Freedom, wealth and ocean views

“Retire Rich” was emblazoned firmly across the cover of the Fortune magazine I happened upon in the public restroom where I work. I didn’t read the article, in part because it’s a subject I don’t feel I’ll need to be “boning up on” any time soon, and more importantly, because – as I noted previously – it was residing in a public restroom. It’s hard enough for me to actually walk into one, let alone touch anything that happens to be lying about on the stall floor. Directly beneath the headline, there’s an image of a healthy, well-dressed white couple – far too young in appearance to be retired yet, if you ask me – standing on the bow of what appears to be a yacht, overlooking the ocean.

They’re rich. They’re retired. And they’re together. But alone. No one else is in the shot with this couple who’s far too young in appearance to be retired yet. And it bothers me that there isn’t. It bothers me that in the year 2012, we still find ourselves dealing with these snake oil salesmen. You see, I believe that the magazine didn’t just trail up and down the coast in search of a healthy, well-dressed, white, far-too-young-in-appearance-to-be-retired-yet-if-you-ask-me couple. I believe they very specifically chose whom they did, and they then plunked them down in the exact spot needed, to best serve the magazine’s goals. Now I won’t go off about the couple’s race, because I’m certain that Caucasians were only chosen because we seem to work best in seafaring settings. I will however, go off on several other items, but before we move on – a quick digression first:

I said “Caucasian” on purpose. As I for one, am sick and tired of having to be so careful as to what name I use when addressing other races, yet when in regards to us, plain old “white,” still works just fine. For the record, I’m not white – I’m Polish-American. Polish-bald and slightly overweight with a panache for music appreciation-American, if you’re being specific.

OK, back on topic. I was trying to make a link between the magazine and snake oil salesmen because after all these years, there are folk out there still trying to sell us on the idea of eternal youth. Of happiness through wealth. Of – well – apparently owning the damned ocean’s view, by mere fact of financial independence. I mean, what gives? I’m no Rockefeller, and I’m still allowed to take a peek at the ocean if I want. True, I can’t do it from the bow of a yacht, but it’s still there for me. And that I guess, is the part of the cover that bothers me most. Had the couple been trapped in the surroundings of wealth one normally associates with the stinkin’ rich, I think I would have felt better (or at least not noticed as much) about their being far too young in appearance to be retired yet. But with the ocean setting, it almost seems as if the magazine is saying that the wealthy are freer than the rest of us. Freer than us poor working stiff-types. Free enough to take ownership of what is free already. And that sort of pisses me off. Not because it’s a lie, but because it’s simply not true.

You see, I believe “freedom” is a lot like “wealth,” in that both are concepts very subjective to the beholder. While I can acknowledge that the rich have more goods and products, I can’t see whereas that makes them wealthier than I. And while they may have more time to spend with these goods and products, I can’t see where that then equates to true freedom. To me, true freedom doesn’t have a price tag, but true freedom does cost you everything you own. I know, I’m starting to make less and less sense – right? Let’s see if this works to help clear things up – being able to spend a week in Disneyland, while providing me with a certain amount of freedom, doesn’t make me free. Eventually I must return from my momentary freedom, and work to save up for the next time. Conversely, volunteering with the Peace Corps most assuredly removes every shred of freedom you may have previously enjoyed, but at the same time, it frees you wholly from the existence the rest of us find ourselves trapped in. And not only that, it betters you – frees you to accomplish even more. The time you spend away from worrying about “retiring rich,” allows you to come back a much richer person in the balance. One who will be glad to forego retirement altogether, to focus instead on the pursuit of Life.

Now, I’m not saying that I have ever volunteered for the Peace Corps (or have been to Disneyland for that matter), but I feel as if I have tried to use the opportunities provided to me in my time, to carry on with that sort of a spirit. As I’ve told my children – when I die, God is going to have a LOT of questions for me, but how much money I made is not gonna be one of them. I truly believe that (both parts, by the by), and I wish more people felt the same. I wish that those rich couples would stop staring at the damned ocean from the safety of their yacht and jump in with the rest of us. There’s a lot we could accomplish if we did so collectively. But apart, all that results is a small few on yachts, and the rest of us treading water. Building their yachts for them, as they sail along carefree, right over us.

So, is this just a poor person rant against the rich? Could be, I suppose. But I hope it’s not, and hope even more so that it is not perceived in that vein. I would never tell a rich person to give to the poor what they have worked “so hard” for. But I would invite the rich to stop working so hard for only themselves. It is that very ideology that drives us ever onward to tearing ourselves apart as a species. The very thing that ensures that we will never reach our full potential.

OK, I guess I’m done now, but I do feel as if before I clamber down from my soapbox that I should mention – hey you people living on welfare? You know, the ones who do it just to avoid having to actually work for a living? Yeah, that goes for you too. Let’s all work together, stop making yachts, and start making room at the ocean side for everyone to catch a glimpse, OK? I promise that if we do, then we can all retire rich.

Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie

Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig joined me for my Sunday walk this past weekend.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

This resulted from my choosing for my “solitary Sunday walk” soundtrack, a mixed tape I’d previously made for my long distance friends entitled “Old Punk.” A mix that, it might surprise you to learn, is comprised solely of old punk tunes as sung by old punk bands. As such, the likes of Johnny Lydon, Sid Vicious, Iggy Pop and David Johansen were with me as well (shut up! David Johansen was so too punk!), all of them singing to me of some sort of rebellion or angst, and all while I traveled on my sunny suburbia way.

You see, at some point in time, the house that I bought, the house that I live in, had somehow snuck itself into the outskirts of suburbia. Not by much, but just enough. Enough to be within walking distance of the part “where the rich people live.” A land that is wholly unlike my little part of suburbia. A place where the houses that can be seen are larger than life, obnoxious, snooty and plunked onto parcels of land vast enough as to force for a new definition of the word “parcel”. The houses that can’t be seen are buried behind layers of mighty bushes, equally as snooty, though slightly less obnoxious. I walked past them briskly, keeping my heart rate up, as the denizens of early punk sang to me of how poisonous my chosen surroundings were.

Now the rich may happen to own the land I strode upon, but seeing as I was the only one outdoors, it was I who owned the sky. I who owned the day. The air was fresh, and Spring had finally arrived. After an almost non-existent winter, that was then followed by an intrusive and unexpected bit of summer in between. Why no one else (well, most no one else) was enjoying the fresh air was no longer a puzzlement to me, as this has been a noted and slowly increasing phenomenon for years now. This migration from the outdoors to the in. From the warm glow of the sun, the the cold harsh light of the screen. From the sweat of exercise to the bloat of inactivity. Of course, and in line with my normal digressionary standards, this little bitch session about the sloth-like nuance of modern suburbia has absolutely nothing at all to do with the larger bitch session at hand, so we’ll just sit it here for now, possibly picking it up again in a future post.

As to the larger bitch session at hand, what I was hoping to address was this. While I walked through all the finery and trappings of wealth, I was reminded steadily by bands such as Sham 69, The Dead Kennedys, Stiff Little Fingers and The Buzzcocks what a – well – what a sham the whole thing was. Is. OK, the Buzzcocks were actually singing about being orgasm addicts, but I thought it would be better if I didn’t share that little bit with you. A good song, but hardly one that could be seen as politically motivated. At any rate, while there was a time in my life when I would have been standing on the hoods of the fat cat SUV’s owned by these locals; shaking my weak fist mightily in the air in consolidation with these bands – and their rants – I found myself this time instead just walking happily along. Using the racing beat of each song to keep my speed up and my heart rate going. As I did, I realized that I had lost my bite. Or my fight. Or possibly a little bit of both. The rage that originally drew me to listen to, and enjoy, bands such as The Exploited and Charged G.B.H. had dissipated. The urge to change the world that I previously felt strongly enough as to align myself with bands like The Clash and The Jam had mellowed. Instead of seething in hatred at these houses of wealth – these false temples created in false praise to the (false) individual – I simply just walked on at a good clip, and enjoyed the brisk, free air instead. The air that belonged to almost only me.

So as Billy Bragg sang to me of which side I was on (shut up! Billy Bragg was so too punk!), I found myself answering him with a “neither.” As Fear screamed at me that we should start a war, I simply told them that I would much rather not. And when Burning Sensation once again informed me that “Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole,” I smiled the old smile that I’ve always smiled when I heard that song. But this time, it was much more out of a feeling of fond adieu than it was because I actually thought it was funny.

OK, it’s still kind of funny.

So have I given up? Have I given in? I don’t think it’s either, really. I’m hoping at least that it’s much more a case of I’ve grown up. The Anti-Nowhere League may hate people, but I can’t say that I do. Even IF there were far more dogs who looked me in the eye and introduced themselves, on my solitary Sunday journey, than there were dog owners who did the same. And The Circle Jerks may very well fear the day that the shit hits the fan. But not me. Not anymore at least. If it does, it will. Raging against it’s inevitability will do nothing more to stop it than ignoring it will. And Henry. Dear sweet Henry and the rest of the boys from Black Flag may jump up and down, demanding that we give them give them give them some more. But as for me, I’ve enough. Enough for now. I’ve me and mine, and we’re doing OK.

Now as the title implies, when I first started this post, I had thought that it would be Black Flag’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme” that was going to end it. A proper ditty, especially when trying to show off your punk rock pedigree. But in the final analysis – and ironically enough – it is actually The Damned who will be having the last say today. You see, whether they were being tongue in cheek or not – and I’m quite sure that they were – by the time I had finished my walk, all that I really had to say about the experience was that the locals could keep their parcels, as long as I had the sky. It made me glad to say it really had been a lovely day, and it’s OK.