3 posts tagged “money”

Wait...come back!

I spend when I'm happy.

I spend when I'm anxious.

I spend when I'm sad.

I spend when I'm angry.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I spend while I sleep.

I think I take that term "disposable income" just a bit too seriously. I have no major responsibilities beyond a middle aged pit bull, some pretty quiet fish and me. I am at least smart enough to stow away a sizable chunk of money in 401(k) and a meager investment plan that could probably use some serious tender loving care. You would think this would put me in a sterling position. No, I'm more in the halfway house then free with a clean record. I'm in the last stages of cleaning of the credit messes I made when I was in school and everyone with a logo was offering me plastic shiny delights of all colors. Granted, I own up to my mistakes, and I am glad to be well on the other side of them.

But one nagging habit seems harder than most to shake. Letting money that's not assigned to anything, sit. Faster than a political coverup, money just leaps from my pockets. And I wonder where it goes. No wait...I shouldn't lie, my bank's neat little budgeting tools on their website show me exactly where it goes. Directly into junk.

• Movies.
• Books (I have about 10 books on shelves waiting to be read)
• Music
  
• Toys
• Gadgets
• Crafts
• Walgreens

Yes. I said Walgreens. Why any store like a Walgreens, CVS, Target are the bane of my existence, I will never know. I just went to Walgreens this week for..."a few things." Not good. I have to make a point of making lists. If I don't...I surely go bananas. There's something about going to a place that touts "savings." The more they cut back prices, the more shit I have to buy. I know this. It's the keystone of my profession this science of making people buy more. I understand completely how this works. So...why do I fall for it?

20 minutes and $96 dollars later I purchased two different types of face scrubs, a bottle of toner (that I was nowhere near needing yet), tissues, trash bags, contact solution, shampoo and conditioner and other gels and hair containment aids. Ironically, the stuff I didn't need, was also the priciest.  Did I feel better? No...but the 20 minutes of aisle sweeping and cart filling did manage to take me out of my own head for an instant. At the time, that felt priceless.

I know there are all sorts of theories about "retail therapy." I will admit I am subconsciously trying to fill a greater void. But that makes it understandable, not better. Because there is always going to be a "void"...somewhere. I'm feeling uneasy about it. But I can't tell if that uneasiness is buyer's remorse, or me recognizing another behavior that's ready for retirement. I believe it's less of the former, more of the latter.

After all, I talk a big game about meditation, the greater importance of spirituality and a simple existence (at least...in my mind I do)...but in my actions I still show a deep love of 'stuff.' Much like that relationship that may have outrun it's expiration date, this too may require a burial. Perhaps I should call the NAACP, they seem to like ridiculous and ineffectual burials. Perhaps they could help me. On second thought...perhaps I better do it on my own. I want this burial to mean something.

Another year, another layer.

I warn you. This is a rant. If I offend any one that you admire, please don't take it personally.

I am starting to hate Hip Hop. And mainstream R&B follows in very close second.  I have artists that I love, and will love til the end of time. But they just happen to be the ones you never see on the crossover hits stations and adorned on MTV or VH1. I love the ones with the real social conscious. With the real heart. With the real commitment to something other than seven houses, who has the biggest baddest diamonds and the most cars.

I am falling rapidly out of love with the mainstream culture the media says belongs to me.

I have nothing in common with the "popular" acts I see sliding across the video top tens. I do not want what they want.  I don't lust for what they have. Much as it hurts me to say it...I can only love Jay-Z now with half a heart (and if you know me at all, you know just how dire a statement that is). But the Sean Combses, the Nellyies, the Birdmen and all of the other guys get no love from me. Not one smile. Not one dollar, not a modicum of my respect. Why?

They're human doings, not human beings.

I'm angry with my folks in the entertainment business. So lustful and hungry for money...and things. So desperate to show others how much they have. Living in excess and making fools of themselves to show someone they've "arrived."  So much money. So much influence. So much fucking, waste.

I want to know how we can live in such ridiculous excess, when we have our own folks hungry, starving, uneducated, unloved, abused, neglected, killed and ignored everyday. In this country and our homeland.

Darfurchild

I want to know how cool it is to flaunt yellow diamonds and do idiotic dances when we have regions like Darfur in the Sudan virtually teetering on extinction. How can you floss, when genocide, is still a reality in our home land? Hell, let's stay local for a moment.

How does Puffy have billion dollar homes, and there are still people in Louisiana trying to find out if they have dead relatives in what's left of their homes? I know it's not just Hip Hop...but it's a significant part of our culture that's all caught up in the who has what and why. Status. Stupid fucking status. Things. Toys. Excess. And most of us celebrate these fools as if they have even given two shits about anything but themselves, and making sure we know how much they have?

I give several hundred dollars a year to this and to that...but I know at the end of the day, it's not even a drop in the bucket. But I wonder...I wonder what our social ills and plights would be like if any of these people coughed up a million or two - EACH. Because I don't know about you, but the seven million dollar crib in the Hamptons doesn't

Katrinaeldery

Sure we have people talking about it. Yelling about it. Screaming about it. But they don't get the specials on television. They don't have the top ten videos. They don't make the top ten goddamned "krunkest" list. Why? Because they are about something other than keeping up with the Joneses bullshit. And we aren't terribly interested in what they have to say.

I am beginning to loathe all things mainstream for my people. Because it's condescending. It perpetuates sterotypes and it helps us to stay distracted from the real issue.

Everthing socially redeeming and inspiring in our culture is dying a slow death. And we celebrate it.  Cause who cares about what happens to those who are left behind?

I'm not saying don't have, and enjoy life. But you know what...if you are an African American in this damned country with the money for several homes, and a fresh deck of cars every year and the latest custom diamond encrusted WHATEVER because you rhyme, or sing or gyrate to the beat of whatever people are listening to these days...then you are a special kind of fool, to me. I'm not interested in what everyone else in the world is doing. Frankly, I bet you damned U2 has done more for the continent of Africa then we ever have.

Enjoy the bling. Enjoy the excess. And continue to stay woefully ignorant to the world around you. My friends and I will just keep on taking those calls from the Red Cross and whomever else - to try and make a difference. You just go on and be fabulous. It is what you do best.

Goddamn I hate the mainstream.