The Weekend of Foolish Attention
DATELINE: Saturday, March 12, 2022
I’ve been looking around lately and pondering legacy.
Yeah, I know. Here’s some semi-shallow thoughts on aging and what we leave behind from a 56-year-old white guy. Live with it.
The classes I taught last week in St. George sparked some nostalgia (which is cloaked in bullshit as most nostalgia is) and recollections of theater I created, people I worked with, writing I do, money I’ve made or wasted is all spinning around in a stew of what I can call my life to this point.
I remember students I taught back in the 90s and wonder where they are today. I wonder if anything I said or did made a lasting impact. I think about the shows in Chicago, the stories, the adventures and look away to see what the future holds. I believe, as I wrote the other day, that the world has always been on fire in one way or another. The circumstances of the planet of semi-literate apes only affects my life in a cursory way for the most part.
I can read and absorb the news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine but it doesn’t determine what I do today or the situations I may find myself in.
So, legacy. No kids and don’t want ‘em. Lots of what I call masterpieces in the sand to reflect upon. A mental engine of what to write, what to create, how to do it, chumming along like the generator in a hurricane.
So what does 2022 and beyond hold? What will I leave behind?
Let’s find out.
A Message from Substack from a template
I have exciting news to share: You can now read The Attention of Fools in the new Substack app for iPhone.
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.
Lightfoot Has a Dick?
A new lawsuit claims Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot gummed up a deal between the city’s park leaders and an Italian-American group who wanted a Christopher Columbus statue for their annual Columbus day parade. The statue had been removed during the 2020 George Floyd protests, but the Italian Americans wanted to later display it for their parade, and the city’s park managers had agreed to this. The lawsuit claims the Chicago mayor crossed the line but I’ll confess, it’s exactly the kind of thing I’d hope for from a Chicago mayor:
You dicks, what the fuck were you thinking? You make some kind of secret agreement with Italians, what you are doing, you are out there measuring your dicks with the Italians seeing who’s got the biggest dick, you are out there stroking your dicks over the Columbus statue. I am trying to keep Chicago Police officers from being shot and you are trying to get them shot. My dick is bigger than yours and the Italians, I have the biggest dick in Chicago. Where did you go to law school? Did you even go to law school? Do you even have a law license? You have to submit any pleadings to John Hendricks for approval before filing. John told you not to do a fucking thing with that statue without my approval. Get that fucking statue back before noon tomorrow or I am going to have you fired.
Sounds a lot like Rahm Emmanuel when he worked for Clinton. Love it!
Is Inflation Just a Magical Result or Can We Pin It on Someone in Reality?
Four times a year, corporations are required by law to update their investors on how they’re doing in terms of sales and profits. These are called “earnings reports,” and the companies will usually hold calls with the investors to walk them through the latest report.
My organization, Groundwork Collaborative, recently got our hands on the transcripts from hundreds of these earnings calls. And you won’t believe what CEOs are boasting about.
Knowing that the current inflation frenzy is a convenient scapegoat, these companies are charging customers even more to pad their profit margins. They are just admitting it — they’re openly bragging to investors about how well it’s working.
“I think we’ve done a great job with our pricing,” boasted the CFO of Hormel, a maker of popular grocery brands. “I think it’s been very effective.” As prices went up, the company improved its operating income by 19 percent in the first quarter of 2022 compared to 2021.
Humans aren’t really the sacrifice for the greater good sort of species. All of our isms are fucked up by this tendency to see short term personal gain as the highest priority. Makes me wonder if the concept of ‘self love’ and ‘self improvement’ isn’t just an Ayn Rand philosophy repackaged for the 21st century.
The fact is the pandemic has allowed the big corporations to make more juice than since before the 2008 crash and we’re responsible for most of it. Sure, these greedy pieces of shit are jacking up the prices and using the fear and loathing of the current moment to do so but we’re the ones ordering DoorDash and Amazon stuff. We’re the ones buying those ridiculous pickup trucks that use more gas going through a Burger King drive-thru than a Prius uses going across a state.
We look at books like The Road and assume that that’s what dystopia looks like but maybe this is it until the planet burns us to a cinder? Not the epic movie of humanity’s demise but a whimpering exit due to over consumption and those taking advantage of it.
Jussie Sits in the Clink
Actor Jussie Smollett, found guilty of disorderly conduct after paying two associates to beat him up in a rash self-promotional stunt, was sentenced to five months in jail Thursday.
Smollett faced up to three years in prison for each of the five counts. The first 150 days of his probation will be spent in custody, beginning immediately. He must also pay $120,106 in restitution to the city of Chicago and $25,000 in fines – the maximum allowable by law. Throughout the trial, Smollett maintained that he had been the victim of a crime.
Let’s be honest. So many believed Jussie’s hoax because they wanted to believe it. They desperately cling to the idea that there are white supremicists hiding in every corner, finding any opportunity to throw a noose around the neck of a black guy. Like the theory of blue cars (Buy a blue car, see blue cars everywhere you go) our desire to see horrors where there are none makes us all dupes to the kind of shit Smollett pulled.
We’re an awfully gullible bunch, huh?
The Cost and Sickness That is Envy
I’m a big fan of Meghan Daum and I love her podcast, The Unspeakable. In a recent episode she interviewed Jennifer Senior About her Atlantic piece “It’s The Friends That Break Your Heart” and they touch briefly on an idea I hadn’t thought about much: Envy.
Senior relates the idea that of all seven of the Deadly Sins, envy is the only one we don’t brag about.
“I can’t believe I ate that entire bag of Cheetohs!” — Gluttony
“I had SO MUCH sex last week!” — Lust
“I punched a Nazi!” — Wrath
“I slept for nearly twenty hours!” — Sloth
“I made almost $80K doing videos of myself jerking off with a ladle on my OnlyFans page!” — Greed
“Look at how incredibly gay I am in my ass-chaps and rainbow wig!” — Pride
No one says “I am so filled with envy that my friend is making five times as much as I do doing the same thing!” We don’t brag about envy. We are embarrassed by it.
Envy takes an interesting place in my day. I find that I feel jealousy when I read something so goddamned good, I wish I could write that well but it motivates me to be a better writer than debilitates me with self-loathing. Being envious of my friends doesn’t much come into play. I’m not fame-oriented. I’m not into money or career.
Listen to Meghan and Jennifer. It’s a solid podcast.
While I sit in my home office, a desk that is really a dining room table, I’ll keep thinking about legacy.
I’m shopping my book about the eighteen months of managing a casino in Vegas (the preferred publisher declined because it’s too political which is funny to me because one of my early readers who declared that Trump is our finest president found it to be ‘too woke’ and another who is a full-on wokester found is to be ‘too conservative’). I’m getting ramped up to write some essays on my many jobs to break down why I see work they way I do.
And, as always, I’ll continue to write here because it’s fun.
Hope you continue to like it, share it, and possibly subscribe.