Ornaments

We took our Christmas tree down last night. Some would say it is a late for that. The tree should have been down by now. But of course we like to put off the truth of the holidays end. We are all back to work after all and Christmas is packed away with all the other stuff of family life. But one can not help but think of the fading moment as the ornaments go back into tinsel strewn boxes. Sad that those candles and snowmen and shiny globes of cheer should not see the light of day for another year. Some feel a relief. There is no more work of the parent and life resumes it's regularity. For the rest of us it is the door to childhood closed once again. If Christmas is for children then we are allowed into their world only at Christmas. But we are older and those ornaments stand now as memories of past Christmas and people we have lost and people we no longer see. We remember them for a moment as we take out a particular ornament and hold it, flashing back to a different time when a first snow and the smell of a fire stood for so much more. This is a hard thing to get your hands around without drifting into sentimentality. But there is that moment in the attic when the boxes are laid to rest and you turn by the door. The brown cartons are stacked in the gloom and you pause, knowing then you are just a little bit older, maybe a little further away.

Mount Oprah

You should be on Oprah. Oprah would love your book. Maybe she would and maybe she wouldn't. But as a man with a book out I hear this about every other day. Strange dynamic. Publishing a book so the end result will be an endorsement by a single person. In the age of everyman fame, Oprah is certainly the lottery ticket to the sure milk of immortality if not wealth. But of course one has to get there. I received a call yesterday. Mr. Hazelgrove, we would like to publish your next book. Oh really. I can hear other voices in the background. Yes, this is blankety blank and we want to publish your book. I recognized the vanity press. Well my book has just come out I say and of course the call is terminated. No prospects here. Even self publishing is in a downturn. There is no shame in self publishing. Great writers have done it through time, but the wholesale Juggernaut of instafame is something new. All eyes on the prize we do whatever flips trained seals must to get to the top of the pyramid. I get it. I really do. The man who told Oprah he received food from a long lost lover in a concentration camp got it too. He just made it up. So did James Frey. Can you blame them? Morality says yes, but reality says they are just doing whatever they can to get to the final stop on Mount Rich and Famous. A lot of people talk about the American Dream, but of course the dirty little secret is that we are covetous old sinners who want that final branch, the one that says we are not just a blip on the radar screen of mortality but someone special, someone different, the star that flashes out of the night and we all sit in wonder. But there are only so many seats on that Oprah set, a couch that Tom Cruise destroyed his career on and another seat for Oprah. After that, it is every man and woman for themself.

Maybe We Should Change The Rules

Here is the hard truth of the financial situation--nobody knows what they are doing. You like to think that someone does, but really, they don't. Not the guy running your 401K fund, not the big hedge fund managers, not even Bernache. How could they? Economics follows no rules, just the rules we set up. Imagine trying to predict the course of water. Money is water, slippery, eel like, slithering away in a heartbeat, seeping between our fingers. No one has any real idea about what it is going to do. Not now. But people do operate from a premise of greed. That is about it. People will do whatever it takes to make sure they have more money and not you. Listen up middle class brethren. This means that your fund managers will make sure they do what is the interest of the firm and their commission before they do what is in your interest. In the New York Times article this last Sunday they tried to figure out where the bail out money went. Turns out most of the banks just banked it. You guessed it. They put it in their accounts as their money. They are not going to lend it and nobody said they had to. So they did what you and I would do if someone handed us say a hundred dollars, we'd put it in our account. That's what they did. And of course the middle class will get none of the bail out dollars. So essentially, your money was just given away to some guys who cried wolf and said we need it or else. Citibank is a perfect example. They gave them billions, then just guaranteed their 306 billion dollar debt. The government didn't' say they had to start lending, they just said, ok, your good. Now why is that? Why would all these banks just be able to walk away from all their debt? You and I can't do that. We have to follow the rules, pay our bills, pay our debts, or pay the consequences. You know, maybe we should change the rules.