The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

"It is my promise to everyone here, when I am president, we will continue to fight for working families, including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers," Harris told a crowd at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas on Saturday.

WHY? Because the economy has been buoyed on the backs of workers who require tips to survive. No one tips someone making a six figure salary. With the increase of bargain basement wages for the vast majority of Americans working in restaurants, bars, the counter at a Walgreens, delivery drivers for food and other shit, the rampant requests for tips has ballooned to epic proportions. The categorization of ‘service and hospitality workers’ has expanded exponentially so eliminating taxes on tips sounds good. Consider, however, how many of these tips are recorded and reported.

I just read an article about a waitress who received a Lotto ticket as a tip (which, let’s be straight, is a bullshit move). She ended up winning $10 million and subsequently sued by both her co-workers and the fucker who left her the tip. If she’d just kept that to herself, her life would’ve been far better as are those who get a $20 tip for pouring a glass of whiskey and just pocket the cash.

It’s one of those policy announcements that sound good but mean very little. Increasing the minimum wage is the goal but only if regulation on fair pricing for goods is likewise in place.

SPEAKING OF TIPS. As a manager of a crew of 45 in the park, there are several metrics I use to assess their success. Are they on time, properly dressed, working with a sense of purpose, friendly with their co-workers? All good. One I hadn’t thought of in terms of how good this group in the park is are the tips they get for ushering in a venue that is free to attend.

Without the expectation, a prompt on an iPad, or even a sense of percentage of cost, these folks are receiving tips for excellent service. I’d argue this has as much to do with the miserable experience most people have with ushers in venues at large as it does how damn good my crew has become. They are good, though. One could say ‘tip-worthy.’

HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY. A pattern I’ve recognized in my life is that, while a motivating factor for me is be useful to those around me, there will always be those who latch on to those looking to help like a drowning victim grasps at anything or anyone not drowning. The pattern is evident—someone sees I will go to the mat to be useful to them, I help out or advise or otherwise provide them with something they feel they need, and then they look for more of that. I almost always comply. This continues until I cannot give them the thing they want or in the manner they demand. Suddenly, I’m the bad guy.

There is an anger in those who need desperately not present in those a bit more self sufficient and it lies in wait. When their perception of what I am able to give collides with the reality emerges that there is a finite amount of assistance I can facilitate, that submerged rage lashes out.

My mom is similar. She has spent much of her life building systems and participating in organizations designed to furnish help to those in need. Once in a while, she encounters someone who is a black hole of paucity, a reverse cornucopia of good will, a vampire whose blood of choice is generosity. She takes the hit but always comes back to help others—making soup for those folks at her church in ill health, visiting house-bound relatives, and otherwise caretaking anyone around her who needs.

The lesson is to know that this will occasionally occur and help anyway but recognize those angry, lonely people and, as my brilliant sister tells me, set boundaries.

BUT [PREFERRED PRONOUN’S] EMAILS!! In 2016, emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee were pilfered and publicized by Russian hackers, and the press couldn’t stop writing about it. This likely had an inordinate effect on that election and helped Trump secure the Electoral College. In 2024, alleged Iranian hackers infiltrated the Trump campaign’s computers and the three media outlets that were sent the goods declined to publish. Maybe the media has evolved in their approach to publishing hacked materials (the Clinton emails were part of an obvious Russian bit of espionage) but it sure smells fishy.

“Many activists on both the Left and Right now hope to bring about their ideal world the same way a spoiled brat acquires a toy they’ve been denied: by being as loud and hysterical as possible. This is neotoddlerism: the view that utopia can be achieved by acting like a three-year old.”—The Prism by Gurwinder

DNC DESCENDS. Next week, in Chicago, the DNC will rally in two security bubbles to anoint Kamala Harris as the next Big Thing in the continued battle against Donald Trump and the toothless masses who follow him. The whole thing feels like a lost season of The Walking Dead with Trump as a Negan-esque bully and Harris a rebranded Michonne brandishing her kitana but with a lot less gloomy grit and more rah-rah laughter.

Make no mistake—I’m voting for Harris/Walz. While I do not see Trump as the demise of democracy or the dictator-to-come, there’s just no way I can vote for such an asshole. I’m also in awe how quickly Harris went from ineffective VP who dances to protest songs leveled against her and creator of word salad answers in softball interviews (“Culture is — it is a reflection of our moment in our time, right? And in present culture is the way we express how we’re feeling about the moment.”) to the next Obama.

Did we all memory-hole the weeks before Biden dropped out of the race how the very people lifting Harris up lied over and over about how fit he was? Do we simply erase her less than stellar record as VP? Do we even have a choice but to swallow the deification fervor and will this come crashing down around us if her DNC closing speech is not the powerful Obama-era messaging?

As for the rest of the environment, we have pro-Palestinian protestors corn-holed into a 1.4 mile section of Chicago, many certainly arriving to be a part of history and march whilst yelling and a considerable number hell-bent on exercising their Constitutional right to destroy property and peacefully light police cars on fire. We have a huge number of people deciding whether to come into work downtown or not because, hey, gotta work but do I want to be in the midst of either a 1968 or 2020 street war?

In my capacity in the park, I talk to a lot of off-duty cops and none of these folks are looking forward to it. Contrary to popular opinion, these officers aren’t looking forward to cracking skulls. They’re all reserved in their anticipation but I can see some are wishing they’d gone with that Devry degree in Cyber Security instead of continuing the family legacy in policing.

We’ll all know how it turns out next week but I hope it is a nothing burger in terms of historical Chicago conventions rather than a repeat of protest-turned-to-rioting and rubber bullets.

On the other hand, it is Chicago…

POST-PARK PROSPECTING. The seasonal contract for Millennium Park is up at the end of September. I’d hoped that my work there would convince someone that a full time position was smart but the bureaucracy involved is daunting (as it was in 2018) so I’m out prospecting. The Chicago International Film Festival has offered me a position for October’s festival (although they haven’t figured out exactly where to place me or how I can be of service) and I’m all certified to substitute teach in the fall (which reinforces the wisdom of Robert Bright convincing me to get the education degree in lieu of the performance degree).

My philosophy is this: all of us, on nearly a daily basis, are offered a sandwich. Two slices of sourdough, some lettuce, and heaping mound of shit. This shit sandwich comes with a transaction. Eat it and you get paid for something that eats your soul up, cascading each hour into a tiny footstep toward your eminent demise. Eat it and a spouse will let you continue to suffer their presence. Eat it and gain popularity with the ‘in’ crowd. Most of us, at least those not blessed with familial wealth or Youtube fame and money, eat these shit sandwiches on the regular.

After the third divorce, any hope of having a retirement nest egg is long gone supporting the lifestyle of a self described sex worker, so retiring in any traditional sense has evaporated like the marital trust lit on fire nearly three years ago. Thus, I am offered shit sandwiches to continue the hamster wheel.

I can state unequivocally that, of the many shit sandwiches I’ve gobbled down in my life, I was never happy about it, the taste never became acquired, and I almost always regretted the meal. I’m not interested in eating these American made delicacies so I’m really looking at work these days from this angle: If I knew I would die in exactly one year, what would I be doing and how would I be doing it? This is not a juvenile question answered by hedonism, nihilism, or the desire to ‘follow my passion.’ This is the adult question of only finding those things that pay that I can enjoy (or at least not dread). As my LinkedIn profile states, I am a Jack of All Trades, Master of Three.

No more shit sandwiches, gang. Like working in the largest outdoor concert venue in a world class city, if it ain’t fun, it’s up to me to make it fun. And tasty like a homemade Italian sub.

Nope.

---

That’s the week, Gentle Reader! If you’re in Chicago, avoid downtown but be connected to the television because political conventions are all about the taped speeches. If you aren’t in the City of Big Boulders, watch us burn it all down from afar.