The xylophone players

A few months ago a friend of mine loaned me a book about taking a mindful approach to grieving, and the four days I spent in Saint Louis recently gave me many, many chances to put a lot of it to the test. It’s important to focus on what you’re feeling right now, right here, the book says. It’s important to yield to the grief, to let the grief wash over you.

My brother-in-law is too dense to figure out that dishes – and by dishes I mean glasses made of glass, plates and bowls and cups made not of plastic but of porcelain – will not sustain being shoved and crammed and sloppily stacked with zero regard for their size, their volume and their degree of durability. And so they break on their way into and out of the dish rack beside the sink, the dish rack that is a perfect, perfect metaphor for my sister’s marriage. Last weekend it was three of the bowls my mother bought years ago, each painted with a different fruit. Saturday morning the bowl with the apple, the one with the pear and the one with the plum were broken. I predict the juice glasses are next. While it may not sound unreasonable to expect the father of two children to figure out that if the back of the dish rack is wide open, putting small glasses at the rear of the tray, where they’re beneath the pressure of dozens of other dishes to the point where lifting a single thing out of the tray will cause the entire haphazard, half-assed arrangement to collapse and, as a result, force the glasses to crash out of the back, which, as I said, is wide open, it is, in fact, unrealistic to expect my brother-in-law to comprehend.

Two camps formed when my father died two years ago. One eulogized him as a folk hero, the other as a maniacal asshole. While I "trend" toward one side more than the other, I'm basically a centrist. Without a single stall that I’m aware of, my father detested my brother-in-law from the moment the two met. In the most ill-advised, misguided maneuver I’ve ever participated in, we deeded the house to my sister after my father died. Thanks to the fact that Missouri insists upon recognizing opposite-sex marriages, the state-sanctioned union occupied by my sister and my brother-in-law dictates that what is hers is his as well. That means, of course, that he automatically owns half the house that my father’s signature bought four days after I was born. Perhaps I am dancing with the dead on this one, but it did occur to me that my brother-in-law is settling the score, if you will, with his wife’s father. Every month, for 30 years, my parents wrote a mint-green check to Boatman’s Bank (my mother signed those), and now my nieces’ father can trash the structure and its contents because, well, hell, because it’s his.

One of my nieces is now13 years old. It’s January in Missouri, it snowed twice while I was there, I don’t believe the temperature got above freezing, yet every time we left the house with the children – and you must always take the children with you, everywhere, every time – my sister had to ask her daughter to put her shoes on. Not once, not twice, not three times, but (and yes, I counted) up to five times. It begins: Put your shoes on. Then: We’re leaving, so put your shoes on. And: Put your shoes on! And: Dammit, put your shoes on! I have never missed my father’s presence in the world more acutely than I did when I imagined my niece – as she was pretending to have not heard her mother tell her, for the fifth time as the rest of us waited, to put her shoes on – pulling her situational hostage-taking bullshit with her grandfather. Good luck with that, little princess.

I think of my sister’s family structure as a xylophone. Sometimes, my sister and her husband stand on the bars in the middle and their daughters slam the hell out of the bars on either end, and at other times my sister stands at one end and her husband at the other and they bang it so hard the vibrations pulse through my nieces as they stand in the center. Like the reality it depicts, there is zero grace or finesse in this analogy: Whomever slams the xylophone the hardest, whomever makes the most noise, whomever manages to shake it so violently that someone in the middle falls off, that person wins.

My mother loathed clutter. Her four favorite words, it often seemed, were “Get rid of it.” There were rugs in our dining room when I was growing up that one of her aunts brought back from China in the 1950s that, while old and going threadbare, were quite beautiful. She rolled two of them up once and put them on the curb the night before garbage day because they were “in the way.” The household is no longer managed that way. The piano is a shelf for the girls’ shit. My brother-in-law’s shit is crammed in with more of the girls’ shit on top of radiators, on top of an exquisite Japanese desk in the front hall, on top of a dresser my mother refinished that’s now in the upstairs bathroom. The kitchen table is covered with all kinds of shit, so the girls and their father usually eat either in the dining room or in the living room, where each of them seem to take up more space than any one person should require, boorishly shoveling in shit-quality food while they look at stupid shit on the television, which – though you’d never know it if you relied exclusively on your sense of hearing, since there is no end to the screaming and yelling and shouting back and forth of “What?”– is constantly on.

When I was growing up, sarcasm was like a currency. So it should not be difficult to imagine why, for a split second, I had a good laugh at a magnet on the refrigerator in the kitchen of the house where I grew up. Offered up by some exclamation point-happy group of parents who are not employed outside the home, the title of the magnet is “50 Ways to Praise Kids.” I sipped my coffee and tried to imagine anyone saying to either of my nieces with any degree of sincerity whatsoever things like “You’re incredible!”, “Very brave!”, “Way to go!”, or “You’re amazing!” Just thinking about it made it impossible for me to keep a straight face.

We regret to inform you

I promise that for the next week I will not write a single word about Tucson. In fact, what I’m going to write about today isn’t really about Tucson, although it is, sort of, in a way, all about Tucson.

The subject of today’s blog is the Safeway at 82nd and Burnside in Southeast Portland, Oregon. The store, which has probably not been remodeled during my lifetime, has one of those gloriously arched front exteriors and an enormous parking lot that visually dominates a very major intersection. With one exception, I cannot really describe its interior because there is nothing very distinctive about it. It’s a grocery store with linoleum floors and fluorescent lights. There’s a produce section and a deli and a bakery; the store is one of the few places that accepts returns manually, so there’s usually a line of people with overflowing grocery carts snaking back through the meat section, waiting to cash in the bottles and cans. For the first several years, there was a gigantic clock above one of the exits. On this clock there was neither a minute hand nor an hour hand. I wondered about that particular detail for years. Stolen for scrap metal, or a comment on timelessness? Or maybe … who knows?

I was looking at frozen pizzas the other morning when the woman who appears to run the place walked by. She said good morning and I wished her a happy New Year. And then she said, “Have you heard our horrible news?”

We regret to inform you that Dave Miller passed away on 1/9/2011 of an apparent heart attack. He was 61 years old. Dave was with Safeway for 37 years (7/12/73) and had been at our store since 1983. Dave was well loved by his coworkers and customers alike and will be greatly missed by all who knew him. He is survived by his son, Matt and daughter, Sarah and grandchildren, Paley and Sullie. He also leaves his mother, a brother and 4 sisters. Dave enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren, playing tennis, hiking and was a huge sports fan. He also enjoyed visiting with his customers and was a great ambassador for the store. Funeral services are pending at this time.

This was printed on a yellow paper with a photo of Dave about halfway down the sheet, stacks of which had been left at the end of each aisle. I didn’t know Dave, but I’d been through his line many times. He was friendly. There was nothing profound about my interactions with him.

But there was something profound, unfortunately, about what was going on in that store on Monday morning. Many of the people who work at the store were dressed not in their uniforms but in the sort of attire one might wear to a memorial service, which, as it turned out, was on Monday afternoon. Out of uniform, they had a different dimension to them, one I’d never seen before, which, of course, underscored what really makes me sad about Tucson. Unlike the grief that took place on television, Facebook, Twitter and God knows where else, the people at the Safeway were honoring the life of someone they actually knew, in person, for many years. And the fact that I found that refreshing is a sad commentary on the hijacking of terms like loss, grief and emotion.

Waiting, hoping, praying for Gettysburg

If you think it’s been all eye rolling and groaning and wincing with a closed, made-up mind around here lately, you’re wrong. I actually realized something (I think) as a result of staged, forced and utterly misguided national mourning following the shootings in Tucson, Arizona, which, in case you have not noticed, is now referred to, as if it were a movie, as “Tucson.” As often happens during these televised spectacles – Virginia Tech, Oklahoma City, Columbine – the word formerly used to name a location, an institution or in some cases both, Tucson is no longer the name of a city: It’s the name, or title, of an event. The television people, as is often the case, led the way. Before Tucson, said one, not 48 hours after the shots were fired. What we stand to learn from Tucson, said another. There is no surer sign of an official place in the national lexicon than being instantly recognized by a single term.

What dawned on me during the televised grief period goes back to another town whose name came to represent not a location on a map but a pivotal point in U.S. history as a result of the words of a president whose views on the issue of race – though hardly radical – made many people uncomfortable, one who used the state of Illinois as a springboard to the White House.

What got my mind headed toward Gettysburg was the sheer volume of commentary on President Obama’s speech “at Tucson” not after the speech was delivered but before the president even boarded his jet and headed to Arizona. Before, I’d guess, or bet, were I a betting person, the first word was even committed to the page, or to the screen.

Is this weighing in about what the president should say during an upcoming speech normal? I realize I took a hiatus from the news that spanned more than a decade, and that I was perpetually, progressively drunk for eight of those years, but my God, is it a fact of life during the Obama era for David Brooks, John Dickerson, Jon Meacham and so many others to commandeer the national airwaves night after night to offer up their pre-address wisdom to the president and his speechwriters? He should strike a somber but hopeful tone. He should not mention the issue of gun control, because it’s controversial, and when the nation is in pain controversy is the last thing you want to touch on. He should be more emotional. He should let us see his human side. The American people are yearning for guidance, for reassurance that there is hope ahead, right out there on the horizon, just beyond … Tucson.

Here’s what most of the American people I know are yearning for: Would David Brooks and Jon Dickerson and Jon Meacham and all the other lifelong members of the debate team please (pardon my language) shut the fuck up and let the president make a goddamn speech?

And speaking of one-word expressions, the answer to that question is no.

The first reason is obvious: fame, and everything that goes along with it. Without being particularly exceptional, these goons have a frightening amount of exposure. John Dickerson, for example, spews forth his nonsense all over Slate, CBS News and, worst of all, PBS, where he often appears at Gwen Ifill’s table. And Jon Meacham, for some reason, was allowed to become the editor of Newsweek magazine and then given his own show on PBS, in addition to his numerous appearances on Charlie Rose’s show, where his advice to the president seems to always run along the same lines: Barack Obama needs to be more emotional. Apparently, it’s that level of analysis that qualifies someone to advise the president of the United States on national television.

But what struck me during Tucson goes beyond the immediate gratification that must go along with sitting on a television set and advising one of the most powerful people in the world. I think these jesters are waiting for Gettysburg. I should be too embarrassed to reveal this, but I know precious little about the speech Abraham Lincoln gave there. But here is what I do know: A speech that wasn’t supposed to be that big of a deal turned out to be a very, very big deal indeed. So big it’s in all the history books. I think that’s where these guys want to be, I think that’s what they consider their rightful place, and in order to help them get there, every time Obama gives a speech, we can listen to their blather not only for a week after the speech, but for a week before it as well. More than once – they do repeat each other, often – I heard Tucson described as “Obama’s Oklahoma City moment.” But I think Gettysburg is the ultimate destination here. When whatever speech Obama is going to give turns out to be indeed pivotal, the talkies can smirk and gloat and say, “I knew this was going to be big,” and, of course, “I told you so.” And without having ever won an election themselves – a feat clearly beyond their capabilities – the infrastructure is in place for them to transcend the television and the newsmagazines –what’s left of them – and assume their place in history.

Eleven points for the Healer in Chief

Not long ago, in front of a grocery store in Tucson, a man used a gun to murder six people and send several more to nearby hospitals, one of whom happened to be a U.S. representative who was at the store to meet and greet her constituents in a district that was, also not long ago, represented on a political map by a crosshairs symbol. The congresswoman’s event ended abruptly when a bullet – a real one, shot from a real gun – was put into her head.

And in my opinion, that was the high point of the story, because it has been a steady, weirdly familiar ride straight down the hill of decorum ever since.

The low point, thus far, was Obama’s speech. Although I believe Barack Obama is an infinitely better speaker on his worst days than his predecessor was on his very best, last Wednesday I had a reaction I thought I’d forgotten how to have: As our president spoke, I turned away from the television screen and cringed. Mom and Dad? Dot? The batting back and forth of the word “hero” between the president and the congresswoman’s intern as if they were in the final round of a worldwide ping pong championship? We know these people, he said. They are our friends, our neighbors, our family.

The real rabbit-in-the-hat moment came when Obama announced that the congresswoman had opened her eyes that afternoon for the first time since being shot. Mrs. Obama, fighting back tears, grasped the hand of the man seated beside her, who is the congresswoman’s husband and who is, as chance would have it, an astronaut. As is always the case at pep rallies, even when they’re called memorials, the crowd responded to the magic of the moment with a roar of applause.

But it got worse, as it usually does. The maudlin memorializing of the girl who, as another chance would have it, just happened to have been born on Sept. 11, 2001, was at once utterly tasteless and incredibly skillful. She was so curious, so hopeful, so optimistic. She believed in the promise of America, and all of us who remain, all of us who are mourning her death in spite of the fact that we had never heard of her until a week ago, we need to honor her by making sure we’re living up not only to her expectations but the expectations of all children.

Thank you, but no. Although I appear to be in the minority on this, I don’t think this is the time for nursery rhymes and schmaltzy bedtime stories to drive the national dialogue.

What I think it’s time for is answers, or, if that’s not possible, at least a few thoughtful, relevant questions. And, as long as I’m making unreasonable requests, I strongly prefer that those questions be asked, and perhaps answered, by adults.

For starters, why is it so easy to buy a gun in Arizona? The state legislature there was planning to vote on whether or not to legalize carrying concealed weapons on college campuses. Did that happen or was that bit of business postponed? Or was it tossed out before being voted up or down? Who proposed that legislation in the first place? I realize there's mourning underway, but why isn't this detail issue discussed on the news?

Closely related, how can one society be so madly in love with violence on one hand, while, on the other, so prone to the overtly sentimental hallucination of being injured and wounded and then, moments later and as if by pure magic, healed? We love to hurt other people because it makes us feel tough and powerful. At the same time, we crave spiritual guidance from the television and Facebook. If you’re paying attention, if you’re at a football game, in a conference room with marketing people, at a rally of any kind, it will not be long before you hear the language of violence. But, then we shift, and talk about healing, and we’re so moved by it that we shed a tear or two and really “pull together.” In Arizona, if you aspire to wash hair in a beauty salon, you have take a test and obtain a license. Not so when it comes to firearms. But then, when someone gets killed, we seem to lapse into a state of complete befuddlement: How could this happen? This rapid back-and-forth confuses me, it makes me dizzy, and it makes my neck sore.

But enough of that: here’s my real question. Was last week’s national group hug the beginning of the 2012 presidential election season? Though billed as a memorial service, did it not seem more like a rally? I know we’re in the midst of healing and all, but I couldn’t help wonder about how all the little details of the story add up to what strikes me as a glass-smooth landing in Jackpot City for our president and his party.

The congresswoman may have voted for healthcare reform, but she’s married to an astronaut, which rank right up there with soldiers and NBA stars when it comes to attaining hero status. The theatrically modest intern who helped the congresswoman until the paramedics arrived is Latino, which is perfect. And the dead little girl who was born on another really big day in this country’s history … man, I don’t have an adjective for the opportunities that one might yield. Obama’s voice got a little bit quivery when he was recalling her, so we now know, in case there were any doubts, that this is quite painful for him, not just as a president but as a father of two daughters. He’s no ideologue … he’s human!

The best part of it, though, is that it happened in Arizona. That’s McCain territory, the home of the political godfather of the GOP’s current mouthpiece, a state that has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1952 except for one (and it was not for Obama), a state that does not believe that Martin Luther King warrants a holiday and, at the same time, believes that skin color does warrant pulling someone over and asking to see the papers. It’s a state that, in spite of the fact that it has no water and one of the country’s more dismal economies, remains one of the fastest-growing in the nation, so much so in fact that its influence in the upcoming presidential election increased recently when its number of votes in the Electoral College got bumped up to 11.

I have no idea

Not long ago a friend of mine said something that actually sank in. She was talking about a friend of hers who was, on that particular day, annoying her. “So I don’t like her today,” my friend said, “but by tomorrow I’m sure I will again.” That’s the way to do it, I thought, because one of my biggest pitfalls is that when friends of mine do annoying things – as all humans do from time to time, except for me – I start firing people. Over the holidays, I came very close to writing a letter to a person who has been a friend of mine for nearly 15 years and telling him he could go straight to hell and how to get there. Why? Well, because he told me that the night of the Winter Solstice was going to be the longest night in a thousand years, which I knew was not true, so I looked it up on the innernets and sent him three separate links just to prove it, and he did not respond. That’s why.

So what I’m doing, almost as a New Year’s resolution, is trying to control my mouth a bit, and, once that’s accomplished, control my impulse to throw charges at people. I’m trying to not forsake tomorrow for today’s offenses, which I realize sounds like greeting card copy, but it seems to be working.

For the most part.

Earlier this week I went to one of my community meetings. Since the meeting was held the night of the big game the Oregon Ducks were playing in, which they lost, the attendance was way down. Even though there were very few agenda items, and even though there were no presentations, we managed to make sure the meeting did not end until two and a half minutes past the official end time. Even though there was absolutely nothing being accomplished at this meeting, the little old lady who volunteers to keep the church where we meet open still had to come and stand in the doorway at 8:29 to signal that she was going to lock the building in one minute. As usual, we ignored her.

My first opportunity to exercise keeping my mouth shut was presented to me at the beginning of the meeting. Two officers drop in every month to give a report on crime statistics in the area and answer general questions. One of the officers asked the guy who chairs the group, who I admire a great deal, to please let them speak at the beginning of the meeting because it was a busy night for the police. “No problem,” he said. Then he proceeded to ask us all to introduce ourselves to one another by describing something we thought was a curse but is actually a blessing. I said that heating bills were a problem but that their existence meant we have yet to completely destroy the climate. Then we all talked about the introductions and made a few jokes and comments, most of them directed at a woman who said she couldn’t think of a single example. Was her life a total disaster? Or was it perfect?

Anyhow, car robberies are up in the area. Homicides are at their lowest in 40 years, but, according to one of the cops, there are a lot more suicides, and that may be a factor. I had to think about that one. I still am, actually.

And later, the grand finale. It has been proposed that one of the board positions be divided into three new positions. It’s a great idea, I think. But on Monday night it came up again. Someone moved to do this at the previous meeting, and the official documents have been posted online, in accordance with various procedural guidelines, so now, let’s vote on it and make it official. Not so fast: the rule says the documents need to be posted for 30 days following the proposal and preceding the official vote, giving any and all a chance to voice objections. And, since the December meeting was on the 13th and this month’s meeting was on the 10th, as of Monday night the documents had only been online for 28 days, not 30. The days were counted, manually, then there was more discussion, and then it was decided that we should vote to approve the new positions tentatively and then, at next month’s meeting, provided there were no objections, vote again and make it official. A woman volunteered to make a motion, but then said – quite sensibly, I think – that she needed to know how it should be worded. And that was followed, of course, by more discussion. A lot more discussion.

Why, I wondered, why on earth would a group of people spend time tentatively approving something, fine-tuning the details so that the motions are worded correctly and it’s all correctly recorded in the minutes, why on earth not wait until the next meeting and then have a simple vote to approve the motion? I have no idea, and I’m trying to make than my mantra: I have no idea.

So, rather than say anything, I sat quietly as every last minute of the scheduled meeting time was indeed consumed by voices steering official business. When the meeting ended I went to the grocery store and bought milk and a loaf of bread. Then I went home I took a very nice bath, read for a while and went to bed.

He's perfect

Last week Barack Obama turned the keys to the White House over to the bankers – officially, openly – and I don’t believe it was even a full 24 hours before Charlie Rose got his pom poms out and had a couple of guests on to gush about it. Appointing William Daley to be the next chief of staff at the White House is the best move Obama has ever made, said one. Yep, he’s perfect, said the other. Both guests – like the host – were white guys in suits, media figures, a bit pudgy.

While watching that particular segment, what I do not like about Charlie Rose presented itself to me in full color. Watching his show is like going along on a golf outing with your work superiors. During the outing you’ll hear little snippets of this and that, but those snippets will be accompanied by knowing glances exchanged back and forth among the superiors. You’re invited, but it’s clear as crystal that you are not included. If the stature of guests at his on-the-air cocktail party are any indication, the show’s cache among those who set the course for this country – most of them white, male and based in either New York or Washington – is troubling.

But not as troubling as William Daley. Amidst a lot of that straight white guy chuckling, Charlie and his buds talked about what “Rham” is up to back in Chicago, how “David” will be going back to Chicago soon for the “election cycle” (“David” is David Axelrod, and “the election cycle” is what the cool kids now call what used to be known more commonly as “the election”) and how “Bill” is proof perfect to the financial industry that Obama is not really a liberal ideologue. (Somehow, the bankers have hallucinated Obama as such, revealing a level of simplified stupidity and a flair for tantrum throwing that makes me wonder how they can possibly manage money, and the answer to that, of course, is that they cannot.)

The next day I listened to Amy Goodman. Based on my limited and narrow exposure, I cannot think of a single person in the media who is qualified to take a seat once occupied by Bill Moyers, but the one person who comes closest, I believe, is Amy Goodman. She seems infinitely more informed and far more skilled at asking questions than Charlie Rose, so of course she’s been relegated to community radio stations and cable television channels.

The guests on her show, as you might imagine, had a different take on William Daley. Her hour-long program covered one thing after another that I believe should be of grave concern to anyone who does not want the White House to become the D.C. satellite office of J.P. Morgan Chase and others.

But here are two that I found particularly appalling. The first is that William Daley actively opposed creating a federal department to watch out for the financial interests of consumers. Thanks to the tactical ineptness of Obama, his advisors and Democrats in general, Elizabeth Warren wasn’t ever officially confirmed to lead the new department, meaning she doesn’t have much in the way of real power. So, in the future, when choices need to be made between consumers and the banks, and “Bill” is there running the show, who wins?

The second issue Amy Goodman covered is that “Bill” opposed healthcare reform. That must be something of a twofer for our president. While so-called liberals are busy offing one another while those the more naïve among us are counting on them to confront continue to get richer by the day, not only will Wall Street bask in the glow of an extension of special treatment protocols, the health insurance industry will as well. And best of all, Obama will be lauded by the Charlie Rose Club for the deep, deep reverence he has for those with different ideas. So much so, in fact, that he seeks out situations and people who will create and sustain a “philosophically diverse” intellectual environment.

Don't retreat ...

I was seriously planning to write something complimentary about the Republicans and their Tea Party people reading the U.S. Constitution to kick off the legislative season, but then I turned the radio on on Saturday afternoon. All I can say is that I sincerely hope this is the beginning of the end of the sick and twisted little piece of human shit from Alaska whose name, in the most logic-defying way, can be included in the same sentence with the word "president" without all the letters and punctuation marks bursting out of alignment under the pressure of the idiocy. The media people are being extremely careful (and irresponsible, in my opinion) about not linking the shootout with the ignorant, illiterate call to arms, and the right wingers, of course, are spinning in a way that's almost admirable, but there is some good news: there are rumors swirling around that her reality television show is being cancelled. That's a great start.

More Chicago than deep-dish pizza

Saying that Chicago is Barack Obama’s hometown is as misleading as me claiming that Portland is mine. Our president is from Hawaii, so it’s interesting to me that the articles about his new chief of staff, announced yesterday, consistently trumpeted this inaccuracy. Over and over again I heard and read one cheesy reference to the “hometown connection” between Obama and William Daley after another.

Daley, so said the authorities, is more Chicago than deep-dish pizza. That’s great, but I do wonder why the pizza talk seemed of greater interest to the people whose job it is to inform the people of this country than William Daley’s really big job with J.P. Morgan Chase. It pains me to write this, but his appointment to one of the most powerful positions in Washington rivals the audacity of Ronald Reagan’s paving of the expressway of influence that connects the White House and Wall Street by awarding top jobs to Goldman Sachs executives. And what a top job the chief of staff position is. I couldn’t write a job description if my life depended on it, but my understanding of that role is that the person basically picks the music and then conducts the orchestra. The entire orchestra.

Speaking of job descriptions, at the PR agency where I used to work, every now and then people were hired into very senior positions with salaries to match who had zero experience in whatever the business interest of the moment happened to be. Then, when the agency would pitch itself in front of a new client, voila, there they were, fully brainwashed and able to sell the agency’s “culture” and “best practices.” These people were called “investment hires,” and while I’m not saying that William Daley’s experience isn’t immediately applicable – he obviously has an impressive understanding of how the system works – if the philosophy behind his appointment is similar to the one used by my former employer, I have to applaud Mr. Obama.

Election day is a mere 22 months away, and he needs to prove to the big boys at the banks that their money, their power and their exemption from the rules that govern most individuals and companies in this country are all in safe hands. I can think of no other industry that gets to have it both ways quite so flamboyantly: in good times, it’s all private sector and innovation and entrepreneurship and all the rest of that trumped up marketing stupidness, and when times turn bad, it’s tax money to the rescue (some people call that socialism). William Daley will see to it that there is no change on that front.

And in another year or so, I imagine something shocking will happen – some more tax breaks, say, or perhaps a relaxation of the regulations, if they may be called that, on the trading of derivatives – and at gatherings of people who call themselves liberal or progressive with the same misplaced smugness that’s emitted from those who have come to believe that clicking a ‘like’ button on Facebook equates to actually supporting something, well, there will be an outpouring of outrage so fresh and raw you’ll swear nothing like this has ever happened before and that it was totally unexpected.

He whipped everyone into a frenzy against us

Even though it’s a new year and a time for new beginnings, my favorite subject is still my favorite subject, and that, of course, is funny money.

But, on the new front, I did decide to finally check out a Web site called Politico. I don’t really understand this site, nor do I have much interest in understanding it. People who are “with Politico” show up on television almost as often as that blonde actress who keeps bouncing in and out of rehab, and that alone diminishes any interest I may have had, which isn’t much to begin with. It seems to me, in a very simplistic way, that these people – Tina Brown, Ms. Huffington, the Fox News people, all of them – are just blathering at one another.

But I did find an interesting piece on the site regarding money. It seems that in spite of the billions of public dollars that have been stuffed into their stockings, the big boys on Wall Street are mad at Obama because he hurt their feelings. The piece was so full of outrageous observations that reading it was almost as titillating as watching porn.

And here, if you will, is the money shot: Brad Hintz used to be the CFO of Lehman Brothers, and according to him, “…the 2009 vilification of the entire financial-services industry by the political powers went beyond the pale and struck at the self-image of the leaders of Wall Street.” Like all money shots, it only got better. “Remember,” he goes on, “Wall Street is dominated by Ivy-League-educated bankers who studied liberal arts at good schools, read the right papers and magazines, donated to good causes, advised their employees to perform community service, counseled their partners to live understated lifestyles, voted for the ‘right’ candidates and who live in populist suburbs of liberal blue states. It’s not the oil industry.”

Two things on that bit of pricelessness. First, does the term “populist suburb” qualify as an oxymoron? If it doesn’t, it should. And second, isn’t quoting the CFO of Lehman Brothers – Lehman Brothers! – almost as vaudevillian as quoting the director of employee health and wellbeing at Phillip Morris?

So here’s a more realistic gem from the piece, courtesy of an anonymous source, referenced as an executive at a “top bank,” who says Wall Street’s disdain for Obama is mostly personal. “He raised money from us. Then he started calling us bad people. So forgive us for not wanting to buy him a drink after getting punched in the eye.” Of course, I couldn’t help but wonder if the terms “a drink” and “an election” are interchangeable in this particular cry baby’s vocabulary, and whether or not “punched in the eye” is Wall Street code, maybe learned in liberal arts classes at Ivy League colleges, for having your bonus trimmed down from $12 million to a mere $4.5 million, but I have to give him credit for being honest.

If you need a good laugh, and if your stomach is strong, here’s the piece in its entirety for your reading pleasure.

A good start

For me, 2011 got off to a very good start. I had people over for rice and beans on the first day of the new year. We drank coffee and fruit-flavored soda and ate brownies I’d baked on Christmas and black beans and rice. It sounds simple enough, and in a way it was. But in another way it was anything but.

I have come to regard my booze-hound years as a perfect storm of sorts. I had a job that spread like a terminal disease. I bought a house without really thinking about it. My job got moved to a hideous suburb, so I began to spend, on average, two hours a day on the highways. My job metastasized. Then my mother died. I went to London, I went to Hong Kong, I went to Australia, and it was in those places, oddly enough, that I began to recall a previous version of myself. I used to live in apartments, and I used to know my neighbors. My apartments were never what you’d call party central, but the doors were open. People stopped by, often invited, often not, and there was a lot of visiting.

For at least two years I wondered what it would be like to meet someone for coffee without calculating how to best shift the get-together to the nearest tavern. For at least two years I wondered what it would be like to sit down to breakfast without the calculator inside of my brain running the numbers to determine the earliest possible time to start that would not constitute too early. For at least two years I wondered what it would be like to just not drink.

After what seemed like an endless onslaught of rain and wind, toward the end of last week the sky cleared and the temperature fell. The horizon, as is often the case around here when January approaches, was enormous, and blue and dry. On Friday I made a batch of black beans and did a bit of housecleaning. On Saturday morning I made a pot of brown rice and heated up the beans, which are always better, in my opinion, a day after the initial cooking. By 11:30 in the morning four of us were sitting around the coffee table in the living room, and for a few hours we talked and laughed with neither an agenda nor a schedule, and it was, from my point of view anyhow, perfect.