I hung out with Duke for another hour, long enough to confirm that he really was in a bad way, absolutely torn by the depth of his feelings for the Swede and the Fijian. Part of me pitied him, part envied him – this audacious sixty-two year old outlaw who broke most of the drug laws on the books of California and the United States, not to mention various other sovereign nations; this globetrotter who carefully fashioned his life so that he was beholden to no one and answered to as few people as possible.
It took balls to do that, balls and drive and cunning and a kind of refined selfishness few people posses. As far as I knew, Duke had never married or fathered any children. Now that I think about it, whenever the subject of wives and children came up – and it arose rarely -- Duke was quick to change the subject to drugs or poker, politics, history or college basketball.
“I’m fucked,” he moaned, “totally fucked. Of all the things that can bring a man down, I never thought it would be Love. The DEA or the IRS, maybe; a dope dealer unable to appreciate my sense of humor, but not a couple of beautiful young women. Shit, how did this happen? I have no idea. I met the Fijian, bang, stone in love; then I met the Swede in Moscow, bang, Cupid strikes again, the cruel bastard.”
In all the years I’d known him, Duke had never been at a loss for what to do next. Even if his next move was impulsive, crazy, illegal or potentially dangerous to his health or person, Duke would do something. For Duke, skirting the edge and drifting across the yellow line at high speed with his eyes shut was what made life worth living. Or at least it did before he met the Fijian and the Swede and swapped his American-made car for a Toyota Prius.
Duke’s misery got me thinking about men and women, marriage, companionship, family – the whole big ball of wax that had been a central feature of my life for the better part of sixteen years. I couldn’t picture Duke calmly accepting the confines of marriage any more than I could picture a woman putting up with his unusual habits. Then again, some New Age types claim that a soul mate exists for each of us, so maybe it wasn’t out of the question.
Unlikely, yes; impossible, no.
“Must I choose between them?” Duke asked, and before I could reply answered his own question. “Of course I must. What the fuck other choice do I have? Even I can’t manage to be in love with two women at the same time. It’s fucking impossible. The Swede or the Fijian, the Fijian or the Swede. I’ve been racking my brain for a scheme that would allow me to have them both. I want them both. Conventional morality and the laws of physics say that I cannot have what I want. I have no use for convention of any kind, but physics can’t be ignored. Do you see how tormented I am? I’m not a decent, stand-up guy who can easily consign his heart to one woman for the rest of his natural days.”
“Have you ever tried it?” I asked.
Duke looked at me as if that was the dumbest question he’d ever heard.
“It’s my learned opinion from years of careful observation that most married people are bored to tears with their mates. Am I right?”
“Well,” I said. “Marriage is a complex equation. The variables are practically infinite.”
“On the other hand,” Duke said, popping a large white pill into his mouth, “married people that appear truly content make me suspicious. You can’t live in close proximity to another person without sooner or later grating on their nerves. Passion can’t survive forever, either. When it goes, what’s left? I’ll tell you – routine, soul-killing routine.”
“You have to figure out a way to keep the relationship fresh,” I said.
“Thank you, Dr. Phil,” Duke said. “That’s really insightful.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m being sarcastic.”
“I know.”
“This is killing me. Even my sleep is troubled. When I dream about the Swede, the Fijian enters the picture with a straight razor and slices my nuts off. When it’s the other way around, the Swede blows my head off with a shotgun. Cruel portents, don’t you think?”
“You’ve got it bad, man. No mortal man can survive having two women under his skin at the same time. You have to choose.”
Duke popped another pill in his mouth, left the room, and returned with a half dollar coin. “You flip it, I’ll call it in the air. Heads the Swede, tails the Fijian.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. I have to save what remains of my sanity. Flipping a coin is how I make all my important decisions. The Universe laughs at our best-laid plans anyway, so why not leave it to chance? The odds aren’t that bad.”
“Yes, but…”
“Flip it. Whatever it is, I accept my fate.”
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Golden Shower
I was sitting in Shaloob’s the other day, waiting for my chicken wrap, when Wolf Blitzer appeared on the flat-screen above the bar. My opinion of Wolf Blitzer has always been low, on a par with bill collectors and telemarketers, but in this segment about the American economy Wolf outdid himself.
Swear to God Wolf started jabbering about how Wall Street and the financial sector are the keys to our recovery and future prosperity. Any sane American citizen living outside of Manhattan and the DC Beltway would have thought that Blitzer had finally plunged over the edge and into the abyss; he sounded like a paid shill for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the American Society of Overpaid CEO’s (there’s no such organization, I just made it up, but you get the idea.)
If the American people have realized anything since last fall when the financial system went south and Bernie Madoff admitted that his empire was an empty shell, it’s that Wall Street’s comings and goings, ups and downs, peaks and valleys, surges and declines, have nothing to do with the economic prosperity of the average American family. Nothing, nada. During the Bush years, when no corporate CEO, hedge fund operator, bond trader or real estate shyster was left behind, working Americans lost ground, acres of ground. Wages flat-lined. The cost of medical insurance skyrocketed. College tuition soared into the stratosphere. The only way working people could maintain the illusion that the American Dream was within their grasp was to borrow like fiends and hope to hit the Lottery.
It took far too long, but Joe and Jane Public are finally waking up to the cold, unpleasant reality that the great American casino called Wall Street, aided and abetted by lobbyists and far too many Members of Congress imbued with the instincts of pimps and street hustlers, is a game rigged in favor of the few at the expense of the many. The people know now that they don’t stand a chance in the game and that the heart of the American Dream is barely beating. You can hear the people’s rumblings, the slow recognition that they have been sold out and ripped off, duped and played for fools.
When the CEO’s of the Big 3 auto companies jetted into Washington DC looking for a taxpayer handout, their chief strategy for achieving a recovery was to strong arm the UAW into making wage and benefit concessions. Forget the fact that the UAW has been ceding ground at the bargaining table for years now, trading concessions for jobs – the CEO’s automatically demanded more sacrifice from workers. Several Senators from southern, right-to-work states leapt on this Blame-the-UAW bandwagon, Limbaugh and Hannity pumped life into the myth, and before long the average UAW member was making $70 an hour. How could GM, Ford or Chrysler compete against the world with that albatross around their ankles?
Contrast the UAW with AIG, corporate basket case and recipient of billions of taxpayer dollars, whose top brass nonetheless argued strenuously that AIG was “contractually” obligated to pay bonuses to its top executives, even those that played a direct role in the reckless practices that sunk AIG in the first place. The fact that AIG was a ward of the taxpayers held no sway whatsoever. Unlike the UAW contract, which simply had to be renegotiated if not abrogated altogether, AIG couldn’t break its solemn obligation to its executive class, dozens of whom no longer work for AIG.
Have the people been duped? You bet. For decades. By the likes of Ronnie Reagan and Milton Freidman and Alan Greenspan and Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay and Jim Cramer and Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers and Lou Dobbs and Steve Forbes and John McCain and every other prosperous, comfortable white guy who argued that the key to prosperity was to elevate investors at the expense of workers and let the riches trickle down.
Like a golden shower.
Swear to God Wolf started jabbering about how Wall Street and the financial sector are the keys to our recovery and future prosperity. Any sane American citizen living outside of Manhattan and the DC Beltway would have thought that Blitzer had finally plunged over the edge and into the abyss; he sounded like a paid shill for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the American Society of Overpaid CEO’s (there’s no such organization, I just made it up, but you get the idea.)
If the American people have realized anything since last fall when the financial system went south and Bernie Madoff admitted that his empire was an empty shell, it’s that Wall Street’s comings and goings, ups and downs, peaks and valleys, surges and declines, have nothing to do with the economic prosperity of the average American family. Nothing, nada. During the Bush years, when no corporate CEO, hedge fund operator, bond trader or real estate shyster was left behind, working Americans lost ground, acres of ground. Wages flat-lined. The cost of medical insurance skyrocketed. College tuition soared into the stratosphere. The only way working people could maintain the illusion that the American Dream was within their grasp was to borrow like fiends and hope to hit the Lottery.
It took far too long, but Joe and Jane Public are finally waking up to the cold, unpleasant reality that the great American casino called Wall Street, aided and abetted by lobbyists and far too many Members of Congress imbued with the instincts of pimps and street hustlers, is a game rigged in favor of the few at the expense of the many. The people know now that they don’t stand a chance in the game and that the heart of the American Dream is barely beating. You can hear the people’s rumblings, the slow recognition that they have been sold out and ripped off, duped and played for fools.
When the CEO’s of the Big 3 auto companies jetted into Washington DC looking for a taxpayer handout, their chief strategy for achieving a recovery was to strong arm the UAW into making wage and benefit concessions. Forget the fact that the UAW has been ceding ground at the bargaining table for years now, trading concessions for jobs – the CEO’s automatically demanded more sacrifice from workers. Several Senators from southern, right-to-work states leapt on this Blame-the-UAW bandwagon, Limbaugh and Hannity pumped life into the myth, and before long the average UAW member was making $70 an hour. How could GM, Ford or Chrysler compete against the world with that albatross around their ankles?
Contrast the UAW with AIG, corporate basket case and recipient of billions of taxpayer dollars, whose top brass nonetheless argued strenuously that AIG was “contractually” obligated to pay bonuses to its top executives, even those that played a direct role in the reckless practices that sunk AIG in the first place. The fact that AIG was a ward of the taxpayers held no sway whatsoever. Unlike the UAW contract, which simply had to be renegotiated if not abrogated altogether, AIG couldn’t break its solemn obligation to its executive class, dozens of whom no longer work for AIG.
Have the people been duped? You bet. For decades. By the likes of Ronnie Reagan and Milton Freidman and Alan Greenspan and Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay and Jim Cramer and Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers and Lou Dobbs and Steve Forbes and John McCain and every other prosperous, comfortable white guy who argued that the key to prosperity was to elevate investors at the expense of workers and let the riches trickle down.
Like a golden shower.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Too Big to Fail, Too Dumb to Succeed
What has AIG done with all the taxpayer money it has received in the last six months? When will AIG be considered worthy of failure? What have current and future taxpayers received in return for our “rescue” of AIG? And how many more times will AIG turn to the Federal government for an infusion of taxpayer dough?
Do you feel screwed yet? Regardless of your gender, do you feel like you’ve been bent over a redwood stump and gang-raped by a bunch of lumberjacks?
I’m not disparaging lumberjacks here. I trust men and women who work for a living much more than I do the financial and political elites who run this country.
Of late my ire for the financial class has petered out. The Titans of Finance did exactly what any good Capitalist would do under similar circumstances: they took maximum advantage of every break, loophole and inch of latitude given them by the politicians; then the Titans got greedy and then they became cocky and in a very short time they ran the financial system off the rails, as under-supervised capitalists are wont to do every generation or so.
No, the Titans of Finance acted predictably, which is why I reserve outrage for the politicians – Republicans primarily, but plenty of Democrats, too -- who left the financial system to its own perverse devices, who got caught up in irrational exuberance, in the seemingly magical transformation of tainted assets into gold bullion, of suburban homes whose values knew no ceiling. I’m not an economist, but I watched this castle of sand being built and knew it was a façade that would crumble when the first big wave smashed against it.
But what really boils my blood is the fact that billions of taxpayer dollars have been forked over to incompetents and criminals without an hour of public hearings and open debate, without a vote by the people’s representatives, and largely without conditions for performance or repayment on the part of the recipients. Contrast Washington’s no-strings-attached giveaway to those deemed “too big to fail,” with our local school district, where a single expenditure of $10,000 is carefully scrutinized.
It’s straight corporate welfare, isn’t it? Doesn’t the same moral hazard theory apply to Wall Street elites as it did to single mothers receiving Federal assistance for childcare and job training expenses? Remember the fanfare and self-congratulation when the Clinton Administration ended welfare as we know it? If you can remember that far back, Congress cut those mothers off – for their own good, of course – because we simply couldn’t allow them to become dependent on federal handouts.
Even now, many months after the first handouts were made, the Treasury Department has only a vague idea of what has become of our money. Under questioning by Congress, Treasury officials shrug or offer vague explanations about the complexities of modern banking, derivatives and hedge funds.
Banks and giant insurance outfits rarely have trouble accounting for their profits or obscene CEO pay packages or the millions they save by moving production to China or Thailand. The only time their math skills fail, apparently, is when they’re asked to account for billions of taxpayer dollars.
Do you feel screwed yet? Regardless of your gender, do you feel like you’ve been bent over a redwood stump and gang-raped by a bunch of lumberjacks?
I’m not disparaging lumberjacks here. I trust men and women who work for a living much more than I do the financial and political elites who run this country.
Of late my ire for the financial class has petered out. The Titans of Finance did exactly what any good Capitalist would do under similar circumstances: they took maximum advantage of every break, loophole and inch of latitude given them by the politicians; then the Titans got greedy and then they became cocky and in a very short time they ran the financial system off the rails, as under-supervised capitalists are wont to do every generation or so.
No, the Titans of Finance acted predictably, which is why I reserve outrage for the politicians – Republicans primarily, but plenty of Democrats, too -- who left the financial system to its own perverse devices, who got caught up in irrational exuberance, in the seemingly magical transformation of tainted assets into gold bullion, of suburban homes whose values knew no ceiling. I’m not an economist, but I watched this castle of sand being built and knew it was a façade that would crumble when the first big wave smashed against it.
But what really boils my blood is the fact that billions of taxpayer dollars have been forked over to incompetents and criminals without an hour of public hearings and open debate, without a vote by the people’s representatives, and largely without conditions for performance or repayment on the part of the recipients. Contrast Washington’s no-strings-attached giveaway to those deemed “too big to fail,” with our local school district, where a single expenditure of $10,000 is carefully scrutinized.
It’s straight corporate welfare, isn’t it? Doesn’t the same moral hazard theory apply to Wall Street elites as it did to single mothers receiving Federal assistance for childcare and job training expenses? Remember the fanfare and self-congratulation when the Clinton Administration ended welfare as we know it? If you can remember that far back, Congress cut those mothers off – for their own good, of course – because we simply couldn’t allow them to become dependent on federal handouts.
Even now, many months after the first handouts were made, the Treasury Department has only a vague idea of what has become of our money. Under questioning by Congress, Treasury officials shrug or offer vague explanations about the complexities of modern banking, derivatives and hedge funds.
Banks and giant insurance outfits rarely have trouble accounting for their profits or obscene CEO pay packages or the millions they save by moving production to China or Thailand. The only time their math skills fail, apparently, is when they’re asked to account for billions of taxpayer dollars.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Duke in Love
I heard Duke was back in town from a mutual acquaintance. I hadn’t seen or heard a peep from Duke for eight months, not since he abandoned his quixotic run for a seat on the local school board.
“I would have assaulted one of the incumbents ten minutes into the first meeting,” he explained during a 3:00 a.m. phone call. “And I guarantee you I wouldn’t have suffered for more than two minutes some of the crackpots who speak to the board at every meeting. Rights are one thing, but repeated public displays of stupidity are another. I’ll be out of touch for a while. Keep your sentences short and your bowels open”
The first thing I noticed when I pulled into Duke’s driveway was the new, dark blue Toyota Prius parked there. Had Duke finally given up on the American automobile industry? Over the years I’d known him Duke had always driven American cars: an Impala, an LTD, a Caddy, a Malibu, a cherry GTO and a Lincoln Continental, among them.
When I stepped into his kitchen Duke was doing bong hits that made Michael Phelps look like an amateur. He tossed me a bottle of Rolling Rock and waved me to a stool.
“My Mexican supplier was murdered a week ago by a rival cartel,” he said. “This is the last of the shit I bought from him, may he rest in peace. Mexico is on the verge of imploding. What’s Obama going to do when that action spills across the border?”
“Where’ve you been?”
“All over the fuckin’ place. Vanua Levu. Machu Pichu. Mexico City. Lisbon. Amsterdam. Moscow. I even spent a couple of days in Vatican City. I find the very idea of a Pope unsettling. Do you know who said, ‘A man in love is a fool?’”
“Shakespeare?”
“Maybe. You still writing the blog?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone read it?”
“Beats me.”
“No feedback?”
“Rarely.”
“Of course you wish for that. Every writer wants to be read, and all writers are insecure.”
“Excepting Philip Roth, I suppose that’s true. All I can do is put the stuff out there.”
Duke took another hit from the bong. “I’m into some very weird, very heavy doings. Sixty-two fucking years old and I’m stone in love – with two women. Never been more miserable in my entire life. It’s like being trampled by elephants. I can’t get these women out of my brain. I go to sleep thinking of them, wake up thinking of them, can’t wait to see them, and can’t bear to say goodbye. I’m experiencing all the classic symptoms: food tastes better, music sounds better, and life feels sweeter. It’s a disaster. It’s the end of my life as I’ve fashioned it. I’m no longer the sovereign of my emotions.”
“Not to be indelicate,” I said, “but how many years your junior are these women?”
“The Swede is twenty-four; the Fijian is twenty-two. It makes no fucking sense. It runs counter to the laws of Nature; the beautiful, vibrant butterfly isn’t supposed to settle on the withered flower. The Swede doesn’t want babies; the Fijian wants a brood. I’m considering Viagra. Or Cialis. Which is better?”
“You’re only comfortable when you’re in dire straits. Ever considered therapy?”
“Fuck you. I’ve got all the therapy I need right here. What’re your thoughts on polygamy? In the ancient world, princes and kings had multiple wives and begat dozens of offspring. That arrangement seems more realistic than life-long monogamy. I wonder if the Swede and the Fijian would go for it.”
“That sort of thing worked better when women had no rights and zero options,” I said. “We’re living in a different age, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Duke applied a lighter to the bong, drew in a long hit, held it, and exhaled slowly. He looked at me with profound sadness in his eyes. “Time,” he said, “ruins everything.”
“I would have assaulted one of the incumbents ten minutes into the first meeting,” he explained during a 3:00 a.m. phone call. “And I guarantee you I wouldn’t have suffered for more than two minutes some of the crackpots who speak to the board at every meeting. Rights are one thing, but repeated public displays of stupidity are another. I’ll be out of touch for a while. Keep your sentences short and your bowels open”
The first thing I noticed when I pulled into Duke’s driveway was the new, dark blue Toyota Prius parked there. Had Duke finally given up on the American automobile industry? Over the years I’d known him Duke had always driven American cars: an Impala, an LTD, a Caddy, a Malibu, a cherry GTO and a Lincoln Continental, among them.
When I stepped into his kitchen Duke was doing bong hits that made Michael Phelps look like an amateur. He tossed me a bottle of Rolling Rock and waved me to a stool.
“My Mexican supplier was murdered a week ago by a rival cartel,” he said. “This is the last of the shit I bought from him, may he rest in peace. Mexico is on the verge of imploding. What’s Obama going to do when that action spills across the border?”
“Where’ve you been?”
“All over the fuckin’ place. Vanua Levu. Machu Pichu. Mexico City. Lisbon. Amsterdam. Moscow. I even spent a couple of days in Vatican City. I find the very idea of a Pope unsettling. Do you know who said, ‘A man in love is a fool?’”
“Shakespeare?”
“Maybe. You still writing the blog?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone read it?”
“Beats me.”
“No feedback?”
“Rarely.”
“Of course you wish for that. Every writer wants to be read, and all writers are insecure.”
“Excepting Philip Roth, I suppose that’s true. All I can do is put the stuff out there.”
Duke took another hit from the bong. “I’m into some very weird, very heavy doings. Sixty-two fucking years old and I’m stone in love – with two women. Never been more miserable in my entire life. It’s like being trampled by elephants. I can’t get these women out of my brain. I go to sleep thinking of them, wake up thinking of them, can’t wait to see them, and can’t bear to say goodbye. I’m experiencing all the classic symptoms: food tastes better, music sounds better, and life feels sweeter. It’s a disaster. It’s the end of my life as I’ve fashioned it. I’m no longer the sovereign of my emotions.”
“Not to be indelicate,” I said, “but how many years your junior are these women?”
“The Swede is twenty-four; the Fijian is twenty-two. It makes no fucking sense. It runs counter to the laws of Nature; the beautiful, vibrant butterfly isn’t supposed to settle on the withered flower. The Swede doesn’t want babies; the Fijian wants a brood. I’m considering Viagra. Or Cialis. Which is better?”
“You’re only comfortable when you’re in dire straits. Ever considered therapy?”
“Fuck you. I’ve got all the therapy I need right here. What’re your thoughts on polygamy? In the ancient world, princes and kings had multiple wives and begat dozens of offspring. That arrangement seems more realistic than life-long monogamy. I wonder if the Swede and the Fijian would go for it.”
“That sort of thing worked better when women had no rights and zero options,” I said. “We’re living in a different age, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Duke applied a lighter to the bong, drew in a long hit, held it, and exhaled slowly. He looked at me with profound sadness in his eyes. “Time,” he said, “ruins everything.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)