School starts tomorrow at the public schools here in Texas, and I am not buying Office Depot pocket folders or Staples’ eraser packs for a penny apiece today. I’m not even driving from one Target to another so I can pay a nickel per spiral and buy 30 or 40 in a day. (Yes, I do that.)

School starts tomorrow and I didn’t spend my weekend setting up a classroom or an office.

For the first time since 1988, school starts tomorrow and I won’t be there.

Instead, I have an afternoon appointment at the Texas Workforce Commission’s orientation for the unemployed.

Irony of Ironies.

I am not alone though. According to the Texas Tribune,

The Associated Press reported that up to 100,000 of the state’s 330,000 teachers might lose their positions. Officials at the Texas State Teachers Association estimate that about 12,000 teachers have lost their jobs so far, and they warn more teachers could be laid off in the second year of budget cuts.

Back in 1988, I accepted a Title VII fellowship from the federal government that paid for my teacher certification program in exchange for an agreement that I would teach ESL or bilingual education in a “high needs area” for three years. The government got its money’s worth from me as I extended those three years into 21 years and never left. Until now.

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PART FOUR

Ross started in without preamble. “Reverbo, what is the domestic industry probably least likely to suffer for the foreseeable future?” A relevant question, to be sure.  “Slim-Jim production, my astral-projected figurine?” I said. “You’re on the right track,” said Perot, “it’s health care. You’re all getting older and the boomers, despite their courageous fantasy of exercising and eating their way nutritiously to eternal youth, are all going to be ordering orthopedic pants within the next ten years, if not sooner. You’re going to be the biggest group of American sickos ever assembled at one time. Manufacturers know this, care givers and medical providers know it, assisted living communities are gearing up, drug companies and insurance companies are drooling over it–that’s one place where the profits will never dry up. See this chart I’ve prepared? As the age line goes up, the sick line follows, and this dollar sign just explodes.”

“Look around,” said Perot, “what do you see now? Everywhere people are younger than you. The business world is basically comprised of frat boys and 30-something managers making half of what you made when you got the slip, and who couldn’t give a damn how long you’ve worked or how loyal and dependable you are. What few decent jobs are left they give to their buddies. The government ain’t much better–cronies in almost every corner. What else is new? If you want to dilute the competition, you have to go at it in a sector-specific way.

There was no arguing with this logic. But I had no experience in the health care industry. Perot already guessed my predicament. “Now Larry…sorry, Reverbo, you’re probably asking yourself, well Ross, how am I going to fire a torpedo right into the middle of this one? From the edge. Let me tell you a little story. One time I had an idea to develop a line of personal adhesives. People are always needing to stick stuff to things, right, and don’t always have a way to do it. I convinced the 3–M Corporation to wrap me in an experimental high-density adhesive foam for three weeks, and was handsomely compensated for it, I might add. Now, what does this have to do with our health care discussion? Nothing, except I’m just demonstrating the potential economic power of unconventional possibilities. One time I was in Canyonlands National Park and watched how a husky lad of about ten gathered up a little too much speed down a slippery trail and then tripped and suffered a badly sprained face. You know what I thought of right then? The Runaway Tourist Ramp. I had some plans drawn up, and after a couple of phone calls to a senator friend of mine and a few million dollars later, these public safety features are now installed in almost all our national parks. Do you see what I’m trying to tell you here?”

Sure. Wish I was H. Ross Perot and could do any damn fool thing I wanted? That maybe this perky plutocrat was part of the problem? But that was not going to be a constructive answer, and anyway, I don’t hate all the super rich, only the ones who use their wealth to jack the system at the expense of everyone else. My response was unnecessary, though, because this was his show and his point was on. I remembered how Vonnegut felt about the edge. Fifty-nine years ago he wrote in Player Piano, “I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” Right now my job was to listen and learn.

“You know,” said Ross, “speaking of health, I had an idea for an affordable alternative to traditional, insurance-based medical care. I’ve been working up a plan for a home-based, all-in-one consumer machine that could fit in a shed or the corner of a garage for simple neighborhood family trimming and grooming jobs. Takes the place of costly treatments, unpleasant lotions, and often hard-to-find tools. I’ve named it the Master Family Groomer. You can offer it as a kit using relatively inexpensive components from the Sears Catalog. A do-it-yourselfer could put the whole shootin’ match together in an afternoon.

I had that captivating sensation one gets when the brain knows something odd and wonderful is soon to be revealed. “Dial me in, H.R. What does this contraption do?”

“Well, it does more than just groom,” said Ross, “way more. I’m using that as kind of a catch-all word. Think about this, Larry. Almost everyone you know has some minor physical abnormalities, right? Cousin Leo has that thing on his back that embarrasses the family every time he takes off his shirt at the lake; Uncle Dave contracted a peculiar rash on his hands from operating a lemur ranch that never healed properly to this day; Aunt Louise has never been able to completely remove them chin hairs––there’s always something.”

“Familiar stories all,” I nodded. Perot continued. “If you don’t need a specialized medical procedure or a university-trained anesthesiologist, this could be a profitable part-time occupation.”

Ross, of course, had a sketch of the device that combined a triple-action, three-speed Dino-Shift gearbox from a Craftsman lawn mower connected to a modified weed-eater shaft with bolt-on accessory and attachment flange, and the whole thing mounted on a wheeled tripod with dual patio lights and push button alarm–maybe $1500 worth of Sears parts. An enterprising promoter with an attractive price list could smooth out unsightly clusters of lichens, carbuncles, saddle sores, and bunions on a Saturday morning and still have time to get to the bank by noon.

“Listen to this,” Perot said, and started reading copy off another chart he had flipped on the easel. “At last, a practical, portable, and economical home unit that completely cleans, grooms, trims, grinds, peels, polishes, scrubs, slices, probes, buffs, routs, de-burrs, and de-greases every member of the family, including house pets and farm animals. Removes unwanted boils, lint, moles, lumps, hair, hives, cowlicks, frostbite, road tar and tattoos. Take it on your next vacation for emergency wilderness trimming. Opens stubborn pores!” The man was completely enthralled by his presentation. His expression had brightened into an almost incandescent gleam. As for me, I was unable to form complete sentences at this point.

The bubbly brainiac wasn’t done. “There’s more,” said Ross. “You got to hook ‘em with everything, Reverbo, so I thought of a couple of more teasers.” Still another chart was produced with more promotions and graphics, and the enchanting industrialist continued his pitch. “Colons re-bored! Order by Memorial Day and we’ll include a Pulse-King Dino-Flow Bowel Jet with pressure gauge, fifteen feet of hose and 6-gallon insulated water tank. A $99.95 value, yours absolutely free. And how about this Deluxe File Cabinet? Replace that complicated home computer and store individual trimming schedules you alphabetize!”

Although ill-at-ease with the picture of the bowel jet and pressure gauge accessory, I was nevertheless stunned by this man’s enormous capacity for ideas. “I can’t think of anything left to add except maybe, DOCTORS BAFFLED!” I laughed. “You ought to send one to Southern Culture on the Skids. It’s right up their alley. They’d use it as a door prize at one of their shows. Hell, you might as well say, ‘And boy, can this catch fish!’ Even on one of his 72-hour psilocybin benders Ron Popeil never dreamed of anything this big.”

Ross flashed that big grin. “See, Larry,” he said, “you’re catching on and thinking it through. Now’s no time to try to become an employee. Hell, there ain’t no regular jobs around anymore that pay worth a damn anyway. You want to really push the envelope? What we do is take the Home Groomer to the next level: Genome Modification. Picture a fleet of airships with this logo on the side: BIO–GEN Mobile DNA Sales & Service. Bio-Genetic Engineering While–U–Wait. This is where it’s going to happen, Reverbo. It’s right around the corner.”

Next:  Cortex grinding, slaw slinging, tater topping, and a final chart for now.

Reverbo                                                                                                                                                                            Critic-At-Large

It is with pride that I present the first of a serialized account of my recent adventures in the electrifying 21st Century Amusement Park. No, I don’t mean the ride in the Large Hadron Collider (although that final twenty-minute acceleration in the super proton synchrotron to the peak seven teraelectronvolts is worth every penny). With Labor Day right around the corner, it’s the rusty merry-go-round in the World of Employmentland. Or Non-Employmentland, as is the case for many of us. Some events have been invented for ease of understanding and to keep the narrative at a bubbly and high-spirited pace; others I left to burn with the unquenchable taste of truth. It is from these contrasts that create those magical moments for this Op-Ed columnist and imagery that resonates with familiar tones in his readership.

PART ONE

I had just set the controls of my personal airship, the Silver Pelican, on auto-glide over the Chesapeake Bay in preparation for another grueling session in front of the iMac, in my continuing, though heretofore unsuccessful quest to find a paying job. The internets, of course, are the preferred application procedure for almost every potential employer, putting as many obstacles between the applicant and hiring manager as possible. Meet or talk to a real person? In your dreams.

After pouring myself another mango and tonic (a variation on a Rum Rockeroo; more on this later), I loaded the Futami self-confusing artificial intelligence employment database software into the Mac’s hyper drive, punched up The Who Sell Out on the PA system, and began to waste another afternoon pretending I share Corporate America’s absurd notion that an $8.50/hr. job has as many qualifications and responsibilities as the vice president of the company. Hey–you’re advertising for a grocery clerk. Doesn’t matter though; they believe it. Sick thing is, it may. They just compensate it like it was 1910 instead of 2010.

We’re rolling back the wages and benefits for you!

I recently spoke with a career counselor who told me to re-do my entire documentation–resume, cover letters, all of it. She said at my age, seeing as how I’m looking at that “career change thing” (a nice way of saying that I’m really in the soup), I should chuck anything that doesn’t relate to the race-to-the-bottom jobs for which I’m applying. Unfortunately, I saw her point: they’re looking for young drones who will work for nothing, and expect less. Intelligent, creative types, especially those of us nearing retirement, are now applying against people less than half our age, not to mention half-way across the world, for entry-level jobs. We are little more than walking advertisements for Goody’s Headache Powder for HR Departments. I took out almost everything sophisticated relative to thirty year’s experience and replaced it with meaningless fluff like “team player,” and “takes initiative,” as if I was sixteen years old. My resume, my life, and my achievements, for what they’re worth, are now reduced to one page.

At least when I was sixteen, you could just walk into a place, actually meet the manager, and after briefly looking you over, they’d say something like, “Can you start on Monday?”

Near the top of my newly revised curriculum vitae, under my name and address, is a header for “OBJECTIVE.” After saving my latest high score on “Galaxy Girl” (part of an impressive video game collection on the Silver Pelican’s raid array), I decided to be honest with everybody right off the bat (they’ll figure it out quickly enough anyway), re-opened my resume and wrote “Apply range of abilities toward expanded career path.” Sounds credible, right? My career counselor liked it, but still felt it a bit dicey. She suggested adding something eye-catching like “Sales Associate” or “Customer Service Rep” after that. Has it really boiled down to this: at this moment in history, in the once-greatest country in the industrialized world, if you’re middle-aged and unemployed and don’t have a resume that confuses people with Albert Einstein, or don’t know him personally, you are basically hosed?

“Hey Mr. Buzzwell, check it out: another garden-variety middle-ager trying to get a lousy job here at USA, Inc. One more middle-class Dad who played life fair and square; close to retirement, and then we wiped out his job and half his IRA at the worst possible time. Now he’s just trying to find something to stay afloat.” “Sucks to be him, all right,” says Buzzwell. “Toss his paperwork out with the rest and tell him the usual– too many applications…wasn’t among the best qualified..all that crap. On second thought, don’t reply at all. Just ignore him. And then run and get me a triple-shot caramel machiatto cappucino with extra soy milk foam and cinnamon sprinkles. And make it a big one, will ya?”

The mass media touts the mature worker as a real asset to the employment ranks. Wise, stable, experienced, dependable, clocked in on time for thirty years, responsible, knows the drill. The truth is we’re annoying. We expect something fair for our efforts, and just a little protection for our jobs and our savings. The 98% of us who every day scrape off more imitation leather from the Chinese shoes offered at Lou’s Loafer Lounge still vaguely remember something about our once-enviable quality of life. What we are is expendable. And they’re trying to finish us off.

It’s a real self-esteem killer when you discover that even though you’ve had a good job for thirty years you evidently don’t even have what it takes to work at the box store. In the past year I’ve filled out applications at my friendly Bag ‘n’ Load, my neighborhood Bloat ‘n’ Go, the various marts – Wart Mart, Drain Mart and Cringe Mart, the Buy-Too-Much, and even our local Food Parts store. I recall one of them had a remarkably comprehensive application for a position that could have been competently filled by an common budgerigar.

In fact, get this: Julian, my pet budgie, applied at the Wag ‘n’ Bag, the big pet warehouse down the street as a part-time customer service associate and was actually scheduled for damn interview! These mecenaries parlayed a sweet tax deal with the county with the usual bogus promise of bringing more jobs and of course wiped out all the neighborhood mom and pop pet shops: Bob’s Budgie Barn, Cap’n Burl’s Bow-Wow Bunkhouse, Fish! Fish! Fish!, Patty’s Possum Palace, Cousin Carl’s Kitty Kat Korral – all gone.

Hell, those bastards at the Wag ‘n’ Bag never even called me back! I was so pissed I didn’t speak to Julian for a week, and that’s a big sacrifice for me, as I have more insightful political discussions with that plumed pundit  than with many human acquaintances. The only reason he didn’t take the job was because after meeting the pimply-faced department supervisor, an insufferable cockatiel named Boogie, it turned out they were really looking more for a cage cleaning associate than the toy demonstrator the ad had led Julian to believe. When you’re being paid in seeds, you can only tolerate so much.

At any rate, mighty slim pick’ins if you’re an unemployed human over forty. Over fifty? Are you crazy? Pushing sixty? We’ve always had age discrimination in this country but this feels deliberate. How could anyone survive on these wages in Cheesedale, let alone Manhattan?

I want to go up to some radiantly insipid hiring manager at a food store and ask him with a straight face if maybe some additional credits or classes at the community college would help. I know I’m skilled with vegetables and I’m strong on fruit juices–always have been– but all right, there are other areas in which I can no doubt improve, things like canned goods arranging and cereal box deployment. But does my future manager really think that’s what’s holding me back from getting a foot in the door in the exciting and competitive world of retail grocery clerking at this point?

I suppose I should take the Republicans’ advice and just unload one of my Aston Martins or sell off about twenty thousand shares of Goldman Sachs and be back on the links in no time. Or maybe move back in with my 80-year-old mom. How about move in with Newt Gingrich’s or Mitch McConnell’s mom instead? Certified, anti-american lunatic John Boehner wants to raise the retirement age to 70. Hey John, take a break from your golf game and have a look around at the conditions you and your corporate profiteers have created. America is just a worker’s paradise, isn’t it? Had we all not taken “early retirement” at 55, we’d just be drowning in good paying jobs at seventy.

Damn, I should have stuck around, and I can’t wait to tell my kids about Congressman Boehner’s fantastic job creation plan. Can you imagine the enthusiasm tingling through all the young people, minorities, middle-agers, and the rest of the deferentially-described “discouraged” workers (whose real unemployment figures are calculated at depression-level rates of over 20%), as this torrent of payroll checks cascades over their heads? Why not raise the age to draw Social Security to 80! And throw Medicare into the Wall Street casino while you’re at it, too. It’s just socialism for losers anyway, and Reverbo The Human Boy and 90% of the rest of his peers will be pushing up bindweed before they even see their first check. Let’s repeal the entire liberal agenda and privatize the whole damn thing. If you ain’t rich, you can’t afford it.  Corporatocracy at it’s most efficient. It will be jobs-o-rama here in no time. The conservatives can see it now: 100% employment finally realized in the USA under their watch. Welcome to Drain-Mart. Too bad we don’t pay you enough to buy anything we sell here.

They are trying to finish us off. I know I said that already but I like the way it sounds and I really believe it. It almost doesn’t matter that hardly anyone with an IQ above 12 takes these implausible ideas seriously, as long as the mass media keeps jamming microphones into the mouths of avaricious schemers who are actively promoting these destructive models.

Well, as long as my lighter-than-air account was still open at Harry’s Helium Hideaway, I was good for another week of cruising for income generating opportunities on board the Silver Pelican. I had just noticed an opening for a floor mat rotator at an airship salvage yard, when the weirdest damned noise suddenly came from somewhere aft of the aft ballast tanks. I can only describe it like a whooshing sound, as if the rear cargo hatch had sprung open. My investigation revealed the most surprising and delightful source of the audio phenomenon imaginable. Emerging from a luminous cloud of sparkles and beams, and attired in the latest in leisure blimp-wear, was none other than Ross Perot!

I stood there, stunned. He does look good in pastels; it seemed the appropriate response. The peculiar but prophetic 1992 United States presidential candidate shortly broke the silence. “Now Larry, you’re probably thinkin’…well, Ross, what are you doing here? What’s the deal on this? Well, the answer is on these charts I’ve prepared,” he said, taking out a handful of tables and graphs from an overstuffed briefcase. “Fix me one of them Rum Rockeroos that your drinkin’ and let’s set these up in your command pod, Larry. You and I are going to fire a bulls eye right into the whole job jugular vein. By the way, I. Love. This. Blimp. How come I don’t have about six of these?”

I thought of saying, “Ross, you could probably buy sixty of them,” but all I could think of while staring at this incredible vision, whose existence on my ship was unclear by all accounts, was, “Why is he calling me Larry?”

Next: Ross and Reverbo load an IGBB (Inter-Galactic Ballistic Bazooka) into the Pelican’s forward launch tube and blast 30 years of economic madness a new blow hole.

Reverbo                                                                                                                                                                 Critic-At-Large

Bob’s epic rant on the state of the American economy and the politics of hard times; featuring the Drive By Truckers.

Hillbillies dying in a hole is somewhere below grunts dying in war. With apologies to both groups for using these unflattering expressions, that is an essential component to this tragedy and gives it the emphasis it demands. That’s what your boss thinks of you, that’s what the generals think of you, and the reason more people aren’t outraged is because that’s what they probably think of you too. That needs to be changed.

So how do we close down a coal mine? How about what it takes to have safety, health, and a clean, prosperous future once more? Three things: enforce regulations, severe penalties for violators, and hicks have to want to stop being hicks. Do not mistake that last conclusion for a lack of sympathy, but there’s no other way put it; the serfs have to say, no more. For too long one check for a million dollars has been worth more than a million votes. Obviously we need a massive revision of our priorities but we have to be smart about it. The screech of ignorant tea-baggers is a misguided waste of effort.

To all the folks who were ever called hillbillies, and the rest of the working class who are being herded closer to those same circumstances every day, it is time to discover your mind, announce your humanity, and say goodbye to the dark side once and for all. If you do that, you’ll have real allies you would have never expected, instead of those con artists who only wish to exploit and abuse you. I have said before in frustration that the bus can’t wait any longer and y’all evidently don’t want a ticket, so we’re leaving without you. But what happened inside a coal mine again is so sad, and so unnecessary, that after this one – well, I don’t know. Perhaps only together can we repair the nation. Does everyone finally realize we’re all on the same page? The powers that be want to turn back the clock on all of us. 

With the deaths of over two dozen coal miners, we have yet another example of the price we pay for allowing our choices to be controlled by people who measure progress by personal fortune and power. This picture should be clear to anyone who is paying attention to the true causes of our social and economic decay. We have had too many years with our citizens and our country being expendable in the name of profit, and Republicans have the most explaining to do. It is worth everyone’s time to examine how a mine owner can buy protection, who was running the country, and the values of an administration that rewards such dishonesty.

There’s no attempt to even conceal what’s going on anymore. Everyone knows who has connections and how they use them to rig the system. The fix is in deeper than it’s ever been. I believe President Obama is trying to turn things around, but as we have seen, it will be slow going. The labor situation in this country is in sad shape almost everywhere you look, and to further their own sick version of a retro-future where West Virginia is the model for everyone, there are forces who actively want to keep it that way.

Unfortunately, this will continue and people will die as long as plantation owners like Don Blankenship can pay off the heat. Hell, a guy can barely even run a coal mine with all these damn restrictions. Everybody has violations in this business – as a matter of fact, Performance Coal, a subsidiary of Massey Energy, which operates the Upper Big Branch Mine, received fifty-seven in March of 2010 alone (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/04/west-virginia-coal-mine-tragedy.php). It’s nothing personal, just part of your operating expenses. The fact is that the probability of cutting corners, allowing dangerous conditions, and running your business with criminal disregard for the people and the environment is a factor of the risk of getting caught versus the severity of the punishment. You can almost hear the anguished cries from the next tragedy.

Reverbo                                                                                                                                                             Critic–At–Large

Note:  That photo is the entrance to the exhibition mine at the Beckley Coal Mine and Youth Museum (http://www.beckleymine.com/).  Apparently, the State of West Virginia considers their coal mines family tourist attractions. C’mon kids, let’s have a race to the bottom.