To anyone wondering where I’ve been for the past three weeks, I have a few announcements. I’m still writing, and I intend to regularly update this site, but over the summer, things are going to be a little different.
I am focusing on my next book right now, and I can’t write that while publishing lengthy pieces here. Only so much time in the day, and I also have business interests to attend to. So for the balance of the season, I’m going to write shorter, more frequent pieces. The longer, dialogue-based material will return later. My idea for now is to offer rants and commentary on current events, along with the occasional “top five” list here and there – sometimes philosophical, sometimes juvenile, usually both.
But more than that, the aim will be to provide and create a discussion of some ideas, issues and observations neglected in the public discourse over the direction of the country. This is a unique time in history, a once in a century reckoning. And right now, it doesn’t appear we’re answering its challenge. What I’m seeing emerge is the usual Pendulum Effect. We swung too far in the direction of unfettered markets, greed and materialism and now we’re going to swing too far in the direction of regulation, confiscation and soft collectivism.
But this isn’t just about a failure in the way we manage the government, economy or financial markets. I’m talking about a broader intellectual laziness in the way this country approaches just about every controversy or crisis it faces. Historically, we don’t seem to be able to adjust to anything in a sensible fashion. It’s just one extreme to the next. Part of that’s a failure of our political system, a structure creating professional politicians interested in nothing but re-election. Part of it stems from the nature our spoiled, soft culture – a mindset thrilled to celebrate free markets in upticks, indulging in what it couldn’t hope to afford, then immediately crying for a generous safety net when the inevitable correction comes.* Part of it’s the media, which makes its money carving us into warring factions at the poles of debates, pretending fringe players like Limbaugh or Olbermann represent the views of a significant constituency of voters.
And part of it – the biggest part – is the reasonable middle of this country never opening its mouth. For years we’ve been running on treadmills, harried, on the edge of burnout – slaves to Blackberries in a vicious “efficiency cycle” where the corporations we served beat more and more labor out of fewer and fewer bodies, all while the cost of living exploded around us. We shifted to a culture of unthinking execution, of being too stressed and overworked to consider what we were doing… to wonder if maybe there was a better way.
Well, our economy’s in the shitter and unemployment’s headed for 12% before this thing is over.** We’ve got more than enough time to think now, and we’d better. Every element of our culture, from business to law to government – it’s all being restructured. And if the moderate middle of this country doesn’t open its mouth, the usual useless mouthpieces will again control the debates. The cures for the current problems will be crafted by politicians responding to the media’s Right or Left spin on public sentiment, with dissent given over to the blogosphere’s Molotov cocktail throwers and conspiracy theorists. And that’d be a goddamn shame, because good ideas – solutions beyond what’s “politically possible” or attractive enough to gain thirty seconds of interest among a pack of narcissistic Twitterheads – can be intensely powerful. They can catch fire and, given the current technologies, circle the globe, creating an army of supporters in less time than it takes to fry an egg.
I think most of the audience here shares my affinity for ideas outside those offered by the usual participants in the important debates. There seem to be four viewpoints in America today – the Left, the Right, the Crazy and the Reasonable, the last being nearly unheard. I think maybe, if among the filthy jokes, book out-takes and bizarre noodlings I post on the site this summer, I raise a few questions on some important issues, and you, the readers – many of whom have as much, if not more, insight than I do – respond or raise your own, perhaps a good solution or two will gain some traction online. At a minimum, it’ll get people thinking.
And really, what else are we going to do right now? Bust our asses for bonuses at work? Trust me folks – this is a Jelly of the Month Club kind of year.
The first new post will be up Wednesday.
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* This applies to both the “Capitalists” on Wall Street and the credit the junkies they enabled, and everybody else in this country who lacks the will to entertain the discussion we need to be having: Is our aggregate standard of living in this country unrealistic? Are we just deferring a brutal, inevitable collapse, in so doing making the pain worse for the poor generation that faces it?
** Many respected sources claim the real rate is already over 15%. Look up “real unemployment rate” on Google.
First off, I can’t wait for the new book…any very rough estimate on a potential release time?
the new format for the site should be interesting, possibly you could have dedicated thread on the RMMB off of topics you raise that spark heavy discussion
Now is the ideal time for an entrepreneur to start a jelly of the month business
PL: Book can’t possible happen until next year.
I’ll talk to Corman about the RMMB thing. Good idea.
“Clark, it’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year through.” Randy Quaid’s genius in that movie.
I’ve heard the second book is always the hardest. Good luck!
Also I love the phrase ‘blogosphere’s Molotov cocktail throwers’, it’s so apt. About two months ago my cousin got in to blogging and ended up obsessed with conspiracy health food. Apparently Canola oil turns you muscles into raw sewage. That’s the result when the fruits aren’t separated.
PL: If you don’t have a good skeptic’s eye for junk science, junk advice and junk journalism, reading blogs will turn your brain to raw sewage. So many people are experts on everything online, and then there are the crowds who want someone to hand them a mission statement… A sick bastard could make himself a fortune starting a religion in the blogosphere.
Sorry if this observation has happened before, but I can’t help myself. As I read this article, an ad appeared telling me I can be among the first to read Ann Coulter’s article every week.
Seriously, why even watch comedies on TV or at the movies when real life is infinitely funnier?
PL: I have a private suspicion Google ads are overpriced by about by about 70%. Have you ever clicked on an ad and bought something from a Google ad? Anyone who reads the net regularly has already conditioned his or her eye to ignore them entirely (save, of course, comments like this on the absurd results accruing from their blind algorithm). I’d love to see info on how much actual cash a company realizes (not clicks or “exposure,” actual sales) from Google ads. The Internet’s a bastion of free information catering to people conditioned to get free things. I think a lot of these Internet ad companies are taking bricks and mortar companies who don’t understand the Internet yet for a ride. I wouldn’t be surprised if the premium for web ads dropped radically in the future.
Which writers, academics or (I doubt there are any) politicians do you consider to be reasonable when thinking long-term? I know you’re a big Hitchens fan- I am too- but I imagine his solution to the economic crisis involves a lot left-wing ideas.
PL: Schiller’s always been level-headed. John Tierney was a great essayist when he Oped stuff for the Times, though he never touched on economics as much as he should. Pete Peterson has offered lots of scary, but sober critiques on the debt bomb we’re creating. Thought it’s just comedy, I find a lot of Bill Maher’s material on our irrationality pretty spot on.
Generally, I think anyone who admits a need for increased regulation and new compensation structures, while vigilantly railing against the current trend toward increased activist govt involvement beyond the bare minimum intervention necessary is reasonable. I’ll have to supplement this list, though. It could go on for some time and I have shit to deal with right now.
A sick bastard could make himself a fortune starting a religion in the blogosphere.
Haha, that’s is the best thing I have read on this “idiot box” I have to strap my face to for 12 hours a day. The thing about the voice of the middle man is we have no patience for trying to get noticed in this cesspool. The realization that no one cares what the “normal” people who make up the majority of this country have to say, because we are in fact just “normal”. Everyone has to be special these days, they have to have Aspergers, or have a kid cured of Autism, ADD, or fresh out of rehab for an addiction “shopping” or some other absurd claim to make people feel like their selfish behavior can be justified by a recessive trait that has made them a selfishly obese consumer. Maybe in the middle we care for things like historical relevance of the time we are living in and how to survive it and prosper for the better life we all hope for for our children? Or maybe, and I like this option better, we are just cynical assholes who have barely grown up despite our station in life and enjoy nothing more than a stiff drink of our reasonably affordable middle of the shelf booze and silently mocking the fringe elements of the world from the internet when they crash and burn with a 15yr old Laotian hooker& a Zanyx suppository coming out of a crack house screaming racial epitaphs. Whats the point of screaming about this? We just go about our business, do our work, live reasonably and oh yea, arm our selves. The highest percentage of gun owner by income is in the $35-75k range (Source: Harris Interactive). That is the voice of the middle, it leaves no room for a retort and is waiting patiently in a high cabinet or tall closet, hoping that the fringe elements destroy themselves before they force a response out of those who want to be left alone to live our lives free of the trapping and narcissistic bullshit that is dragging this country to be the world leader in mediocrity.
PL: Before you load that thing, remember, the better way to handle the “special” is to stroke their narcissism. Make them feel as unique or victimized as they think they are and they’ll do what you want. Trick is finding a product or service these knuckleheads want. Write a self help book stuffed with emotional triggers about all the horrors you suffered overcoming [insert vague malady] and retire. “I beat fibromyalgia, and the PTSD from my mother’s years of verbal abuse, and I’m here to tell you, Dr, Phil, we can banish our demons if we just believe!”
Indeed, “You can be anything this time around.” That’s what Tim Leary said.
You lost me at “unique time in history.” Please don’t become a commentator. Stop telling me who is right and who is wrong. You are at your best as an eloquent memoirist who almost doesn’t care (you never burn anyone, people’s names in your stories are deleted.)
PL: I’m still doing comedic stuff, and there will be vignettes, but the long stuff has to be devoted to the book. That shit’s hard to write well, and there’s only so much of it. But thanks. Nice to be called eloquent. I haven’t seen that in a long time.
Also, in order to keep things fresh, you have to explore different voices, themes and directions. Become self-derivative and and you’ll run yourself into a ditch.
Can you divulge the structure of the new book? Can’t wait for it.
What bothers me about this wave of legislation is that even Obama’s (if inconsistent and sometimes nominal) attempts to please everyone with a compromise don’t result in a reasonable or middle ground solution. The result is an unholy medley, a “Worst of” compilation featuring ideas from both the far right and far left. Even when many are searching for a compromise, special interests and idiots on the fringe dominate the discussion and poison the result.
PL: It’s a book about the collapse of the house I was a member of in college. Prurient, ridiculous shit with an emphasis on what happens when a group of males have control of an organization, but no guiding ethos save “Get your rocks off.” A bit of a study on entropy, but much lighter than Happy Hour.
On Obama, well… He’s trying to run it up the middle, but he’s beholden to too many closet collectivists. And his party’s still in fantasyland. The definition of insanity’s what? Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result? Well, they’re unconscious Utopian tendencies are doing a fine job of trying to turn us into a version of the Western European welfare state that conveniently serves the unions and corporations that fill their campaign chests. We had Right Wing crony capitalism, now it’s time for Left Wing crony capitalism. By 2050, every company’s biggest client – from the small to large – is going to be Uncle Sam. The ones that don’t belly up to the trough won’t make it.
Shitter was full!
PL: A simple sign, “No newspapers inside,” takes care of that.
Two comments:
First, I love how all of your blog posts strike dead at what I think about things. It’s nice to see another voice speaking similarly (although I don’t think I share your cynicism towards the future; I’m young, so I can remain optimistic). I look forward to possibly participating in some of these discussions as the time goes on.
Second, if you do end up starting a message board on RMMB, please do inform us about it.
PL: Thank you. Will do.
I’m not so much a cynic as a realistic skeptic.
To be honest I’m not sure if the “moderate middle” is particularly worth listening too. Too many people look at two extremes and say “well, the truth must be somewhere in the middle” and then pat themselves on the back for being so reasonable, which is a facile and ludicrous approach to problem-solving.
PL: My choice of term there might have been less than ideal. “Burned out,” “Irritated,” “Frustrated” or “Apathetic” might have been better. Most of the middle of this country just wants to feel safe and secure. Nothing wrong with that – except that they’re looking to someone else, or some system, to bring them comfort.
I’m curious as to which of the four categories you place Ron Paul and his growing band of supporters? And what your thoughts are in general about libertarianism and the concept of inalienable individual rights. Thanks in advance.
PL: I think Ron Paul is important, and quite rational and has a lot of good ideas. But he can be a bit extreme, which causes him to come off as too much of a joke. And many of his followers seem most interested in revolution purely for revolution’s sake, as sport. A lot of confused anger anger there, using the candidate as a focal point, but not really on board with what he’s saying so much as his outlaw image.
I am Libertarian, with caveats. And I believe our “rights” are limited to rights to be left alone. We lost our way in this country long ago and people like Scalia, or anyone on the Supreme Court, call themselves tradtionalists or strict constructionalists is ridiculous. Our right to be left alone was trampled over long ago. But the sad truth is, there are too many people in this country for us to be free in the sense the Founders suggested. Too many bodies, too many expectations, too little education. We’re stuck with a Big Govt managing the lives of millions upon millions who can’t manage their own.
I’m excited for your new book, now that I know what it’s about. I think my frat is going the same way. I’m pretty sure next semester is the deciding factor, if it turns out even mediocre, we’re sunk.
The most sickening part of it is that half our problems could easily be solved, if it weren’t for the fragile fucking egos of certain individuals within the house. Too bad i’m too abrasive to convince anyone of anything. Logic never works when you’re an asshole, they just end up resenting you and cementing their position more.
If being in a house has taught me anything, it’s that apathy is always the ‘Final Boss’ of life.
PL: We drove ours off the cliff. It was a question of keeping things as they were, with a charm and carelessness that made the place what it was, or adjust. No regrets. Everything has a life span. When it can’t be what it ought to be, it ought to go.
I’ve just finished reading your book. One word–Fabulous. and highly entertaining –okay I guess thats four words. Everytime I finish an interesting book I feel oddly attached to its author, and I’ve been reading your blog for a while now so I’m genuinely happy for your career move :) I guess you could say I went through the whole “law school” phase myself. I think it happens to everyone who’s towards the end of their “four-year-long-party” and realizes the party favor they’re leaving with isn’t an ipod phone or a berry-scented aroma candle but a degree in something picked at random sophmore year–because heck, everyone was doing it.
I’m just happy your 10yr im-stuck-in-the-wrong-job-phase has ended. I think mine will probably never begin due to the current state of the economy. Maybe I’ll pick up another major and stay an extra year. Or go to law school. Ha.
I live in Philadelphia (well Im stuck at home this summer, so currently and unfortunately I live here right NOW) but thats why I particularly enjoyed all the Philadelphia references..especially when you talked about Show n Tel–first strip club I’ve ever went to. Classy place.
Well, good luck in your next book! I’m sure it will be great. If not I know this guy at this law firm…
PL: Thank you. If you can, please lend your copy to someone else. Whether they buy it, steal it or borrow it, I think college kids looking at careers should read it, and things like it. Knowledge at your age is worth three times what it is at my age.
Show n Tel is just Wrong. Amusing, but Wrong. It’s the only strip club I’ve been to where the strippers are an added bonus. The real entertainment there are the patrons. The gangrene of society. I’d never walk in the place with an open sore.
By the way, unless you’re wired with business connections in the area, when you graduate, do not go back to Philly, or at least the city proper. I may be wrong on this, but if you look at its demographics, its brain drain, its lack of industry, its tax policies, its union problems and its lack of any plan to address its long term downward trajectory (the city was just listed “least entrepreneurial” of any large city in the US by Forbes), I see the place turning into “North Baltimore” down the road. I know lots of people in business in Philly and few are setting up shop in town. They’re all out in the suburbs. I think the future of that town is in towns ringing the city. The city itself is looking down the barrel of an economic nightmare.
(BTW, as to the section of your comment removed, you’re close.)
I’m probably too young and stupid to make a clear point here, but I’ll try: One of the things I love about your writing is the way you illustrate the petty viciousness of the corporate environment. And while I agree about the general undesirability of left wing crony capitalism, I’ve never been able to embrace total laissez faire (Maybe because I read too much Emma Goldman at an early age). The members of my family who didn’t get degrees (and now drive trucks or work in the baked bean factory) are probably the most fervent opponents of welfare and government handouts that you could imagine, but their lives are a brutal grind, and they’re basically part of a huge farm of cheap labor that thinks its somehow middle class. Is it hopelessy wrong headed and idealistic to think that these kinds of folks could have a better life (or is it just “you should have gone to school, so fuck you losers”) ?
I’m about to enter that class myself (Fed Ex package handler woo hoo!), but its because I’ve got the music bug, and I’m not too passionate about academic pusuits at the moment. After reading your posts, I came to the conclusion that I have to sleep at night, and I’ll sleep better on a ratty futon after playing a kickass set than on a waterbed in a McMansion after a day of timesheets.
PL: I’ve always wondered why the people who get their brains beaten in daily in those “grind” jobs don’t unionize more broadly. The idea of Capitalism is that capital is used to create more capital. Okay, well, what capital do these workers have? Their sweat. If pooled, they could turn it on and off the way the Arabs play us like a fiddle with their oil supply. If the lower class worker shut out of the system wants to get more, his only option is to unionize and take it. Bullshit to all the people who say unions are anti-Capitalist. Unions are totally capitalist endeavors – using the supply of something to shake the best price out of its buyer. I can’t think of a more capitalist concept. I also can’t think of any other way workers with fungible skills can get ahead. Management will otherwise get all it can out of them and financial architects will find ways, in concert with management, to cream maximum income out of the companies, with little or none of that money going to the lower rungs of the hierarchy. That’s the natural cycle. If workers want more, they have to band together and take it. Instead, they’re believing, admirably, that they can somehow rise through the ranks and make it to the top. This keeps them fragmented, and when they’re fragmented, they have no capital. So the question is this for workers: Do you get together and force a decent standard of living for all, or do you retain an every man for himself approach and hope to be the one in a hundred guy who rises through the ranks to become a well paid exec? I’d take the latter because I like to gamble, but there are a lot of arguments for going with the former.
The caveat being, a union can’t be a pig any more than management can, or you wind up with GM.
By the way, there’s also the “opt out” revolution. If the middle class in this country got fed up with the policies of the government, it could just “opt out” and tank the whole system. I’m not talking about any Ron Paul stuff like not paying income taxes. I’m talking about a collective default. It’s near impossible to pull this off, and almost sounds like something from a Palahnuik book, but if say, 30 million households all decided not to pay any bills until the govt agreed to pass a policy they wanted, they could drive the financial system right off a cliff. The destruction to the concept of credit rating alone would confound our financial system for years. This is more a joke than a serious suggestion, but if Obama could amass so many people via cell phone technology, it’s not unrealistic to foresee a future in which people take such collective actions to make their voices heard.
That’d be a great screenplay, I think. Amuse the hell of out frustrated audiences and probably get loads of Opeds in the papers from people calling the dramatization of such irresponsible behavior as comedy “dangerous.”
Also, before somebody says it: yeah, a lot of the people I’m talking about (poor white trash, basically) fucked themselves out of a better life by buying 150 inch TVs (and couches fit for Roman emperors to watch them on) when they couldn’t afford them. But isn’t that what happens when you don’t teach people to be enterprising and creative in school, and leave them to rot as labor or cannon fodder? I’ve been reading Joe Bageant’s Deer Hunting With Jesus, and while he’s admittedly a socialist, at least he’s showing some compassiona and giving a voice to the “dumb redneck” we like to make fun of.
PL: Yes, that is what happens in the circumstances you describe. But this isn’t a phenomenon limited to rednecks. The overspending ran through every level of society. That you went to Harvard or make six figures as opposed to working in a plant somewhere doesn’t mean you’re not cannon fodder, or that you’re innately creative. Look at all the totally screwed consultants, financial workers and lawyers who are getting killed in the current economy. They had no creativity. They took the safest path and they;re getting their asses handed to them just as quickly, and in many cases much more viciously than the undereducated sectors of society.
Americans = Narcissistic Peasants. (Or descendants of. Either way.) Everyone is special, destined for the top, reason be damned, and despite the fact that they/their ancestors couldn’t make it in the old country. Mailroom boy-works-his-way-to-CEO sort of rubbish, with the caveat that intelligence and social skills might be requisite qualities for that to happen conveniently left out, of course. The shrinks have a term for that, eh? I hate to be such an obnoxious, didactic shill for the rest of the civilized world, but believe it or not, they had credit cards and subprime loans too. And yet…well, you know the rest.
I don’t really know how you fix something like this that’s so deeply ingrained in a culture, though.
PL: I think the success of shit like “Blink” and “Talent is Overrated” are excellent signs of our unique brand of narcissism. Tell people the guy at the top is just like them, only lucky, or a harder worker, and they’ll love your for it. Tell them that is the case in many instances, but that in just as many, if not more, the guy at the top is smarter and shrewder than they are and they’ll hate you for it. It’s like we live to prove Darwin wrong, and through our folly in so doing only manage to prove him right with more spectacular failures every day. Where there used to be an appetite for failure, pain and the loss of life that went with making mistakes, now we’ve bailouts and universal health care to keep everybody living to ninety. I have only one question? How in the fuck are we going to pay for it?
I guess the Israelis will bomb Iran’s nuke factory and this will plunge us into WWIII? Is that the next bubble?
This post really is your second full thesis statement of your work. Your first was Ten Percenter which stated the underlying theme of nearly all of the other stories and musings of a man living a quiet life of desperation that is the price of the title – Attorney.
That man’s desperation is no longer quiet because others feeling the same frustrations have raised their voices to him over the last 4 years and now is the perfect time for the world to hear us.
PL: A number of people have told me that deconstructing things without giving even a hint of an answer as to how things might be done better rings a bit hesitant… as in afraid to step out and be criticized for actually having an ethos. I think that’s a bunch of bullshit myself, but I figure why not try to at least discuss a few things worth fixing and offer a thought on how one might do that. While writing nonsense at the same time (My next piece is about Gin).