Enough lucre to make Midas blush

There’s a website out there that you MUST visit immediately: Actually, you’re the 47%.

Allow me to provide a bit of context. Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement have been garnering attention of late by claiming that the bottom 99% of Americans are being financially raped by the top 1%, which is a pretty accurate depiction of the state of our union. So some partisan hack whose name I can’t remember and isn’t worth mentioning anyway, decided that the 21st century incarnation of Nixon’s silent majority needed its own catchy number slogan. He latched onto the number 53, which apparently represents the percentage of Americans who pay income tax, and created a website in celebration of these Fine Americans.

The 53 percenters’ website consists of photographs of said Fine Americans holding copies their own personal, one-page autobiographies/manifestoes, all of which end with the sentence, “I am the 53%.” In terms of tone, the written works run the gamut from “poor me” to “woe is me.” You know, I used to have to walk to school uphill both ways, barefoot in blizzards without a coat, returning home to a dinner of pond water and dog food. That kind of shit. But the moral of the story is that despite it all, nay BECAUSE of it all, I’ve survived and perhaps even prospered. I don’t blame Wall Street or rich people for my problems, and neither should you because this is America goddammit, and we’re the greatest country on earth. If you’re thinking that this isn’t the logical conclusion to draw from a back story that includes dog food dinners, you’re right. It’s safe to say that they’re shooting from the gut, not the brain.

Now, I genuinely am one of the 53% of Americans who pays income tax, by virtue of being childless and earning somewhat more than the average Wal-Mart employee, which I guess makes me a Fine American. The same could not be said of a sizable portion of the posters on the 53 percenters’ website, which includes entries from full-time students, housewives, the unemployed, and a bizarrely high percentage of current and former pizza-delivery people who may or may not be affiliated with Herman Cain. These people, I think it’s safe to say, do not pay income tax as a great many of them have no income. I’m not blaming them for that, but this is the raison d’être of the “Actually, you’re the 47%” website. If you’re driving a car with 265,000 miles on it to deliver pizzas to frat boys, don’t brag about how virtuous you are for paying income tax, because the fact is you don’t.

That doesn’t mean that my status as an income tax payer makes me virtuous, because that would be silly. I was born lucky. At the same time, eating dog food doesn’t make you virtuous. If you had a shitty life, I feel for you, and if you clawed your way out of poverty, I admire you, but that doesn’t automatically make you wise. Being a 53 percenter, however, does automatically make you an idiot. You’re on your high horse, bragging about how you don’t blame anyone else for your problems, but that’s a pretty stupid position to take if your misfortune is in fact someone’s fault. Do you know why black people blame white people for slavery? Because it was white peoples’ fault. Well, you and I are in financial slavery. We’re owned by the mega-rich, and we didn’t get a say in the matter; our elected “representatives” have also been bought. Our circumstances are wholly dependent on the whims of a few men with enough lucre to make Midas blush. On your behalf, I blame Wall Street.

So here’s to the 47% and the 99% and all the OWS folks. Those protestors may smell funny and get in my way each evening when I’m walking from the office to the train, but I still love ‘em, and I don’t care if the message is muddy. It doesn’t matter, because only eggheads worry about shit like that. Finally income inequality and capitalism and unemployment and underemployment are at the forefront of public discourse, which I didn’t even think was possible. This is attention-seeking populism at its finest. Please don’t go home, except maybe for a quick shower.

Which would you rather do, sleep or live?

At the moment, I’m reading “Life” by Keith Richards, and it’s kind of making me want to write my own memoir. Keith mentions that for many years, he slept only twice a week – presumably due to the gross over-consumption of certain illegal substances – and has therefore lived more life than the rest of us; hence, his memoir is quite extensive. Being 40 years Keith’s junior and a daily sleeper, my memoir is decidedly brief. Here are some highlights…

I am born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the only child of an age-inappropriate, quasi-interfaith marriage; my father is Catholic, my mother Jewish. Thankfully neither believes in god so faith is moot, which leaves me free me to drop out of Hebrew school aged 4. Also, Easter is all chocolate, no bloodied Jesus. Some of my very first words are “Bryan Adams.”

I have a rough time at school because everyone thinks I am weird. Being a member of the local silent film society doesn’t win me any popularity contests, although I am finally elected to student council in fifth grade after the implementation of some complex rules which effectively disqualified everyone else. The only other person on the ballot is my best friend, Alanna, who never did forgive me for her defeat. We go our separate ways soon after, but I later hear a rumor that she performed oral sex on her whole high school football team. Alanna, if by chance you’re reading this, please confirm or deny.

I’ve blocked out my 11th and 12th years. They were not happy. I eventually transfer to a ritzy prep school after some public school hooligans bestow upon me the nickname “Bush Lady.” I think it had something to do with pubic hair. Anyway, I stopped letting them copy my math homework after that. Once I turned out to be a bust, they conned some Asian kid named David into being the new me. The summer before transferring schools, I manage to break my neck. Due to the sweltering heat, I emit buckets of sweat into my neckbrace, which in turn begins to smell like a dead raccoon.

Despite my charming aroma of decomposition, I find private school to be intermittently bearable. I become friends with Katie – who did not go on to perform any sex acts on entire sports teams – and together we have our first Keith Richards-esque experience: On a school trip to Washington DC, we drink vast quantities of Jolt Cola – tween crack – and sleep very little. Katie and I see the Stones a few times during high school, thinking Keith might keel over at any moment. Thus far, he has not.

I spend one terrifically unhappy and expensive summer in Europe before starting college.

I think that’ll do for now. If you enjoyed this, you can stay tuned for future installments in which I discover that the carbonation in beer makes it come back up, and that feuds between francophone and germanophone Swiss kept Switzerland out of the European Union. In other words, college.