I've Stock in Friendship!

My latest obsession: I've gone from doing a couple hundred sudoku per day to spending way too much time trying to invite friends to a certain internet social network.

Actually, that's a little misleading. I'm really building a virtual fiefdom as "Knight Wes" and I'm trying to man and woman my fiefdom with vassals so I may better raid and pillage other less prepared fiefdoms and become a Baron, then Count, then King, and eventually Emperor of The Known World. Inviting friends to the certain internet social network is just part of my evil plan of ultimate conquest.

Happily, world events are playing into my hands. This morning it looks like we're in for some more bad news in the stock market -- good news for me!

You see, I don't have a whole lot of rich friends. I can count my rich friends with my thumbs. They talk to me in alternate decades, usually from a distance. They never treat me to lunch. They won't give me their cell phone numbers. When I get them on the regular phone, it's all "Wes who?" and "Can't talk now, I'm buying Rhode Island", or a voice says, "I'm in San Tropé right now, but if you leave a message after the beep, I'll answer it next Spring."

For a long time, I thought the problem was I just wasn't trying hard enough to make friends with rich people. I needed to get out more and travel among the stinking rich. So I went to art openings and concerts and loitered in airports next to guys in suits and Italian shoes, with good teeth, checked luggage, cuff links, and briefcases. I brought offerings of Grey Poupon. I carried conspicuous copies of the Wall Street Journal. Eventually, I had to accept that the real problem was the stinking rich weren't trying hard enough to make friends with me. In fact, they weren't trying at all.

All that's set to change. Sure, the government is bailing out the super rich, so I'm probably never going to be friends with Charles Schwab. But that still leaves a whole lot of "low hanging fruit" out on a limb and dropping. And that means, I won't have to bother with all the "cross-class" alliance business we love to do here at Real Change. Instead of me reaching out to the other classes, the other classes will come to me!

A report this morning noted the recent sharp increase in homelessness and said nearly half are middle class people homeless for the first time. Well, then, they aren't middle class any more, are they? I have a new pool of friends! And I'm not yet ready to write off all the billionaires either. I'm sure Bill Gates has no need of a parachute -- he can do a power landing in any economic crisis -- but I'm not so positive that the rest of his gang hasn't overused their credit lines buying toys.

Our future may be one of poverty and despair, but, hey! Look on the bright side! Everything will get simpler!

In poverty, choices narrow, and life gets much simpler. At Christmas, for example, what do you get the kids to play with? Before, you had to choose between My Baby's First Cadillac and My Baby's First Summer Cottage. Now the choice is between My Baby's First Stick and My Baby's First Fistful of Nothing. Before, planning dinner could take hours and would often require the services of a paid professional staff. Now, it's "I've got a can opener, and you've got a can of garbanzos and a spoon, so let's eat."

When that happens, my Grey Poupon is going to start looking pretty damn fine. "These garbanzos sure could use some spicing up." "Have you tried them with Grey Poupon?" "Why no, I have not." "Well, if you'll be my friend, I'll let you have some."

Then, I will have them where I want them, ready to become my vassals.

Loads of Bon Mots

Welcome to a special non-topical version of these Adventures! Take this one internally and let it work globally!

There are a couple of reasons for going the non-topical route this week. One of them, which also may apply next week, is the little fact that even editors are human (!) and want Christmases and New Yearses off. So I have to turn this in several days before Christmas so that somebody else can have a Wonderful Life.

The other reason that this column is going to be utterly non-topical is that six days ago I fell off a rolling platform and got a significant “owie” involving pain in multiple places. I don’t know about you, but for me pain induces an impatience for the minutiae of the daily news, and turns my thoughts to the universal and timeless. And, where my thoughts go, there I must Adventure also, or my thoughts and I would become separated. (Get it? Advent; advent-ure.)

So what I thought I’d do today is share some little sayings that I either have lived by for years, or just made up recently out of crushing boredom.

“The essence of humor is clown squeezings.” A lot of people misread this one as saying we should go squeeze a clown for jollies. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying hurt begets humor. Some of these are metaphoric, damn it!

“A baby is nothing to sneeze at.” I think that can’t be said often enough.

“When life gives you lemons, pucker up.” I know, it doesn’t quite work, but the meaning comes across anyway, doesn’t it?

“Honesty is the best front.” This is one of my all time favorites. Remember kids; don’t waste your lies getting dimes and candies, cigarettes and kisses. Save your fibs for the big stuff, like escaping the death penalty, or truly worthwhile wide-awake debauchery that you’ll be able to remember when you’re in the rest home while being “tidied up” by the nurse after your daily business.

“Politics is never a dirty word.” Sometimes politicians will counter critics by saying, “You’re just playing politics.” They want to make it a dirty word so they can have it all for themselves. They know that all politics is about the exercise of power, that’s why they want to alienate you from the very word, so you can’t exercise power that you are entitled to. So whenever someone, even be they on your own side, says someone else is just playing politics, you should make vigorous expressions of disapproval.

“If you let a wild pig eat off your ass, it's your fault when he bites it.” That was the cleaned up version. At the moment I’m imagining Karl Rove as the pig, but it could be anybody. “Codependence kills,” is another one in the same vein.

“Never do anything you would be ashamed of. First, stop feeling you should be ashamed of it. Then do it.” Some of these are just plain obvious.

“When a 250 pound man gives the seat next to me to a 90 pound woman, and the bus slams to a halt, the 250 pound man will collide with my face.” I learned this one long before Homelessness Czar Philip Mangano cooked up the whole “house the chronically homeless first” line he’s been selling. I still would add to it though: “Better yet, buy bigger busses, seat everybody.”

“Beating your neighbor’s spouse doesn’t show how much you love your own.” These days what passes for patriotism is really national chauvinism. No one loves any one country that doesn’t first love humanity, as a whole.

“Language matters.” Sticks and stones may break my bones, but the constant abuse of language, especially by authorities, is making slaves out of us all.

This one’s just for me: “My mind is like a Border Collie, it needs to drive sheep.” While you think about that, I’ll get next week’s column ready.
Have a Happy, and may Bono be pleased with the New Year.