The Squawker Returns: "The Poor...Is Separated From His Neighbor"

<"The Dividing Line":

The Reckoner>

Wealth maketh many friends; 

but the poor is separated from his neighbor.
Proverbs 19:4 

"It's the story of my life, paralyzed in the headlights

Looking out from the inside, same old story of my life

Vice Squad ("The Story Of My Life")

Want to know how your friends, or even your enemies, are really doing? Just look for them on Facebook. If they're flush with cash, they'll let you know. If they're struggling, you won't find them. Like ghosts, they drop out of sight, ducking any attempt to capture them on film or video. 

That's the conclusion I've reached after seeing what happened to a friend of mine, who retired from the administrative job that she'd held for 30 years. We used to see each other at one of the churches we'd periodically visit for food, whenever our own resources ran out. Judging by her Facebook posts, she really seemed to have it all.

There she was, trotting off to Chicago for ball games. There she was, hosting large parties of 50-plus people at the height of COVID, without a mask in sight. I always took her for a Republican, but that told me, loud and clear. There she was, going out with this friend or that one, to places that the Reckoner and I couldn't afford. Where'd she get all the money for that stuff?

These days, I don't know, because she dropped off the social media radar about eight months ago. I barely see her on Facebook anymore, and when I do, it's usually terse updates from her book groups. I wondered what was going on, until I heard what happened through the grapevine. She lost her retirement when the corporate bully changed its mind, and walked her benefits back. What looked like a great sendoff evaporated overnight.

If she's not on Facebook, I understand why. Seeing people out visiting all their friends and having fun can be difficult as hell, especially during a pandemic. How'd they afford that trip to Tennessee? Look how much fun they're having with their families and friends. I was struggling with this stuff even before COVID, seeing people caught up in a whirlwind of gatherings -- graduations, parties, weddings -- that take MONEY to pull off. Gas needs to be bought, hotels booked, meals taken out. How do these people afford all that?

Poor you has paid your bills for the month and there's only enough money to buy a Burrito, yeah, there's your "fun" for the month, aren't you thrilled? Post that burrito with those lettuce and tomato slices on social media! Time passes by and the memories everyone else makes are lost to you.

Poverty hurts relationships. You can't afford to visit people and your relationships ebb with time. The Reckoner and I haven't been able to afford a trip to our old hometown since we left over a decade ago. (He did make it back a couple times to play there, but I don't count them, since I didn't get to go along.) 

Now that we finally have a working van, and some discretionary money, what happens? We can't go far, because the anxiety of using public bathrooms and spaces, plus the stress of playing human dodgeball, is too nerve-wracking to think about.

It's a continuation of my pre-COVID struggles, when I went without seeing some relatives for too long, and those relationships withered, as well. I became a stranger. Would they have loved me if I had money? It eats like gall within my soul. A rich, spoiled Baby Boomer mother, too embarrassed to even have you around. Years of being made to feel like pond scum, because, for some reason, others in your family were loved enough to get good jobs and a chance and a place to belong. Not you and yours, though.

Who wants to be around people who always have their hands out and never have any money? Who wants a friend who can't even afford a Greyhound to come and see you? Even if you hide your desperation, it shows. People hate when you are poor. It makes you boring. You can't go out to eat, or go on trips, you are always in need. You are the "mooch". Your clothes don't fit right, you get too fat, they are tight, you lose a little bit of weight, your dress keeps sliding off your shoulder, it sucks.

Normal people make goals. But goals cost money, too. And there's that elephant in the room, COVID-19, getting in our way again. The Reckoner and I haven't made it back to the gym since all this madness started, but for now, we're just letting the bank deduct our $30 memberships per month, until we figure it's cool to return.

People suggest solutions for you to fix your shitty life, and "get it together" instead of being a disabled "loser". All of it costs money. The stimulus checks have interrupted that groove a little bit, at least. Before COVID, we'd pay our rent, medical bills and the little bit of food that would run out in a week. Even then, it took tons of cooking from scratch to stretch our budget. 

Once we paid the cable, electric, Internet, insurance and rent, by the 15th of the month, we'd barely have $50 between us, and we might still have to shell out seven bucks for a prescription co-pay here, or 10 bucks, to buy some hearing aid batteries there.

You'd feel like you were circling a never-ending drain, as you wondered, what's gonna happen the rest of the month? Oh, wait, maybe we have a few more books or records we can sell. Let's try that again. But why doesn't anything sell on eBay like it used to? Maybe because everybody else has the same idea, I guess. 

Being disabled means you burn with shame, and despair inside at what has "become of your life" and wake up every morning in tears. What else is there to do, but sit at home, and live vicariously through "Better Call Saul" and "Fargo," and reality TV shows? You do the housework, dying a little bit with each wipe, remembering all the richer ladies you made the mistake of showing your apartment, who went off twittering among themselves about how little you owned.

I thought of my friend when the Reckoner and I were running errands around town today, and we happened to drive past a food pantry. I craned my neck to look more closely. It's all the usual stuff, lots of milk and potatoes, sugar and carbs by the truckload, because they really think that's all we want to eat.

I swear I'm not going back to food pantries, either, because I'm allergic to most of the stuff they hand out, or it doesn't fit a diet that's turning partially vegetarian, so i can avoid the horror of kidney stones. 

Also, I'm not a Christian anymore, and I'm not comfortable with what the established churches are pushing. It's the same reason I don't go to my friend's book groups anymore, because it's gotten too awkward for me to dodge the whole issue. It's the same reason, I'm sure, my friend has vanished from Facebook.

But that Bible quote says it all, doesn't it? Money drives a wedge between us, and it's not hard to figure out why. I wonder how many people are having conversations like mine, and if my friend is joining them. Or if she's finally figured out the red thread running through it all. --The Squawker

Hey Hey (My My): Get Your Own F#cking Sandwiches

<The clipping that launched a broadside...>

<Photo: The Reckoner>

Reckoner's Note: In keeping with our latest run of "blasts from the past," here's another one that made me think, "I wouldn't have to change a word. Or, at least, change most of them." I happened to read this column (above) from that shameless nostalgia peddler, Bob Greene, and ended up writing the following broadside (below) in response. 

There's no date here, which is unusual -- since I'm big on recordkeeping -- but my writing references the column date (11/20/98), so I'm assuming it came right on the heels of reading Greene's column. It also looks like I wrote two different intros, so I've marked them as such. (For more about Bob Greene himself, and the shameless nostalgia angle that earned him such disdain -- among other criticisms -- see the Wikipedia link below.)

At the time, I was planning to do a 'zine, which I envisioned as a mixture of music-related writing, and more personal messages from the floorboards, like this one. Let's face it -- the Baby Boomer generation, to which Bob so unabashedly nailed his mast, were every bit as overweening and annoying, as self-righteous and self-reverential, as tone deaf and tin-eared then, as they are now.

Ironically, the only saving grace is the unforgiving pace of current events. The spiraling toll of economic and social inequality, one largely shaped by Boomer-era politicians like Joe Biden, makes it harder and harder to paper over the groans and wheezes of an eroding empire. Or, to put another way, you wouldn't have heard anyone saying, "OK, Boomer?" in the Oh-So-Ironic '90s, when slacker and supervisor alike could pretend that everything was kinda, cool, man...or something...even as the skies above them continued to darken.

For various boring reasons, I put my 'zine plans on hold, though I'm finding myself tempted back into the game. At any rate, here is this piece, in all its scabrous unflinching glory...read it for yourself, as you ponder the scale of the social annoyance, and wonder... "Hey, why'd it take so long to say 'OK, Boomer,' anyway?" -- The Reckoner

HEY HEY, MY MY:

GET YOUR OWN F#CKING SANDWICHES

<Intro/Take I>

You know what the whipping boys 'n' gals look like now: pouty-lipped, rail-thin, overly-cynical attitude spouters. Yes, Generation X returns for ritual bloodying, this time at the hands of Bob Greene, that Chicago Tribune cash cow who used his fiftieth birthday as sufficient pretext to relive those "golden years" in Bexley, Ohio -- the Sixties.

As the Boomers never tire of reminding anyone stuck in an elevator with their gilded windbag pronouncements, the Xers don't get it. They don't know what they've got, runs the prevailing argument, because they don't know what hit them. So spouts Chairman Bob in an 11/20/98 column, in which he quoted a retail consultant (of all people) pontificating on why "members of Generation X don't make good flight attendants" (of all things). 

Why? Not optimistic enough. Too resentful. Too eager to pass up "ground floor" opportunities, even if they're wrapped in minimum wage clothing. Too cynical and self-conscious for their own good. 

Adding insult to injury, the retail flack said Generation X might best emulate those up and coming Generation Yers, or anybody decided those unwashed Xers aren't deep-pocketed enough to buy much more than Nirvana CDs. Our national paladins have essentially written them off.

<Intro/Take II>

We've all had brushes with serfdom, even the high 'n' mighty. So says former Led Zeppelin roadie Richard Cole, in his tatty, tell-all tome, Hammer Of The Gods (1985), in which he claims Robert Plant's frontman role was decidedly shaky on those maiden American tours (1969-70).

In Cole's mind, that apparently justified teasing the singer into fetching sandwiches for everyone. Not getting the punchline, Plant seethed... 

"Get 

your own 

f#cking sandwiches!" 

History does not record who finally ended up with the room service tray.

But Plant finally ascended the heavenly escalator to Pop God Nirvana: America's least-favored Dead End Kids won't get any closer than playing air guitar in the mirror. 

To Bob Greene's clueless 11/20/98 Chicago Tribune column, those pouty-lipped, rail-thin, "resentful" Generation Xers aren't good for anything but poaching pocketfuls of attitude.

Captain Clueless gives most of his column over to some retail consulting spokesman, who (apparently) wouldn't hire anyone born between 1965 and 1977 as a flight attendant. While Xers are too cynical about "entry-level" opportunities, whether they're couched in "living" or "minimum wage" clothing, those up 'n' coming Generation Yers (born after 1977) are only too happy to smile, "Coffee, tea or milk, sir?" 

For those who haven't noticed, Yers hold the corporate media's current endorsement, after its paladins us rail-thin Xers aren't deep-pocketed enough to buy more than recycled Nirvana CDs.

<Remainder>

To paraphrase the late William Burroughs, Captain Clueless and his cohort hold little more than "a thin tissue of horseshit." The avalanche of self-produced cartoons, CDs, films and 'zines? Just a fluke, they'd say. 

The Internet revolution, which nearly everyone but the Boomer windbags considers an Xer-driven phenomenon? Lightning strikes twice, but no more. The relatively flat participation rate after 1992's and 1994's oft-hyped "Rock The Vote" drives? Guess Mumblin' Michael Stipe was too busy touring with REM to lead his Xer flock to the polls, right?

It's no surprise that the media wolfpacks who tripped over each other to publish a phony "grunge dictionary" have blown their gig again. To them, Nirvana's late singer-guitarist served two convenient roles: "Grunge Generation spokesman," a label the man openly detested, and Halloween mask for his fandom's worst excesses. If they can't vote, or put one foot in front of the other, runs such reasoning, why listen to their nonstop "whining"?

Of all the Baby Boomers' revisionist lies, the Addled Xer stereotype ranks among their most offensive creations. Well, I'm not sitting on my hands on this one. To quote their heroic Rolling Stones, I've got resentment if you want it. 

Try living in Mayor Richard Daley's increasingly-gentrified Chicago, with meat going for $3-4 per pound, $60 city stickers that only spare you an endless stream of parking tickets (if you don't buy them), and a tax burden oppressive enough to embarrass the most predatory of lenders. On paper, my office flunky's salary nets me $17,000 annually. When Mayor Daley and Governor George Ryan finish rifling my pockets, I'm busted back to $11,000 per year.

Now, throw in my annual lunch expenses ($1,200 per year, based on $5 per day, $25 per week, $100 per month), and bus fares ($912 per year, or $18 per week, $72 per month), and it's easy to see the resentment, without even counting utilities (Chicagoans pay some of the highest nationwide). 

By contrast, I've only gotten 75 cents in raises over my last two years (from $9.00 to $9.75 an hour), yet my expenses have hardly held steady. Show me some hallowed small business hero running his office that way, and I'll show you somebody running themselves into the ground. Yet I only get five sick days; apparently, for my employer, that's good enough.

Whether Captain Bob and his fellow fiftysomething minions know it or not, this picture I've painted doesn't radically differ from a great majority of Xers (whose veins might betray a disappointing absence of track marks). I've been lucky on two counts: I've held numerous writing jobs related to my degree, and my current jobs allows our household a certain minimal standard of living. 

What's really scary, though, is seeing so many folks getting by on so much less, hoping somebody will toss them a lifeline...before they go under for a third time.

<Coda>

Of course...don't count on a Boomer for such assistance. Selflessness isn't their style, especially when they've three post-Sixties decades to conceal their loot in stocks, bonds and mutual funds. In such a ladder-pulling climate, it's hardly surprising to find Seventies nostalgia more prevalent than ever. The working stiff should certainly feel some fondness for 1973, the last (officially documented) across-the-board increase in wages.

What have we got to show for two decades of flattened paychecks? An increase among militia memberships and religious cults, among countless random acts of craziness. Where Captain Bob's generation benefited from the affluent Sixties, Cobain's so-called Xer Army struggled a softening late Eighties economy, one where low-paying service jobs multiplied faster than grasshoppers.

These are well-established facts among folks who don't have a major axe to grind, yet nuggets like Captain Bob's column indicate a deliberate misrepresentation of them. I have no illusions, in this lifetime, of coming near anywhere Bob's reported salary ($750,000, plus perks), but still, some sort of therapeutic cleansing seems appropriate. 

In that spirit, let me offer Bob and his consultant friend some basic advice, just so we don't misunderstand one another.

Next time, just get your own fucking sandwiches. And your own coffee, too. --The Reckoner

Links To Go:
Bob Greene: Wikipedia Biography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Greene#Dismissal_from_the_Tribune

Life's Little Injustices (Take XVI): Do You Get Fries With That? Hell, No!

<https://consciouslifenews.com/video-shows-mcdonalds-fries-made-eat/1191801/>

<i.>

The minute we checked out the menu, I knew we were in trouble. The Squawker and I had stopped off at this roadside diner, Paisano Italiano, for lunch, while running the usual errands that tug at your brain, and wear down your patience, but still have to be done. We'd eaten here a couple years ago, but if you like something once, you'll like it again, right?

But I began having second thoughts when I scanned the prices. The cheaper meals started at $11-12, and rapidly escalated from there, to $15, and up. 

So I quickly flipped the page, and looked at the sandwiches. "This might be the only thing I can afford here," I told Squawker. "Otherwise, I'm not sure how this'll work, even if we just get water to drink." This is what you tell yourself between paydays: decisions, decisions.

"Yeah, I see what you mean," Squawker said. "It looks like it's about 50 percent more than what it was last time."

The waitress continued to flit around, wiping a table here, our table there, darting over to the register for a quick sidebar conversation with some regular or other.  Getting her attention hadn't been easy. Keeping it looked harder still. I steeled myself, and kept looking. Surely, I told myself, there's something I can afford here...

<ii.>

The waitress flitted back over. "Need a few more minutes to decide?" she asked. We both nodded.

I gestured at the menu. "I think I'll have stick with a burger, which is... Okay, there's one for $5.75. Everything else is six, seven bucks and up."

"Sure you don't want to try the pizza buffet?"

"Well, that's 20 bucks, and the thing is..." I lowered my voice. "By the time you include the tip, it'll be $25 or $30 when we leave here."

"All right." Squawker shrugged. "I think I might have to get a meal, though. Spaghetti with some meat, I think."

"No add-ons for us, I guess." I forced a smile, and gestured to the waitress. "I think we're ready now."

<iii.>

The waitress returned, her order pad poised. "All right," I said, "I think I'll get the Classic Paisano Burger, and..." I scanned the menu once more. "Do you get fries with that?"

The waitress shook her head. "No, that's a separate item." 

My eyes clouded over. "What? I can't do that, oh, wait..." There they were, for a single ($1.59), or a double ($3.75). "No, no, no, forget it. I can't do that."

The waitress rolled her eyes, and threw her hands on her hips. Her lips froze into a sarcastic flourish. "Welcome to Paisano Italiano!" she said.

"You want to go?" Squawker asked.

"I think we better," I sighed. "The way this is going, I'm not sure this is the place for us."

I took a quick last look on our way out. The room had gotten a little fuller, as the lunchtime crowd were beginning to filter in. They all looked older, though, sixtysomething and up. Of course, I told myself. Retired Baby Boomers, from the looks of it. Great jobs at great wages. Everything worked out swell for them. For me, not so much. Who else could afford this place now?

We headed back into town, and settled on our favorite taquiera. They had lunch specials for a fiver each. Or maybe we could split a burrito. Either way, those options looked a lot more pleasant than the situation we'd just encountered. Our mindless errands still beckoned. Such is life. --The Reckoner

1957: Social Class In America

It was a much different world back then wasn't it?

One thing to notice, they shared the same high school and were born in the same hospital though the rich Dad tells his son, he wanted him to have a democratic background. Even that way of thinking has changed, that Dad didn't want his son to be elitist and wanted him to know what other folks were like.  There was much more interaction between the classes even if there was far more racial segregation. I have seen that change even within my lifetime where different social classes would mix a bit more. In the 1980s in high school, I had rich friends who lived on the border of the country club and ones who lived in the projects. Now the social classes are more separated but in smaller towns, the world's overlap a bit more then in urban places. Zip code in many places now is determined by the income you have for rent or what home you can afford to purchase.

Today now, many people fall out of their parent's class, the vertical mobility goes down instead of up--The Squawker.

You're So Beautiful When You're Angry: The Lyrics' "So What!!" (Deconstructed)

It's hard to convey how out of whack the Eighties felt, for anyone who didn't experience them -- let alone feel like going along with the program. I still hold vivid memories of walking past Brody Hall, at Michigan State University, glimpsing a virtual blue tsunami of Reagan-Bush '84 campaign posters that practically plastered the windows, with nary a Mondale-Ferraro one in sight. I knew then what few anti-Reaganauts seemed unwilling to say aloud: the campaign's ending yawned two months away, but the outcome already seemed like a foregone conclusion.

The whole spectacle left you feeling sick to your stomach, knowing that you couldn't do anything about it, especially when you saw the same graphic tsunami replicated endlessly on backpacks, T-shirts, bumper stickers and God knows what else. Sadder still, the onslaught of celebrating mindless materialism for its own sake was well underway, although -- to be fair -- Hollywood in general has never been terribly good at acknowledging "the other half."

It's in their DNA, for God's sake: a Martian viewing some reruns of "Friends" might well conclude that America consists of nothing but skinny rich white kids who live in fancy lofts and spend most of their whining a lot about nothing in particular. Back in the Reagan Era, TV executives nearly tripped over themselves to do likewise, with "Dallas," "Dynasty" and "Falcon Crest" (or "Falcon Crap," as my late father affectionately nicknamed it) leading the charge.

Everybody, it seemed, wanted nothing more than to sport the biggest hairdos and sweaters en route to realizing their Inner Gordon Gekko, racking up toys and trinkets by the truckload -- which rippled throughout all other media forms. That phenomenon most likely explains how I found myself idly flipping through an alleged career guide at a bookstore: "There's no real reason to wear long hair unless you're going to be a professional tennis player." He probably meant Bjorn Borg, who still looked reasonably shaggy; all I can say is, nobody handed yours truly the memo.

"Well, now everything you got is in excess

And it goes without saying, it's got to be the best

From your swimming pool, to your daddy's racing car

To that senseless, useless bomb shelter in your back yard

Well, I guess there ain't too much you haven't got

But all I can say to you about that is So What!!"

--The Lyrics, "So What!!"

And that's why I'm dedicating today's post to this gem by The Lyrics, released in November 1965, and subsequently reissued -- to a whole new generation's appreciation, including mine -- on the Pebbles: Volume 2 compilation (1979), which is considered among the best entries in that particular series. Like many other aspects of '80s life, music seemed hopelessly riddled with pretension, shot through with lameness -- certainly at the Top 40 level, when you read about six-figure sums being sunk into demo studios...a situation that probably marked one of the last times that the guilty parties involved could tell themselves: "Recording budgets? What are those?"

The compact disc had recently come into vogue, enabling the record industry to save its bacon -- on a short-term basis, anyway, until Download Fever struck -- by getting people to buy the music they'd grown up with again. And again. And again. This stuff seemed nonsensical to those of us getting into record collecting on a serious level, especially when we saw the pretentiousness that spread like wildfire as a result...whether it was those never-ending lists of credits spread across page after page of those slick, glossy booklets...or the notion that, this new format is 75-plus-minutes...so, therefore, we must fill up every second of sonic real estate, because we're charging $12 to $20 a pop for it!

By contrast, platters like the Circle Jerks' debut album made more sense to me on a conceptual level: 14 songs, 14 minutes, what's not to like about that? Among our circle, these things constituted signals of like-mindedness. If someone came into my dorm room and wrinkled their nose at the beat, you could cross them off your social list without feeling guilty about it. However, if their eyes lit up, you'd probably met a fellow member of the tribe, and you wouldn't wait long to hit it off.

From my perspective, "So What!!" fit seamlessly into the above-mentioned litmus test that I've just laid out. Even by '60s standards, it's a pretty freewheeling track, with no less than three -- count 'em -- three blistering harmonica breaks from the singer and lyricist, Chris Gaylord (these days, now making the social rounds as Ray Clearwater; I'll have to ask him the reason for that one).

The intro break alone runs about 40 seconds before Chris even gets around to opening his mouth -- a marked, but agreeable contrast to that "don't bore us, get to the chorus" songwriting style that begat "Always Something There To Remind Me," "Hungry Eyes" and too many other glistening, note-perfect, polished turds just like them, all brimming with those gated drum sounds, synthesized harmonicas and watery DX7 tones that still unleash the Cringe Police today, complete with flashing blue lights and sirens.

"Well, the house you're living in is really nice

Now that I've been shown all around it once or twice

I've been racing around it on a guided tour

Trying not to miss any of  the handmade rugs or fancy furniture

You've got an electric typewriter so you won't have to work a lot

All I can say to you about that is -- So What!!"

At any rate, one of my record collecting friends loaned me Pebbles Volume 1 and 2 -- and the minute that I heard them, I felt hooked. "So What!!" stood out from the get-go, partially for its sheer rhythmic drive (especially the bass and tambourine).  In an era where drum machines and sequencers were often leaving conventional drummers on the bench, "So What!!" sounded like a healthy reminder of how to make a track move and groove without cluttering the sound, or relying on production tricks to do all your heavy lifting, which was becoming increasingly commonplace.

And that's before we even get to the attitude on display; apparently, the song is based on a real life experience -- which I always suspected, judging by the sheer venom dripping from Chris's lips. Even so, I had no trouble relating to it, especially I saw so many people around me starting to mouth the era's defining catch phrases ("Greed works," "I am a material girl," "The world is yours," take your pick)...and giving yours truly crap for not mouthing along.  

Like so many '60s garage gems, "So What!!" marked a short-lived triumph for the San Diego-based Lyrics. Not long afterwards, Gaylord left the fold -- he either jumped, or pushed, depending on which accounts you come across -- and his now former colleagues underwent several stylistic makeovers, from raga-rock ("Wait") to midtempo folk-pop ("Mr. Man") to Doors-inflected blues-rock ("Can't See You Anymore"), and the soul-inflected flirtations of their final 45s. While all those departures proved interesting in their own right, "So What!!" will probably always win the cognoscenti's nod for being their brightest shining moment. 

Looking back, it's easy to tell yourself: "Ah, c'mon, man, you're reading way too much into some obscure little garage band's song. At the end of the day, it's only rock 'n' roll, right?" My answer is: "Well, yes, and no: it all depends on how you define the term." For me, this song's withering blast against social climbing and status seeking only tells half the story. Ironically, I related to it on another level.  If you happened to have hair creeping over your collar...and past your shoulders, like I did...people gave you crap for it, left and right...like our song's hero endured, back in the '60s.  The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?

People don't remember this stuff now, or don't admit to it -- but signals of social conformity ran deep throughout America in the '80s.  One of my favorite examples are those infamous "Perception. Reality" ads that appeared in Rolling Stone, which painted an unflattering visual contrast between a '60s-era hippie in all his shaggy (hint; unwashed) glory, versus the bloodless, clean-cut yuppie who now presumably made up the bulk of the magazine's readership. Or so Rolling Stone wanted us to believe.

Of course, the resulting outcry caused the magazine's leadership to backpedal a bit ("we're sorry, blah-blah-blah, we didn't mean it personally, blah-blah-blah, we just want to keep people talking about us") but none of their excuses cut any ice with me. Marketing ploy or not, I fucking hated them for doing it, and I essentially stopped buying Rolling Stone for nearly a decade. The whole thing struck me as a betrayal of their roots, such as they were, which didn't strike me as a laughing matter.

I still remember the conversation with this insurance office receptionist, while waiting to deal with an accident claim on the Ford Tempo that my sister and I relied on to make it back and forth on those long, endless trips to East Lansing...the woman kept staring at me, even though we had no reason to talk yet, since she hadn't finished reviewing my paperwork.

Finally, I asked if there was something wrong.  After giving me yet another extended once-over, the receptionist responded: "I have a son in college, who's about the same age as you...and from what he's been telling me lately...he probably looks like you, too."  She shuffled my papers again into a nice, neat little pile, and sighed.  "He's coming up for Thanksgiving -- I guess we'll just have to see what he brings home."

I could see the irritation and disappointment in the whites of her eyes: another dream of propriety flushed down the drain. Another shot at the brass ring willfully knocked away.  Another exercise in ladder-climbing deferred, possibly for good.  I've no idea whether that woman's son ever listened to "So What!!"...but that's why it resonates today. When I hear it, I think of that little conversation, and a million others like it.

Like it or not, every era needs its pockets of resistance.  The majority aren't always right; most of the time, they're so far away from the firing range, it's not even funny. But no way did I ever see myself going along with their program, and records like this one reminded me: "You don't have to give in, if you don't want to. You may suffer awhile, you may hurt pretty badly, but they don't know what you know. And once the disapproval fades -- you'll be OK. Don't worry about it." And that's why this song still means something to me, then and now.  Enough said! -- The Reckoner

Flower Bomb Songs:

http://expo67-cavestones.blogspot.com/search/label/Lyrics

Everything you ever wanted to know about "So What!!," and the Lyrics...but weren't sure how to ask.

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

Old Economy Steve

Generational angst is pretty strong when too many young people or Generation Xers had parents who had very different lives. I wonder what the psychological outcomes of this will be for millions who probably heard their parents call them losers or if that remained unsaid, the cloud of disappointment hovered like exhaust out of a pipe that never dissipated but filled the air with the stench of regret.---The Squawker