Cataracts

Tonight I went to see an eye doctor I haven’t seen in 12 years. He doesn’t take my pathetic overpriced insurance, but I remembered he was a thorough and reasonable professional and it turns out his fee for a consult is exactly the same as my overpriced insurance co-pay. Never in my 25-year health-insurance past have I spent more quality time in a doctor’s office. He prescribed 1 (that’s right) contact lens, so I don’t waste money on the other which I don’t need… and told me not to bother changing my eyeglasses because my eyes are in flux and I’d be throwing money away. Then he told me he’d mail a paper bill--- he doesn’t take plastic. I thought I was in a time-warp.

The bad news, on the other hand, is that I’m developing a cataract. Apparently I have what amounts to a yellow filter over my eyes, which affects my perception of color. Not only am I becoming the oldest rock musician in New York City, but all those years of spots and blue lights have taken a toll. When he used the word, I thought about Niagara Falls— that kind of cataract. The only meaning when I was young and invincible. Before spellcheck. I thought of the cataract-tears that fell this morning for Ted Kennedy, the ones I cried for the lost and missing children in my life, the tragic suicides of all the pained artistic souls I worshipped over the years. They couldn’t take the harsh light, couldn’t afford the prescription shades. Blink, Lou Reed.

I wonder if Ted Kennedy with all his health issues had cataracts because it seemed that he saw things with a bit too much clarity over the years. It bothers me, in some way, that his presidential timing was never quite right, and I wonder why the Powers-That-Be decided it was prudent to let the right Democrat in this time round. I watched archival footage of Ted giving that speech, way back in the Carter era, acknowledging that the average American family would have been bankrupted in a few months if faced with the Kennedy family medical bills. I watched him pledging to uphold the Democratic platform which guaranteed every American decent health care. Because when it comes down to it, what good are Constitutional rights if you’re too ill to exercise them?

That speech was filmed in an era when words were spoken live—- then televised. Not twittered, emailed, texted. Grammar mattered. Rhetoric, delivery. He suffered plenty of press and political crucifixions—- maybe more than his brothers, because he lived so much longer— and perhaps wore his tragic flaws more honestly.

Not that I have abandoned Obama. But I cannot fathom his doing business with the Bernankes and Geithners and Goldman crooks any more than I could stomach a presidential golf game with Ahmadinejad. No spellcheck there.

What annoys me tonight… people on TV who say ‘this is a whole nother level’… who are maybe the same people who say ‘how good of a pitch was that?’ What’s with the ‘of’? The careless misspellings posted in bold typeface on our Breaking-News TV caption-headlines. For a brief minute, Senator Kennedy was daed. Walter Cronkite would not have made such a typo.

But back to the Democratic ‘platform’ promise from 30 years ago. What has happened to blur the vision of Americans? Among other things, what happened was Reagan et. al. Then Bush et. al. The fact that the Dow moved up some 10,000 points and clouded our judgment. The fact that biotech and health insurance stocks were putting such enormous profits in the pockets of the Loudmouths that healthcare and every thing else for the increasing rich was affordable and deductible and the poor…well, let them eat cake anyway because their teeth will fall out before they reach Medicare eligibility.

Ted might have had a brain tumor, but he had a memory, also. His parting policy statement was a reminder about universal health care. Will this shine through his death? Or will the message be lost in the media?

Do you think he was too ill to know that Annie Liebovitz who photographed his family is now bankrupt? That her catalogue, like that of the living Michael Jackson, is in jeopardy and Goldman Sachs is now offering to bail her out of her uncompromising financial obligation? They will buy this ‘toxic’ loan like an anteater lickety splits his prey. And they will turn this around, make a huge profit, humiliate her. The whole situation sucks, but did she not see that the words ‘Art’ and ‘Capital’ do not belong together except in a world where ‘US Treasury’ and ‘Goldman Sachs’ cannot go for more than a page of text without being linked?

Cataracts. Annie wears designer glasses. I’ll bet her doctors will exchange a photo or even a Polaroid for a life-saving surgery. But don’t give in, Annie. They have your negatives but they don’t have you. I always thought you were a sell-out and I actually had your huge old coffee-table book on a pile of library-donations. I just might keep it now. In a few months I might only see in black and white anyway. My insurance won’t pay for the surgery, and no vision correction will let us see, when we pull the voting booth lever, which candidate is running on the G-S ticket.

Cello-Pain

I was at my gym exercising tonight and a grey-haired woman, in lieu of saying excuse me, gave me the slightest brush of hand on my extended leg, to let me know she was passing—so sorry—and as I looked up, there was this warm sort of split-second Susan Boyle twinkle in her eye that informed not only of a rare kind of generous humanity, but an equally capacitous depth of loneliness. Of course there is no appropriate response besides the half-smile I gave her, but it lifted me out of my egocentric gym fog into a
mode of empathy and compassion.

I think part of this whole obsession with Susan Boyle, besides the Cinderella thing, has to do with the shifting gear thing…when suddenly the commonplace and ordinary becomes worthy of reverence. And of compassion… via a sort of Eleanor Rigby gifted with an incredible and moving talent… the voice of great beauty which turns the froggy woman into a sort of queen. An unlikely stone on the shore is revealed as a diamond. And all of us, now, have learned the lesson of not taking everything for granted, of not judging all books by their cover. All of us were magic-wanded, at least for a day, into a kinder and more forgiving temper.

Because like a kind of miracle, we get this glimpse of joy…the place where her voice begins… the truth of it… the utter lack of attitude toward these people who placed themselves as her superiors, and who were humbled into some kind of genuine happiness at pure ungroomed talent as we do not generally see it on American Idol. It is not the face of Jesus in a croissant, it is something living and magical at once and it moves us from our cult of cynicism and fraud into a kind of belief, even if it came from Youtube.

Now they are pleading that she should not have plastic surgery or get her teeth fixed…is it ‘charming’ and part of the fairy tale that she remain a frog? Does she not deserve the pampering the judges receive? Would that not make her eligible for another makeover reality show and dilute the phenomenon?

I’m not certain what will happen to Susan Boyle…whether she’ll wish she had remained a frog with a heavenly voice… but I’ve noticed this week that poverty gets in your veins and arteries and it is hard to get it out. Like damp. It ruins you. And in the end, it stunts your spirit. It suffocates and taints like mold. I feel as though I’m never going to be a home for success….I’m too wrecked. I’ve become the downgraded mask I’ve worn for years as a disguise in which to become an artist. I am no longer viable. It’s terrifying in a way that I could find comfortable.

It could be a 21st century sociological phenomenon… obviously 99 percent of today’s successful ‘artists’ are merely products, and are fueled with rich parents or other forms of lucre. And I also realize that no matter how many millions these people and/or their rich investment-banker families have hoarded…they feel like losers… they are not real celebrities or great men… they are not heroes…they are not as rich as they long to be… except maybe Jay-Z… but they are like these filthy landlords here. And I am one of the pathetic hideous poor tenants…with the mold of it seeping in, the stained bathroom… terminally incapable of success in some way. But once you are old and arthritic and close to death.. .does it really make a difference if your chauffeur helps you out of a Lexus or you scuff around in filthy mules in C-Town looking for prunes and white bread with your foodstamps?

Comic relief: re: the wrong number/tech hell maze, some cellist tonight emailed me by mistake… I don’t even know her… but she was obviously emailing someone else.. .this whole confession about spending the night with this guy… it was kind of lewd and gross …she’s got kids… I’ve exchanged emails with her maybe once and somehow my name was crossed in there. I hope she never figures it out. Now I DO NOT want her to play on my cd. Isn’t that judgmental of me? It’s not a morality issue, but it was just such a pathetically pedestrian confession!

Wreck-javik

I used to dream about moving to Iceland. Land of Purity, Sigur Ros, Deserted Farmhouses… endless subarctic vistas. Home of the Sagas, Laxness. Bankrupt. A whole country. Geysers…volcanoes. These bastards. These greedy Wall Street credit-swapping rich bastards. Economic rape. The end of whatever version of innocence was possible in this world— Christmas, birthday wrapping, cake and trick-or-treating. They spoiled it. For what? So they could super-size their second and third homes, put a Tag Heuer on every child’s wrist? A Ferrari in every garage? A golf course in every gated community?

My personal economics haven’t changed much. I refuse foodstamps. I have a brain, I still refuse to pay $2 for a pretzel, even when I’m starving. Waiting for a bus at Grand Central last night, one of the vendors offered me one for $1. It was the best tasting food I’d had all week …hot, fresh, smoky. A food value investment. When I boarded the hourly crosstown at 3 AM, the guy waved to me. Is this a sign of the times? Love, I felt. A certain human camaraderie. The kind most people forget about. The kind these Hedge Fund guys don’t feel at $10,000-a-plate dinners.

I refuse to live on credit, which is a form of rich-man’s charity, with not just strings but chains and handcuffs. For the poor, that is. I choose freedom.

The rich? They not only lived on credit, but banked millions from this. Monopoly money. And the worldwide piggy bank has shaken itself out. So who gets punished? If I see either Bernanke or Henry Paulson one more time I’m going to puke. Unless they are wearing one of those John Doe uniforms and out shoveling. Call me then.

How can we have let these assholes run with our ball? Our country? Because we are a race of ostriches and media-anesthetized morons who don’t complain as long as our cable and cellphones are working?

My old British grandfather once advised me that if he could not die with a million pounds, it was just as well to die owing a million pounds. Apparently his ethic is universal. Personally, I have a moral aversion to slavery. Borrowing for poor people, I reiterate, is not pretending you are a rich person, but a kind of slavery.

Because there are two sets of rules. Two sets of standards. Two sets of consequences. There is the occasional wrist-slap of bad behaviour among the rich, and there are the dismal prisons and brutal beatings for the poor. A wallet-snatcher is beaten mercilessly by local police, handcuffed and denied the right to vote while in prison. But a billion-dollar credit-snatcher gets 10 years of excessive Hampton-weekends, gourmet meals, platinum cards and 7-figure bonuses. And then? A bailout. His buddies are on the Federal Reserve fixing things so he can keep his homes and his children’s ponies will not suffer.

Meanwhile my investment banker neighbors are planning a massive renovation of our lobby. Undoubtedly they still have several million of their last Christmas bonus in some kind of bank, will hire their colleagues, receive the standard 10-20% kickback which will cover their portion of the assessment. The rest of us? We will be billed. Along with our tax increases and excessive oil bills so these neighbors can run their Jacuzzis overtime.

I play in a band with a guy who wears earplugs and blasts his guitar so that my ear-damage is beginning to affect my existence. My passion for music, which has maybe placed me in the undesireable economic category I am in..is going to be destroyed by an individual whose MO is ‘all bout me’. All. He whines, he blasts. He ignores. Accountability? There is a parallel here.

But for others, life seems to go on. There are lines at Starbucks, rush-hour traffic jams. There will be a debate tonight. Neither candidate will be able to keep promises, because there is no money. But people are content with this. Cash comes out of ATM machines. As for me, I have a phobia of plastic. I don’t like it. My bank doesn’t make much from my account. I don’t accrue fees, I don’t borrow. My credit is excellent, even though I live at the national poverty level. In Manhattan. When I get yesterday’s rolls I give a couple to the homeless guy on the corner. I am accountable. Am I accountable for those who are less fortunate? For those who may be helpless victims of their own accountability? I feel this. I really do. I am obsolete, aging, badly dressed, underfed, and losing my hearing along with my religion. But I am accountable.

I used to dream about moving to Iceland. Now I am wondering if deaf people dream with soundtracks.