Wall Street Bailout

I am still shocked US Congress voted against the proposed bailout plan, not because I am necessarily in favour of it but because it has become entrenched in my way of thinking that the little guy pays for the big guy’s mistakes. Already the fallout is huge with trillions being wiped off the stockmarket and the sense of panic in financial centres almost palpable. Is the rejection of the bailout a triumph of principles over practicalities, a very loud We’ve had enough and we ain’t going to take it any more directed at Corporate America? Or did those who voted NO do so because they feared not doing so would affect their chances of winning the upcoming election?

It is a traumatic time for many people right now but one story has really upset me today. This man committed suicide as a result of pressure over the credit crunch. I am upset by this because I do hate to think of someone taking their own life under any circumstance, but particularly with regard to stress over money. The worst part is that Kirk Stephenson was not apparently in any trouble himself, he just couldn’t cope with what was coming. He leaves behind a young son. How will that boy ever fathom what drove his father to throw himself under a train?  It is a truly depressing thought.

I feel so badly for his family because I have seen evidence of the aftermath of suicide first hand. In 1987 I was in my first year of teaching and when the stockmarket crashed the father of one of my students committed suicide. Overnight he lost half a million dollars. He jumped from the top floor of a thirty storey building. I will never forget the haunted look on his son’s face when he came back to school after a brief period of mourning. One day he broke down in class and I held this fourteen year old 6 foot two boy for over an hour as he wept. ‘We could have moved to a smaller house,’ he said. ‘I would have given up all my extra-curricular stuff. I would have got a job after school to help pay the bills. It would have been alright. You don’t have to have a house on the water to be happy.’

I will never forget my student’s grief. Sad thing is, I know men like this. I have two close friends who are currently worried about their banker husbands, one of whom has said he would rather be dead than poor. I can honestly say that from the poor end of the spectrum it ain’t all that bad to live within your means, but when you are part of an ethos where money is the be-all and end-all, I do think it challenges your belief system and changes who you are.

Is the measure of a man gauged solely by what other’s see as his financial worth? It is a sad indictment of modern society if that’s the truth. I will watch events unfold over the next few days and hope there will be no more lives lost amid this greedy, filthy, inhuman disaster.

Voyage Into The Unknown

April over at Desperate Writer tagged me ages ago for this meme.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get around to doing it, April.

Anyway, here it is - 

Seven things you might not know about me:

1.  I would like to drive all the way around the USA in this car

Aaaah, Dodge Viper, when will you be mine?

 

2.  I like to listen to early blues guitarists for their simplicity and purity of sound. My favourite by far is the legendary Son House.

 

3. My favourite singer of all time is Gladys Knight. I don’t have a will but everyone I know is aware that I want some Gladys played at my funeral, preferably the rare acoustic version of Midnight Train to Georgia I found in a record shop in London.

4. When I was a teenager I used to shoplift on a regular basis. I did it because my father was so controlling. I think I wanted to get caught so he would be embarrassed. I never did get caught, oddly enough, probably because I looked like such a goody goody. The largest item I ever stole was a pair of two hundred dollar boots. I just put them on and walked nonchalantly out of the shop. I sometimes find this maverick part of my character to be alarming.

5. I have an irrational fear of ventriloquist dummies. One of my Irish Aunts worked in the theatre and kept a VD in a suitcase under her bed. Its manic fixed expression and little wooden hands freaked me out straight away. One night I stayed over at her place and had to sleep in her bed. I am sure I heard it shuffling around under the bed in the middle of the night.

6. I can’t sew. I can manage buttons but they’re usually all lop-sided. I was the only girl in my school to be asked to leave needlework class due to incompetence. I think that’s why I am obsessed with Project Runway. Those people are my heroes.

7. I saved a little boy’s life once. In a restaurant. He was choking on a chicken bone. His mother started to scream and shake him. I did the Heimlich on him. The chicken bone flew across the room with the force of an arrow. The little boy threw up on my shoes. I was thankful I didn’t crack one of his ribs.

 

So there you have it. Seven little known pieces of trivia about me. It was fun coming up with them.

Please feel free to carry out this meme if you would like to. I enjoyed it!

Johnston Street Blues

I saw a man playing the piano in the street today. He was playing blues and jazz like someone who’d just stepped out of a gin joint in New Orleans. His name was Harold and he was 82 years old. It was the last time he was going to be able to play his piano because he was moving to a retirement home. They wouldn’t let him have a piano in his room in case it disturbed the other residents.

‘It’s going to be a long, slow death,’ he said as he slipped from swing to gospel to boogie woogie as easy as drawing breath.

The piano was in the street waiting to be loaded onto a removalist’s truck. The driver was becoming impatient. He was obviously not a music lover. He kept looking at his watch and pulling on his ear lobe.

Eventually the music stopped and the piano was loaded into the truck. It was like witnessing Jonah being sucked into the belly of the whale.

As the truck drove off Harold stood in the middle of the road watching it disappear. He stood there for a long time afterwards. I knew he was hoping someone would realise taking his piano away from him was a huge mistake and that half way down the road they would come to their senses. But the truck didn’t come back.

Dejected, shoulders slumped, Harold shuffled into his house with the well-tended garden. His face had already grown colourless. He appeared frailer than before. When he closed his door I felt a clutch of tears form in my throat for the click of the latch was like the slight groan someone makes when they have given up.

It is a shame when practicalities fail to acknowledge a true source of joy. Music is a form of light we should let into our rooms as much as we can. To deny what for Harold was obviously a basic need seems heartless. I wonder how Harold will manage in a new home without his old friend.