housing industries. All of that together is what fucked up this economy – not the Affordable Care Act, which is total bat-shit, as far as I’m concerned. You fuckers have taken too much of my money in taxes already and you haven’t done a goddamned thing to help the economy, except the same stupid, fucking, trickle-down bullshit that you’ve been pushing through since that incompetent dumbass, Ronald Reagan, held office!”

 

But, they probably wouldn’t understand my outrage. Sorry to yell like that in front of you nice folks. Damn, though! I feel so much better!

Since the envelope is postage paid, I found a thin piece of rock in the back yard that I inserted along with the note. Might as well maximize it! I would’ve sent a flattened piece of my dog’s fecal matter, but they’re not good enough to receive even that.

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May 1, 2014 · 11:11 PM

My Time in a Locked Box

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Up until mid-March, I had a temporary position at a lock-box facility with a major financial institution. I won’t name the company or the staffing firm that found me the job, but I will emphasize that it was one of the worst places I’ve ever worked. I took the position as a filler job amidst my freelance writing gigs. In a way, I’m glad I did, though, because it gave me a clearer view of just how bad things are in the U.S. right now. If our elected officials could experience such drudgery, matters would change in no time.

A lock-box is an intermediary between a company and the bank that handles their accounts. You might notice a post office box listed as the mailing address on bills for telephone and water utilities. That box number simply steers the payments to a separate facility where they’re processed on behalf of the bank. It’s beneficial for the bank from a time efficiency standpoint. But, they’re also breeding grounds for fraud. The workers – many of them contract or temporary – handle countless personal checks and documents with sensitive information that can then be purloined or photocopied.

The place where I worked handles immigration applications on behalf of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. My specific job was to analyze packets of applications and ensure they contained the proper documentation. Security procedures are tight. Every employee – even temporaries – must wear a slave tag, or what they call “badges.” The badge bears the individual’s picture; tiny image that make driver’s license photos look like glamour shots. The badges also have digital codes that would trigger doors to open. To enter the actual location where the documentation was handled, associates had to swipe their badges and then apply an index fingertip to a scanner beneath the electronic locks. For some reason, the lock always had trouble identifying my fingertip. No, I wasn’t using my middle finger – although seems more appropriate now. But, I’d often stand in front of that stupid lock pressing my finger down like a rogue political leader reaching for a nuke button.

The job was monotonous and dull. I get bored easily anyway, so it was difficult for me to stay interested. But, I noticed a number of things. Most of the associates were female and / or non-White. Yet, the bulk of the supervisors and managers were composed of the usual suspects: older White males. None of that really surprised me. Women, non-Whites, the disabled and immigrants now hold the bulk of temporary and part-time jobs in the U.S. These groups have always resided at the lower rungs of the American work force. But, the 2007 – 08 financial crisis intensified those numbers. But, gender and race only tell part of the story.

Between 2007 and 2009, the American labor force lost 8.4 million jobs, or 6.1% of all employment. Since then, most of the newly-created jobs have been temporary or contract. Last year the U.S. added 2.8 million temporary or contract employees to the national payroll. After the previous two recessions, American companies increased employment by adding temporary workers. In fact, an increase in temporary and contract work generally signifies overall economic improvement. But, this recession is something new; most of the good-paying jobs that delineated the American middle class have been replaced with low-wage positions. Temporary jobs aren’t a sign of better times ahead; they’re a sign of the new (pathetically, dismal) normal.

In early 1990, I had a temporary position at a lock-box facility in Dallas. Back then, as now, the bulk of the workforce was female and non-White, while most of the managers and supervisors were White males. My immediate supervisor, however, was a Panamanian-born woman who once made an employee remove 37 seconds from her time card because she said the latter had been late that much when returning from break. Her manager was an older White male who had a quirky Napoleonic complex, but whom I liked much better. He didn’t work well under pressure; something that made observing him the highlight of the day. But, that was almost a quarter-century ago. And, from a workforce standpoint, not much has changed.

When I told my parents the paltry pay rate I earned at this last job, they were shocked. It was the same amount my father had earned as a contract employee of a printing shop in the early 1990s. He had worked for the company for nearly 30 years before he got laid off in 1989; he was then, rehired as a contractor.

The issue of salaries and pay rates has been staring the slow economic recovery square in its ugly face. Mid-wage jobs – those averaging between $13 and $22 hourly –made up about 60% of the jobs lost during the recession. But, those same mid-wage jobs comprised about 27% of the jobs created since 2010. However, lower-paying jobs have dominated the job recovery – roughly 58%. Nearly 40%, or 1.7 million of the jobs gained during the recovery, are in three of the lowest-paying categories: food services, retail and employment services (e.g. office clerks, customer service representatives). All of this has not only decimated the American middle class, but has pushed the U.S. below Canada regarding middle class affluence.

stateofworkingamerica.org

Graph courtesy U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A few other things bothered me about the facility where I worked. Because of the number of documents that arrive on a daily basis, the amount of paper is overwhelming. Should a fire break out, I thought, it could be catastrophic – and mainly because of one simple device: cell phones. People aren’t allowed to bring cell phones into the main production area. The reason is obvious: most cell phones now have camera features, and it would be easy for someone to snap a picture of classified documents. Therefore, anyone who enters the production area has to leave their cell phone in their vehicle, in a designated locker in the same building, or with security. But, along with the odd juxtaposition of desks, I also noticed fire exits weren’t clearly marked. People would be safe in the building should a tornado descend upon the property. But, if a fire erupted, I’m certain many people would head towards their lockers to grab their cell phones. Such a scenario reminds me of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in which 146 people (mostly women and immigrants) perished.

I arrived home from work one Friday to find a voice mail message on my cell phone from the staffing agency, telling me to call them immediately. The lock-box firm had pulled the job from me. The unit manager had accused me of being consistently late. His idea of “late” apparently is one or two minutes past the hour. I pointed that out to the staffing agency; emphasizing, though, that I made up the one, two or three minutes I arrived late. Moreover, I said, I’d already attained a 100% accuracy rate on the job. None of that seemed to matter. The agency was in a bind; they couldn’t refute whatever chicken-shit opinion the manager had of me.

It’s no great personal loss. I won’t exactly be seeking therapy because of it. Some things just aren’t worth the trouble. As this May Day comes to a close, it’s important to remember that people usually work too damn hard for their money. As the wealth gap in the U.S. widens, I don’t know how much longer this, or any truly democratic society, can deem itself civilized.

Image courtesy Compare Business Products.

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