The King of Babylon

“This is who we are: the richest country on earth, with more poverty than any other advanced democracy.” Matthew Desmond, Poverty, By America

Light to dark. I can’t control it or identify a trigger. It just comes, like a blanket of heavy fog.  An otherwise lovely day leaves me flat for some reason, out of sorts, bothered by something nameless. I can’t shake it, drink, or smoke it away. The next morning I feel better. I write. I sit outside on the sunny back patio and read. I see a hummingbird at the feeder while a monarch butterfly flits about. It’s not too noisy, no wailing leaf blowers or hedge trimmers or chain saws or garbage trucks. I realize that I’m happy, rich, the King of Babylon. The upset of the previous afternoon fades. I don’t understand it. 

It’s almost the second anniversary of my retirement from the school district. Next month I will receive my first Social Security check. As I’ve written before, I’m a lucky boy, favored by the Gods. Comfortable. Relatively healthy. With time to sit and think, to read and write, to work a low-paying job that I love precisely because I’m not under any pressure to do it. I like working alongside people, doing what I can to help them without ever being asked; I pitch in because I can, because it gives me pleasure to lighten the load for someone else. Call me crazy. 

For the most part, my co-workers drive old cars, pick-up trucks, many ride bicycles or scooters, some walk or rely on MTD. This is the working-class. Jose in the Meat Department is tired and moving slowly, as if in a trance. He’ll leave the store at 10 and report for his second job at 1:30. “It costs a lot to live here,” he says. 

Eddie in Whole Body looks at me and says, “Brian, I’ve got six hours to go.” Eddie’s tired, too. 

Some of my co-workers limp, some are overweight, diabetic or suffer from arthritis. But they show up, day after day. When I see David out back by the baler machine we compare ailments, his lower back, my shoulder. He’s 65. His father is 91 and suffers from debilitating arthritis.  

There’s a lot of turnover, faces come and go. Two of my favorite people, Octavio and Kevin G, are gone from the Grocery department, lured away by better hours and money. Kids who just graduated high school take their place. The weird white guy with the impressive gym muscles quit after three days. 

Chelly sings, “Goooood Mooorning, Brian.” “Buenos dias, Chelly,” I call back. Her round face and beaming smile give me a lift, restores some of my wavering faith in the human race. 

I begin reading Poverty, By America, by the Pulitzer Prize winner, Matthew Desmond. I interviewed Mr. Desmond a few years ago, and met him when he spoke at UCSB. An unusual man. Scholar. Writer. Activist. He is to poverty in this country what Bryan Stevenson is to injustice. The book is a mirror held to the face of America. Desmond reminds those of us who are comfortable that poverty is hard, grinding, unforgiving. 

It’s likely that my French ancestors in Quebec were farmers. They emigrated to the northeastern United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. Maine and Massachusetts and Vermont. They became Franco-Americans, mill workers, laborers, tenement dwellers. Some did alright, but others never ascended the social and economic ladder. The French immigrants were no more welcome than the Irish. My mother grew up in poverty. She was born during the Depression. French was spoken in the home. 

The Bane of Humankind

 

“At the time of the Civil War, the monetary value of the country’s enslaved men, women, and children was greater than that of all of its factories and railroads combined.” Adam Hochschild. New York Review, May 25, 2023

What am I thinking about? Feet of human beings, males and females of the species, old and young, but it’s mostly the older folks I observe, in their sandals, flip-flops, pumps and every now and then completely naked of foot. Feet that have held body weight over many years, walked, who knows? thousands of miles, endured heat and cold and friction, corns, bunions, and blisters. Feet that have felt fine sand between the toes, desert dust, red clay, black loam, coal dust, broken glass, pebbles, stones, thorns. Feet that swim and feet that dance, run, jump. I see them now, mangled, bent, dry, toenails uneven, horned, sharp as blades. Unattractive, I think. And fat ankles. Kankles. Not a fan. Am sometimes startled by the girth of a human ankle. I think of an elephant’s foot. My eye is drawn to the slender ankle, mostly of the female, though my eye can be disappointed if ankle and foot are mismatched. Uncomplimentary. Also unfortunate. My opinion. 

My wife tells me she’s taking me for my first ever pedicure, a father’s day gift. Feet will be encased in wax, massaged with warm oils, scrubbed with pumice stones of various hues, and clipped with sterile instruments. My feet will emerge from all this treatment feeling fantastic. I may wish to wear sandals and show them off. No toenail polish. Not there yet. 

Janky feet, the bane of humankind. 

My daughter and I are in the Honda Accord, driving to the dispensary on a weekday afternoon, discussing various subjects of life, when stopped at a red light at the intersection of a prominent corner, my daughter says the foot massage place near the corner (which will go unnamed to avoid potential legal exposure or other unintended consequences) has to be a front for shady or illegal business because most of the employees are usually in the parking lot in the back, smoking, as if possessed of all the time in the world. Languid smoking, full inhalations and exhalations. Prodigious clouds of smoke. But while they’re smoking, what’s going on inside? This is the mystery. Most businesses cannot afford to have people standing around doing nothing, although I’ve noticed that in many low-wage, shit-job establishments, that’s what many employees do, stand around doing as little as they can get away with. My daughter tells me I can probably get a “happy ending” there and I don’t know what she’s talking about. Daughter is incredulous at my stupidity and lameness. Schitt’s Creek, remember, David, went and got a happy ending? Oh, yeah, sorry. I fucking loved Schitt’s Creek. 

Trump is indicted at long last. Such a long, tortured wait. Rusty wheels of justice. Disheartening. Half the nation cheers; thirty percent says it’s all a lie and the other side wants to murder unborn infants, so there; and twenty or so percent could care less. Aren’t even aware that a historic first in the history of this Republic is happening. The oblivious. Many have given up. They keep their heads down and move on, always moving on. They don’t look to government for anything but stop signs and traffic signals. Self-government requires too much sacrifice for some people, especially people who must, for their survival and that of their families, focus entirely on making enough money to live.

Will be infuriating to watch the Republican Party try to brush off Trump’s 37-count Federal indictment. Has already begun, two days before his arraignment. Grab the narrative. All that matters anymore. Truth in, lies out, citizens lost in between. 

I’m reading Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, a young woman with all kinds of literary awards to her credit, Ivy League credentials, a popular trilogy, a phenom, shooting meteor-like across the literary skyline. I’ve read 263 pages and still find myself disliking the protagonist, a young female writer, white, who hits the literary and social media big time with her first novel, about Chinese labor battalions in World War I. Unknown history, unusual angle. The book was conceived and sketched out by her friend/nemesis, Athena Liu, who, like R.F. Kuang, is just dazzling in almost every way, a literary prize winner, with well-received books and hefty advance payments, a robust social media machine, good looks, too, and ambition to be the next big literary thing.  The protagonist helps herself to the notes and sketches after Athena’s tragic death, turns them by a measure of diligent labor and talent into a big book, one that can be marketed, packaged, publicized, and sold. It’s the book that puts the protagonist on the literary map, scores her invitations to sit on panels at prestigious writer’s conferences. Speaking engagements at colleges, readings and Q&A’s in upscale bookstores. Soon she’s being interviewed, written about, asked for her thoughts on this and that. Intoxicating. Validating. Is she a thief or just an opportunist? Both. Some strong writing about the publishing industry (brutal and cutthroat), and how quickly a social media audience can turn from adoring to vicious, as well as facing the question of who has the authenticity to write about certain subjects, in this case a white female writing about Chinese people. What does she know about it? No final opinion yet, other than that the pacing seems off. Shouldn’t I feel, by now,  something other than annoyance for the protagonist, more than a desire to encourage her to grow up? Maybe take a minute and think about someone else?

But maybe that’s the intent, to challenge a reader to accept an unlikeable character enough to keep reading. It’s like Succession on HBO, or whatever it’s now called, which I often hated because I found all the characters so grasping and power-mad and striving and controlling and empty, though also recognizing the dark humor, some finely written and acted scenes. Almost a different dialect with all that Finance-Bro speak. I watched until the end. “Fuck Off!”

Books are funny, magical vessels. 

Want to watch something on the political front other than the 24-Hour-Trump-Indictment-Saga? Just pay attention to what red state governors like Abbott down in the Republic of Texas and Ron DeSantis in Floridistan are doing legislatively to cities and counties where blue-minded voters live and work and recreate. Watch how they’re attempting to wrest more and more control over such places. Austin. Parts of Houston. 

It’s another overcast day here on the Platinum Coast, day after day of thick marine layer, a blanket. The old June-gloom. When I was a young boy, the land around the Whole Foods Market where I work part-time as a utility worker (mostly janitor and shopping cart-wrangler and trash-emptier), was orchard, avocado, walnut, and lemon. Hitchcock and State Street. Been here a fair time now, almost my entire life, many summers. Very strange thing life, and time. On my strolls on the lower Riviera, I notice how different the view is from the opposite side of the street I usually take; I see things that had gone unnoticed before. 

Mourinho and Roma Fall Short in Budapest

I feel somewhat gutted for Jose Mourinho and Roma after their Europa League Final against Sevilla ended in defeat on penalties. Mourinho has such an exceptional record in European finals that I gave Roma a slight edge going in, but I also felt that for Roma to win a lot of things had to break just right. One key for me was the fitness of Roma’s talisman, Paulo Dybala. Having seen Roma play a dozen matches this year, I knew Dybala’s fitness was key. How effective would the Argentine be and how long could he play? Even being sidelined by injuries of one sort or another for most of the season, Dybala still scored 17 goals and contributed a bunch of assists in all competitions. 

With Dybala in and out of the lineup, Tammy Abraham misfiring, and Andrea Belotti never finding his goal-scoring stride, Roma struggled for goals and consistency all season in Serie A, which is one reason Roma’s only remaining route into the Champions League was by winning the Europa League. Finishing in the Serie A Top Four had gone by the boards a few weeks before when Roma’s form in the domestic league slumped. 

Mourinho put it all on this match and came up short. 

Losing in a penalty shootout is cruel because getting to a shootout requires at least 120 minutes of play, plus all the stoppage time that gets added on. The path to a penalty shootout is punctuated with physical and emotional suffering. More often than not it doesn’t seem fair or right that one team has to lose. 

It started according to the Mourinho blueprint for Roma, who had their best available eleven on the pitch, with Tammy Abraham up top with Dybala, Rui Patricio in goal. Organized in a tight defensive block anchored by Chris Smalling, Roma forced Sevilla out wide and easily rebuffed Sevilla’s attempt to play vertically, and for most of the first half disrupted Sevilla’s patterns of play. 

When Mancini played a beautiful through ball to Dybala that the Argentine coolly stroked past Bono for the early lead, Jose Mourinho could be seen urging his players to settle down, as if he knew it was going to take more than a goal to win the title. 

By the close of the first half Sevilla had grown in the game, but a 1-0 halftime lead is familiar territory for a Mourinho team in a European Final. What foiled Mou’s plans was the introduction by Sevilla of Suso and Lamela, two attacking players. The impact was immediate. Suddenly Seville was moving the ball like the team that knocked off Manchester United and Juventas to get to Budapest. Suso made them click and Lamela made them sharper, and with more of the ball Sevilla was able to ramp up the pressure on Roma, put dangerous balls into the box, one of which banged off Roma’s Mancini for the equalizer in the 55th minute. 

That changed everything. In a blink the shallowness of Roma’s squad was exposed, not to mention that Matic, Mancini, Pellegrini and Cristante were on yellow cards. The best scenario had been for Roma to grind out -- in typical Mourinho style -- a 1-nil victory. Grab the lead and defend, commit fouls, stop play, work the clock, and keep Sevilla from scoring. Now that was out the window. 

Dybala came off after an hour, after giving more minutes than Roma fans could have hoped for, scoring a beautiful goal and throwing himself around in defense. 

But the longer the game went on the better it seemed for Sevilla, and sure enough they navigated the extra periods and won the shootout with the guile and guts of a 7-time champion. By then Roma’s best attacking players, Dybala, Pellegrini, and Abraham were out of the equation. I think a shootout always favored Sevilla. 

What is it about the Europa League that brings out the very best in Sevilla? The reputation of the entire franchise rests on its extraordinary record in this competition. 

No shame for Roma, they gave everything as expected from a Jose Mourinho coached team in a final. They made a few chances, had a bit of ill-luck, but never looked like losing; it was just that winning in open play, with players cramping and running out of gas, didn’t look like happening either. Penalty shoot-outs turn on the thinnest physical and psychological margins, what players are still available, and what’s the optimum kick taking order. It’s pressure-packed. Part mind game. It can go either way and someone has to lose. 

What’s next for Roma? They have one match remaining in Serie A and with a win and an Atalanta loss or draw could capture 5th place, which would salvage something from the domestic campaign. Would that be enough for Mourinho to stay with the club for another season?