The Sinking Working Class

The income gap between the very rich and poor has grown to staggering proportions. In fact, it’s recently been declared the eighth wonder of the world. The average worker is treading water and quickly losing breath. 

The top 20% of earners received 49.4% of all income, while the bottom 20% earned 3.4%. That 14.5-to-1 ratio has nearly doubled since 1968 when it was 7.69-to-1 (According to the 2010 US Census).

And executive pay continues to rise, while the average worker's compensation stagnates. What's worse is most corporations are expanding their cash coffers, but not their employment base. Take a look at this useful indicator of employment health, the employment-population chart:

You see no uptick in private sector jobs since the recession ended. Ah...but an uptick in executive pay, yes. Because expanding profits is how executives rationalize their pay bumps. And as long as the unemployment rate remains high, corporations can continue to underpay employees--who should feel lucky just to have a job.

Beyond the ugly employment picture, a few other dark clouds lurk on the average worker's horizon:

• State and federal budget crises
• Inflation
• Baby-boomers retiring and the social security shortfall

We need to reign in executive pay and increase the wages of the common worker before the situation explodes into a crisis. (Think Arab Spring). Also, eliminating the tax break for the wealthiest Americans would be another helpful step (but that's for another post).

THIS IS NOT SOCIALISM. It’s simply doing what’s right—for working class families and the future stability of our country.

6/20/2011 UPDATE: READ BILL CLINTON'S THOUGHTS ON THIS

Powder Dreams

Winter's first snow has blanketed Massachusetts. The cold slows most, but incites some.

Jetting out to Utah for a week on Friday. I hope it's this deep...

The Blogger tasting Utah fresh.
Photo by David Stevens

Until then, videos.

Viva Banana Derby!

Bobo bounces up and down on the back of his Golden Retriever. This crazed capuchin monkey wants us fired up for his big race. We oblige, cheering wildly. I turn to give Erin an awkward, white guy high-five and Zaaahhh...Shit!

My tongue's burned by the scorching hot peanuts from my deep fried Snickers. A fast gulp of my frozen margarita extinguishes the fire and I’m hooting again.

Two monkeys will soon be competing in a pseudo horse race, jockeying on the backs of dogs. It’s the Banana Derby…and right now, it seems perfectly normal.

I’ve been in the Vegas mix for seventy-two hours and my mind has adjusted to the sensory firestorm. This town is intent on obliterating the line between reality and fantasy—clocks don’t exist, public intoxication is encouraged, and Roman emperors reign.

All hail the Blogger!

But tributaries of reality do seep into the fantastical flood.

Today starts, like so many in Vegas, with a very real hangover and a Bloody Mary. I stumble out of my room and wander through the thousand-mile stares of slot machine zombies.

After some stumbling around, our group meets at The Mermaid Bar in the Silverton Casino. Another round of to-go Bloodies are ordered, and we file onto the waiting limo.

It's a one-drink trip to Lake Meade where a fully staffed yacht picks us up for a five-hour tour.

The first stop is for a picture near Hoover Dam. I didn’t even realize we we're on the reservoir created by the Hoover Dam. Christ, even the lakes are fake here. It doesn’t look as impressive on this side of the dam; the towering wall of earth and concrete is on the other side.

“Can we get any closer,” I ask. 

“Only if you want to get shot at,” replies the captain.

Federal agents patrol the dam to thwart any potential terrorist attack. They will fire warning shots if you get too close.

A terrorist threat?

That’s a dope slap of reality. But not to worry, fantasy is still running this boat. Actually, this guy is...

Seriously.

Predictably, after an hour of apps and more drinks, a whipped cream and champagne fight erupts in the hot tub. A bit of bubbly stings my eye, so I jump out of the cream puff war to clean my face and notice the bartender in the background. She thinks no one is watching and I see a slight frown, a moment of introspection. This is her job. I wonder if she’s married. Does she have kids?

As I contemplate going to talk to her, the crew opens the two-story high waterslide off the back of the boat and I make a run for it. It’s a slick ride down and I'm the first to splash into the manmade lake. The water delivers a sobering jolt.

Doing my best doggie paddle, I get back and jump aboard. Everyone else splashes in the water, but I retreat into a towel and walk along the rail of the bottom deck.

The sun’s dropping and the horizon’s a pastel gradient of purple and pink. The vast, barren landscape may as well be Mars to this son of New England. It’s quiet. 

The yacht engines fire back up and wake me from my daydream.

Back on terra firma, we pile into the limo bus and an impromptu dance party erupts as we hurtle down Interstate 215. A quick pump of the brakes would produce a few broken limbs of reality. Fortunately, it’s a smooth ride and we’re flying high, like a G-6. The limo drops us off from our million-dollar yacht day to a five-dollar carnival night in the Silverton Casino parking lot. Nobody’s wearing white.

Fair Enough.

We’re not here to barf on The Zipper or stab anyone. We want the Banana Derby.

Bobo, the star monkey, is leashed by a heavy chain. This bothers me. And apparently, I'm not alone.

The Derby owner parades Bobo around while rattling off information and jokes with the speed of a country auctioneer... We hear about the first time he discovered Bobo riding the family dog and how capuchin monkeys live almost twice as long in captivity than in the wild (as long as they don’t drink or smoke...yuck, yuck). I aggressively slug off my margarita now. Ahhh…fan-ta-seeeeee.

30 minutes of build up for a 2-minute dog race. Shockingly, Bobo wins.

Like everything else in this town, it was rigged. And I can’t wait to come back.

Fight Fire With Fire

The furnace ignites and my head jolts up. I wipe drool off my chin and look out at the Boston commuters rumbling outside. Few will notice the small light from my window, but I could stop traffic with a single match strike.

You can write your whole life in relative anonymity. It’s a paradox of internet publishing—the power to broadcast to the world, but never actually reaching anyone. I'm easily lulled into a false sense of security and forget that published ideas are available to anyone with a web connection. All of these thoughts may exist in a vacuum for now, but one misstep, and there could be serious legal consequences. Despite the Lunesta-like effects of the subject matter, it’s vitally important to learn about the legal side of blogging.

I may feel alone when writing, but I'm absolutely alone should I face litigation for the work. As an independent blogger, there’s no employer to back me up. I'd seriously consider incorporation should my site ever become a popular destination.

Words and ideas carry a tremendous amount of power. They can sway opinion and severely affect both the author’s and subject’s existence. A lone, irresponsible blogger can even force the executive office’s hand, as highlighted by the recent Shirley Sherrod incident. It’s a delicate balancing act for an independent blogger. We write to incite something within people, to give something, but also open ourselves up to potential litigation. Listen to the voice in your head (and not the one holding a pitchfork). If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. There are a number of ways an author can get himself into trouble, but most legal problems arise because of gross misconduct.

Billions of ideas are self-published online and it’s difficult to get yours noticed, but it’s extremely easy for companies or even individuals to track when their name is mentioned. Cast it in a bad or untrue light, and they’ll know it. Even if what you’re writing is completely factual, it may not be enough. An individual can litigate if “embarrassing private facts” are disclosed. A company, with large resources, can file a frivolous lawsuit and many times will succeed in suppressing factual information by doing so. Are you willing to spend an exorbitant amount of time and money to defend your writing?

I say yes. Stand up for what you believe in. Not every writer needs to be provocative, but if your aim is to promote truth and influence, then you’ll inevitably vex someone. The threat of litigation can be frightening, but even scarier would be a world where dissident voices are smothered. You never know…the publicity from a high profile court case may even dramatically increase your site’s traffic.

I don’t suggest intentionally burning down your house just to attract a crowd of onlookers. But if you’re passionate about your material and bold enough to defend it, then flame on.

It feels like the first time.

I’m surfing @cdirksen’s Phish thread and have to pull myself away to blog about Twitter. I could rummage though Twitter’s closet for hours. It’s like discovering the internet all over again.

Tweets, micro bursts of thought, are cognitive headlines limited to 140 characters or less. It demands brevity. Hemingway would have been a masterful tweeter. I thought Twitter was just a bunch of 14-year olds telling each other what they had for breakfast. But the sophistication and creativity of the material is astounding.

It’s ten o’clock on Thursday night and I’m searching topics that interest me, #phish, #jonstewart, and #theonion. These commercial outfits generally use the microblog as a marketing tool to draw people to their main site. But as a user, the more attractive part was getting real-time information from fellow fans tweeting. I’m hunting around for fifteen minutes, stumble onto a Phish feed, and someone mentions that Trey Anastasio, the guitarist for Phish, was just referenced on The Office. I turn on the TV and dial up my dvr of The Office episode that just aired.

It was easy to quickly connect with people who share my same interests, even for a first-time user. And I swear the cold beer I sip tastes better, knowing I just used this technology to enhance my life. 

Transitive Nightfall of Diamonds

The driveway's full so I park on the front lawn, along the street. Quickly walking over icy grass, I see a familiar bush and pause. “Oh Man, that’s where I puked and thought I was going to die. Southern Comfort...more like Dixie Nightmare.”

It’s not a pleasant memory and the cold wind lashes my freshly shaved face, so I don’t loiter long. Walking up to the front door feels strange. We always went throught the garage and straight down to the basement.

“Proctor-man!” A couple of shouts followed by high-fives and hugs. The smiles are the same but the eyes have extra miles. There’s small talk and the first beer slides down quickly. “Hey, let’s have one down in the basement before we go.”

A majority of my wayward high school days were spent in the basement. My friend’s mom was easy going and let us hang there without supervision--she had raised three rambunctious boys on her own and by the time my buddy was seventeen, she had checked out. It was a burnout oasis.

As we descend into the musky grotto, half-baked memories come flooding back. A Grateful Dead poster remains at the bottom of the stairs and empty liquor bottles still line the top of the concrete foundation like dusty trophies. What filthy stories of subterranean debauchery they could tell. I notice a couple of Smirnoff bottles I had a hand in finishing. I feel proud and immediately ridiculous for feeling that way.

“Dude, no way, you slept with her too?!?”

JULIE’S A SLUT is spray painted on the concrete wall. The red paint is slightly faded, but her tarnished reputation remains--immortalized by a heartbroken teenage author. No wonder people burn books.

We shwill down our drinks and hop into the taxi for the hotel.

In the reception hall, the overhead flourescent lights are too bright and the band is too loud. The saxophone, yes a saxophone, is out of key and the line for the bar is ten people deep. Obviously I’m not the only one in need of liquid relief.

While fidgeting in my pocket for change, a voice calls my name. It’s Julie. “You look great. You haven’t changed at all,” she says. 

“You look amazing too. What are you up to?”

The girl with the scarlet tag is now a married mother of two and living as a housewife in Atlanta. She’s a God-fearing Christian and treasurer of her oldest daughter’s soccer team.

I want to go back to the basement and paint over her name. But I won’t.

I drift in and out of different biographies over the next couple hours…marriages, babies, jobs, rehab and death. Eventually the saxaphone plays its last off-key note and we all wander our separate ways again.

Arriving back at my front door, the key scratches around the lock a few times before sinking in. I head to the kitchen for a bourbon nightcap. It’s Johnny Walker Blue, not Southern Comfort, but mind wanders back to that naseous experience 10 years earlier and as I reach for the glass tumbler, it knocks off the counter. Tiny shards litter the kitchen floor.

“What the hell,” says my girlfriend, who's just appeared in the kitchen doorway. “That’s one of the nice glasses Anna got me from New York.”

“It’s only a glass,” I sneer. “It would have broke sooner or later.”

The Long Shadows

He ran because he knew he was going to die. Just finished watching ESPN's inspirational documentary about Terry Fox: An amazing story about a young runner with cancer not giving in and attacking each day.

I jump off the couch and dance into the kitchen. The dishes get an enthusiastic handwashing and are swung into the cabinets.  One the other side of the room, my girlfriend chops summer squash that was grown and donated by our neighbors. 

I feel a bit of guilt. Our neighbors are an elderly couple and every time I see the husband I hear, “Hey Jared, stop working so hard and come on over for a drink!” I always decline. I'm not opposed to the occasional day drink, but for some reason I never make the time to go visit. 

Dishes done, I quietly sip a glass of pinot noir. My girlfriend’s blond hair glows angelic under the soft hue of the track light. I sneak up from behind with a hug. Bob Marley croons in the background and the sun is shining, weather is sweet. We sway, discussing future, purpose and plans.

A few moments pass and a paw scratches my leg. Our dog, Esther, is feeling ignored. I leave kitchen duties behind and take her outside for tennis ball bedlam.

She chases with  intensity and focus, as if this were the last ball, the last jump, the last run.

After fifteen minutes, I slide the saliva soaked ball into my pocket and Esther knowingly trots back towards the house. But I’m headed out to the field and the long shadows.

Esther wheels around, realizes there’s bonus play time, and races to lead the way. The ball business is fun, but unleashed walks are wild. She runs with purpose, nose-to-the-ground, unafraid. Searching…

I sprint to keep up with her. The dry air burns my lungs, but I don’t relent. She occasionally glances up, seeming annoyed at my foolish red face. I stalk her until I eventually collapse, exhausted.

The cool ground comforts my throbbing head. Off in the distance, the elm tree's orange leaves flash like a fireworks charge and our house looks perfect…no lawn needing mowing, no running toilets, no regrets.

A wet tongue licks my arm...Esther's come to check in. She sees I'm OK, takes off again but abruptly stops a few feet away. Falling to the ground, she writhes around as if under a voodoo spell.

She’s rolling in horse shit. I let her.

We're losing light and the shadows are getting longer. 

Walking slowly home, I notice a lamp glowing in my neighbor's house.