The Fodder Factor - Where did all the $$$ go?

Benefits don’t include just dental hygiene anymore… But also include massage therapy, mental therapy, and my favorite are the obese people who insist that they're deserving of hundreds of millions of dollars… Just the humdrum handouts unions have increasingly enforced since FDR.

The following items aren’t even perks, rather prime examples of what benefits are in the modern-professional-post-collegiate-yet-sucking-economy collapse, where popularity is a virtue and hard work is a thing of the past, tossed aside with grammar and morals. Note: I get a bit creative with punctuation.

Happy Hours/Steak Dinners/Strip Clubs are regularly expensed on corporate credit (as if corporate credit was a tangible thing). Clothing/Starbucks/aesthetically-enhancing surgery allowances have stretched outside Hollywood hospitals and have been entrenched and consequently embraced in Wall Street cubicles. Which actually has helped the East Coast rid of the stereotype of females- aka: pale and nerdish image…

Not all of this is bad… such consumer-driven services such as laser hair removal and custom-tailed Armani suits for the twenty-something banker, whose only contact to the outside world is by telephone and food delivery guy (Note: Typical entry level bankers eat, sleep, breathe and do all other normal human activities you can imagine within the confines of their given bank. Aka: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, oh wait, are those the only ones left?). These additional (minor) purchases have indeed given this pitiful American economy a little burst of hope - that maybe America’s future spenders aren’t as shallow as they’ve proven in quarterly-earnings-past… but a wee-bit smarter. Instead of spending their own not-yet-earned income with unlimited credit, throw it to the company, or even better yet, their customers!

I did a bit of math and funny/interesting/sadly a person’s income isn’t related to how hard you toil. Again, ANY ALTRUISTIC DEMOCRAT WILL TELL YOU THAT…. But let’s define hard before moving onward with my ramblings. A stressful combo of sweat, brainpower, smiling, IQ deficit and then spiced with some psychological abuse would be the ultimate equation for determining how brutal your battle is up the career ladder. Once vertical back in the glass ceiling days, the original ladder’s design has taken a paradoxical shift and now accepted as horizontally-challenged. The new ladder can be climbed by ego-driven brains. The only exit strategy that doesn’t require buying more companies, being bought out by the public (or government), painfully pretend merges, or being sued and dragged off to jail, is the coveted “golden parachute”… which forgive me, might be the dumbest metaphor to begin with... Gold is heavy, weighty and a parachute is supposed to be so light you softly land. Harvard Business Review should have rummaged up an idiom that made logical sense, like a “net of trust” or something catchy.

Before I close this randomness I ask you to consider two things:
1. I’m not a socialist… merely an observer of how the invisible hand has assigned a monetary value to each of us.
2. If you’re worried about losing your job in this economy I have a feeling Vegas will never go out of business…

Twilight Zone

Washington Park is centrally located in the wholesome city of Denver … grass generously spread across acres, sprinkled with gardens, ponds and walking trails. The usual crowd on weekday afternoons is comprised of runners with labs, bikers in packs, girls power walking and gossiping, newlyweds pushing strollers, sometimes a lone soul reading or sketching under a maple tree. And my favorite, people walking their dogs. Dogs tend to match their owners, no?

A dozen neon pink dresses stand out against the green… ruffles and braids of black hair are what I noticed entering the park this past Saturday. White chairs and a podium are planted next to several rose beds. There is a woman in a white, and suddenly I realize this is quite the colorful Spanish wedding. Twenty yards further I notice two small boys with dark complexions in penguin suits following their father decked out in tails… headed for the opposite side of the park to another wedding. What was it? International day of nuptials?

Two blonds in full-out Irish dresses waltz by, I fully expected them to offer whatever was on tap… Rounding the corner there are four hippies playing foursquare. Squatted nearby are their girlfriends, touting dreadlocks by a bonfire. Yes, a bonfire at 4pm in sunny, dry, heat. Near the lake are two midgets, mid-fifties, chuckling on at a picket table, their shrunken legs barely able to reach the ground, alternately tossing a bone into the water for their cocker spaniel. There are tennis players sweating and chugging Gatorade… guys without shirts throwing Frisbees and impressing groups of gals lying out in bikini tops on towels. There is a father teaching his daughter how to ride a bike without training wheels, and her mother snapping photos of the milestone. And the older couple, peacefully sitting on the park bench together, hair the same shade of silver… hands interlaced, and while I couldn’t see any words exchanged, knowing eyes told me a different story.

Observing the busy park robust and bursting with energy – the two watched from afar, enjoying the Saturday afternoon from a far wiser place, and from years of memories I’d yet to experience.

I confess that whenever I see someone older in a coffee shop, grocery store, or post office, and alone- it tugs my heart, it saddens me… In my twenties it is expected to be independent, and even down the road there are friends, family, commitments and careers to keep busy. But to reach my seventies or eighties without someone else I believe is my gravest fear – to reach the end, and have nobody bear witness to my life.

When I saw the elderly couple this past weekend, their image was the antithesis of loneliness… there was an overwhelming sense of closeness. When they noticed I had been watching them, they gave me a little wave... softly smiling, as though they had been keeping a secret for decades.

An orange, some teriyaki stir-fry and half a bottle of bubbly later

Re: Geithner in Beijing... and his road-show across the world. The moment Obama was sworn in – it feels like the US IPO’d on the international markets. I’m hedging on the sheikhs, not for the ROI, but the pure ego trip. Obama needs to create a colorful media kit, encourage unemployed Americans to start selling the future of the US Gov to wealthy Americans (they can take a commission). Let’s save ourselves, instead of convincing China we’re not screwing them by printing USD, and
encouraging them to anti-up energy/ag.

(Marx was an idealist, not a retard.)

Did you know pelican’s cannon ball face first? They glide, bow their roman beak and plunge with pure vertical force into the ocean. It’s awesome. I spotted my first dolphin a few hours ago and squealed with delight (all those Shamu shows at Seaworld really got me revved up about Tursiops truncates (ps. Wiki Answers pales in comparison to wikipedia)) then realizing there was nobody here to hear me. Hmm. An orange, some teriyaki stir-fry and half a bottle of bubbly later, I was perched by the ocean and watching the friendly little mammals, contemplating irony. Hmm. Debating how to poll people on it – trying to differentiate irony and serendipity… But now the sun has set and the dolphins have blended into the waves. I either see hundreds of frolicking amongst the ADD pelicans or none at all; God was wicked smart upon inventing the fin.

My afternoon was spent gorging Mexican and shopping with four Argentine women, and damn they’ve mastered the art of both eating/purchasing power. My brain is currently yammering in Spanish, which would be fabulous except the only Spanish words I’m familiar with include: hola, hasta, and muchacha!

All day I smiled at this foreign dialogue like an idiot. And then occasionally one of the Argentines would give me a confused
expression. I had nodded at the wrong question (You don’t think your dad will lose this polo match, no?) or disagreed to the right answer (Your sister is studying fashion, yes?) Throw me to the hearing impaired or cows, I’m smooth. Get me around anyone speaking Spanish and I’m screwed!

Bumming re: Santa Barbara. NOBODY will go surfing/kayaking/swimming with me, so I’m trying to convince one of my buds from San Diego to drive up! Gah. And nobody will go whale watching with me (sea-sickness my ass) AH. I’m the only Jornayvaz who gets itchy for water in my land-locked state; I’m related to a bunch of boring horse-lovers. If only I had a pet dolphin to join me on my ocean endeavors… like golden retrievers and hiking, both mammals emote such giddy companionship.
And yes, I’m writing this sober.

Preparing myself to enter humanity in approx. 12 hours. I forget how I love the secluded existence until the trenches are screaming my name (guilt implosion). (Wrong word usage.) The hackneyed utopia where women gossip about men who aren’t worth breathing space, let alone contemplation. I hope my brain doesn’t abandon this relaxed state of Zen, however fleeting history has proven it may be.

ANACONDA IN BRAZIL

I was seventeen and spent the summer before my senior year visiting my uncle (ex-marine, fought in Kuwait) in Xingu Brazil. His wife Kika’s father has a large cattle ranch he took over… long story short they have American investors visit them for chunks of time, buy the land to preserve rain forest. On this particular day we’re on a rafting trip with a bunch of businessmen, who instead of wives/daughters all bring their 20-22 year-old sons, who all happened to be SAE’s at UT. Okay, to my chagrin- they were that rugged cute, (rugged as spoiled twenty-two year old guys can be), but riddled with egotistical obnoxiousness! So suddenly my summer with extended-family-fun was hijacked by mascara applications and avoiding subjects about anything that didn’t make me cool/terribly desirable by frat boy standards. Damn cowboy boots do it every time.

We’re on this excruciatingly long rafting trip and I had the speedo my aunt offered to load or my cute (zebra print) bikini, and although my SUPER conservative aunt/uncle mildly suggested the ugly suit, I wore the bikini (duh). Three rafts. 1) Aunt (her Brazilian brother- gay) eight-year-old cousin Ella, six-year-old cousin Roberto and myself 2) My uncle, two of the dads and two of the sons. 3) Two of the dads and the other two sons.

It's early afternoon, we're halfway down the river, and well... let's just say there is not an "accessible" powder room. Since my aunt is Brazilian which automatically qualifies her as wilderness expert, she says we’re nearing a shallow end, and we can pull over quickly so I can hop out… I quickly jump out of the boat, swim over by the shallow area ready to find cover behind some brush so none of the boys/men/uncle will see me, plus they are still a few minutes behind us.

The rapid is too quick and around the corner I hear the men and their beer and suddenly my uncle sees me in the water. He doesn’t know that I’m desperately trying to hide myself, and he assumes the boat has capsized (which is ridiculous because my cousins and aunt and half-uncle are pulled by the side of the river waiting for me). He paddles his raft toward me standing behind the brush in thigh-high feet deep water, and then yells, “Auna GET IN THE BOAT NOW!” At this point I cant paddle over there - because of well, obvious reasons.

He screams again (this is a man who has spent two weeks in a 10 x10 x10 hole in the desert) AUNA THERE IS AN ANACONDA UNDER THE BANK OF THE RIVER. SHE IS MOVING. GET IN THIS BOAT NOW.

So I tug on my bikini, shaking as I swim over to his boat – knowing full well there is a twenty-foot water snake yards away from me. All three rafts are watching this entire scene unfold – my aunt holding my cousins, the smaller raft with both the guys and their dads. And then my uncle who is so furious, his facial veins are pulsating, all because my small bladder happens to coincide with a location of an evil angry river snake, not exactly my fault. He grabs my arms and pulls me up into the raft. My body is convulsing, so much so, I don’t notice that my swimsuit is twisted and I've made an utter fool of myself, simply because I don't like the way speedos look.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. - GC

Where did all the smart people go?

There was once a professional with an undiluted ethic. A genuine, tried-and-true, knock ‘em dead with brilliant, karate-in-the-groin, touché-my-ass, savant-skills.

But, these young, professional, awesome assets have seem to be hijacked by the lazy ingrown leftover businessmen, who, were on their way to being dismissed as archaic and dusty. However, I’ve recently realized these fogies are anything but benign, in fact, they’re using age as an alias, and exercising time against us young folk– and the penance we pay to survive in a pool full of potbellies, is our pride.

Recently endured/survived/subsequently sat through two meetings with two very prominent businessmen…now because this blog is read by Denverites, (and I have the utmost respect for these two individuals) they will remain nameless, and however their questionably shrewd business tactics shall not.

While this particular entry lacks coherence and possibly direction all together, there is indeed frustration swimming in the midst of my babble. I’m done with people not doing their homework before negotiations, so in the place of hard numbers and data, in which decisions should be founded, these men are pontificating about this and that circa 200 NOBODY GIVES A DAMN, just to frighten me off. No, their vacuous attempts to frighten are simply preposterous and annoying. And just because they graduated a few generations before me doesn’t equate to knowing how to penetrate a demographic they share zero commonalities (aside from breathing space). Seriously, intimidation only gets people so far, and then people actually have to practice polite manners and common sense, and god forbid an iota of logic.

And while brains occasionally require more effort than say, indignation, disrespect and apathy when someone says, “hello”…. It’s an ingratiated part of our society, that through this bearish economic collapse, climb, crash, rise again, us youngsters are supposed to buddy-up, hold hands and sing kumbaya. But, would someone please recognize that Generation Y being trampled by frightened and pride-thirsty baby boomers ain’t the most effective way in approaching business deals.

Yes, we’re younger. Yes, they’re older. Yes, there have been babies and mortgages, wars requiring global attention, and yes, days when you had to be strategic enough to function without google, blackberry, facebook, and navigate the opposite gender without match.com. WE GET IT.

That said, the two meetings this past week were brutal, and little blond Auna was bullied....not because the content or matter in which we were discussing was anything but mesmerizing to me (as I love the business model and strategy I develop), however I’ve never encountered men so frozen in their approach to people… and it was exhausting.

I just wish I could have a dinner with George Carlin. I have a feeling he’d make me feel better about all this....