Pitch,
“There's no economic collapse, chaotic cities, spreading war or
clownish leaders pushing evil policies. Those freezing in cars or lying
half dead on your shit strewn sidewalks are just bums. Everything is
perfectly fine. To feel even better, read here about Katy Perry, Bob
Dylan, Chris Chan, Barbra Streisand, Ron Unz, Jewjabs, Mad Thad, Grant
Wood, Lafcadio Hearn, Serbia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Albania.”
Table of Contents
[Friendly Lounge in Philadelphia on 2/2/17]
[Fushe-Kruje, Albania on 6/3/21]
[Bangkok, 10/14/22]
[Starbucks in Vientiane on 7/16/23]
A sample chapter:
Happy Days Are Here Again!
3/6/10, with elaborations in 2024--The word recession, meaning a temporary dip in economic activity, was coined in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression, so even then, we were kidding ourselves. After months of babbling about “green shoots” in 2010, the always jiving press started to use “Great Recession,” but why not Great Recess, as in a fun pause in labor so we can all run outside and frolic? With the outdoors so healing, those who can never go inside must be especially blessed.
In November of 1929, a month after the stock market crash, Lou Levin recorded, “Happy days are here again.” Though homelessness had already been widespread, the Great Depression spawned Hoovervilles in all cities. The starving had to dwell in shanty towns near soup kitchens. If these wretches had access to a radio, they could hear Jack Yellen’s wonderful lyrics:
Germans suffered even worse, but they, too, could enjoy the same song as performed by Die Comedian Harmonists. Why the English name? The original lyrics would have been too much like spitting on a half dead man, so this Charles Amberg’s version, as translated by “Swiss Reader”:
Swiss Reader adds, “My father (born 1915) told me they would sing in Berlin backyards, and people would throw money out the windows for them. This was the Depression years, as depicted in Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. Döblin was a doctor for the poorest, that’s where he got his stories. After reading that book, I said to my father, ‘I had no idea life was so tough then.’ He summed the book up perfectly, “Yes, all of the men were criminals and all of the women were whores.”
On the Garry Moore Show in 1962, Barbra Streisand appeared as a 1929 millionaire who had lost everything. Clutching a mink stole to her bosom, Streisand was still served. Whatever reluctance the waiter had was dispelled when Streisand offered a four-carat diamond earring for a glass of champaigne. Her flirtatiousness didn’t hurt. She shot him leers and even clutched his hand Ending up draining an entire bottle, Streisand would be stripped of her other earring, two bracelets and even stole. Giving it up, she leaned into the suddenly flushed young man. After stroking the bottle’s neck, Streisand ended up cradling the bottle. Should have used a condom.
Among the updated lyrics were “happy landing!” belted out as only Barbra could. She’s the queen of overblown emotions.
Eight months after the 2008 stock market collapse, the New York Times launched “Happy Days,” a series of mostly palliative, feel good articles. As Twain was supposed to have said, “The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Happy Days was also a popular TV sitcom, of course. Airing from 1974 to 1984, it featured a lovable, corny cast of working class Americans from the 1950’s, with its most popular character a slick haired mechanic and biker, Arthur Fonzarelli. When times were good, even a high school drop out could constantly flash thumbs up and co-own a diner.
Arriving in the US in 1975, I, like everybody else, watched Happy Days religiously. How their characters reacted shaped my understanding of the USA. So cheerful, lighthearted and casually cool, they only had to say something vaguely funny to crack up the entire world. Life, though, has no laugh tracks. Staring at our 20 inch black and white in that dark room with old carpet, life appeared promising. The K-Mart clothing I’d outgrow, not my bad teeth.
Today, Fonzie would be lucky to work as a Wal-Mart sales associate. He’d have to swap his leather jacket for a polyester vest with a “Fonzie” name tag. America's most enduring icons, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, all came out of the 50's, a decade of peak American confidence and prosperity. There were many factors, but what’s often overlooked is America’s status as the world’s biggest oil producer. A huge chunk of her wealth was a godsend. All Americans were Beverly Hillbillies.
FDR’s campaign song was “Happy Days Are Here Again,” of course. To those not familiar with this crippled dude, he existed after Jesus’ death and before Jesus Christ Superstar, so he never strangled George Floyd nor dated Taylor Swift. In his most famous speech, FDR said:
Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
[…]
It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
Nothing was said about the US cutting off Japan’s oil supply, nor FDR’s foreknowledge of this “surprise” attack, but who cares, especially now that Taylor Swift has released Speak Now?
After another Pearl Harbor, George Bush declared:
America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.
Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded with the best of America -- with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.
[…]
This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.
Launching endless war, Bush spoke of America’s resolve for peace!
Starved of oil, nations regress to the Stone Age, so Japan had to attack. Similarly, China’s incursions into the South China Sea, Myanmar, Pakistan and Laos are efforts to bypass dependence on the Strait of Malacca, still controlled by the USA. Chinese majority Singapore may flip its allegiance during the next war.
The oil age started in Pennsylvania in 1859, with the first significant well named “Empire,” appropriately enough. Fuel and engine of the American Century, oil has allowed us to build an unprecedentedly wasteful and alienating environment, where citizens are conditioned to spend hours trapped in a steel box and liking it. The car, not the eagle or cracked bell, is the symbol of American freedom. Its erratic, stop and start speed is a metaphor for inevitable progress. What happens when dubious joyride runs out of fuel, gas tank by gas tank? That we’re wringing oil from rocks should tell you everything.
Just look around you. I live in Philadelphia, a broke metropolis gutted of almost all industries, like nearly all our towns and cities. Inside subway concourses and around City Hall, the homeless sleep on concrete or cardboard, their possessions in a beat up suitcase or trash bag. They line up for food outside the Main Library. Every so often, bored and angry youths rampage through The Gallery, our downtown shopping mall. They fight security guards, sending some to the hospital. Roaming sidewalks, they knock down random strangers. Just this week, more than a hundred students, organizing through Facebook, staged a mini riot inside Macy’s. One was hospitalized after being kicked in the head. Fifteen were arrested.
Across the river is Camden, once home to Campbell Soup, RCA Victors and the biggest shipyard in the world, employing 40,000 workers. Last year, Camden was rated the most dangerous American city. Etched onto City Hall is a Walt Whitman line, “IN A DREAM, I SEE A CITY INVINCIBLE.” Beneath it are two boarded up windows. Whitman spent 19 years in Camden and is buried there, but the house of America’s greatest poet is only open to visitors by appointment. It’s a safe bet most Camden residents have never heard of any poet who isn’t a homicidal rapper with bling and ho’s! Who’s Langston Hughes?!
Few enter Camden. Its center is mostly deserted. On its main drag, cops, gangstas, whores and zombies strut past Chinese and fried chicken joints with bulletproof plexiglass. Just outside downtown is a tent city where +100 dwell during summer. During winter, it’s down to 50. There are many couples, but kids aren’t allowed. Black, white and Hispanic, the youngest is 20, the oldest, 76. They share one stinking honey bucket and and two shower stalls. There’s no running water or electricity. Heat comes from burning wood or cans of Sterno, the jellied alcohol normally used on buffet tables. It’s not the Stone Age, but the 21st century in the greatest country ever!
Meet Tina, who’s lived in the tent city, off and on, for over a year, since she was 20. Though her mom is around, they don’t get along. Tina claimed she was Miss New Jersey for 2005 and only skipped the national pageant because of “personal problems.” A google check showed she lied. “Wolfman” made $3,000 a week laying tiles and had a house. His six-year-old son now lives with grandma. Jay, 27, squandered his inheritance on drugs. Casper was a dock worker and septic-tank technician. After months in a freezing tent with his deaf girlfriend, Casper has found work and an apartment, so they’ve moved on. James, 56, joined the air force then became a defense contractor, fixing tanks and other heavy equipment. He also drove a gypsy cab and “was in the escort business,” he grinned. Hooked on crack, this personable pimp was jailed when he tried to rob a bank without a weapon, just a note demanding 400 bucks.
“Why 400?”
“That was all I needed. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
At the tent city, James was the most literate, with boxes of spy, thriller, crime and spiritual books, plus Terry McMillan and Great American Folklore. After over a year in a tent, he was hired again as a defense contractor, so has been shipped overseas. With 761 bases in 151 countries, that segment of the American economy is still thriving.
An hour from Philly is Bethlehem, home of Bethlehem Steel, now a hulking ruins visible from miles away. The second largest steel producer in the U.S., it was responsible for the Golden Gate Bridge and nearly all of New York’s skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building, which was conceived during the roaring twenties—think irrational exuberance—and erected during the Great Depression.
The skyscraper is the most naked symbol of money-generated power, and of nationalistic hubris. Consider Pyongyang’s Ryugyong Hotel, still unfinished after 23 years, or the 160-story Burj Khalifa in Dubai, a suddenly bankrupt kingdom. Recall the Tower of Babel, but that was our first attempt at globalism!
In Bethlehem recently to photograph, I was hassled by a Sands Casino security guard. “But I’m on a public street,” I protested.
“You’re photographing Sands’ property.”
“That’s Bethlehem Steel, man. That’s American history!” I stared at this guy incredulously. Like I said, you could see the old factory from at least a mile away. “Are you from Bethlehem?”
“I was born here. My grandfather worked in that steel plant.”
“You were born here and you’re stopping me from photographing Bethlehem Steel?! You know how funny you’re sounding right now?”
“It’s not Bethlehem Steel anymore. It belongs to Sands.”
“Man,” I shook my head and pointed at the sky, “your granddaddy is probably laughing at you right now.”
Citing the Patriot Act, he demanded to see my camera’s images, but I refused to show them. As I turned to walk away, he stopped me under threat of arrest. After more absurd back and forth, he finally let me go as told, through a walkie talkie, by a superior.
Done with making stuff, we sell each other services. I’ll cut your hair, you’ll cut mine. We swap “vintage” furniture and clothing. With a tolerable face and flesh still firm, many lap dance.
During the Great Depression, a desert dump unsuitable for agriculture, industry and large-scaled habitation became a boomtown. Now, there are mini Vegases across America. In Kansas, I even saw a casino in an old church. As for lotteries, Pennsylvania alone pushes the Daily Number, Big 4, Cash 5, Quinto, Treasure Hunt, Mix & Match, Mega Millions, Super 7 and Power Ball. Our biggest casino, though, is Wall Street.
After being dazzled by color lights, whistles, toylike clanks, cartoon figures and some tits and ass, you wake up hungover and broke. To lessen your self pity and recrimination, you can hear for free on YouTube Barbra’s invigorating voice, “Happy days are here again!” If you’re under a bridge with no access to wifi, you only have yourself to blame, loser!
Seeing a septuagenarian lying half dead on the sidewalk, many will insist he must be a drunk, drug addict, lazy, improvident or a criminal.
With chemtrails crisscrossing the heavens, they’ll never be clear again, but no one cares what color the sky is. Conditioned to stare at cellphones nonstop, necks can no longer tilt up. Most don’t even know the color of their bedroom walls.
Methodically led into the Mother of All Depressions, we’re armed with only the “audacity of hope,” so let’s hear from Obama, America’s greatest president among progressives:
I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. That’s not what I'm talking about, I’m talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope.
Wochenend und Sonnenschein! What more do we need? Much more, actually, even as semi beasts cowering in bunkers, caves or half collapsed parking garages. No bicycles, boulevards or old fashioned bums, just me and you, to see who will eat.
