Don't Call Me Ishmael

©TWMcDermott2011               (this post runs concurrently in The Rye (NY) Record)

Don’t call me Ishmael, please.

But, I have been to the great whaling island, where I’m told harpoons and surf rods have been replaced by bespoke scrimshawed golf clubs, wielded by captains of what used to be called industry. I get the news second-hand, since I left that place nearly twenty years ago.  I was somewhat frightened by the experience of bumping into too many friends from home at the Portuguese bakery, and terrified by whale-sized “jeeps” racing along the beach, where we sat, bundled, even on foggy days.

Thereafter, we installed our young ones in summer camps far enough up in Maine that only a very brave few would be tempted to visit even one weekend; and that was mandatory, in case the camp managers needed to place your rebellious child in the car for the return trip on which you might cry wee, wee, wee and much worse all the way home.

Fortunately for us, this never happened, and so we were able to discover the excellent joys of summering at home. This had the added benefit of allowing us to take our island vacation in late winter at a different well-hidden place requiring several modes of transport to reach and either an airplane or what locals euphemistically call a Fast Ferry in order to golf.

And what could one do at home, while other brethren flocked in summer to the same island on the same ferry in their vehicles bigger than many summer cottages? Well, it turns out that one can do much of what you might have done far away, and even more:

• You can find a free parking space in town on the street even on Friday afternoons. Especially on Friday afternoons!

• The only line in town is at the little ice cream store, but it is worth the wait. On a day when things are not going your way, an ice cream cone soothes many ills, and you can always walk or swim it off later. Nobody can lick an ice cream cone and not feel like a kid again, and those problems look much smaller as the cone slowly disappears.

Did someone say swim! Rye Golf Club, Playland, the Y; Apawamis, WCC, AYC, etc. Or, throw a stone from your house and it will land in your neighbor's pool, or maybe your own. The Sound itself is best of all and you can see the ladies in their white bathing caps at Manursing in the evening as they rise and fall in the swells.

You can actually park right in front of the post office to mail a card to your friend on the whaling island, who may already be suffocating from the traffic, de rigeur cocktail parties given by friends from home, and the long lines at the Portuguese bakery.

• You sit  on the open porch under the awning in the evening before dinner, feeling the breeze rise in the west. There is much less traffic on the roads and lanes and it is quiet until August, when the cicadas begin their festival.

• Some Fridays and Saturdays, you just feel like having dinner in the city. So, you get in the car and in about 30 minutes you are at a favorite uptown place, or a little longer, and you can be downtown, where all the locals have vacated and you beat the European tourists, who eat late, as they do at home. Then breeze home again, feeling much better for having the little adventure.

• Other nights, you rest the Weber, and go over to Port Chester, crossroads of the world, or at least the Americas. Indian, Italian, barbecue, tacos, fish tacos, bar taco! Brazilian? Marvel at the current balance between gentrification and true grit, and wonder if the grit will be all gone with the rising of the luxury lofts a la Soho. 

• Saturday morning at the Farmers' Markets with your basket and finally there is good corn. You buy radishes and other things you seldom buy, just because it makes you feel good to do so. You indulge your secret craving for those damn cider donuts and that special goat cheese that tastes like a mild blue. 

• There's something especially wonderful about Sunday mornings at home in church. Well, so I am told; I am not expert on this, but aren't the odds in your favor with all that extra space between fellow petitioners? 

• An evening picnic by the water on benches beside all manner of charcoal grills: the secret marinades, sauces, dressings: the multiple recipes for potato salad: real tomatoes from the garden and real corn.

• Milton Point, looking south to the city and the bridges and east over to Long Island. You might almost be in Hong Kong, except that it's prettier and the waters are less crowded. If you're lucky, you will see the moon, huge and slightly yellow, as it peeks over the tree line in the east. 

Waiting For Some Dough

                             

So, while we sit and wait like our tramp friends, we too might ask, "What are we waiting for?

I have a friend who rants against entitlements. I have heard him do so while buying a senior citizen's ticket at the local cinema and purchasing a senior discount train ticket on Metro North. This is a fellow of some means.

I have another friend, who hates the way that the country has, not so much gone to the dogs, as it has gone to the lobbyists. She is a member of AARP and AAA and practices real estate sales. She is assisted in these by a small army of lobbyists in Washington and state capitals. Even when she buys her corn flakes at the grocers, she is assisted by the corn, cereal, packaging, advertising, marketing, food manufacturing, farmer, trucking, road building, fertilizer, tractor, cash register, and grocery lobbies. Just to name a few.

Both, of course, hate other people's debt and their own taxes.

This morning, while contemplating the course of my day and making my plan of attack to bring organization and fiscal sanity to the world of municipal parking meter management, my concentration was broken by the mating calls of two very loud leaf-blowers. These things are to rakes what ipods were to stereo systems. Apparently, we must continue to be more productive and efficient in ridding our grounds of leaves, even in summer, at the high cost of our hearing and having even a semblance of quiet in the morning.

I have little doubt that the leaf-blower lobby is a mighty one, although I have a lot of doubt about whether many of those who wield these weapons will form their own associations, which would require the filling out of forms and the presentation of certain documents regarding identity.

Once more our republic stands at a crossroads. Shall we wander down Fiscal Insanity Drive or take a stroll down Entitlement Boulevard? Neither one seems to have much merit and both eventually lead to some very bare spot not unlike the one where Beckett's tramps wait in vain.

Our two political "parties," assisted by an upstart third, largely a media invention, are pretenders. They have allowed themselves to become not much more than extremely large lobbying machines for every citizen and especially for large organizations all the time, and for themselves.

The great zen teacher and, at least by my calculation, humorist, Alan Watts has written:

"...If you discover yourself in a blind alley, or even a cul-de-sac, the fact that you found yourself there will invariably tell you something."


What he meant, I think, was that this moment or any moment has its own possibilities beyond what may seem to be the obvious ones. Instead of torturing ourselves with these versions of what we might do to avoid fiscal calamity, to pull one more rabbit out of a hat whose bottom has finally worn through, we should stick with what we know for sure...


...something has come to an end.


Then, we should probably call Steve Jobs and an even Higher Power for an immediate re-design. 

But, for now let's just concentrate on what has come to an end with the proverbial whimper, because that is recognizable truth. The truth can be annoying and painful, but it is always informative in a way that lends itself to transcending the particular stinky muck in which we find our personal or national feet stuck. 


We have a no-party system; the two party system, as we've known it, is over. At least for now. When this whole charade is over next week, we will be told "the system worked" in a hundred different ways and they will all be lies.


It is better to know the real problem and not know exactly what to do about it yet, then to have manufactured one (debt ceiling) and created fool-proof solutions, which by definition are made by fools.


If we're looking for a savior:  Godot, the Good Witch, Lincoln, Churchill, or Joan of Arc, we will need to look in a mirror this time around.


If you make $200,000 and get taxed at 30%, it's easy to see why'd you'd like someone who made $2Billion to pay more than their current 15%. Actually, I'd rather you both paid the 15% and got no deductions. I't also easy to see why we would all expect GE and Exxon to contribute something in taxes, or at least to have the decency to no longer fly our flag at their respective HQ's. But, this is the easy part.

The rest is harder, but so much better than all of this waaaaaiiiiitttttiiiiinnnnngggggg.

Why We Won't See An ibox

1) Why do people love the company called Apple so much? One reason is that they see hope in the way that Apple innovates so consistently and in how the company always seems to simplify what others have made to look so complicated.

The music industry was an inbred, greedy, self-satisfied, bloated mush ten years ago. They were systemically unable to innovate beyond studio technology and their contract artist's own creativity. So, Apple created itunes and the ipod and drove a stake in their hearts.

The cellular phone industry, dominated by a few major phone "service" companies and a handful of phone manufacturers were also incapable of true innovation, with the exception of BlackBerry. Apple changed the whole scene with the iphone and the app store.

The computer industry, where Apple itself competed as David to the PC Goliaths? Complacent and still dominated by The Big Box, Microsoft. Then Apple introduced ipad. Many laughed. This week, Apple announced that the ipad is now a $6Billion business on its own, twice the size of Dell's consumer PC business, according to he Times. Apple sells every ipad it makes.


I'll bet that not a single person at Apple, certainly not Steve Jobs, ever utters the expression "think outside the box." And I'll bet that those music, phone and computer companies used that expression all the time and still do.

People and institutions that truly think outside some box do not know that they are doing so. It would never occur to a truly innovative person or company to ask others to think outside the box for the simple reason that they do not live inside any box.

2) Apple, Facebook, and Google all have one thing in common. Innovation? Maybe, but the really remarkable thing about these companies is that they show a marked disdain for Wall St. They see Wall St. as a necessary evil, but have no respect for it whatsoever.

Apple continues to give conservative earning's estimates and couldn't care less about analysts' reports. Facebook will finally go public next year, because it must, due to SEC (completely funded by Wall St. fees) rules surrounding private stock ownership. All of these institutions have an inherent mistrust of Wall St. and see bankers and their lawyers as late-coming opportunists, who structure deals to enrich themselves and perhaps a very small set of clients.

Take the recent LinkedIn IPO for example. LinkedIn's valuation has soared to about $10Billion. A day after the IPO, it was valued at $8.9Billion, making millionaires of bankers, lawyers, and employees; while making at least one billionaire.

LinkedIn. Apple, Facebook, and Google are probably shaking their heads asking: But, what does LinkedIn do?

LinkedIn's users are its only real assets. They ( Disclosure: I am one) create networks of contacts. LinkedIn provides the platform, of course, but by itself that is not valuable. Users pay no fees. The captive audience of users with their detailed professional and personal information is potentially valuable.

So, based on that value, how much did each LinkedIn user receive from the IPO? After all, by some measure, they built the company. Answer: zero. Not a dime.

Facebook, in particular, should consider that little information bite. Right, friends?

3) There has been some mention in Washington recently about "thinking outside the box" regarding deficit reduction, taxes, and reigning-in entitlements. Wash DC is the boxiest box of them all.

I cannot help thinking about what Steve Jobs and his crew would do with this stuff, if we gave them a chance. Shall we take a shot at that?

I came, I saw, itax

a) Create a Flat Income Tax with 2-3 flat rates, based on income levels and allow absolutely no deductions. None at all. Income tax becomes like jury duty in New York; just do it. Everyone pays. Period. Personal and Corporate.

b) Create a National Sales Tax. Not a VAT, just a simple sales tax. Yes, on internet sales too. Congress does not manage or spend the proceeds from this tax. Congress, by law, cannot remotely touch the proceeds of this tax and cannot change the rate at whim or exempt themselves from paying it with a special Get Out Of The Tax Card. The tax may be directed by its Trustees towards a specific area, deficit reduction for example, or education. Everyone pays: citizens, non-citizens, visitors, illegals, children, extra-terrestials. Even UN diplomats pay, no exemptions.

Simple, elegant, effectual. itax. A start anyway, even if it is just an idream. Dream of new taxes? Not new, not necessarily higher, just different.

Summer...Way Back Then, Way Back When...

A few weeks ago, someone suggested to me that I write about the shortness of summer. This caught me by surprise, since I had just spent a "spring" day in the city, on which people were passing out in the subways and on the streets from the unseasonable heat and humidity. I had had the distinct impression that the "new" winter lasted through baseball's Opening Day snow, far into April, to be immediately followed by a new, longer summer.

The season previously known as spring had gone the way of mortgages requiring repayment.

In other words, we had a summer that had outgrown its calendar boundaries whether we had wanted one or not. I, for one, do not celebrate this development, but in order to comply with the editorial request, I dipped deeply into memory's recesses to the delightful endless summers of the past. And so my thoughts drifted once more Way Back Then, Way Back When...

...you placed your new pair of Keds at the foot of the bed, and gained a supernatural ability to wake up early all by yourself as soon as the last day of school had passed. The streets were quiet in the early morning and dew hung on the windshields of the parked cars, things you never noticed on your way to school.

...The Giants were in Manhattan, the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, the Twins were the Senators, the A's were in Kansas City, Braves in Milwaukee and the Red Sox were just another team playing a Sunday afternoon double-header at the Stadium.

...you could wear a seersucker or linen suit into the city and most days have a reasonable chance of not expiring on the street or in the subway, and did not need to have the linings removed or have the trousers cut into shorts...

... the best tennis was lawn tennis, in which the white  ball, slowly turning green, could bounce this way and that, requiring creative and savvy players and favored those who risked rushing the net to volley in order to avoid too many bounces, rather than the baseline ball smashers of today who favor the perfect corporate bounce every time. Ho-hum.

...reading was something that many young people did all year long, but perhaps even more in summer, on their own, unrelated to a course, a test, or any other person's requirements and was certainly not meant to "improve" them, prepare them for banking careers, or make each one a much better person than their friends...

...you took a typing course, instead of Mandarin; flipped burgers by the pool, instead of interning; played games without coaches, schedules, recruiters, and most assuredly parents, who, if you returned home before 5 or 6 pm after a day on your own outside gave you a funny look that said, "What are you doing here?"

...you were full of energy, all day, and yet you cannot remember having eaten a single "healthy" thing for lunch, ever. In fact, you cannot actually remember ever eating lunch at all, nor can any of your friends, although you still get a certain glowing feeling when passing by the baloney at the deli counter in the grocery...

...it was entirely possible to buy some real estate in Alaska or Florida before leaving the house in the morning simply by tearing off the coupon on the side of the cereal box and having mom mail it. You probably still own that square foot just outside Fairbanks or under some busted condo off Alligator Alley...

...there was a breeze on most evenings, when you went out again to play with friends, and you might have worn a shetland sweater around your shoulders and actually put it on once in a while. I am not making this up, even though you cannot possibly wear a shetland today even on most winter days and cannot even wear merino at night in summer, except occasionally at the shore...

...we could locate lemon or cherry italian ices without using mapquest at any paper store or pizza parlor, we "went" for ice cream to Jahn's or frozen custard at Carvel, and could take a seat at the pharmacy, like Schmidt's or Sutton Hall and have an ice cream soda, a malt, or a banana split and they also sold some drugs...

...it was entirely possible to play a game of stickball at P.S. 144 in the morning, stoopball in the afternoon, and top it off with a wiffle ball game in early evening without getting a single text from your parents asking how you were doing...

...and it was possible to invent your own game called cupball, using scrunched-up paper cups from the snack bar at the beach and pieces of fencing, played underneath cabanas with full line-ups whose names and positions you can still remember, and to emerge in August nearly as pale as you looked when the season began in late June, and your mothers marveled at this ability to disappear and they were perfectly happy, not worrying that this might hold you back in some way from acceptance to college or advancement in a lucrative career in which you could not explain what you really did in a sentence or less, except that it involved being in the vicinity of a whole bunch of money...

...way back when, way back then...

Ed Note: PS 144, Schmidt's and Sutton Hall pharmacies were located near Forest Hills Gardens, NY. Only PS 144 remains today. We could have also noted the fine stickball games played at our alma mater  (K through K) PS 101, located inside the Gardens' confines; it still stands as well, which says something about public education relative to drugstore economics, but we're not exactly sure what it means.

"Monday, Monday...No DMV"

"Monday, Monday"

* Did you know that Monday is a holiday in the state of CT? I, for one, did not know that. There I was, standing in the nearly empty parking lot at my newly adopted state's DMV office in Norwalk. Imagine my delight, when I exited the ramp at the end of Route 7 expressway, specifically designed to place your vehicle at the DMV's doorstep, when I saw a nearly empty parking lot. Ah, I thought, the excessive heat has kept other less hearty and hopeful motorists at home, and my reward will be perhaps a new world record time for registering three vehicles.

Not.

Only the cleaning crew was working on Monday, which is a holiday for DMV workers in CT. Every Monday. While I was there, a dozen fellow citizen motorists arrived with that same wondrous look in their eyes upon seeing so few other cars, but only for a moment, until they realized once more that what appears to be too good to be true, often is.

* Nationally, the official unemployment rate is 9.2%, which is approximately as correct as an old Soviet Five-Year Plan for wheat, meaning not correct at all. A Bureau of Labor statistician might take a brief walk around the block and have at least anecdotal evidence that the real rate may be twice that. She  might even return to desk to find that 176 people had tried to get her job while she was away gathering data.

In cities like Norwalk or nearby Stamford, 9.2% unemployment is a punch line to a not very funny joke.

Please.

* The state of CT is about to lay-off 6500 employees, who recently turned down a new deal negotiated by their union bosses and the new Governor. Like anyone else these days, they were merely acting in what they saw as their own best interests.

Standing there in the empty parking lot on a Monday, contemplating the locked DMV doors, realizing that Monday was a holiday, probably because the DMV is open a half-day on Saturday, a few citizens wondered how this could be. How is it possible that the state could not find enough people to work a schedule that included a half-day on Saturday and a Monday?

We were thinking that somewhere nearby were a whole bunch of people who would be willing to work those hours for what must be pretty decent wages and benefits. Actually, we were thinking that we would be willing to do that.

We were also thinking that we better get back there on Tuesday, early, to make sure that we got through the very complicated license and registration processes before those lay-offs hit the DMV, making Tuesday a holiday as well.

* How complicated are those processes? For a license you need: an app, your old NY license to surrender to the state, 2 proofs of residence, an original birth certificate or a passport, and an original Social Security card, beginning in October. Not making up that last one. Then you pay first an app fee, take an eye test, then pay a license fee (two separate transactions), and have your photo taken twice. It's all about identity and catching illegals. Strangely, nobody has any interest whatsoever in whether you know how to drive safely and any "points" are simply erased.

Customer Focus

To register your NY vehicles in CT you need: original titles, CT insurance cards, $20 emissions test/or $10 VIN verification certification. CT treats your your NY inspections and registrations, plus the titles as if they never existed, so they can get some fees. Then you pay tax on the vehicles. Oh yes, if one of the registrants should happen not to want to go to the DMV, imagine that, you need to have a notarized Power of Attorney too.

* During this ordeal, I visited my insurance broker's office in a very large, very expensive looking suburban office building. Here is a photo of the 20 or so putters outside an office there. Everyone was dressed in golf shirts and pants. The putters were not meant for customers.

* Whatever happened to the customer? Best not to think about it and just listen to The Mamas and the Papas "Monday, Monday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h81Ojd3d2rY

An Interview Exclusive: 8 Ball

3G: Since Rupert Murdoch let his hair go to its natural grey, he has had nothing but trouble with his Brit tabloids. Will he soon return to that orangey-brown tint?

8B: Signs point to yes.

3G: The President and Congress have "sequestered" themselves in full view of their adoring respective constituencies to "negotiate" a reported $4Trillion deficit reduction over ten years. Will it happen? Will it help?

8B: You may rely on it/ Until next time.

3G: New York State faces unprecedented budget deficits and massively underfunded public pension plans. Do you agree with those who think legalizing gay marriage is an important first step in solving
these fiscal problems ?

8B: Try the not.

Rupert's former tint

3G: The media have been unanimous in their praise of New York's Governor Cuomo during his first six months in office. Do you see this love affair continuing? Will he run for President in '16?

8B: Love is a many splintered thing/Undecided.

3G: Former Governor Spitzer's CNN show has been cancelled due to abysmal ratings. In leaving, he noted that his failure was actually a triumph of sorts. Can this man be humbled?

8B: Don't rely on it.

3G: Will "Unavailable" ever stop calling us?

8B: My sources say no.

Sans tint. Humble Dye?

3G: Our bank was once Village Savings Bank, then it became First Fidelity, which morphed into First Union, and was then merged into Wachovia, which was forced into the arms of Wells Fargo. Wouldn't it be easier just to have apple and google remake the whole banking thing into i$ and gdough?

8B: Without a doubt.

3G: If we buy a digital book from ibooks or kindle for $12.99, we get to put it on our laptop, tablet, and phone. If we buy a hardcover in an indie book shop for $26.95, we get the book. Shouldn't retail hardcover buyers get a download at no additional cost? What do trade publishers think about?

8B: Most assuredly so/ Lunch.

3G: The 2012 Presidential campaigns are in full swing in Iowa and New Hampshire for Republicans. Does one of them have a chance of winning? Are you excited?

8B: Tea leaves point to no/ Zzzzzzzzzz.

3G (quietly): Thanks.