NEEDLACK (another antimoneypost)

Gosh darnit, today I ended up writing another post about cash & lack. So it doesn’t even deserve its own image. So I’m giving it the same stickers that I put in yesterday’s image. They’re the stickers that you receive when you try to cast a vote in the U.S. election. (I say “TRY to cast” rather than simply “cast” because, here in the U.S., nobody’s votes are actually counted — we’re just given these stupid red stickers.) I placed them over the blurb that appears on the back cover of the disc case of the film that we screened last night. I’m not going to name the film, because it’s not important, and it has nothing to do with the present entry, other than the fact that it supplied the vision that I needed to deny this post any vision.

Also, don’t worry: when you see the two stickers here & combine them with the two from the earlier entry’s image of a trio of sandwiches reflecting its own resplendence (both pix, this post’s and yester-post’s, when saved on my computer, incidentally received the identical file-name: “I voted twice”), this does not mean that I voted four times, in sum. No: I only actually voted once; and my sweetheart also voted one time, NOT twice, I swear; thus we each got a sticker; and I used these stickers in the first image, and then I re-used these stickers again, in this subsequent non-image, because, officially, the image below is no image at all.

Obligatory image

Dear diary,

I woke today with that same old naive question on my mind: I wonder why rich men don’t care about poor people. It seems so common of a concern that it’s not even interesting anymore; people have been asking this same type of thing for centuries — I gauge that the modern attitude is:

“Oh, come on; that’s just the way things are. There will always be rich folks; therefore there will always be those folks who must be maltreated in order for the rich folks to stay rich folks. You can’t change this evil; it’s built-in to our existence, like a law of physics. Even Mark sez Jesus said: ‘ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good’ (14:7) — so stop wasting precious blog space brooding about it.”

But there’s something stubborn about me; I just can’t let this go. And my reason has to do, in a weird way, with my respect for the rich. I’m (perhaps wrongly) convinced that rich men DO care, or at least they have the capacity to care, but something is disconnected in their thinking about other people; and if I could only re-connect the wire in their brain — plug back in the dangling cord, as it were — THEN the rich would immediately understand the plight of the poor: they’d see why it’s important to solve the problem of poverty by making it impossible (as Oscar Wilde always sez), and why the existence of poverty obscures our own greatness most — the true greatness of us rich men.

Here’s how I relate to the rich. First of all, I define “rich” as having an abundance of something. A rich man has an abundance of coins. I myself have an abundance of imagination: I am rich in dreams. My fancy is copious. But here’s how I think right along with the men who are money-rich (and thus fancy-poor):

We both start with an idea, which must be implemented in reality: the rich men start with the idea about how to increase their wealth in the real world; and I Bryan the daydreamer start with the idea about how to proliferate my fancies out beyond my mind & into the id, (literally, the “it”: the non-self dimension). In the case of the rich man, he must make various decisions, various “power-moves”; then, if the outcome of these decisions and power-moves is favorable, the man’s riches increase: the coins that he gains bear coins of their own, till they burst all his silos and stores, and brim over his swimming pool. I myself, on the other hand, must figure out how to use the monorail system of language to transfer all my dreams from the interior of my skull to the exterior realm of spacetime beyond the infinite; and, if I’m successful in doing this, my imagination will continue into futurity and eventually dominate it, like a spark whose flame lit torch after torch until the whole world catches fire. This is just what Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is about — right near the end when the poet yells at the “Spirit fierce”, commanding it to:

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy!

So Shelley and I are like aspiring rich-men until the wind obeys us. And the wind obeyed HIM; but I don’t know if it has had a chance to read my own text messages yet. It needs some leisure to consider my demands (the wind receives a large amount of emails, I’m sure; and it does not have the resources to hire an assistant or secretary; so we wannabe poets are basically trying to gain the attention of someone who’s not only overworked but still uses one of those old cassette-style answering machines: so it’s best to try to have a little patience). Thus Shelley is an accomplished rich-man and not just a guy with a get-rich-quick scheme; whereas I am the latter.

But now consider the actual, bona fide money-rich man. This man’s plans have come to fruition and yielded him billions. This man is effectively rich! That’s all fine and good. But now let me give you my angle, the unique spin I’m offering to the subject — HERE’s why any rich man should care about the poor (and don’t worry — I’m not going to offer a sentimental reason):

Just as I myself know within my heart that I possess as much contagious fancy as a poet like Shelley, but I haven’t yet figured out HOW TO WRITE in a fashion that will establish TO THE WORLD that I am thus filthy-stinking rich, so that if I prove successful in this endeavor, it would devastate me to learn, after the fact, that some wizard had been preceding me thru the ages, and muzzling all my potential competition, by prescribing and administering anodynes to them so that they all fall into a deep sleep at precisely the moment they are scheduled to pen their masterpiece, which work, if it had been allowed to exist, would either have equaled or outdone my own efforts (or at least given them a run for their money), however, instead, because of this trick, each competitor poet only enjoyed a three-hour vision in private, and later was called away on business until the creative inspiration left him — I say, just as it would mar my pleasure in achieving poetic ultra-wealth to know that my budding rivals were secretly hamstrung by one of my guardian devils whose aid I never even requested, the actual money-rich billionaires should be pissed to learn that their wealth accumulated in a system that was rigged against their fellow entrepreneurs.

If I were money-rich instead of fancy-rich, this current economic system would make me even more angry than the poor who are rendered impoverished by it; because it would bar me from being able to say, with healthy pride, “I am wealthy because I am wise.” Instead, I’d have to admit, “I’m only rich because I was born at the tip of the pyramid, where the divine eye resides, and everyone else was born on the sides that slope away, and if you look at this trope thru these inverse-truth-goggles the scene appears as a funnel, funnelling everyone into doom; and only I alone am escaped alive and wealthy.”

So, because I can’t be happy unless I know that my worth is genuine; and since I would hate to know that I didn’t really win the game of tennis but that my own butler cheated on my behalf, without my knowledge, and that my opponent had been forced to wear leaden clogs so that she played inexpertly; moreover, because it would rankle me to know that I didn’t really slay all those lions when escaping out of the pit, but that the beasts had been drugged aforetime, without my permission, and they were all discreetly chained by the hind leg to those boulders where they stood seemingly poised to strike, plus it turns out that a whole army of security guards was ready to burst forth from backstage at any moment to come rescue me if one of the beasts dared so much as to scratch my overcoat with his claw — all of this was discovered once the shenanigans were declassified, by the way — I Bryan the cash-rich plutocrat would actually DESPISE the economic landscape of banks, debt, financing, stock markets (I’m trying to avoid using the term “capitalism” since so many excellent people love that concept and believe that the ugliness that we currently live within is not an example of capitalism but rather its caricature or even opposite) for fakening my win.

*

I apologize for how longwinded and overwritten this entry is. Tho, true: I don’t really care; otherwise I’d go back and revise it; but let’s leave it at “It’s the thot that counts.” What I’m trying to say is very simple: Rich men, if they were distinguished, would renounce the scam that rendered them ultra-wealthy.

Perhaps the reason that we don’t see more rich men renouncing the present system in this way is that the word on the street is true and they DO lack…

No, as I said at the start, I believe that rich men are good people; they’re folks of decent mettle. They just probably are unaware that their maidservants continue cheating for them, and that the warriors in the grand battle scene were only a painted backdrop, and that the mountains are styrofoam.

When Jesus was walking around at the mall, a billionaire came running up, and kneeled to him, and bowed his head and prayed, “Dear God, how shall I buy my way into heaven?”

And Jesus tapped the young billionaire on the head, and said, “Wake up, little one. Why did you call me God? There is no God but the rentier who owns Gated Paradise. I myself just work here.”

And the rich man peeked during his prayer, and he opened his left eye and looked up and said to Jesus: “Stop kidding around and answer me. I don’t have much time.”

And Jesus said, “You’re short on time? But how can that be! Look: you’re young, you’re rich — you have all the time in the world!”

And the billionaire said, “I have a meeting that I need to preside over within a quarter of an hour. When you have a lotta capital, it requires you to spend a great deal of every day on money management and investment concerns, etc. Now please cut to the chase scene in the movie and answer my prayer: How shall I buy a large percentage of heaven?”

Jesus answered: “Have you seen The Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille?”

And the young man answered and prayed unto Jesus: “Dear God, I’ve seen both versions: the silent 1923 masterwork; as well as the 1956 remake, shot in VistaVision and Technicolor. In fact, I’ve seen both movies numerous times. For I’m a certified cinephile.”

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him: “Alright. Regarding this Paradise deal, I think I might be able to pull a couple strings with Mary and Beatrice. I can’t promise you anything, but they can at least get you access to the owner; then you can maybe float a purchase offer. Who knows what he’ll say; but he’s a big film-lover too, so your enthusiasm in this respect can’t hurt. No man’s above flattery; THE EVERLASTING ONE enjoys seeing himself depicted in those old stories. But you’re gonna need to do something for me, since I set this thing up. Here are my terms: I want you to sell all your other properties, and give away all your earthly wealth to those who have none; because the system that blessed you with increase is itself a travesty, and THE EVERLASTING ONE is an extremely principled gangster: he won’t respect you if you approach with ill-gotten gains. So if you want a piece of real estate in heaven, then come and unite in solidarity with the world’s working class. If this offer is to your liking, meet me in the refreshment zone outside of the boardroom, at midnight; I’ll be the thief dressed like a common catburglar…”

Yet the billionaire was sad at this last saying — the one about giving away all his riches — thus he moped away grieved in all his guts: for he owned great possessions; & he could tell: not even his mastery of the Art of the Deal could save this negotiation from heading south. No, the whole plan was screwed from the get-go, on account of the fact that he’d grown so rich in bad soil.

And Jesus looked round about, to his left and his right, and saw nobody else at the mall, because the billionaire had slouched away. So Jesus made a sign to his gang of disciples; and, after gaining their attention, he made the following wisecrack:

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

(Mark 10:17-25)

Like I said, I don’t agree with Jesus about this. I think that rich men will be able to infiltrate the kingdom of God pretty easily. Maybe they cannot purchase heaven outright, like the young billionaire wanted to do, but they will be able to sneak in and take a look around. Where they’ll sleep is anyone’s guess. If they are willing to lie down in a regular coffin like the rest of us, then they’ll be able join our communal death-dream, where we all jointly lose the gladiator tournament and then relax with Daniel in the lion’s den. But something about the psychology of the average rich man leads me to suppose that they will not be interested in such bliss.

*

I wish that I could find the official source of this hearsay that I now wish to repeat to conclude this claptrap, but the truth is that I’m the laziest researcher, so I’m just gonna have to paraphrase — I hope I don’t completely ruin the point.

There’s this rumor floating around that, back in the 80s, or around that time, when Donald Trump had become the original “too big to fail” magnate, and he was at his rock-bottom lowest worth, cuz his business ventures had flopped and he owed so much — he was tremendously in debt, you might even call him a negative billionaire (I don’t know if the dollar figure is accurate, but that phrase sounds too cool not to use) since he owed more than a thousand million dollars…

Anyway, Mr. Trump was walking thru the streets of New York with his wife-daughter Desdemona at his side, and they were heading into a bookstore (this was before the website Evilzon killed all the Malls of America; that is, the brick-&-mortar shops) to buy a copy of Bryan Ray’s Collected Self-Amusements, but in order to reach the establishment’s door, which had a little bell that jingles everytime a customer enters, Mr. Trump and his childwife had to step over the body of a homeless person who was sleeping on the sidewalk. And as they proceeded to do so, Trump gestured to the fellow & remarked to his own beloved helpmeet:

“I myself, being that I am currently a negative billionaire, am actually poorer than this homeless guy sleeping here, whom we are stepping over at the moment.”

And it’s true: technically speaking, Trump, at that time, possessed actually less money than the homeless man, whom it turned out was actually the author Bryan Ray. So that was a strange coincidence that none of us shall forget. For eventually Mr. Trump went on to become the President of the United States; whereas Bryan went on to become the Imagination’s Brutal Dictator. Therefore beware.

Seriously, tho: If this rich man had actually less money than the genius on the sidewalk, then what does money even MEAN!?

Let’s forget about money, since apparently neither to have it nor to lack it changes reality one iota. We need a word for whatever it was that the homeless person was short of which rendered him homeless — and it should be the same quality that the rich man possessed in abundance, despite being cash-poor. Cuz I want a story that ends with the rich man pointing to the homeless author & remarking to Desdemona: “That fool there lacks [quality X] whereas I possess [quality X] in abundance, ha ha.” For then, instead of wasting our time arguing about those who are rich and poor with regard to MONEY, we can actually solve the problem: we can cure this disease known as The Modern Economy, by addressing the actual drawbacks of [quality X].

Whatever it is that made that author home-less while his nemesis became multi-homed — that particular variable should be amended. In other words, anyone who wants to say “Money’s not the problem,” or “Capitalism’s not the problem,” or “The free-market is a virtue not a vice (etc., etc.)” — these people who proclaim such things should need to address the simple fact of basic NEEDLACK, or whatever we wanna call it.

The existence of one homeless person means the country is a failure. Any system that cannot meet the basic needs of all should be nixt. Why not? Humankind has proven that anything it puts its collective mind to achieving, even the impossible, becomes inevitable; thus no longer should we ultra-rich take as our goal the turning of red numbers into black numbers on an accounting form, or the turning of small numbers into bigger numbers — that’s childsplay. Let us rather set our minds to ABOLISH NEEDLACK. Any one individual anywhere in the known universe who is bereft of any basics should have those needs met instantaneously — no questions asked: the remedy is automatic: this is a given.

And why should we do this? Because, in ways unfathomable to us sojourners in clocktime, every living soul presents an immeasurable return on this investment. In the name of flux, we can’t afford NOT to tap into this treasure.

I estimate that our fix will take about a month or two to accomplish. THEN we can sit back and admire ourselves.