Corona, Corona

There's a Taj Mahal moon out tonight... I mean the musician, not the palace, although you can take her anywhere and she'll never fail you.  A photographer friend tipped me off to the moonrise... he described it as orange and liquid... but here in the city I went block to block without a view until she had risen to the height of an average 10-story building and had become more like a bowl of raw milk.

The first time I ever heard Taj was a hot full-moon August night... I had no idea what to expect-- just the strange name-- and there he was, this simple hypnotic 2-beat weaving a Calypso-ish spell in the steamy club.  'Without my Corinna... sure don't mean a natural thing, ' he sang and it went straight through me like summer wind.

Years later my young husband showed up one day with none other than Mr. Henry St. Clair Fredericks, Taj's born-name... apparently they'd worked together and were friends.  I had many surprises in the early years of my marriage;  he spoke little but his past followed him like empty cans tied to a rear car-fender.  All colors-- all flavors... ('I learned to love you...' the song goes... accent on the 'you'...).  His rockstar friends, as well as the motley entourage that surrounded him, provided two kinds of education-- one biographical, and the other-- well, those were different times.  How many years has it been since I've seen anyone put out a bowl of milk for their pet cat?

When Wall Street has a bad day-- a really bad day, that is, there's a kind of pall over the city.  This virus scare has spread a film of slime and mistrust that no one needed at this moment.  In Harlem, little has changed.  Not so many investors up there... and life goes on-- illness or no illness.  People in their wheelchairs and leaning on walkers, asking for food and money-- no gloves, no masks.  But downtown-- midtown-- trains are less crowded, people seem subdued,  the way they were post-9/11.  Asians cover their mouths.  It's certainly taken us down a notch or two.

My man Salih who sells fruit from a stand across from Metropolitan Hospital says business is way off.  In February he refused to sell ginger, assuring me the Chinese were spreading illness; last night he was practically begging me to take any of his wares before they went bad.  Here, have a bag-- he packed it with a honeydew melon, some red peppers-- give me $2 he said, knowing I won't resist a bargain.  What will become of him who works 14 hours, 6 days... commutes 2 hours to a 2-room share in Staten Island, but is happy to be so close to the Mosque where he gratefully prays sometimes three times a day?

Last winter he was mugged and beaten badly for the $72 he had in his purse.  They dumped his fruit and stomped the bananas.  He is friendly with hospital staff, and they treated him on the sidewalk, but Allah-willing, he is terrified to visit the ER where he might be deemed undesirable and only partly legal.  Salih means virtuous...his son is named Aytagin which he tells me means 'Moon Prince'.

Tonight they have drawn a map-line around several neighborhoods.  When I was small there was a brief quarantine during the final polio outbreak; I thought the word meant something bad-smelling that came in a can-- like turpentine.   It made my mother scowl and keep us close to the small yard.   I keep thinking of that Wallflowers song 'the same black line that was drawn on you was drawn on me..'  We don't need this kind of thing now.  What is the meaning of it?  Threat?  Warning?  Punishment?  Things seemed so much happier at Christmas.  St. Marks Square in Venice is deserted now; the Gondoliers are sitting idly by the water, making smalltalk, telling jokes... but they fool no one.  Here we are trying to smile in our striped shirts, but we are anxious and defeated.

I saw a photo of Jakob Dylan recently; he looks tired and drawn, the way his father often did.  I am old enough to be his mother.  Henry St. Clair Fredericks is fat now.  He can still play, but he is not the same.  Just this week... festivals are being cancelled; music is receding into phones and online venues.  We are like closely-planted islands in this city-- isolated and selfish; few of us know our neighbors or notice when they fail to come home.  Even fewer are sitting quietly on a stoop tonight smoking-- listening to the music in their heart, watching the sky change.

My moon ages little; she hides, she circles, she shifts-- and then there she is, clean and untouched by what ails us here... same as she was the night I heard 'got a rainbow round my shoulder... looks like silver, shines like Klondike gold...'   Shine on, little Aytagin... may you grow strong and healthy as Salih, whose blessing today, in his broken Turkish-English, sounded like 'may you sell a million grapes in one hour.'

Physical Graffiti

I'm feeling like one of those cartoon characters, hoisting myself onto the ledge of the deep well of September, having clawed my way up walls with no footholds, no light… the tarry residue of recent events stuck to my skin, matting my hair, coating the bottom of the pit with the purgatorial sludge of beyond-my-control.

For those of us who have been watching the PBS Vietnam documentary, we are somehow haunted by the resonance of the messages-- or the absence of message-- in those events which both brought us together and split us apart.  History and hindsight are crucial to understanding.  Lack of transparency, skewed communications, mixed motives all contributed to the catastrophe that was this war.  These lessons are surely not absorbed or understood by our current Lego-esque president who is tragically under-qualified for most any position of leadership.  We saw various styles of politicians; were often betrayed by those we trusted most.

Besides the personal losses of recent days, the political climate, natural disasters and tragedies have made our lives that much less 'safe', our nights that much more sleepless.  Despite the news that the average American's income has risen, I find my artistic friends more encumbered than ever with impossible rents, dwindling income, constantly inflating everyday expenses.  I have down-sized virtually everything-- buy nothing at this point except cheap food on sale at varieties of markets.  It requires vigilance and time to glean the necessary information, and miles of walking to achieve the smallest victory over the relentless threat of poverty like an enemy ambush, waiting to take me down.

I do not miss the tiny luxuries-- a coffee in a cafe, occasional sushi box, new boots-- and manage to find museums and exhibitions without fees, but in this time of desperate global need I feel humiliated that I cannot contribute.  I'm no longer young and able-bodied enough to be part of some rescue or rehab coalition, and I have little to offer but my cheap grief, no matter how heartfelt.  'You ain't changin' no lives here, baby,' my local homeless man reminds me when I sacrifice an occasional quarter into his cup.  It's humiliating.

So I'm especially offended by the grotesque luxury culture that seems to be a sort of status quo among way too many Americans, whether they can afford it or not.  Because I was gifted a privileged education, I did rub shoulders and trade licks with some of these people in my past.  They make fun of me and occasionally offer me money; when they show up at gigs I buy them a drink.  I do accept payment for my books and cds.  But last week one who happens to be building some new residence of palatial proportions called me up and told me he's thinking about buying a urinal.  'You mean like the Duchamp, I asked in utter disbelief, realizing that for a split second I registered 'unicorn'?'  'No,' he replied, 'I'm not that sophisticated.  But for my billiards room (contiguous to the cigar bar)... I thought it would be a hoot. '  So I laid into him… about how I knew plenty of guys I could get to provide poolroom atmosphere and men's room grit, who would grind out their cigarette butts on his mahogany floors and stink up the place with street-sweat and the poetics of ghetto-slang and give him credibility.  Not to forget the gender ramifications, etc.  He can always rely on me for a 'dressing down', as he called it.

I hung up and in my head began to rack up the unpaid debt people like Banksy owe Duchamp.  For me there was one urinal.  He did not keep on repeating himself and was incredibly clever and inventive.  I remembered walking with another friend, passing one of those exquisitely quilted walls layered with various random graffiti souvenirs and posters-- rippings and peelings that rival any great Ab Ex museum painting for beauty and depth.  My friend wanted to remove one of the particularly brilliant postings and have it framed for his collection. We argued.  Next day I went back and sure enough, it had been skillfully excised like the work of some plastic surgeon.

It's not enough that these people have made LVMH and Ferrari massive billionaire brands… that they own and own and renovate and build and collect.  They now must own what was made by and meant for everyone-- especially the poor among us who don't have the same access to visual artistic stimulation.  Basquiat has become the quintessential collectible of these inner sanctums and massive living rooms.  The Basquiat I knew who threw his gut and brain onto old doors and walls… is now the ultimate status symbol.  Duane Hanson used to make facsimile sculptures of homeless people-- like his wink to these collectors.  In my old art dealing days I placed one of his Museum Guards in a huge Park Avenue foyer.  A sort of joke, but with another meaning that boded ill for private art fantasies.  A version of Jean Michel is rolling in his grave, while the worse version feels flattered.  Andy, too.  Fortunately for me, there are so few museum shows I really regret missing lately; it seems these institutions have bowed to the culture of Instagram and popularity.  Art galleries are filled with stuff that seems amateurish and shallow.  But I'm a cranky old no one.  What do I own?

On top of my plate of cheap rice this week has been the disgraceful intrusion of a lone hater with a fake name, hiding behind a pretentious Facebook profile and slandering and posting accusations and falsehoods.  I play music… I go home.  I write books and columns, I give my poetry away almost daily.   I worry about how to pay my monthly maintenance; I stretch dollars and perform tiny economic acrobatics.  It is distressing and discouraging.  For three days I cannot shake the image and repeated accounts from the Vietnam documentary about the hills-- the bloody, senseless military operations to occupy a hill-- causing massive casualties and deaths… and then… the hills are abandoned-- like a wicked game, like the ultimate Sisyphean war tale.   And then my stalker-- attempting to level the tiny reward of my creative inner conflict, like a grenade of hatred.  I am haunted; I am angry.  I own this.

The 18-hour series ended with the anthemic 'Let It Be' playing over the final credits.  Somehow this infuriated me.  Let it be?  A message of apathy and concession after reliving the whole disengorging saga of the 1960's?  The Beatles?  Let Puerto Rico be, as President Lego would do?  Let Mexico be? Let the rich eat cake and the poor starve?  Let the current pop culture undermine history and prioritize sacred museum space with the products of fashion and commerce while they discard the true foundations and sacrifices that constitute art?  Not me.  I will fight.  I will resist… old and weak as I am, I will try to express my contempt for what is morally hideous and grieve for the poor under-acknowledged saints and martyrs of this abysmal culture whose memory grows shorter and shorter, dimmer and dimmer… fade to black.

Lunatic

How many of you out there are secret horoscope readers?  Rational, politically active left-wing intelligent liberals who look down on astrologists and palm-readers but consult their daily vague cheap paragraphs written by people maybe in bathrobes watching daytime soaps and eating Doritos while they bank a weekly check from some news agency?

Okay, I occasionally look.  Maybe more.  The cynic who sneers at friends who won't travel or make decisions when Mercury is in retrograde which have you noticed seems like constantly these days?
I remember a one-night stand when I was around 20-- about to have this romantic night with some rock musician and as the guy takes his shirt off, there's a libra-charm around his neck...and I start to look for the exit, wonder how I'll get through until morning.  Well, maybe I was tougher then.

Besides... what if you're born premature, were scheduled to be a Capricorn and you emerge a Scorpio? Who are you then?  Or say the doctor gives you chemicals to speed up your labor--- or magnesium to slow contractions--- are we playing with fate? Shouldn't the sign be based upon conception-- the moment of conception?  Then there would at least be some scientific consistency here...
I think the fact that Bob Marley shares a birthday with Ronald Reagan, and Hitler with Carmen Electra---kind of kills the credibility factor for me.  Of course, astrologists all defend this with rising signs, moon phases, etc.... but Jerry Hall and I were in labor simultaneously at the same hospital... and I couldn't help thinking about our babies' futures.  She certainly had better drugs and 300-tpi sheets  and still screamed louder than anyone on the ward, so go figure.

I was looking at the moon on the way home from a gig last night--- a big old misty near-full summer moon that undoubtedly was overseeing plenty of heartache.  It looked tired and sort of about to drop.  I wondered what sign the moon is---I mean, that's something to wrap your brain around--- under what astrological circumstances did that chunk of planetary mystery break away and ally itself with our complicated planet for life, love-struck lunatic that it must have been?

I just came back from a trip to my old neighborhood which, like most of Manhattan, has had one of those facelifts that doesn't quite suit its bone structure.  Some of the shops--- like an old diner, a Betsey Johnson boutique, were just vacant, with the sign still there.  I went by my old building--- trying not to reminisce about all the great parties and amazing sex I had in there--- and in the lobby, next to the hideous pseudo-impressionist pastel oil painting of Central Park, someone had tacked up an American flag.  Not a real one--- a cheap reprint on cloth that looked fake.  It wasn't even hung up straight-- it looked like some kind of republican bad graffiti there... or a sign that designated the building as marked or condemned.  It looked pretentious and absurd-- inappropriate and sort of obscene, in the way a moon never does.  Just an observation.

The whole neighborhood looked as though it had briefly tried to become upscale, and then failed.  Empty restaurants, pretentious shops and markets--even a hotel. But everything looked sad and old-new.  I observed some locals coping with the economy; a guy emptying a dumpster of shoes, lamps-- someone's apartment contents.  At first glance the stuff looked cool, I was thinking--- but he'll soon find out the leopard print is screened on, and the leather is Chinese composite material.  He was very cool, though, the scavenger--- was not getting excited or remarking on anything which might call attention to his potential treasure.  Further down the block a skinny man with no teeth was stretched out with a box of Newports on the sidewalk like a summer pastiche.  What possible astrological configuration might have influenced his choice of cigarettes, because this looked major montaged, out-of-context--- like something you'd find on a beach, surfy and turquoise to bring out  your tan--- not the choice of your average black homeless man.   Maybe it was an art exhibit, I thought.  Fringe performance stuff.  But real life isn't staged or photo-shopped.

My brain has been so altered by the way I've learned to think.  I guess it is fairly obvious to non-lunatics that all memories are mostly of things lost.  But I don't want to find new regrets.  My son is driving me crazy today-- moping around, making memories of what he might have lost last weekend.  Still, I am glad I didn't forget to have children, although I miss the ones I've lost; I try to shield them from too much sunlight and from the catastrophes that they won't suffer.

A woman on the street the other day stopped me--- like an ancient seer--- and she said -Don't FEEL so much--it doesn't do you any good.   Oh but it does, it does.  For those of us who haven't yet succumbed to the philosophical and emotional flabbiness that is America now-- it does matter.  It is our way of working out, of warding off blindness.  And if our aging eyes are less sharp, and our ears ringing, let it be from too much looking and too much listening.  My old moon knows what I mean.  I'm beginning to think he's a fellow Aquarian after all.

9/11 (The Fireman's Lover)

I suppose 10 years ago this date was unimaginable. We had just settled into the Y2k thing and the day was so hopefully crisp and clear. We’d had a false alarm in our building that summer and one of the cute 30-something firemen left me a cute note and came back out-of-uniform to inspect my apartment. September 10 he’d shown up at my gig (he loved music) and, well, I’d suspected he was married— but my friend didn’t seem to care. They spent the night. He left her early-morning; she called, he called... then we both went to bed, at dawn— slept through the burning towers, awoke and watched the horror over and over, not in real time. Neither of us ever heard from him again. We didn’t know his last name.

Of course everyone in New York City had some connection--- but mine, aside from my cute fireman and the geography, was much like the rest of the world-- emotional. The democratic rug had been yanked beneath us and America lost its virginity. My son couldn’t manage to process the victims and the jumpers. We went down to the site and inhaled human and non-human remains. People wanted to die.

My friend and I searched all the images for our fireman. We mourned him--- she more deeply than I. I kept the note. Maybe his family is among the celebrated mourners today--- his sons are undoubtedly strong and athletic; his wife has maybe re-married. He was a good boy with maybe a 7-year-itch. He loved the music. I’m no longer in touch with my friend. She stalked firehouses and events for a while, seeking a replacement. She was among the single women in New York who watched Sex in the City and empathized with women who lost their husbands but pitied herself for NOT having anyone to have missed. For all I know (and pray, with all my heart) our fireman is just fine—he would be 40-something and the trauma of 9/11 cured his itch.

For some of us New Yorkers, we hate what our culture has become. We hate the technology, the slickness that is Manhattan now. The new monuments and towers may satisfy some, but personally I would want a cemetery and private grave where I could lay my face on the dirt or stone and weep. I’m sure some of the families have taken that option, in a quiet way.

There are also, this being New York, the scams and fakes-- -the insurance payments that went to the wrong survivors, the drama queens who moaned and beat their breasts for loved ones that hated them, that rarely spoke— messy divorces unconcluded on 9/11— cheater boyfriends who suddenly spoke on podiums and seduced sympathetic beautiful women who would never have given them a look. I remember meeting a man— he asked me out shortly afterward--- spent an entire dinner explaining how he’d lost his soulmate on 9/11, how she’d been a concert pianist but they’d lived in a studio apartment and she worked at an insurance firm--- he kept touching my knee under the table until I stood up and asked him if he loved her so much, and since he accepted the 1 million dollar payment he had to hire a lawyer to get, why he kept her in a tiny apartment with no piano. It was mean, but it was my personal tribute to her.

Not a single one of the victims has grown cold in their grave. Anniversaries--- like holidays--- give us a window. I used to believe Christmas was the day that Jesus just might show up. Only Christmas. September 11 is the day on which we think--- God, just those years ago... at 7 AM... everything was as it was. The way on September 11, 2001 the disbelief made us keep rewinding--- last night at this time we were here, having dinner, watching television... the look-back thing... if we could only return--- we remember, we mark another anniversary, we are forced to accept that an eyeblink removes us from the moment, and the door has closed forever-- -time will stop for no man, no tragedy... there is only ‘that side’—before... and ‘this side’—after. The date just reminds us painfully of the ‘After’. All the rest is lost, gone, permanent.

I am tired of the endless replays of a moment which doesn’t ever seem to lose its edge, a gun that shoots endless bullets, a horror scene that never dilutes. The commercials--- now it is Eva Mendes, not Eva Longoria---promoting their hair product....but the documentaries are the same. No one wants to see anything but the vintage actual footage. We have learned little, our economy and lives have been drastically altered, America is no longer even worth being a target for terrorism. We have bad dreams, we wake up. For some of us life is still a bad dream.

I don’t know if I could have accepted the murder of a husband or child. I find these things so hard. One of the fathers I knew who lost his son – died on September 18, 2001. He died of grief. His wife mourns both of them by living.

Some days I wish I’d slept with the fireman. It would have personalized the whole thing— I could have felt more justified as a woman to grieve, even though there would have been no pew for me at the funeral ceremonies. I’ve heard my former friend has become an eccentric republican and hoards cats.

People are watching television. People are playing music. People are making love and conceiving children. People are dying and not getting hero’s funerals. Dying and suiciding and overdosing on prescription pills. People are getting married and flying and betting on football. Robbing buildings, raping and mugging old people, putting out fires.

At my son’s school there are 2 model towers and students hang a chain on them; the number of links you choose represents the degrees of separation from a victim. Our chains are getting longer. The years are each a link— for those closest, the days and minutes are a link. The distance is a painful ocean of links from lying beside your child, your husband, your lover--- a galaxy of never-ever. The memory, as this day reminds, has zero links. It doesn't recall or commemorate or 'remain'. It is.

Near Miss

I’m in avoidance mode. The economy eruption blankets us in a sludge of fast-hardening lava-mud. Despite the bright words and eye-twinkling of Obamaman, our spirits cannot move with the weight of the debris. We are slimed everywhere. Hard to walk. Hard to keep up with the laundry.

The quality of the garbage on the streets has changed. Fewer wrappers. I have been noticing condoms. Free goods, for most of us these days who frequent thrift shops. But what is the message here? Used, unused? The aborted abortions? Paid sex once again in cars on curbs? I’m sure someone is tackling the fate of the sex industry in a recession. Is Kristin or whatever her name was receiving maximum unemployment? Is she giving discounts? Has Wall Street cut back? How much of our economic surplus cash went to such perks?

There was a suicide at Dalton last week. One wonders how the climate affects these teenagers whose brains, an automobile insurer claims in an ad, are not normally configured.

I ran into a Psych who once treated my struggling boy. He was on the subway. Another sign of a recession. These guys always make me a bit sheepish, because no matter how decent one has tried to be, the parents always get the roofed eyebrow. Especially black-clad mothers who were known to play suicide-laced music in punk-rock bars. He asked for my son. It is of course much easier to have sympathy for a raging teen in retrospect. Anyway, it was the day after the Chimp incident. I made some off-hand parallel. The Psych moved perceptibly away from me…re-evaluating his diagnosis, no doubt.

What I meant was… sometimes we just ‘crack’…some of us onstage, some of us on the grocery line, some of us from our offices on Wall Street. Some of us have horns and amplifiers and guitars and we can wail to some audience and feel relief. Others can lift weights in a gym until they are exhausted, run laps around city reservoirs, drink until the anger is diluted. But some of us begin to lose control. Cars do it... dogs do it, kids do it. The economy is doing it. And something I noticed with my son…if he picked up the scent of fear, all hell broke loose. Like any dog or horse gone wild, he needed a bit of reassurance. Very hard to do this when the falls of Niagara are inches away, or the unbridled temper of a loose boy with a fantastic pitching arm.

No one will comfort a murderous raging chimp. What we need we do not always get when we are passionate and angry. We get fear, and fear is like dry wind to a fire. And after the tantrum, like a gigantic raging storm or a psychic orgasm, there is calm…if we can wait it out.

But we are all frightened now. There seems to be no bottom. For a few weeks after the election, people seemed kind and friendly. Generous. Considerate. Now, it is turning. Patience is short as we watch our financial futures telescoping. And what are our choices? Rage? Suicide? Drink? Murder the 8 babies which helped fund the collagen lip injections of that woman in California who rivals the Merrill Lynch office drapes bill and the Citicorp jet in rage-fuel? Teenagers everywhere are cutting and refusing to eat, binging and purging, using, drinking, hurting, fearing. Just for a moment of calm. For sequential seconds without fear.

There will be more fires. More plane crashes. When our prayers do not seem to be answered, we will try to find comfort in the fact that our lives were spared. But this fuels the fear. What next? Be positive, our president tells us, his beaming wife in reasonably-priced designer clothes, the shining student from North Carolina beside her. Do not fear in the face of a raging chimpanzee? When another gig gets cancelled, another letter arrives from my building management threatening and assessing… and I am on my way to the grocery store assessing the pathetic buying capacity of my pocket change, wondering if a trip to Queens is worth saving $1 on a jar of mayonnaise…wondering if I can remember how to make my own, which requires eggs which are out-of-budget at the moment… a passing bicycle messenger near-misses as I step off the curb…avoiding a massive injury, a trip to the ER, the loss of my bass-picking fingers, the source of my secret pleasure. Oh God, I mutter out loud—a reflex of some sort.

And I invoke the temporary comfort and heavenly blessing of the Near-Miss. All I can find at the moment. The fire was NOT in my building, my apartment was not robbed, I am walking, I do not have a current cancer diagnosis, my son is alive and has not been thrown out of school. I will try not to repeat, at the end of every Near-Miss prayer of thank you, the looming adverb ‘Yet’.

Dear Andrew

Ahh… poor pathetic AIG has now become the poster-child for corporate greed. They have been ordered to suspend their $600 million bonus fund. Poor Mr. Sullivan. And you know about poster children. The real victims are not even camera-ready. They’re festering, stewing in greed, still lunching in Armani while they consider passing on the private jet for Christmas vacation. Call me, Andrew Cuomo. Call me.

First of all, I’d like to know what kind of accounting principles Henry Paulson is using. The Goldman Sachs kind, apparently. As for me, before I’d lend a friend my last $20, I’d have to be pretty sure he doesn’t have a few Ferraris in the garage. Here’s a hint: you can’t spell Goldman without G-O-L-D. Call me.

I’ve got a notice from HRA in my mailbox. The second one. Apparently someone shared my tax return with them. The one that was so pathetic, I didn’t qualify for an economic stimulus check. I was counting on that, to buy my teenage son a graduation laptop. The IRS assumes anyone in my income bracket is receiving welfare benefits, and no matter what they give me, my thrift-shop buying is not going to stimulate the economy. I am forced to submit my 1040 to receive my Child Health Plus package (thank you Hillary!). This year, as last, I am too poor to be billed. I also have a brain and another commodity which is not only obsolete but worthless in the current atmosphere: a conscience. I have an apartment. I have my guitars and I know how to use them. I am struggling, day by day, week by week, to keep up payments. I had a retirement fund. This has been decimated to the point where I must live to an age of invalidity in order to collect what I’d put in. I don’t have a cellphone, Andrew, but I’ve got Verizon. Call me. It's local. I don’t receive benefits.

And how about this? I owe no one. I have no debt. I have no nice or even acceptable clothing, no heels on my shoes, a near-empty pantry. I do have mice. In my funky old prewar building which is now on the Corcoran list of Luxury Residences…due to endless renovations by the AIG and Bear Stearns unduly rewarded…I have mice, I have leaks, I have holes. Despite the fact that they are manipulating our old co-op like an overpriced Biotech company and demanding millions from shareholders…they cannot seem to find the cash in their pocket to patch the most recent hole they made in my ceiling. One of them even sued the co-op because we complained about his illegal and damaging renovation. Does the Attorney General's office respond? The government does not intervene in the corporation I live in. Not until it's bankrupt and in ruins. If I were being played by Steve McQueen, I’d eat the mice.

Let me say something else. Being hungry makes you cranky. It makes you less generous with sympathy. Especially sympathy for the rich. What about me, Presidential candidates? What about the proud hard-working poor…we who scarcely pay more than self-employment tax, who don’t ‘burden the system’, who share our stale bread with the homeless guys on the corner, who walk for a couple of days each month to postpone the cost of the monthly Metro card into the next billing cycle?

Yesterday I walked 3 miles to hand-deliver a birthday card because it saved me 42 cents. I pay my gas bill every 3 months because the finance charge is less than the stamps I’d have to use. I know about 'cutting the fat'. So how about hiring me to balance the AIG budget? I’m available. I’m smart. I don’t use the word deficit. I work per diem. Cheap. You can be sure I’d have found a good use for the $600 million. You can be sure their customers whose homes have been destroyed by hurricanes and floods would have a little cash.

Every morning I listen to the baffled BBC interviewees on the state of the world markets. The whole economy is tanked, let’s face it. My life is not much different than it was… yes, I’m losing work. I’m still terrified. Next week I must factor in Halloween candy. Do food stamps cover candy? Is that 'kosher'? Certainly not a sound nutritional investment. But soon it will be Christmas. A tree? I’m hungry. Eggs are out of my budget now. Rice is a luxury. I’ve stood outside a café several times this month with my hoodie on, waiting for them to put out leftover bread. Pride? Do I have pride? Why do my neighbors flash cash at the doormen when their Global Equity positions have caused suffering on a global and inequitable scale? Is that pride? Call me, Andrew.

Do they really want to restore CONFIDENCE? If I were getting Jon Stewart’s salary, I’d laugh. Here’s my question: Why are they letting the criminals jury their own trial? Never in all my educational or historical experience, except possibly the most corrupt African nations…was this kind of thing going on. Is this the new version of justice? Let’s face it… if someone kidnaps your child, holds him ransom for everything you own…are you going to let him go when he’s caught in the next heinous act? Are you going to let him keep what he stole? It’s not like I’m asking for anything except simple, Biblical Justice. Human Decency. The Law.

Why are they not rounding up the criminals and corralling them in their own bank vaults? Why is no one staging some large-scale political version of Dog Day Afternoon? I live in a building with these people who essentially spent their co-workers’ pensions on lunches. And they have money. They are all being paid. They are living on huge accounts built with massive bonuses.

Come on Andrew…you can do better. Every single one of these guys needs to put it back. And no, John McCain, this is not SPREADING THE WEALTH AROUND, this is putting back what you stole. It was a long party… and so much of the money has been spent, those bastards. Punishment? Yes, they deserve it. On a global scale. But first? Make them give it back. Every single penny. I’ll do the books. I’m great at it. I’ve don’t even know what a vacation looks like. No expensive junkets for my team. We'll eat stale bread for lunch. Hey...I’m living in a Corcoran-designated Luxury Residence just footsteps from Central Park and putting a kid through college on a poverty-level income. I know how to put extra notches in a belt. Call me.

As for the AIG guys and the other Investment Wizards: Let them eat mice.

P.S.: Does it occur to anyone that if we hadn’t been so obsessed with crucifying Spitzer for personal indiscretion, someone might have had an eye on the true Satans of Wall Street?

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.