Strange Town Revisited (Your Hometown, Newly Unrecognizable)

Found myself in a strange town

Though I've only been here for three weeks now
I've got blisters on my feet
Trying to find a friend on Oxford Street

I bought an A to Z guide book
Trying to find the clubs and YMCAs
But when you ask in a strange town
They say don't know, don't care
And I've got to go, mate
--The Jam, "Strange Town"

"Strange Town" is arguably the Jam's forgotten single. Released in March 1979, the song peaked at #15 UK, right in the middle of a sterling chart run. "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" preceded it; "When You're Young" followed it, yet "Strange Town" only found an outlet on the Canadian pressing of Setting Sons -- issued that November -- and, light-years later, on the Snap! singles compilation.(A US single duly followed, but didn't chart -- fiercely dedicated Anglophile fanbase aside, the Jam remained "a spaceman from these UFOS" in America for much of their career.)

There have been two notable covers, including a Noel Gallagher duet with the song's original composer, Paul Weller, and one by Garbage (albeit a B-side)  All in all, it's a curious position for a song whose theme -- the newcomer struggling to make an impression amid shrugs of indifference from his newfound fellow residents -- sadly, feels truer more relevant than it seemed back in the pre-Internet era that Weller and his Rickenbacker guitar inhabited.

You appreciate the relevancy of those lyrics in your own life. About a decade ago, you moved back to your old hometown for a job that evaporated under your feet. Vague promises of coaching and mentoring were made, then rapidly forgotten, with little or no help from a management that kept itself to itself. Eventually, inevitably, they cut you loose, leaving you adrift in a landscape permanently altered by the imprint of big money -- professional types pouring in from Kalamazoo, northwest Indiana and Chicago. 

Once upon a time, they only came for a weekend getaway here, a seasonal rental there, but lately, the unthinkable has become habitual: they're buying houses and putting down roots, having followed business opportunities, jobs or social relationships that took them there. (In unguarded moments, they even refer to this place as "The Riviera Of The Midwest." Make of that what you will.)

Big money's arrival doesn't take long to make itself felt. As always, the most visible signs happen downtown. The dive bars and mom-and-pop burger and sub shops that typified your youth are disappearing, surrendering to overpriced gastropubs, double-digit wine bars and corporatized coffee shops whose pricing leaves nothing to the imagination. The same reality goes for the beachfront, where "park and pay" is now the rule. You make do by driving past it, or idling your van for a few minutes in a remote area that attracts less attention.

They worry themselves about feeling low
They worry themselves about the dreadful snow
They all ignore me, 'cause they don't know
I'm really a spaceman from these UFOs

The gastropubs make their mark in all the wrong ways: separate charges for similar menu items like burgers and fries, long waits and lines that wind down the block. You shrug your shoulders and stick with the burger joint on which you grew up. The prices aren't creeping up into double digits yet, and the owner brings the food out to you. All that spoils this low-budget vision of paradise is a conspicuous absence of trees, whose next door neighbor has cut most of them down.

A similar all-or-nothing mentality characterizes your hometown's housing stock. This town boasts three major apartment complexes, all built during the '60s and '70s housing boom, when rent didn't gobble up three-quarters or more of your paycheck. For now, though, it seems best to tinker with your current situation -- whose rent has grown from $650 to $760 per month -- than gamble on a tight housing market that's tilting toward an influx of eggshell white or earth-toned brown condos downtown, or crackerbox palaces that charge lower rents -- in most cases, topping out at $500 or $600 per month -- yet offer little or nothing in  services or amenities.

For a further reminder of your place in the scheme of things, you only need look no further than your current complex's parking lot, where it's not unusual to see Hyundai hybrids, Kias and Pruises competing for parking spaces with your 11-year-old Dodge Caravan, which is now beginning to show conspicuous signs of rust along the bottom...and that's before we get to whatever surprises lurk beneath the hood.

I've finished with clubs where the music's loud
'Cause I don't see a face in a single crowd
There's no one there
I look in the mirror
But I can't be seen
Just a thin, clean layer of mister sheen
Looking back at me

The cultural climate proves equally unforgiving. For awhile, you and the wife attend a writer's group at one of the local art centers downtown, until the leader starts charging a hefty fee for everybody's time and participation. "Dig deep" is the motto here. Not  long ago, you saw the fruits of their labors -- chapbooks nestled quietly in a display box near the counter, priced at nine or ten dollars, now barely disturbed and stacked on top of one another, quietly gathering dust.

A similar vibe dogs the other artistic events that you try. Now and again, the art center hosts a couple of poetry open mikes: but those feel formal and stilted, compared to similar events that you've done before.  You must tell the organizers ahead of time what you're reading or performing, and no real audience participation is allowed until you finish The whole thing feels like a hellish piano recital, minus the black keys.

On your own, you play guitar at a handful of open mikes. The experience is a hit-or-miss affair, depending on who shows up -- although you can always count on a healthy contingent of people trafficking in flavors that leave you cold (Birkenstock rock, warmed-over folk and stuffy roots music). 

And, just like when you first tried these things in college, you can count on hearing certain chestnuts again and again -- anything by the Grateful Dead, for example, or Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" -- to the point of listening for mistakes. Needless to say, most of the traffickers don't bother talking to you -- when they can peel themselves away from the mega-entourages that they often bring with them, which is rare.

You've got to move in a straight line

You've got to walk and talk in four four time

You can't be weird in a strange town

You'll be betrayed by your accent and manners

You've got to wear the right clothes

Be careful not to pick or scratch your nose

You can't be nice in a strange town

Cause we don't know, don't care

And we got to go, man

Needless to say, you don't fit in with all the bug-eyed careerists that you encounter, In most cases, their empty chatter revolves around work -- what they're trying to accomplish there, or not, depending on the management's anally retentive tendencies -- or what new toys they've recently acquired, or what they're doing this weekend. 

You tend to avoid such drones if you can, because Stockholm Syndrome isn't part of your psychological makeup -- "How do they get them to identify with your oppressor so vividly?", you often ask yourself -- and neither is bowling alone. In fairness, though, your hometown's soaring new pricing structure makes it tough to sustain social relationships, as everybody's spending so much more time on the work-earn-spend treadmill (yourself included).

You're savvy enough to understand that you're hardly on an equal footing. In most cases, an unspoken expectation hangs in the air: "Play by our rules, or forget it." You give up making suggestions -- whether it's to the local grocery chain store, the municipal powers that be, or the art clique with whom you've already butted heads -- because they seem to humor them. For the most part, however, your ideas will dissipate into the ether, never to be aired again. 

Naturally, this unequal relationship doesn't stop them from pressing you to cover this or that event they're hosting, or pat you on the back and say, "I always read your stuff." You grit your teeth and smile at the predictability -- not to mention the chutzpah -- of such behavior, while you count down the time till you can work on projects that seem more satisfying.

The lack of disposable income makes itself in unusual ways. The other day, you drove past the budget thrift store -- where you and the wife could count on better pricing breaks than the likes of Goodwill, whose unapologetic profiteering would cause Marx to spin in his tomb -- only to find numerous signs announcing its death knell: "PRICES HALF OFF." 

None of these things seemed imaginable as you grew up here. Back then, your hometown seemed fated to remain a coastal backwater, where -- if a place was really swinging, it might stay open till eight or nine o'clock. Nowadays, however, everything's up for grabs. The air hangs thick with the scent of power and prestige that reminds all concerned to either get in line, or get out of the way. "We're a lakefront community," the city fathers constantly remind us. "We're winners now. We better act like it."

You, by contrast, have never felt more alienated and isolated -- "a spaceman from these UFOs," just like the song says. Solutions remain maddeningly elusive, though you're sure of one thing: you didn't pledge allegiance to the in-crowd then...and you're not ready to do it now. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Click 'Em & Steel Yourself)
Carnegie Community Action Project:
A Small Mountain Town Fights Gentrification:
http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/a-small-mountain-town-fights-gentrification/

Chairman Ralph (Guest MP3): "Tourist Trap":
http://chairmanralph.com/sitebuilder/flash/player?f=/featuredsongs/flash/playlist.xml%3Ft%3D59

Planetizen.com:
Is There Such A Thing As "Rural" Gentrification?:
http://www.planetizen.com/node/54684
San Antonio Express News:
Quirky Marfa Feels Growing Pains
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Quirky-Marfa-feels-growing-pains-5617718.php

Socialist Capitalists

Actually, the capitalists have become socialists too, but for THEMSELVES--Bail-outs were basically mega-welfare...--The Squawker

The Real Unemployment Rate: In 20% of All Families, Everyone is Unemployed

The Real Unemployment Rate: In 20% Of American Families, Everyone Is Unemployed

According to shocking new numbers that were just released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of American families do not have a single person that is working.  So when someone tries to tell you that the unemployment rate in the United States is about 7 percent, you should just laugh.

The "official" unemployment rates are a joke---The Squawker

Flat Wage USA: The More Things Change, They More They (Fill In The Blank)...

I've always held vivid memories of this image, which I remember seeing in Otto L. Bettmann's book, The Good Old Days -- They Were Terrible!  While some critics accused Bettmann of going overboard with his debunking of the Gilded Age, published in 1974, the book's most cogent points focus on the glaring income inequalities that characterized the era. That's why this particular image and its caption ("Corporate greed octopus gobbles up freight for Great Railroad while unemployed handlers look on") remains so haunting, and so compelling, more than a century later.

I felt inspired to start this post after doing some research on Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome (1911), of all things. The title character's frustration with his limited resources is an important subtext of the story, which focuses on his failed attempts to start a new life with his lover, Mattie, outside the confines of his marriage.  In researching the story, I came across numerous references to The Working Girls Of Boston (1884), which marked a serious attempt by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor's to document female workers' conditions.

Suffice to say, the conditions these "working girls" endured were horrendous -- including arbitrary bosses, cramped work areas, lengthy schedules, little time off and poor ventilation -- so we need not belabor the point here. In 1880, the bureau reported that the average working girl in Boston earned $269.07 per year. However, once she finished subtracting $261.30 for necessities (food, clothing, shelter and medical care), she took home a whopping $7.77 in discretionary income...and you wonder why everyone frowns so heavily in those 19th century sepia-toned photographs!

While nobody's suggesting that we're back in the Gilded Age -- actually, most wiseguys like yours truly argue that we're at Roaring Twenties levels of inequality -- it's no stretch to suggest that Americans are faring poorly overall in the Discretionary Income & Savings Sweepstakes. One point that the Suze Ormans of the world overlook in all their endless lectures to the groundlings -- y'know, "waste not, want not, why buy that latte when you can put it away on a condo, yada-yada-yada" -- is that, after 30-plus years of flat wages, people have little or no money left to save.

One indicator of this trend is evident from a Bankrate.com survey cited in the following Huffington Post article (see link below, or click the actual survey link for the full gory details). The figure that leaps out is this one: about 25 percent of the adults surveyed by Bankrate between June 6-9, 2013, had no cash reserves for emergencies, while roughly half said they had three months or less of funds -- well shy of the six months that experts recommend. By contrast, 72 percent of those making $75,000 per year or more had at least three months' of emergency savings, compared to 35 percent making less than that sum.

Granted, it's a small survey pool, but those are stark figures, by any measurement. The frustration is fully evident from the comments of interviewees like Kim Norton, who told the Huffington Post: "I rob Peter to pay Paul; I don't spend my money frivolously on crap; I just make sure my kids have what they need. I get really wound up thinking about how you just can't get ahead." That does seem rather unlikely for someone working "part time as a research coordinator through a temp agency" (emphasis ours), as the story suggests -- need we say more?

In many ways, that little tidbit aptly sums up where we are now, along with the never-ending parade of dubious ads from crappy for-profit colleges, gold buying shops and structured settlement purchasing outfits like JG Wentworth...do these images speak to an economy in recovery? The jury's still out on that one, we suspect.

If you're like the great majority, you're probably writing enough checks to float a raft -- noting which companies run to the bank immediately, versus which ones wait a couple days, or even a week, God forbid -- while you pray for the roof not to cave in. Needless to say, though, don't expect any lift from the political classes, because they're having too much fun to care about helping the groundlings to any meaningful degree.

As we've stated here previously, the few measures that the Obama administration has proposed -- a year-long mortgage moratorium here, begging the House of Representatives to extend unemployment there -- have been too weak, timid or half-hearted to benefit people on a massive scale. And, in real terms, whatever Obama propounds now will essentially come too little and too late, since those guys in colonial drag (The Tea PartyRepublicans, basically) have no incentive to make those dreams happen. As the old joke goes, there's a reason why second-term presidents suddenly start talking up their foreign policy accomplishments.

What's often missed in these debates, however, is that these yawning disparities bear the hallmarks of policy. In Washington, access is power, and you can tell who wields it by who's actually sitting at the table. It isn't the inner city resident whose neighborhood lacks a decent supermarket...or the retired firefighter whose pension isn't fully funded...or the senior citizen having to choose between food, or medicine...or the contract worker piecing shit job upon shit job together for the privilege of surviving another day, never mind another week.

As one of my close friends observes, it's as if Ronald Reagan won a seventh presidential term, because the trends that began when he arrived on the scene in 1980 -- help the rich get richer, let the poor stay poorer, hollow out what's left of the middle class -- are more firmly entrenched and noxious than ever. The jabbering continues apace, while relief for the average person seems farther away on the horizon than ever, amid continuing choruses to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". However, as the customs man says at Heathrow Airport, "there's just one small matter": your bootstraps were cut long ago, when nobody was looking.  --The Reckoner

"Sometimes history takes things into its own hands." --Thurgood Marshall, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991)

"Consolidation becomes the fourth chapter of the next book of their history. But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry." -- Thomas Jefferson (A/K/A "The Guy On The Two Dollar Bill")

Links To Go (As Always...Read 'Em And Weep Some More, Eh):
Bankrate.com: June 2013 Financial Security Index Charts:
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/consumer-index/financial-security-charts-0613.aspx

Consumer Reports:
Can Singing Vikings Solve Your Cash Crunch?
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2010/03/can-singing-vikings-solve-your-cash-crunch/index.htm

The Economic Policy Institute:
A Decade Of Flat Wages:
The Key Barrier To Shared Prosperity And A Rising Middle Class
http://www.epi.org/publication/a-decade-of-flat-wages-the-key-barrier-to-shared-prosperity-and-a-rising-middle-class/

The Huffington Post:
75 Percent Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings
To Cover Their Bills For Six Months: Survey:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/americans-savings_n_3478932.html

Collisions With The Piecework Industrial Complex

Knowing people who work in creative or media-related fields has one inevitable side effect: you get asked for advice on all sorts of matters. That's not surprising, because when we're all asked to "Party Like It's 1911" (economically speaking), your financial options are limited to...oh, one from Column A, or Column A.

D'you prefer to get shot, or stabbed? D'you want Tweedledee or Tweedledum playing sneaky panther games with your lives for another two, four or six years? D'you fancy a 22 percent annual percentage rate on your bloody credit, or will 20.99 percent suit you better?  The Evil Of Two Lessers marches on.  And so on, and so forth.  And so on, and so forth...wash, rinse, repeat. 

Exploitation comes in all shapes and sizes. However, it's no secret that the media industry has undergone a column inch tsunami of epic proportions, with plenty of blood shed on the cutting room floor. If you're lucky, you get to hang onto your current lousy job by your fingernails for another year or so, while your equally sad sack employer frantically switches from Blue Cross Michigan to Blue Cross Pennsylvania to Blue Cross Illinois and back again...all in the hopes of squeezing another buck or two off the little that he's spending to keep you around. And so on, and so forth.  And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Or so he claims...the battleship-sized SUV in the parking lot tells a different story, though, doesn't it? At any rate, if you're unlucky, you're sent off to pasture with all the other unlucky sheep or goats that beat you to the punch...but don't worry! There's a solution ahead. Hell, in your less discriminating moments...you might even mistake this one for Column B.

At any rate, with so many journalists scrambling for work, it's heartening to know that some evil mustache twirling flimflam man out there has figured out a solution to keep them busy for another year or two...and it's coming soon, to a town near you...it's The Digital Sweatshop! Lots of different contract work sites are popping up like mushrooms, and while I'm not going to single out any one of them, they all tend to leave equally grimy fingerprints on the gun.

The rates are rock bottom, by industry standards (anywhere from $3-$25 per piece, based on what I've seen)...which doesn't stop the operators from wanting to own all your rights forever, "by any mediums that may yet be printed or discovered, yada-yada-yada"...you know the drill, right? You don't get laid, you barely get paid, with nary a vacation day or benefit in sight...but you sure get to work hard...and talking back isn't on the agenda.

Whatever happens, don't you dare speak up, lad, or that Column B choice will evaporate (along with the few coins tossed into your cup). And so on, and so forth. And so on, and so forth.  Wash, rinse, repeat!

I call this setup, for lack of a better description, The Piecework Industrial Complex, and its demands are getting more outrageous by the day. Recently, a friend of mine explained the travails of applying for a financial advice site that needed people to churn out copy by the pound.  There was only one hitch, though, as he explained.

Apparently, the conversation went something like this:

PIECEWORK POOBAH (PP): "Before we begin the contract, we'd like you to do a trial story first..."

MY FRIEND (MF): "OK, fine, what's the going rate?"

[CUE: Awkward silence, as the "Jeopardy" theme music plays softly in the background.]

PP: "Well, there isn't one, unless we agree to use the story. Otherwise, you don't get paid for it."

MF: "Hmmm....OK, well, how long would this endeavor take, in your estimation?"

PP: "To meet our standards?  A truly well-written, well-researched story would probably take you about eight to 10 hours."

MF: "Hmmm... [CUE more 'Jeopardy' theme music, followed by the sound of crickets chirping in the wilderness.]  I'll have to get back with you on that."

PP: "You can think as long as you like, but we'll have to review your credentials more closely, based on what you've told me earlier...we'll get back to you."

And so on, and so forth.  And so on, and so forth.  Wash, rinse, repeat!

Not having much experience with these sorts of arrangements, I asked my friend to sit tight and hold fire, while I made a contact or two on his behalf...sad to say, though, the agencies tasked with (quote-unquote) "protecting the general public" didn't seem terribly interested in giving me advice on the matter.

In particular, I contacted the California Department of Industrial Relations -- the specific sub-agency's name escapes me at the moment -- but, after a week of hearing those damnable crickets chirping in my ears, it's safe to say that nobody there seems to care. Or, let's be charitable -- they're just elegantly overworked, perhaps.

After a bit more thought, I've since reached a few conclusions:

1. One person's content farm is another person's (quote-unquote) "upstanding outfit." For every company that gets called out for its practices, remember this -- there's loads of others that never get named, but operate in the same way (sign it all away for a fraction now, son, or you won't get the work) -- just on a bigger scale.

2. The reason these little games continue (wash, rinse, repeat!) is because, for every person who flips the bird, 100 chumps elbow each other for their passport to the bottom. And these situations will never change until a bit more '77-era-punk-style awareness spreads more widely than it has, in a long time. Yes, times are tight, but there's never a convenient moment to upset the applecart.

When people stopped believing in the East German Communist paradise, it withered away, just like yesterday's papers. The same thing will happen when people stop feeding the daisy chains of content mills, no-pay media and all those other dubious models that promise endless exposure...but fuck all else for your time and trouble.

3. The exponential growth of self-publishing options appears to promise some refreshing options to the aforementioned problems, too, but your bullshit detector still needs to be humming at top speed -- because all too many seem poised to take your money, even as they nickel 'n' dime you for every service that you want 'em to undertake on your behalf. 

It reminds me of the major-versus-indie-record-label chestnut that went round and round during the '80s and '90s...for all the bitching about who sat behind the desk, 99 percent of those aspiring hopefuls still got cheated at an alarming rate. 

4. There's an old saying in business: "You don't get what you dserve, only what you negotiate." More collective action is needed -- whether we call it an association, a guild or a union doesn't matter. The point is, The Piecework Industrial Complex only wants to deal with you individually, because that way, you don't threaten their power...and you lack any real ability to improve your own lot.

Imagine what like-minded people could do, if they stopped thinking of themselves as mere cogs in the wheel, or so many grains of sand on a beach...and got together to take the high ground. Again, I realize that we're struggling to keep our heads above water, but if we don't start thinking a bit more long-term, we'll never accomplish much else. 

The struggle may be messy, and a better tomorrow is hardly guaranteed -- but it has to start somewhere. That's how I see it, anyway.

At any rate...after talking with my friend...he's not taking up the trial offer. From my perspective, this ending is equally unusual....someone who actually took my advice!  

I suppose I'll file it next to the last noble business I encountered.  And so, and so forth...and so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat! --The Reckoner

LINKS TO GO/FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A Word From David Byrne:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world

"Slaves Of The Internet, Unite":

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/slaves-of-the-internet-unite.html?_r=0

"So Who's Paying All Those Unpaid Writers?":

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-wasserman/so-whos-paying-all-those-_b_2952161.html

Forever A Bum To Your Own Family

                                         [picture from drphil.com]


Remember those old Dr. Phil shows where he would yell at the "mooches"?

I often thought I wonder how many of them are mooches by choice. Sure some of them probably were lazy, "didn't want to work", spent their days hooked up to a meth pipe or pot bong, and playing Warcraft or something...

but what about the ones who simply could not get a decent jobs that would pay for a decent enough apartment, car and life?

While the economy implodes and our newcasters lie about the actual employment rates, how is it to be the person whose family has done well and they have not due to a variety of reasons?

It can be hell on earth.

Many do not understand.

Among some narcissists and some baby boomer types who never suffered, your own lack of financial success is always laid at the foot of your own shortcomings, even if you went to college and worked hard for years at jobs only to be laid off or had your health implode, such things do not matter if the dollars never poured in.

Poor people with better off families are told they are "no good" often for years. You can get a college degree, whip up the resumes, move to seek to improve the almighty career, and then when you are left holding an empty bag, realize those old time social connections aren't there either anymore.

I really worry about young people today who may have had parents do well, and then they go out into a work world that simply doesn't want to know. I went through the same thing but at least I could get a job to pay for a rented room, ramen noodles and milk crates. If there is no job though at all, one is in trouble and can't even manage that.

You're the bum, the elephant in the room no one wants to see or exist. To some of these people they got their first job about of school at the age of 18 and never faced the unemployment line. Maybe they have the right personality, right "look" for modern American. Maybe they did work hard but they also were given the opportunity and pay-out for their hard work.

It disturbs me how if one ends up in "throw-away" status in America, today it's not just the human resources manager looking at you with a jaundiced eye at your cheap suit or dulled shoes but your cruise taking, shopaholic family that definitely sees you as an "embarrassment" too. It can be emotionally devastating. Some people may have kind relatives who want to help them who care, but one thing I have noticed about some within the upper middle class world is they only want to keep company with their own kind. Your concerns are off their radar.

There's too many people out there who realized they became too poor even to be accepted, included or loved by their families, but then that one comes from the moral decay in America, and from the prevalent narcissism that is in many ways collapsing the economy from the top tiers to begin with.

Your lack of money is seen as a personal failing and if it lasts too long you are resented, hated and rejected.

In America today there are these class divisions between families. To the liberals who yell "First World problems" at poor or working class people in America who dare speak of their problems, sometimes the Third World sounds like a better deal, at least you are not hated or rejected for things that are beyond your control, your kinfolk are in the same boat with you. Many of the immigrants are smart because they share resources, there's no such thing as Mama or Sis living in a McMansion while their disabled or poor adult child lives in a broken down trailer with no running water or in a cardboard box in the street.

Even if you have a family that may have helped you years ago, there's a pound of flesh to be extracted. As the merciless employers rip out the carpet beneath you or your husband, rejection often comes from the family too. You are not a source of pride but someone to be ignored and hidden away. They help you with a car repair to keep you from the streets and their front stoop and their resentment grows and your self-respect dies. There is never enough money, only shame. Another job lay-off and the invitations dry up. These types who will tell you "We worked hard!" when you tell them not to be so down on the poor, will tell you straight to your face, people are poor because they deserve it. They will tell you that you are "entitled" if you desire a job that will keep a roof over your head and a car to get there.

                                          [picture source]

And that is a horrible fact of modern American life, rich relatives aren't so nice to the poor ones. Your Tea-Party loving shark uncle will write that all poor people are losers, as he is brainwashed by the elite to blame the victims of the economy while paying homage to the bankers and multinational corporations outsourcing all the jobs. Your mother who never went to college and got her good job via nepotism, and who won the insurance Lotto, will roll her eyes with disgust at you for years as she shops til she drops and buys a second home in Florida. Your sister will tell you that your 800 square foot working class apartment [even in a decent area] is "too small" for a visit and look down on you from turned up nose for eons. She was C and D student but because she married a six-figure executive...so she rose up the ranks in the family forever more.

                                         [from Zero Hedge]

Younger people forced to move home, sometimes will deal with the parents who will say "When are you going to move out?" as they struggle to get a job or an affordable apartment. Often the families are as merciless as the bosses who cut hours or wages. Older people face the middle life crisis of realizing they will never make their parents proud, they will be the family "bum" and that success has eluded for far too long. Hope taken away as one remembers one's old life where opportunity at least seemed to reigned supreme and one seemed to have a good future. Sad faced regretful 40-somethings living with disgusted elderly mothers. 20-somethings with heads hanging down low trudging down the basement stairs coming home from low-paid jobs telemarketing or doing day-care or filling out job applications with their father screaming "Mooch! Loser! Bum!" So many left unaware of what awaits them as they exit the college world into the you're just another number in line unless you have connections. One ponders how did some relatives do so well? Doors opened to them with ease, as the padlock on yours seemed to grow bigger.

Years of knowing you never could afford decent presents for nieces or nephews or vacations to see anyone. Knowing that you are forever a bum to even your own family because the jobs were as disloyal as they were.

Poverty is a scythe that cuts into relationships.  DNA doesn't always cross the class barrier.---The Squawker

Dead Stores

As the American way of life dies out, and we become a Third World country, one's childhood memories of stores can be pretty intense in seeing so much closed down. Many remember going shopping at some of the stores above, and now they are all gone. Some try to blame the internet for the defunct retail store but that is not the whole story by any means. Jobs disappeared and so did expendable income, and thusly, so did shopping, except for bare necessities. Say goodbye to a thriving retail market!

What other stores could be added to this list?

Blockbuster
Borders Books
Frank's Nursery & Crafts

Radio Shack has been struggling.
Sears is having major problems.
JC Penny has had to lay off many people.
K-Mart is on the way out

Here's a far more comprehensive list:

DEFUNCT RETAILERS IN THE USA

Here's a video about dead malls in America:



America is becoming a waste land of empty store fronts. We have the closed stores here in our local area and a zombie mall, where a church rented one of the old big department stores and only a few stores remain open--The Squawker.

Poverty Rates Surge in the Suburbs

The first woman is fortunate to be able to live with a relative, imagine where she would be living on $19,000 a year or $1,400 a month? The jobs are paying far less. For a job I made $11 an hour in the mid 1990s before I was disabled; they now pay people only $8 an hour and still expect some education.

Many people who grew up in the suburbs with parents that did well, are now facing the fact they cannot get jobs like their parents held or make anywhere near the money they did and maintain the same lifestyles.. However, the mother that this lady lives with is working two jobs to keep expensive property taxes paid on a small two bedroom house.  One thing I am glad the video points out, is that many of these poor people are WORKING and just not making enough to pay for food and other necessities. They talk about Suffolk County, where the cost of living is higher. That applies to a lot of places now.

Many futurists have written that the suburbs will be the ghettoes of tomorrow.---The Squawker

War on Homeless Graphic

                                                                [from poverty infographics on Pinterest]-- The Squawker

Shining Mr. Lincoln's Shoes (Letter To The Powers That Be, 1998)

"He's a temporary contract man

Since the union lost its clout

Got no meds or benefits
He's living hand to mouth

"In the shadow of the monument

He finally paid his dues

Dying of a heart attack

Shining Mr. Lincoln's shoes..."

(Wayne Kramer, "Shining Mr. Lincoln's Shoes")

While rummaging through our proverbial back pages, The Squawker and I have run across some interesting artifacts of our past. That's one of the fascinating things about cleaning: you never know what you're going to find, of which the following letter (below) stands out as a good example.

We've racked our brains, but can't recall where the letter went. The date coincides with our brief (three-and-a-half year) flirtation with the urban bohemian lifestyle, but -- other than that -- we can't recall the destination. At first, I assumed that we'd targeted one of the local alternative weeklies, until The Squawker reminded me: "Have you forgotten all the trouble that you encountered with temp agencies?"

And that's when the penny dropped, as they say in England.  I did a fair amount of office temping when we started our big city tenure. My best experience came as a phone collector at a microfilm company, where the assignment actually lasted the full three weeks. Most of the "slow-pay-no-play" clientele in this situation were established businesses, which diminished much of the guilt that you might have felt (say) for pursuing the marginal earners...but I digress.

On the last day, our boss actually bought doughnuts for all of us contract types, which I've never seen anybody do before, nor since. The typical assignments, however, never lasted more than a couple days, or a week. On one occasion, yours truly found himself told not to return after putting in an eigh-hour shift rearranging and organizing shelves at a hardware store...because the owner came in, and didn't like the look of me. I still remember the paycheck: $64 for the day, of which $8 went back to Caesar in taxes!  Over to you, Mr,  Kramer, for that last verse:

"In the shadow of the monument

With those mop-n-bucket blues

His soul sang sweet surrender

While shining Mr. Lincoln's shoes..."

Eventually, I found a dreary office job that required 45 minutes of travel back and forth every day to some northern suburban enclave -- which, for awhile, seemed like a better bargain than patching together this or that assignment to satisfy the weekly and monthly bottom line. However, my lasting memory of those daily bus rides isn't the job itself, nor my co-workers, but the ugly '50s and '60s architecture dotting the town...great, big lumps of concrete with right angles and corners jutting out here, there and there, I'd always think...how much money did someone plunk down to get the village looking like this?

In any event, the following letter brings back numerous memories of my short-lived temping experiences, which The Squawker and myself saw chronicled in 'zines like Temp Slave -- then, and now, one of the few publications that told the truth about what was really happening then. I have vivid memories of seeing the Redi-Men buses cruising the city, sneaking a glance at the occupants as they kept their heads down, or gazed randomly out the window, wondering how to play the crooked hand that life had dealt them...feeling too exhausted to do anything about today, and uncertain if tomorrow might bring anything marginally better.

Few knew it then, I'm sure, but the system was grooming everyone involved for a new life...the 19th-century-style insecurity of the Gigger Nation, and the uncertain world of shining Mr. Lincoln's shoes.  The letter follows now...

December 13, 1998

OK, Folks --

Your latest fly-the-flag-of-capitalism pitch is like watching a multi-cubicle pileup on the interstate. You've lost track of the flying glass and metal shards because you refuse to see what you're seeing. Your smart-mouthed managers' work-hard-play-by-the-rules pitch is nauseating in all its naked dishonesty, so stark and stunning is the mental impoverishment on display here.

To recap -- only a complete fool, or Armani-coated apologist, is unaware that capitalism creates savage, unforgiving divisions in society. To shrug one's shoulders and say, "I'm all right, Jack, but if you're not, that's not my problem," sounds suspiciously like Marie Antoinette's parting words before those unwashed lemmings stormed the Bastille to kick her powdered-wigged ass. In an American society speedily returning to Twenties-on-Prozac levels of inequality, your commercial is a gross insult to working people dying on the vine, with nothing to show for all their college-educated, 50- to 60-hour workweeks except loss of meaningful benefits, and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Oh, and while I'm clearing out my chest's unbridled arsenals of rage against your slack-jawed, complacent idiocy, let's not forget that a great majority of wealth -- in America, or anywhere else, for that matter -- is inherited. My current boss currently owes his $1.2 million annual gross ($180,000 per month, you denim-clad morons!) to his dad's death in 1983. Like an old plate, the bugger expired, and his son cashed in accordingly -- who, incidentally, thinks nothing of cheating his own salespeople out of $25 commissions (or paying me $9.75 per hour, sans benefits).

Ah, there I go, getting pissed again, what's the use -- I'm sure some weaselly spinmaster at your company will fire off some mindless "now there, there, it's not all bad" letter, or the equally inane, "Aw, c'mon, man, it's just a commercial, can't you take a joke?"

Don't waste your time if either response emanates from your stinking spin mill. Save it for the Third World men and women struggling to keep body and soul together in your vast, octopus-like sweatshop network. I'm not sure if they'd be able to afford a corrugated tin shanty on what you pay them!

No Regards,
The Reckoner & The Squawker

CODA: PS...
Whilst looking around for suitable images to accompany these unfortunate recollections, I came across an interesting broadside from a German anarchist group that's launched a campaign to abolish temp work:

http://libcom.org/library/abolish-temporary-work-campaign-fau-iwa

The heading in the graphic ("Gleicher Lohn fur gleicher Arbeit! Leiharbeit Abschaffen!") roughly translates to, "Equal pay for equal work! Abolish temporary work!"...though, honestly, I preferred the original Google translation for the last half of the slogan ("Leiharbeit Abschaffen!" = "Temporary Exterminating!").

At any rate, you'll find some interesting commentary awaiting you, once you pull that translation trigger.  For more disturbing reading, look no farther than The New York Times ("Temporary Workers, Permanent Problems": 6/28/13):

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/temp-workers-permanent-problems/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

For me, the phrase that leaps out is this one: "The temp industry is expanding at a rate 10 times that of the private sector -- it's easy to speculate that this growth comes at the expense of full-time jobs." D'oh, y'think? Nah, never mind...anyway, to round things off, here's the song that started this whole meditation:

"Shining Mr. Lincoln's Shoes" (Wayne Kramer):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lgPoHKZZZE

"Happy" reading and listening, one and all...The Reckoner

Merry Anti-Christmas, Everyone (Or Is That Merry Crassmas?)

Fittingly, this entry will hit the virtual presses as soon as the holiday has almost wound down -- wouldn't be an anti-Christmas if it ran on time, right?  Well, our West Coast and Australian/New Zealand readers still have few hours of celebration left, I imagine...like its namesake holiday, one suspects that an anti-Christmas is in the eye of the beholder, which suits The Squawker and myself perfectly.

Today's lead image from Crass's infamous Merry Crassmas EP (1981) sums up our long-running ambivalence about the whole Yule business. As releases go, it's surely among the strangest ever put on vinyl. Each side featured a medley of Crass favorites, played instrumentally on a rinky-dink-sounding organ, after which Santa himself re-entered the proceedings to wish us some holiday cheer -- but not the sort that turkey lovers might have expected!

If you figured out all the relevant song titles, you could win a) bath salts, b) one Exploited single or c) two Exploited singles from the band (if memory serves me correctly). Amazingly, the whole business proved enticing enough to earn a #2 UK indie chart placing at the time.

On one hand, you're constantly reminded to feel cheery and merry, even if those sentiments aren't reflected in your take-home pay, work schedule or personal situation.  If you're among the 7.7 million Americans forced by circumstances to work part-time -- according the latest figures released on December 6, by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) -- you might not be blamed for feeling a bit less merry than your brethren.

The airwaves get equally cloying, as the FM arteries clog with the same perennial 45 rpm showcases spun into the ground for the umpteenth time -- "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," anyone? -- and the boob tube offers the same lack of respite. The Squawker and myself opted for the Sundance Channel's Mel Brooks marathon. As I write this entry, I'm watching "The Producers," and feeling thankful for the option.

Honestly, who wants to eyeball "A Christmas Story," "A Christmas Carol" (in all its infinite guises) or "It's A Wonderful Life" for the millionth-bloody-umpteenth holiday cycle? As good as all those films are, they've run so often that you feel like you're counting sheep...thus, robbing the stories of their emotional impact.

And that's before we get the adverts -- if I have to see those bland yuppie drones blathering one more time about how the Trojan Vibrating Twister has inspired them to bonk like rabbits when they're home from work ("We...kick off our shoes...and go straight to bed...y'know. Same thing."), I think I'm going to reach for my hatchet...or my sick bag...or my gas mask...or some combination of the above.

Even the mundane side of the Yuletide tradition is no less perplexing and confusing. Last night, I had to rush around -- like all the other faces in the crowd -- to grab some last-minute items for the hearth (specifically, our turkey dinner). At 7:40 p.m.-ish (or so), I dashed through the entrance of the last store in town still greedy enough to stay open on Christmas Eve. It was the third one I'd visited.

As the greeter helpfully reminded me, "We're closing in 15 minutes," I slipped and fell on my left knee. I scraped myself off the floor, grabbed a cart and joined the same undignified scramble as my fellow shoppers, amid announcements that broke my concentration every five minutes to tell us exactly when the store was shutting down ("At this time, shoppers, I need you to make your way to the registers...they're going down at eight o'clock...and if you're late...you won't be able to complete your shopping").


Against all odds, I managed to find myself in a never-ending line by 7:55 p.m. -- no mean feat, since the physical layout of most American groceries puts them on a par with walking across the U.S.S. Saratoga, or an equally imposing aircraft carrier -- and took a moment to glance around, trying to read the glances around me, wondering if they felt reminded of family members that they didn't want to see, the office parties they were trying to forget, the accumulated mountain of debt they'd be staring down in the new year.

I wondered if the BLS still considered these folks unemployed, or bumped them down into the categories of discouraged worker (762,000), or marginally attached to the labor force (2.1 million -- who don't figure in the jobless count, because they hadn't looked for work in the four week run-up to the latest survey). Perhaps you're among the roughly 1.3 million Americans losing extended jobless benefits this month, because the political classes want you to party like it's 1893...the only problem is, it's 2013, although I often have a hard time convincing myself of that fact.

Oh, wait a minute -- you don't fancy yourself a vegetarian? Well, if you're among the 2.8 million who'll be booted out of the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) next year, you'll get a chance to emulate the meatless anarchistic lifestyle a bit sooner than you think. Or maybe you're among the 140,000 estimated low-income families losing rental assistance vouchers -- a move that Congress's accounting masterminds anticipate will save $2 billion (the same ones, presumably, who low-balled the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts, right?) .

Are you a low-income senior? Don't worry, you haven't been left out of the budget meat cleaver that's whistling everybody's way. Meals on Wheels program cuts will mean roughly four to 18 million less meals for shiftless scroungers like yourself next year, of what seems likely to signal a new round of federal bloodletting. Given all those challenges that many of us face next year, it's tempting to see why "Bah, humbug!" might be a more sane and rational political response than the perennial Pollyanas might have you believe.

In that spirit, visit the link to Merry Crassmas below, find a can of Foster's lager (or two), and crank it up accordingly...oh, and while we're at it...have an anti-Christmas, and an anti-New Year. Or a merry Crassmas, perhaps. Really, it's on us... --The Reckoner

Merry Crassmas EP On Soundclound:
https://soundcloud.com/southern/merry-crassmas

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Employment Report For November 2013:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

The Week
How To Stick It The Poor: A Congressional Strategy
http://theweek.com/article/index/253820/how-to-stick-it-to-the-poor-a-congressional-strategy

Just Who Is The Five O'Clock Hero? (Not The Political & Professional Classes: They Still HAVE Jobs)

"Hello, darlin', I'm home again

                        Covered in shit and aches and pains

Too knackered to think, so give me time to come round

                                                                   Just gimme the living room beat to the TV sound"

("Just Who Is The Five O'Clock Hero?")

In our previous post ("Going Underground: Five Signs That We're Marching Backwards In Time"), we cited five essential statistics that document the continual unraveling of America's social fabric.

Now comes another sign that America's unwillingness to put a stake through its never-ending voodoo economic experiment isn't paying off -- in this case, via the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' unemployment summary for September, which showed the economy adding a mere 148,000 jobs.

And what did we learn about the "official" unemployment rate? At 7.2 percent, it's largely unchanged. 

Number of long-term unemployed (27 weeks or more)? At 4.1 million, largely unchanged. Labor force participation rate? At 63.2 percent, largely unchanged. 

Number of people forced to work part-time, for purely economic reasons? At 7.9 million, largely unchanged. 

If this sounds like your definition of success...you need to have your head examined. For the rest of the story, go here: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

"My hard earned dough goes in bills and the larder
                            And that Prince Philip tells us we gotta work harder

It seems a constant struggle just to exist

Scrimping and saving and crossing of lists"

When I saw the bureau's release, I immediately thought of this slow-burning lament to the common man, if you like, written by Paul Weller in tribute to the "real heroes" of Britain -- "the ordinary geezer or girl...who works 9 till 5 keeping the country going by working in [a] food shop or clothes factory..." (Mike Nicholls: About The Young Idea: The Story Of The Jam 1972-1982, p. 102).

Mind you, the common man has proven all too easy to lionize in contemporary pop culture -- as numerous second- and third-division street punk bands have shown -- but the lyrics quoted throughout this post ring all too true today. In just two minutes and 15 seconds, Weller lays bare the dilemma that all too many of us are now experiencing, of "scrimping and saving, and crossing off lists." 

Originally imported from Holland, the song reached #8 on the UK charts in the summer of 1982, and became a standby of the band's subsequent "Trans-Global Unity Express" tour. It's heartening to hear that Weller has recently begun performing the song again on his own, albeit at a slower-burning pace than the original tempo. 

The mood and lyrics remind me of an equally timely observation from University of Michigan economist Sheldon Danziger: "Many Americans continue to think that a rising tide lifts all boats. But the bad news is that given the way economic growth trickles down now, the number of poor and disadvantaged will remain high unless we do more to help those in need." 

Perhaps he was thinking about the number of Americans living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's own dismal figures for September: at 46.5 million, largely unchanged.

"From this window I've seen the whole world pass
                  From dawn to dusk I've heard the last laugh laughed

I've seen enough tears to wash away this street

I've heard wedding bells chime and a funeral march"

Now that the U.S. government shutdown finally ran its course -- after 16 slash 'n' burning days -- what's even more striking is the utter lack of ideas on display.

Republicans remain firmly wedded to their supply-side gospel, which is repeated as devoutly as the rosary; most of their Democratic peers cling to an equally moth-eaten mantra of "rising-tides-lift-all-boats"...even though the yacht, figuratively speaking, has long pulled out of the harbor (and left everyone else to drown in the resulting wake).

Before the shutdown flared up, 34 percent of participants in a CBS/New York Times poll identified jobs and the economy as "the most important problem facing the country today". By contrast, just 8 percent mentioned health care, and 6 percent, the deficit -- the two issues that defined President Obama's latest steel-cage encounter with his equally clueless antagonists. Can we say disconnect, anyone?

"When as one life finishes another one starts
             Alright then, love, so I'll be off now
                         It's back to the lunch box and worker-management rows

There's gotta be more to this old life then this

Scrimping and saving and crossing of lists"

As the above poll suggests, the people below have already figured out what the decision-makers above seem unwilling to grasp. Yes, the deficit is a major problem, but if you haven't worked in awhile, or can't get past part-time or temp status, you're unlikely to break out the confetti, if Congress cooks up a "grand bargain" that's proven elusive (at best) and wishful thinking (at worst).

An entire generation is being lost, written off and consigned to the margins of oblivion, while the political class diddles and fiddles, dithers and slithers, fritters and twitters, stumbles and fumbles, all too accustomed to the contours of tailored "power" suits, lifetime benefits and never-ending perks and privileges. Recall how they kept their own paychecks going during the shutdown, while the statisticians responsible for tracking the social train wrecks that they let loose were sitting idle at home. The irony needs no elaboration.

And so it goes, on and on and on and on and on, without a hint of change in the air...but if we don't take it upon ourselves to put pressure on those who need it most, we all know how this particular movie will end. -- The Reckoner