Something like this warms my heart,
When someone takes the time to write.
When someone takes the time to share their views, their desires, their concerns.
It really means a lot to me—to all writers, I bet.
This truly is why writers write.
November 16, 2011
A smile on my face
November 6, 2011
I have seen retirement, it is shit
Long, drawn out and sultry.
Steamy, lazy, full.
Full of nothing, really.
Nothing but sun, sidewalk cafes, backroad drives.
Those are my summers.
Summer, for me, means little business.
Hey, who wants to see an accountant in July?
Not you.
Not most.
No, accountants are like single-malt scotch.
An acquaintance renewed once the weather turns, and the mercury drops.
My clients don’t call.
They’re busy.
Busy enjoying summer.
Busy doing other things.
Summer things.
Been that way for twenty years.
It’s cool.
I’m cool with that.
Then, September hits.
And my phone growls itself awake.
My inbox pings, announcing evermore deliveries.
As sure as seasons and sunsets.
That’s the nature of my business.
This year,
September stuck to pattern.
Busy as hell, I was.
This year,
October came.
And played me a cruel joke.
The bottom dropped out.
My inbox dried up.
My line went limp.
Like a fish suddenly off the hook.
What I’m saying…
My clients disappeared.
And business fell off. Just like that.
Weird, this isn’t supposed to happen.
Those first seven days,
In October.
I touched base with my client rotation.
They’re on a schedule, you see. Most of them.
(Like I said, predictable as the seasons).
“Hello Ms. Client, yes it’s that time again. Files need to be, uh, filed.”
But,
The files weren’t ready
The clients were too busy.
Busy doing other things.
Travelling.
Out of town.
Or.
Blowing out fires.
Pressing matters to put down.
Or.
Assistants were away.
“We’ll get back to you later,” They’d say.
“Is next month okay?”
The second week in October,
I hit the wall.
And didn’t make it over or around.
I had called everyone.
But everyone was gone.
I was stuck, in a holding pattern.
Waiting for them to come back from… wherever.
“No use calling anyone.”
“I’ll just wait.”
Tried to stay busy with other things.
For a while, it worked.
Then I crashed.
Idleness is a cruel existence.
A game of hide and seek, except
No one comes looking for you.
Seconds feel like minutes.
Minutes become hours.
Hours, painful.
After two months of near inertia,
I needed something.
Something to sink my teeth into.
But this hunter had lost the scent, and run out of prey.
There was nothing left to bite.
One day, the tenth, maybe eleventh, day (it doesn’t take much, you know, for boredom to set in)
I’m padding through the house.
One moment staring out the window.
The next at my empty computer screen.
An hour goes by.
Then another.
Back to the window.
Hands in pockets.
Catch my reflection in the mirror.
Loneliness, emptiness. Personified.
I shake my head. At myself.
And then laugh.
Laughed a lot, actually.
“Shit,” I thought.
“This is what retirement is like.”
“Aimless, meaningless, lifeless. A waste.”
Oh, I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking, “That won’t be my story. Hell no, when I retire I’ll do things, all kinds of things.”
Well, sorry, but I’m going to call BS on that one.
And back it up with this.
Read it, then get back to me.
Listen now.
Listen to me.
I have seen retirement.
For ten days in October.
I saw retirement.
And I can tell you.
It is shit.
October 30, 2011
The Wall Street hippies
Remember Kojak?
Lieutenant Theo Kojak?
Well, it’s that irrepressible, charismatic and entirely fictional character that comes to mind whenever I read about that protest-oh-so-desperately-wanting-to-be-a-movement, more commonly known as Occupy Wall Street.
More specifically, what comes to mind is his plain-talk take on capitalism. “Sure,” Kojak once said, “The system stinks, but hey, show me someone who’s got a better one.”
OK, so maybe I’m coming off as unsupportive. Negative, even.
And I’m not, really I’m not.
Because, hey, I’m just as dead set against corruption, and avarice, and irresponsible consumption as the next guy.
And if Occupy Wall Street is giving a voice to the little guy (and gal), and if Occupy Wall Street is providing a vehicle—an awakening—of what’s wrong with capitalism, well hey, like Kojak also said, “Who loves ya baby?”
But still.
Looking at the long game, I don’t hold out much hope for Occupy Wall Street.
Look, let me get to the point.
My belief is that Occupy Wall Street will, quite simply, peter out, sputtering under the weight of its own well-intentioned (I suppose) but misguided (I’m pretty sure) idealism.
Why?
Why do I say that?
Because of the hippies, that’s why.
Let me be stronger.
Blame the hippies.
It’s all their fault anyway.
You remember hippies, right?
Late 60s? San Francisco? Haight-Ashbury? Free love? Tune in, turn on, drop out?
Now that was a movement.
A grass-roots movement created not so much by focused strategy as by osmosis.
Hippies sprouted up, occupied and multiplied in ever-increasing numbers throughout North America and the world.
Hippies were anti-establishment.
Hippies were down on the man, man.
Hippies were about equality and classlessness.
And against consumerism, materialism and most of capitalism.
And now. And now.
Well, they blew it.
The Hippies blew it
Think about it, what happened to all those hippies?
More importantly.
How many of those hippies eventually turned their back on anti-establishment idealism? How many of them shed their tie-dyed threads for a three-piece, button-down look?
How many of the late-sixties hippies became the bankers and brokers, and VPs and CEOs of the twenty-first century?
And now, how many hippies are the targeted capitalists that Occupy Wall Street is protesting against?
Just like that old expression says… Plus ça change…
October 24, 2011
Greed and Capitalism
What do you think of it?
Occupy Wall Street, I mean?
Are you for?
Are you against?
Do you think it’s a recent development? A contemporary conversation?
Here’s a short 30 year-old interview with Milton Friedman.
Take a look. Tell me what you think.
In a later post I’ll give you my two cents.
