Amy and the Debt, Baby

Obscured by Amy Winehouse's "unexplained" death (the whistle-blower in the Murdock case who died last week, his death was also "unexplained"), by the further death of scores in Norway at the hand of a right-wing nutcase The Onion couldn't have dreamed up, and by, on a positive note, persons of the same sex being allowed at long last to marry in the State of New York, is another eleventh hour stand off in Washington, this time over raising the debt ceiling, something that, contrary to the noise and fuss about its being historic in nature, has been done an average of nearly once a year since the Federal Reserve was created, ostensibly to preserve the value of our currency, near the start of World War I.

Like the bailout of the banks, and the auto industry, and all the "quantitative easing" that has come down the pipe (and will continue to come down the pipe, in various costuming), this deal will get done because people with money and power will insist on it. We will not default on our debt and risk the wrath of bond-holders worldwide. Moreover, we cannot afford even slightly higher interest rates given our indebtedness (as we could the last time we were into this situation, when the Vietnam War and The Great Society got to be too much for the nation's pocketbook, back in 1980 or thereabouts); we will not risk having our debt downgraded by the ratings agencies that did such a fine job, btw, of separating the wheat from the chafe ahead of our last crisis, but never mind.

So, while our debt is a looming disaster waiting to happen, it isn't, blessedly, as looming as Europe's, or Japan's—ours, as the giant bond fund PIMCO says, is the least dirty shirt of the bunch.

We're screwed, but others, friends of ours, are screwed worse! Thankfully!

And from the point of view of any politician paying attention, there's yet a decent chance we'll get our screwing in a way where most of us won't even realize we got it, much less cast blame on who did it, and how brazenly. It'll be as though someone slipped us a mickey in a bar, and then screwed us. We won't remember a thing.

The politicians, correctly, I would say, are assuming the bit by bit screwing of, notably, savers, people on fixed income, hobbled in one way or another, possibly from serving their country in a war that didn't pan out so well in terms of booty, is preferable to draconian austerity, to bankers holding lousy debt having to actually lose money on it, to the stock and bond markets crumbling, to unemployment rates going higher still, to rioting in the streets—and I wouldn't necessarily disagree.

In any case, this is not a problem that is going to be "solved" anytime soon. We've gone way too long (at least thirty years too long) as a country, as a people at a particular time in history, doing things that history is likely to judge pretty harshly, and now, bit by bit, we're reaping the consequences, and it isn't pretty (except here in Louisville; everything is pretty in Louisville; if you want to see how a tiny part of the whole bucks the trend, come to Louisville, and bring your wallet).

Anyway, here's what I think is going to happen: Obama, through his Chief of Staff on "Meet the Press" today, says he'll veto anything that doesn't put this debt-ceiling matter to bed until 2013 (read: after the election, which, given his competition, and absent a game-changing calamity of a pretty extreme kind, he is going to win, hands down—and if you don't agree, let's put a hundred bucks on it), but, the Republicans, powerful in the way of a willful child who knows his parents will spare the rod when push comes to shove, are not going to agree to anything of the sort. They will want to keep as much crisis in the moment, or at least not far in the distance, as possible, since it is their only hope, and a slim one at that, of gaining power in 2012. They are betting that Obama, when they start with their sassing, won't grab them by the ear and haul them off to the woodshed, where, in the days of LBJ, there would be much screaming and gnashing of teeth—and they'll probably be right. And we'll get some short-term, little kick of the can deal. In spite of Obama getting in Cantor's face a few days ago, we'll get stop-gap, or something like it. And the people holding Treasuries, thinking of holding Treasuries, rating Treasuries, will wonder ... and gold will go up ... stuff like that.

To be fair, both parties know that a $4 Trillion dollar "Grand" deal isn't going to solve the problem anyway, not even close. The only people who believe that don't understand the problem, and in that scenario, a grand deal scenario, Obama wins, for shepherding a grand deal, like a good leader should, and that's no good for Republicans, who are more concerned with ideology at this stage of their history than with where their bread is actually buttered (read: not by their "base" but by the wealthy, who are tiring of these shenanigans, who can deal with a little more taxation (they're rich!), entitlements they, personally, don't need, but their customers do, will, and lots of them, soon ... whatever, so long as they know what it is and their financial people can adjust accordingly, they're good).

Obama, in short, despite his ire over the intractable opposition, will give in first. It's what a loving father does. And the child knows it.

To further understand the dynamic—given Ms. Winehouse's passing this weekend, we may as well have a tie in here—imagine the country were our daughter with, say, considerable gifts and talent, but a bad drug and alcohol problem. The Tea-Bagger wing of the Republican Party would strap her to a metal bed in the basement and have one of the better behaved, more pliable children read the Bible to her until she howled and screamed and finally straightened out—just like Ms. Winehouse might have had someone had the courage to do the right thing with her. They would lock up all the booze and drugs in the house (after they were done using them) and if the daughter wouldn't see the light she'd stay in the basement, tied up, and they wouldn't talk to her, and the well-behaved, pliable child would keep reading the Bible to her and the door would stay closed and the music turned up while she did. Clockwork Orange, Baby! Straighten up, or we just might shoot you, or read Leviticus forever.

And I say/we say, No no no!!!

Liberals would argue that the daughter needs a better job, or maybe just a job, any job, to better be able to fund her habits so that she wouldn't always have to be coming to Mommy and Daddy for help. They would try to talk to her, help her, even as she spit in their face.

Those kinds of parents, people, leaders, are always in a weak position, always getting taken advantage of. They often don't live long—at least that's what I've heard. Their consolation is that at least they're trying, and they're not crazy, at least not in a brutal way ... like the people who tie their children to metal beds and beat them like LBJ used to slap around the opposition, but he was a, well, something you don't see anymore, so ...

Stay tuned!

Sheila Bair Bids Adieu

Sheila Bair's last day at the F.D.I.C. was on Friday. There's a fine article/interview written by Joe Nocera in the NY Times Sunday Magazine—which she only agreed to under the stipulation that it wouldn't be published until she had finished her term. Nothing earth-shattering to those who have been paying any attention at all, just another reminder of who has the upper hand, and who, when push comes to shove, the Treasury and Fed are looking out for.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/magazine/sheila-bairs-exit-interview.html

Footnotes on Newt

If you're wondering just how small the world is, consider this, a question I was asked back in late 1994, possibly early 1995, by the woman I was then dating, who had gone to a small private Lutheran college in Iowa:

"Have you ever heard of Newt Gingrich?"

"Why, yes," I said. "He's soon-to-be, or perhaps already is, the Republican Speaker of the House ... "

"He is?"

"Yes. From back-bencher, bomb-thrower, to Speaker of the House. You watch, he'll try to shut the government down to make his point—"

"Anyway, my friend, Callista—"

"Callista?"

Note, reader: this was before Ally McBeal, the popular television show (1997-2002), before anyone, particularly me, had heard of Calista (one "l") Flockhart, who played Ally McBeal in the TV show, before almost anyone had heard of a Callista, or Calista ...

Her friend, named Callista, worked in Washington, as an intern. Apparently she knew Newt Gingrich. As in, biblically.

"As in, she's fucking him—"

All right, those weren't exactly her words. It was more like they were involved, in the way that politicians and interns occasionally get involved, because they feel so passionately about their country, and work so hard, and well, sometimes—

Only, according to the woman I was dating, who talked to her friend, the future Callista Gingrich on the phone, Speaker Gingrich (a purported Futurist, after all) really didn't care much about politics, or, for that matter, his then-current wife. Apparently he only kept her around for appearances sake: fund-raisers, charity balls and the like. No, he found the political world tedious; he was more the intellectual, professorial, big ideas man with gadgets type, who, it so happened, was looking to trade in his old mare for a younger one—a much younger one, someone who didn't mind being involved with someone much older (23 years) and quite a lot heavier, who called himself Newt, whose middle name was Leroy ...

"You've got a friend who's fucking Newt Gingrich?" I reiterated, just to be clear.

"You can't tell anyone!"

"Who would I tell?"

Who says a man never dumps his wife to marry his mistress? That nothing changes in Washington?

Below, and largely unrelated to the titillating, seventeen-year-old gossip above, is a fine article by Andrew Ferguson in the Sunday Times, who, seeking to find out just how intellectual a certain intellectual really is, bravely took on the entirety of the Gingrich oeuvre (21 books, give or take, all written with co-authors) and has a few things to say about it (NB: at one point a comparison is made between Callista Gingrich and Linda McCartney, photographers, both of them ... ).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/magazine/what-does-newt-gingrich-know.html

Jennifer Egan's A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD

Jennifer Egan's not-so-new-book anymore—I bought it for my wife at Christmas, then in its sixth printing; it has since won the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction—is about Time, the Goon. Time with a capital T. Time, redounding time, how it presses, and presses.

We meet Sasha, on a date with Alex, who we'll meet again, much later, at a bar in a hotel in downtown NYC not long after the Towers have been downed. She excuses herself—she's grown bored with Alex—and goes to the restroom, where she spots a woman's purse sitting casually unattended between the stalls. Succumbing to old habits—for which she is seeing a therapist, illuminating clips from the sessions seamlessly and hilariously interspersed as the scene plays out—she reaches down and slips off with the wallet inside.

Back in the restaurant, she soon discovers the woman, panicked, has a flight to catch in the morning, and is now without ID, a situation that might not have caused panic prior to 911, but certainly does now. To hell with her credit cards and money, she needs proof of who she is!

Alex, new to town, fresh, principled, not yet confused and disheartened by life and the City and to big tall growing skyscrapers blocking out his light, strikes out to help the woman. The concierge is called, and after a big fuss is made, the wallet is finally found—in the restroom, by Shasha, her nerves tingling, frayed with excitement and dread and, one suspects, the forces of transition. She returns the wallet to the woman, asks her plaintively not to say anything, tells her, candidly, that she's getting help for this problem of hers. The woman agrees to keep quiet—she has her wallet, her ID, a plane to catch in the morning. A subtle transaction has taken place. A real mess has been avoided. Sasha, whom Egan throughout the book skillfully imbues with quirky, goon-defying charms, without making her especially likable, is not one to go down with the ship.

Neither is Benny Salazar, Sasha's boss of twelve years at Sow's Ear Records (the book is full of similarly apt proper nouns). Their relationship, as hinted by the verb tense in the first chapter, has recently ended, but we are in book where time goes here and there (the book was purportedly inspired by the movie "Pulp Fiction," if only in the way the characters intersect through time), and so, in the wildly funny second chapter, we meet Benny many years earlier, a man full of energy and heart, who sprinkles flecks of gold in his coffee, a man with an immigrant's drive, unburdened by self-awareness, whose judgment and mojo appear to be slipping. A former musician of so-so talent (we will get scenes of these days as well, though not through Benny's eyes), he has been riding on his discovery, years earlier, of a band called the Conduits. Yet he continues to see possibilities where others, arguably for good reason, don't: in the "pure" (but possibly used up), even in a group of cloistered nuns (whose Mother Superior he is moved to, disastrously, try and kiss). Benny is one of those guys who can't keep it in his pants, who, pushing on in life, wonders what it might be like to "not always be wanting to fuck someone," and may be on the cusp of finding out.

Time shifts, backward. It is almost 1980. Rhea, one of the girls, the groupies, of the band The Flaming Dildos, narrates: " ... thank God. The hippies are getting old, they blew their brains on acid and now they're begging on the street corners all over San Francisco ... We're sick of them." We will get echoes of this sentiment later in the book, a new generation sick of an older one, scoffing at their crushed hopes and dreams, and yet ...

Rhea is friends with Jocelyn, who has already made a tragic turn that isn't fully apparent yet with a man named Lou, who has an ex-wife and six kids and knows the famous producer Bill Graham personally. He came by in a convertible one day when Jocelyn was hitchhiking and offered her a ride. Jocelyn, we find out, is the same age as Lou's son, Rolph, who, turns out, rather likes Jocelyn—and Jocelyn, in a way more befitting someone her age, feels a tenderness toward Rolph.

In the "Safari" chapter that follows, possibly the best in the book (a slightly truncated version of which appeared in the New Yorker a little over a year ago), Rolph goes on a trip to Africa with his father and sister, Charlene—Charlie, she went by, back then—and another of Lou's post-marriage girlfriends, Mindy, who is attending graduate school at Berkeley and ends up in the sack with one of the safari guides, prompting Lou to tell his son later on, after the boy unwittingly reveals to him what has happened between Mindy and the guide, that "Women are cunts." It is 1973, or thereabouts, when Lou, then about thirty-six, shares this realization with his young son, a few years, still, before the young Jocelyn falls for Lou, before she is going down on Lou by the pool, where Rolph, from his bedroom, can see.

Years later, when Lou is dying, Rhea manages, through the miracle of Facebook and email and all that, to locate the old band and the gang—all but the "magnetic" slide guitarist Scotty Hausmann, who, once upon a time, had his eyes on Jocelyn, who ultimately settled for the relatively refined Alice, who had her eyes on him, who Benny, at the time, had eyes for—to come say good-bye to Lou before he dies.

There by his pool, home, once, to all those parties, that time has now made quiet, Jocelyn, in the kind of shape one can imagine given time, finds out what happened with Rolph. Hearing it, she finally cracks and wants to kill him, imagines dumping him and his bed right in the pool. Yet, to Egan's credit, Lou isn't made out to be a total bastard. Like any good son of a bitch, his point of view is compelling at times. He smiles at Jocelyn—that old smile from another time—and tells her, "Too late."

Comes the now seemingly derelict Scotty Hausmann (we understand, rather quickly, why Rhea hasn't been able to find him on Facebook), who, in another time shift, manages to locate Benny, seemingly at his zenith as a record producer, his Sow's Ear Records having been bought for big money by a large corporation for whom he still works. Scotty catches a big fish in the East River and takes it to Benny's office, where Sasha, working out front as Benny's capable assistant, deals with him—kindly, all things considered, and with mild amusement. The two meet in Benny's office, where the view, the furniture—everything—is spectacular, prompting Scotty, who is quite possibly unhinged, to ask Benny what happened between then, when he was the star who got the girl, and now ... between A and B.

Benny and his marriage to Stephanie, living the country club life for a while. Stephanie's brother Jules Jones, out of jail after getting a little carried away during an interview with an actress named Kitty, later recruited by the former star publicist for whom Stephanie worked—La Doll—now the disgraced Dolly, to assist in PR for a mass-murdering general (one must make a living, especially when one has a precocious young daughter who will save the day in the end, and marry one of the grandchildren of one of the 19-year-old warriors Charlie, Lou's daughter, got a smile from back in the early seventies on that safari in Africa). And there is Rob, at NYU, around the time of the first election of Bill Clinton as president, who doesn't look "druggy," who Sasha, after her time as a runaway, hangs with lest her step-father's watchers spot her with someone who looks less wholesome; Rob whose father was a football coach, who doesn't like football, who may like Drew more than he likes Sasha. Drew, a strong swimmer from Wisconsin, also wholesome, it would seem, though he smokes a lot of weed. Wants to be president one day—a joke is made about him inhaling—but he and Rob end up after a night high on X going for a swim in the East River, and something happens to Rob that, oddly, perhaps, a strong swimmer like Drew isn't able to help.

There is Ted Hollander, in a chapter titled, "Goodbye, My Love"—we are back sometime between 1979 and 1992 now—coming to Naples to find Sasha, who has been MIA for some time. Ted, who has "folded" up his desire for his wife bit by bit, kept his children out of his office, so that he can focus, think about, art, who believes, worries that, he is really in Napoli, in Italy, despite being paid by his niece's step-father, for the art. He finds, in spite of all his efforts, that he is not always thinking that much of art. It is the backstory of a man who needs, just this once, to be a hero—

A long storyboard of sorts follows, told, years later—in the future, like the ending, sometime in the mid-2020s—by Sasha's daughter, who, like her peers, isn't crazy about a "wall" of words.

There has been a baby boom following two wars, and the new demographic for marketers to chase are small children, some of them quite small. "Pointers," they are called, referring to what they do with their "handsets." Communication has come to resemble the babbling of infants. People tire of talking to each other, and ask if, instead, they can "T"—text—their thoughts, even when sitting across from each other at lunch.

It is a brave new world, longing, one finds, for counterpoint, something "pure," a great concert at "The Footprint" in New York City, that comes together by means not quite pure ...

But I have already told you enough—and yet I've told you nothing. I read the excerpt in the New Yorker and had no idea, until I came upon it, that it was part of the book. Yet everything fits.

I wasn't a great fan of, say, The Keep, and nearly didn't read this effort of hers. I'm glad I changed my mind. I liked it enough that I read it twice.

A great, timely story by a great writer that in my estimation will last.

Pick it up, read it, tell your friends.

Mamet's New Groove

It's nearly always a mistake when a dramatist, particularly a good one, carries on overly about his politics. Mamet's new book appears to be a case in point.

Christopher Hitchens, the far more trenchant apostate and heretic of catholic dimension (note the small "c"), reviews ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/books/review/book-review-the-secret-knowledge-by-david-mamet.html

Living Large with Little Feat

The days when the only reason one came to Louisville, Colorado, was to get spaghetti at either the Blue Parrot or its rival splitter, Colacci's (now housing the Empire), are done.

We are no longer merely wholesome—one of the best places in the country to raise a family as judged by Money Magazine and others, routinely—but hip as well.

The place where as recently as five years ago you might have had a tough time getting a drink after ten o'clock, even on the weekend, now features art walks, live music on a regular basis, outdoor dining, drinking, espresso sipping—it's like Paris without the rain, without the little dogs shitting everywhere.

And, on Fridays in the summer, to turbo-charge wining and dining and keep our property taxes low, we have the Louisville Street Faire, which hasn't always drawn thousands of people to this once sleepy town, but it has for a number of years now.

Some recession.

This last Friday Little Feat was in town, sans, notably, Lowell George and Richie Hayward (both deceased), but still.

They rocked the shit out of the place.

And packed up front by the stage weren't the kids, the young hipsters, but the verily wizened old hippies and middle aged grinners wistful for the seventies, singing along to "Oh Atlanta," "Juanita," and "Dixie Chicken" (bookending the Dead's "Tennessee Jed"), wishing they'd scored some weed before the show, and maybe even some blow ("whiskey ... and bad cocaine") if their hearts could still stand it, deepen the already considerable character in some of those happy, grinning faces, making do, most of them—me, my wife, my friends—on margaritas and Boulder Beer products.

I was glad we got a sitter for the kids. They eat your cash in hurry down there.

All for a good cause, of course.

Louisville. Keeping us off the dole, ya know.

Next week The Samples are coming to town. Later in the summer, Marcia Ball—I don't know that she's ever played in Paris.

The Rapture, and The Gold in Fort Knox

A lot people I know read the newspaper in the morning (I'm that old), and while I tend these days to get most of my news from reputable online sources (so I don't feel so old), I decided, this morning, as the old-timers say, to have a look at the paper.

We get the Denver Post, a pretty good paper as papers go. Not as good as The Onion, but, today, I have to admit, they're giving the Onion a run for its money.

"Sell Fort Knox Gold?" the lead headline reads. Then, below the fold, but still on the front page, an article on the upcoming Rapture (this Saturday!—thank heavens I didn't take the car in for an oil change!), which over the years has been rescheduled, as we all know, A LOT, pretty much continuously, actually, but let's not be cynical. Apparently the next Rapture, due to be rescheduled soon (sorry, I have tics I can't help), is set for this Saturday, May 21st. And the person leading the national ad campaign to promote "Judgment Day May 21st" is of course, like every kook these days, from this our great state of Colorado, at least originally, an 89-year old "Boulder-born" fellow by the name of Harold Egbert Camping (as Dave Barry would say: I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP—I read it in the Post).

To the right of the article, still on the front page, is a graph depicting how "evenly split" the public (not just superstitiously-wired, doe-eyed evangelicals, but The Public, random people off the streets) is on the subject of whether we are experiencing "end times." In fact, a little over 20% of The Public "completely agree[s]" that we're experiencing, here and now, ahead of Saturday, end times—about the same percentage who would vote for Sarah Palin, or Donald Trump, to be the next president, and a similar number—I'm guessing—to those who think that Elvis is still alive, that Obama is a space alien, that the Federal Reserve controls their minds (which they do, but, you know, even the utterly deranged are right about a few things), that dinosaurs are merely evidence that God enjoys messing with our heads, and that the moon landing took place inside a hangar at Area 51, or perhaps in a circus tent north of Reno, not far from the annual site of Burning Man ...

A little over 20% of the public will eat out of pretty much any charlatan's hand that's handy.

But back to gold (as my neighbor cringes :-) ). Today's headline in the Post ...

Should we sell our gold at Fort Knox?

It is difficult to overstate how stunningly stupid of decision that would be, especially now, yet who are the people pitching this "plan"? Dumb old liberals who don't know a thing about money, investing, economic history, or human guile, who think we'd be better off holding a fort full of coffee beans from some totally fucking awesome places like Ethiopia and Sumatra and Bolivia, rather than stupid old gold, which is practically as worthless as a seatbelt most of the time?

Turns out, no ...

The people pitching this idea, to sell our stash of gold for, based on today's price, roughly 220 billion dollars—which we could use to buy and sell Warren Buffett seven times over, or pay roughly two months of the interest on the national debt—are our good friends at the conservative think tanks, The Heritage Foundation and The Cato Institute.

And here I thought they were all gold bugs! Like Rush, and Glenn—and me (NB: I don't have anywhere near 220 billion dollars in gold, and what I do have I don't keep in my home, so please don't come here looking for it or I'll shoot you ... with my son's Nerf rifle).

But no, Ron Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, blithely says that given our debt problem (extrapolate from above, if possible) we should now sell the one thing that will surely get more valuable, in dollars, as our debt goes up, or just lingers, as our currency, under the pressure of it, wilts, though perhaps no worse than most of the others.

We might as well sell now, he says ... "at the peak."

Who knows? Mr. Utt from the Heritage Foundation might be right ... even though China is buying gold like hot cakes, as is Russia, and India, and other emerging nations, not to mention Central Banks, who are notoriously poor investors (see: Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1999), and the very rich, as well as an unquantifiable number of kooks and cranks such as myself, but never mind ... because, when all is said and done, barbaric relic that Keynes believed it to be, gold, for some who-knows-why reason, remains a time-honored measure of a nation's wealth, and will probably come in handy when, down the line, we, the world, decides on a new reserve currency to replace the dollar, which will hold its spot for the foreseeable future, but not forever, given the nature of things ...

Nonetheless, Mr. Utt, as well as Mr. Chris Edwards, Director of tax-policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute (who said, "Why not? I think it shows that the government is serious about reforming itself."), thinks we should sell all our gold, to pay two months worth of interest on the debt. Mr. Kevin Hassett, from the American Enterprise Institute, thinks we should consider selling our interstate highway system. Perhaps that would get us another month.

This is no shit, it was in the paper—

Look, I'm a sporting guy—if you, Ron, and anyone else who's game, really thinks the price of gold has topped out and thinks it's time for our nation to sell the lot, I've got a proposition for you: I'll bet you $100 cash—chump change, I'm sure you'll agree—that the price of gold hits $2000/ounce before it sees $1000 again. It's a fool's bet, but you and your friends sound like big ones, so, let me know. Seriously. It might take awhile to see who ends up right on this one, but I'm in if you are.

For what it's worth, "a senior administration official [that would be Obama's], not authorized to speak for attribution," in the same article was quoted as saying" "Selling off the gold is just one level of crazy away from selling Mount Rushmore."

All to say you have to be pretty nimble these days to stay on top of who and what is crazy what and who isn't, but—I couldn't agree more. Anyway, a good Rapture could send the price soaring.

btw: We're still almost a year and half away from the election. Anything could happen, right? Even if we get past Saturday, so ... just for fun ... who would like to bet me (Republican true-believers? Democratic worry-warts? Foreigners who think they know something about the inner-workings of our homeland?) a $100 that a Republican is going to beat Obama, in 2112?

That is, I'll take Obama, you get the Republican. A $100. Cash.

Give it some thought, and get back to me.

I bid you adieu, here at the Rattle & Hum Casino. Be sure to put on clean underwear on Saturday!