<Alas, Still Timely: Office Space Movie Poster>
Winners and losers, which one am I?
Is it the same, under the sky?
Black motorcycles, and the will to survive:
Losers and winners, low and high...
<Iggy Pop, "Winners & Losers">
<i.>
You've probably noticed, if you visit here regularly, how much lower key the activity's gotten this year. Rest assured, it's not for lack of ideas. Actually, I completed the graphic that eventually accompanied "Life's Little Injustices (Take XXIV): Not My Bumper Sticker, Not My Neighbor," so that's a small win.
Let's see, what else? I've got a cartoon or two in progress, sitting on my desk. I've done the drawing, but one more significant bit of heavy lifting awaits, and that's the inking. Then I've got to scan them, or take a photo, before I can stick them up.
All creative folk suffer this dilemma. You always have a million ideas, rattling around your head, colliding like so many billiard bills, but never enough time nor resources to pull them off, boom-boom-boom, as neatly and efficiently as you'd like.
Sometimes, you're simply at the mercy of events, which is how I wound up rewriting two posts ("What's Project 2025?": The Horseracing Of The 2024 Election," "Weimar Analogy #101: Will Democrats Finally Ditch Austerity Economics?") two or three times, having based them on the assumption that President Joe Biden would somehow claw back into contention. Didn't happen, of course, which meant that my fingers had to do the walkin' all over again.
That's why, as I've explained here from time to time, we don't chase every twist of the news cycle, since the headline of the day often becomes the headline of the hour, or the minute. Who expected Trump's second assassination attempt, as crazy as it sounds? Considering how many voices will rush to fill that space, we'll leave that job to somebody else.
The bigger reason boils down to the bear trap that our society sets for so many millions. I call it The Stability Lottery, in which a handful of winners sail unchecked through life, with the rest left to fend for themselves as best as they can, amid ever-diminishing returns.
This is hardly a new concept, though not one you're hearing much about on our so-called national political scene. But here's the rub, as far as I'm concerned: before we start making some grand plans about how to extricate ourselves from the mess we're in, we need to revisit how we got here.
<Words of Bourdain-style punk rock wisdom:
I'm sure Johnny would have approved
(well, except for the last part, maybe --
since his well-documented vices didn't come cheap!>
<ii.>
For me, no discussion of The Stability Lottery feels complete without mentioning Office Space (1997), which I recently had the pleasure of viewing late at night, for the umpteenth time. That's when it hit me: "Maybe they'll show this film in history classes, so people can see how ancient civilizations lived."
Think about it. Judging by how the plot unfolds, Peter (Ron Livingston), the film's disgruntled cubicle commando, never played The Stability Lottery. Yes, he had a job and a boss that he hated -- but only one job, and one boss, Bill Lumbergh (played to oily perfection by Gary Cole).
And a boss, I might add, with a graph paper brain, judging by his limp response to one of the movie's pivotal scenes -- when Peter simply ignores his demand to come in, on a Saturday, to catch up on those damned TPS reports. How long would any of us last, if we pulled the same stunt, aside from your friendly neighborhood pot shop, if we pulled the same stunt?
Peter also seems to have no problem rustling up enough money to take out Joanna (Jennifer Aniston), the woman he's so avidly pursuing. They see each other regularly --and become an item, eventually -- so I'm guessing that Joanna never draws any late shifts. When he's not satisfying his sex drive, Peter spends most of his remaining downtime with his work buddies, who never seem to work late themselves.
I don't know about you, but we might well ask: is Peter so badly off? Yes, his cubicle job seems boring and mundane, but it's a far cry from the repetitive, soul crushing work that I've seen a lot of folks stuck doing. Apparently, Peter's bills don't change a lot, because he always seems able to pay them.
In other words, Peter and company aren't experiencing the reality that's ground so many down these last couple years. My phone has jumped from $75, to $90, 100, and lately, $115. The electric, last time I checked, hovers around $150-180. Cable has skyrocketed too, from $170, to $190, $200, $210, and of last week, $258.
Let me repeat that for everyone: two-hundred-and-fifty-fucking-eight, just to watch what little TV you can stomach, because you can't afford to go many places, anyway. I'm sure that nugget won't leave my mind, the next time that I watch Office Space.
<The album that gave us "Winners & Losers," 1986 (Wikipedia)>
<iii.>
In many respects, the propertied classes cast the die long ago, in the '80s, and various bad actors rushed to fill the gap. Look what happened, once unions went on the vane: temp agencies mushroomed overnight. Union leaders crowbarred themselves into signing so-called two-tiered contracts, with the veterans on the totem pole getting to keep all their hard-won goodies, which their younger counterparts would never see. Cue up the coda of "God Save The Queen" ("Nooo future, nooo future, nooo fuuu-ture for you!").
Colleges and universities rapidly followed suit, as tenure became an elusive dream for newly-minted professors -- as Bob Marley says, in "War," "a fleeting illusion, to be pursued, but never attained." Incoming generations would become adjuncts, with no benefits, and no security, joining armies of other part-timers abandoned to the same fate.
As much as they want you to think so, colleges and universities are not "the good guys." Good guys don't sit on massive multibillion-dollar endowments, whose money will never flow to all those adjuncts and part-timers struggling to stay afloat. Good guys don't fight attempts to organize, like some 19th century robber baron. Good guys don't scream for the cops to crack skulls, as so many panicked administrators did, when students began asking, "Isn't this endless slaughter in Gaza getting just a wee bit over the top?"
The fallout over Gaza has produced some interesting media casualties, like Jerry Seinfeld, who reared up in righteous indignation, once we learned what his other half's doing on her downtime -- paying pro-Israel counter-protesters to crack student heads (by Venmo, no less). The Seinfelds haven't waxed so ecstatic, after getting their overendowed chops busted so righteously. For hypocritical overdogs like them, life remains a perpetual cafeteria, where they can always have it their way, and one of everything is no problem to afford. Does that sound like you, or anybody in your immediate circle? I didn't think so.
They want our undivided money and attention, but the minute we question what they're doing, look out! Doesn't sound so hot over all those burbling bass lines taking you into the commercial break, does it? "OK, so my wife's a vicious, right-wing Zionist. Who'd you think I was?" Gah-ding-ding-ding-a-ding-a-ding-ding! And so on, and so forth.
Oh, and you'll never guess where I learned about the Seinfelds' extracirrcular activities: a story on Yahoo New Zealand. That's right -- not Yahoo US, UK, or even Canada, but Yahoo-frickin'-New-Zealand. Throw that one back at somebody who tells you, "What media censorship?" You get the picture.
<https://www.downwithtyranny.com/>
<iv.>
The Stability Lottery began churning at helicopter blade speed, as the 1990s and 2000s progressed. Big companies grew bigger, as the rich kept on getting richer, and living wage jobs went out the window, while the political class continued to extol the virtues of Make Believe Money (AKA the stock market), as a means to some higher end -- that is, their end. Only, it sounded better when they made it seem like a means to your end.
Few people seemed to pay attention, though. If you made decent money -- or even if you didn't -- you learned to "put it on play money," as one of my late friends described his ever-arcing credit card balances. Why not, with gas still two bucks a gallon, and average rents not hovering anywhere near the four-figure mark? If you harbored some fantasy of joining the creative class -- actor or DJ, filmmaker or rock star, or whatever -- you'd find some make work job at the uber-cool coffee shop, or record store, and wait for your ship to come in.
How many movies milked that particular trope till the cows came home, right? Art School Confidential, Clerks, Empire Records, Ghost World, Mallrats, Reality Bites, Singles, Slacker, and that's just for starters. I saw them all, and loved them all, too, though part of me also thinks: Boy, Hollywood sure had fun selling our self-images back to us. No wonder they -- and we -- got so jaded.
Amid all these cultural fun 'n' games, though, another landmine was about to detonate. It took a new bestseller to blow the whistle: The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke (2004) documented growing anxiety over a new problem -- how one job no longer seemed enough to pay the bills. And even if that job paid well, getting ahead was out of the question, thanks to rocketing food, medical, and rent costs. Lack of job security and income keeping pace with inflation meant that even "good jobs" were no longer enough to keep the wolf from the door. Sound familiar?
Co-written by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and her daughter, Amy Warren Tyagi, The Two-Income Trap eloquently summarized what so many millions already knew: thanks to the overclass finding ever more efficient ways to Hoover up what little money we still, somehow, stick in our pockets, two incomes would no longer get the job done, either.
I'm trying to imagine, as I write, how Everymom and Everydad reacted, if they bought Warren's and Tyagi's book, to determine just what went so wrong. How many couples bought into those classic social tropes -- Hey, if I only get into grad school, that doctorate will make me more attractive. Sure, I'm working two or three jobs right now, but that's only temporary: I'll quit once I graduate. How much longer will the job market stagnate? I'll find something that makes my debt worthwhile. Then I find myself wondering, how many made it through the book, and felt profoundly betrayed? The answers, I'm sure, are anything but comforting.
No Santa Claus, no happy elves
In this smoking gun existence...
It gets harder to unwind,
I'll just eat my breakfast...
<"Winners And Losers">
<v.>
Still, for the fortunate few who did win the Stability Lottery, life continues, uninterrupted. Same as it ever was, and all that. Call it catching a perennial lucky break -- a generational one, most likely -- they never had to face signing up for those two-tiered contracts, never worked as an adjunct, never needed to scramble for some lo-fi temp gig, nor dead end McJob.
Who are they, exactly? I get a daily reminder, every time I have to steer around those tanklike, battleship-sized trucks, and their endless tailgates that they bought themselves, once they return from the umpteenth vacation they've enjoyed with all the Make Believe Money they socked away. Ever seen a Baby Boomer driving a Honda Civic, or a Yugo, or some off-brand sub-compact? Doesn't f#cking happen, right?
But they can get away with it, because most of them came up during the '60s and '70s, when a strong social consensus still existed, as the Stranglers so memorably stated: "I was always taught in school, everybody should get the same" ("Always The Sun"). Look what happened, once that ideal went by the wayside: this person keeps their benefits, that one doesn't. This person earns a living wage, that one doesn't. This person made enough to save for a comfortable retirement, that one didn't. And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Just imagine how you'd remake Office Space in today's environment. Peter and his Initech buddies would be independent contractors, if they were lucky. They'd live half a dozen, crammed elbow to eblow, like so many angry rats into some shoebox-sized apartment, for which they'd shell out $3,000-plus per month in the big city.
And instead of working at some high profile chain, Joanna would end up a terminally pissed off barista, juggling those hours with some other part-time McJob. The childless cat lady would become a future bag lady, thanks to creeps like J.D. Vance, who -- like most of his fellow, well-heeled and well-oiled, fascist Republican bros -- seems to think that life "begins and ends at conception," as the Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank, so memorably stated.
But, hey, better keep your mouth shut, and stay a good little worker bee, right? Because you never know when Lumbergh's creeping around the corner, and God knows, if you don't wrap up those damned TPS reports yesterday, he'll put your ass out on the sidewalk -- alongside Peter, Samir, Michael, Milt, and all your fellow unfortunates. Only this time, the concrete will serve as your bed, with the sky as your roof.
Where this is all taking us, God only knows, but it's way past time for some stronger pushback, isn't it? Just imagine not having paddle in place all day anymore, as you try to outrun all those ever-mushroom bills. Imagine a world that doesn't begin and end with a collection notice, and a past due statement. Think about how you'd feel, with enough time to hear yourself think. What's the point of playing such a one-sided game, when the same one-armed bandits are still running it?
It's a familiar feeling to any compulsive gambler, feeding token after token, coin after coin, into the unblinking mouth of the nearest slot machine, as you sink, slowly but surely, to your knees. Your mouth goes agape, and your eyes turn bloodshot, as you somehow manage to convince yourself, "Things will get better, eventually, some way, somehow," even as your arm grows stiffer from the toll that the game keeps taking on you.
You get a little bit older, a little grayer. You start to feel a little more resigned, a little less energetic, as that thousand yard stare creeps across your face, and the smile you managed to flash, every once in awhile, gives way to that thousand yard stare. And you just keep losing. You grit your teeth for another go-round. And you just keep losing. Suddenly, it finally crosses your mind, that slacker or not, the joke really was on you, all along. And you just keep losing. Your pockets stay empty, but the cavalry is never coming. And you just keep losing. --The Reckoner
Links To Go: Hey, Kids, Look...
