WRITING FOR PEANUTS
I wish my writing job had yielded even half as much as the $15 an hour I pay both my wonderful Mexican cleaner and my sublime Mexican Spanish teacher. Come to think of it, I would even settle for a quarter. Surely not, I hear you say. A writing job that pays less than $3.75 an hour. Well, I kid you not. I earned either $5 or $6 a page and normally had to work to a 48-hour deadline. I was writing academic essays which required detailed research. I am thorough and find it impossible to rush and/or submit sub-standard work. It took me a month to earn $200. On an hourly basis, I must have earned about a dollar. And yet, I can honestly say that I loved every minute of it. It was the most exhilarating intellectual challenge I have had in years and my mind felt so much sharper. Instead of seeing myself as an exploited down-at-heel writer I just looked at the whole thing as a wonderful learning curve, as though I had enrolled in a literature or history course. I know it is a cliché but it was very much a case of the glass being half-full as opposed to half-empty. A YANKEE DESCRIBES CRICKET A few weeks ago I was having a drink in a bar and I heard something extraordinary. One Yankee (and I use this term affectionately) telling another one about the game of cricket. I could hardly believe my ears. Regardless of anything else, I guess I was surprised, albeit pleasantly, that the game of cricket even registered on their radar. I cannot remember his exact words but it went something like this: ‘They run up from aways back and chuck this small red ball down a track. The guy receiving has a bat, which is like, shorter and fatter than a baseball bat, and the batter has to stop it from hitting these three wooden pegs and if he can, jack it out the enclosure. And there’s another guy at the other end of the track and the two of them have to run along the track to opposite ends. Half the time the batter just knocks the ball down gently on to the turf and then stands there without moving. I tell you it’s weird man. They like stand around digging at the turf and practising shots in slow motion. The refs are mostly old and wear these white coats but they don’t move except for when they slowly lift their fingers up to signify that a guy’s gotta walk. And they have these ‘test’ matches which go on for 5 days and at the end they sometimes there ain’t even a winner. And they’re like suicidal man. You see guy’s from the catching team standing like a meter away from a batter who can hit the darned thing at over a hundred miles an hour. All they got’s a helmet, not even any padding. Some of the chuckers like lob it up and make it easy for the batter to whack them out of the joint and others bounce it into the turf at top speed so it either flies over the batter’s head or hits him on the chest or the head. ...’ WHEN I WAS RIDICULED MERCILESSLY BY NONE OTHER THAN GRAHAM NORTON Whenever I see the comedian Graham Norton on TV it always reminds me of the time he embarrassed me so much that I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. It was way back in the 1980’s at a stand- up comedy evening in London. I had started to lose my hair in my early 20’s and was very self-conscious. In those days bandanas were all the rage and I often wore one as it was both fashionable and covered up my male pattern baldness. On the night in question, not only was I sporting a bandana but I also had on a rather garish stripy blue and white T-shirt. The intimate club was packed and I was sitting at a table with 6 or 7 friends. Norton arrived on stage and sized up the audience. All of a sudden, he pointed at me and shouted out ‘Bandana in the house.’ In his trademark camp, mellifluous tone, he followed up with ‘What’s your name?’ I was mortified. ‘Harvey’ I replied meekly. ‘What’s going on under the banada, come on Harvey, let’s have it off,’ he said, to huge guffaws. What could I do? As I made to take it off he ridiculed me further. ‘Ooh, and look at his little stripy French pirate shirt,’ he said with relish, clearly loving this early opportunity to get into his stride. At least I got a big cheer from the crowd when I pulled the bandana off. Needless to say, he did not let me off the hook for the whole evening. A few times, when everyone was laughing at one of his jokes, he pointed at me again, saying things like ‘Look, even Harvey’s laughing at that one.’ But I never bore a grudge towards Graham. He was only doing his job and I did rather set myself up. Mind you, I would still like to have the chance to heckle him at one of his gigs and I certainly would not let him go ahead of me in the supermarket queue if he was in a hurry.
ME AND AIDAN
I stumbled upon an overtly anti-semitic comment made by Aidan on Facebook. Being shocked at what I'd read, I initiated the following dialogue with Aiden. Not sure yet if the ongoing (fingers crossed) dialogue is a real dialogue or the social network equivalent of reality TV!! i.e. am i indulging myself at the expense of a working - class lad?
Harvey Burgess
January 5 at 3:49pm
What a pathetic comment! Do you have any education at all? Brainless idiot
Aidan Noel
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January 7 at 11:53am
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fuk off and wat comment r u tlkin about?
Harvey Burgess
January 13 at 6:16pm
the one about jews
Aidan Noel
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January 14 at 1:57pm
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oh fuk off its true. r u a yid?if u r the u can fuk off
Harvey Burgess
January 18 at 7:00pm
i am a yid although an unconventional one. i mean by that that i am a left wing and atheist and do not like israel. plus i am a yiddo in the sense that i am a spurs fanwhat is it that you don't like about jews?
Aidan Noel
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January 21 at 6:55am
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i just dont like tottenham at all and all the spurs fans i know are dik heds . im an arsenal fan
Harvey Burgess
Today at 8:56pm
Hi Aiden, how are you? i must congratulate you goons on your recent form....i am gutted that we failed to sign Arshavin, I think he's a sensational player. on the political front, would you be interested in joining the campaign to end the israeli occupation of palestine??best wishes, Harvey (the leftie yiddo!!!)
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Hi Aiden, how are you? i must congratulate you goons on your recent form....i am gutted that we failed to sign Arshavin, I think he's a sensational player. on the political front, would you be interested in joining the campaign to end the israeli occupation of palestine?? best wishes, Harvey (the leftie yiddo!!!)
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ISRAELI WAR CRIMES - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
So the death toll in Gaza is now more than 1000 (including some 350 children) matching that in the Lebanon in 2006. The massacre of 106 refugees in a UN shelter in Qana is mirrored by the deaths of 40 Palestinians in a UN school in Gaza. The slaughter of the Marwahin civilians in Lebanon who were ordered to leave their homes and then gunned down by a helicopter gunship is matched by civilians being shot (one through the head) as they leave their homes carrying white flags. And yet we are told that Israel does not target civilians. That is like saying that a drink driver increasing his speed around a blind bend had his hazard warning lights on in case any pedestrians were in the vicinity. You have 1.5 million people crammed into 360 square kilometers with no escape routes and you blitz it with cluster bombs, some of which allegedly contain white phosphorous, and you still claim that you are doing everything you can to avoid civilian casualties. It seems strange that Israel has the capability to send a laser guided missile into a moving car yet it continually slams bombs and rockets into houses, hospitals, schools and ambulances. The fact is that Israel cynically engineered this assault on Gaza, the purpose of which was to bring Hamas to its knees. It broke the ceasefire with Hamas in the first week of November when it killed six Palestinians. The timing was perfect with Israeli elections approaching and the compliant Bush administration in its last few days. Hamas was elected in free and fair elections in January 2006. Rather than engage it in meaningful dialogue, Israel blockaded the Gaza strip, bombed the power station and championed the imposition of the International Community’s economic sanctions on Hamas. In response, Hamas intensified the firing of rockets in to Israel. I know of no other situation in which the onus is on the occupied entity to meet pre-conditions for negotiations. Israel simply repeats its mantra over and over again that Hamas are terrorists or militants. As the British Labour Party MP, Gerald Kaufman, has pointed out, they are no different to the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto. Kaufman also reminds us that the Jewish terrorist groups, Irgun and the Stern Gang, massacred both Palestinians and the ruling British in their war of independence. Israel also argues ad infinitum that the Palestinians are not partners for peace and only want ‘to push us into the sea’. They continually cite the fact that the Hamas charter calls for an end to the state of Israel. In response to which I say ‘so what?’ You sit down with them and negotiate. On its accession to power, Hamas offered Israel a long-term truce if it withdrew to its 1967 borders. Sounds like a decent starting point to me. All sorts of extremists from Eugene Terre Blanch and his white supremacist Afrikaner movement in South Africa and the IRA splinter group, the Real IRA, have been mollified and/or marginalized despite earlier threats of apocalyptic warfare. Hamas may be deeply unpleasant but it is folly to ignore them. If Israel itself was a genuine partner for peace it would have stopped building settlements on occupied land long ago. Since it handed back Gaza in 2005, it has constructed at least 12,000 new dwellings in the West Bank. Creating facts on the ground which render a viable Palestinian state ever more unlikely is the Israeli aim. Not to mention the fact that the security wall, which was declared ‘contrary to International Law’ by the International Court of Justice in 2004, entailed the annexation of a further 280,000 square kilometers of fertile West Bank land. Israel maintains that it is a democracy surrounded by a sea of authoritarian Arab regimes. If the measure of a democracy was nothing more than the use of the ballot box every few years, this claim might be true. But, as long as Israel continues to detain thousands of Palestinians for years on end without trial, imprison conscientious objectors, hide the truth about its actions in Gaza from the Israeli public and ban the press from entering Gaza, it will not be a real democracy. As for America, when it comes to Israel, it feels like North Korea or Saddam’s Iraq here. There is total and utter uniformity in the support of Israel, both in the mainstream press and amongst lawmakers. It is a given that any politician (or indeed academic) who dares to speak out in favour of Palestinian rights is vilified (Ex-President Jimmy Carter is the prime example). In a 2006 vote in the House of Representatives during the Lebanon war, a resolution supporting Israel passed by 410 votes to 8 and a vote a few days ago in support of the Gaza offensive passed by 390 to 5. The reality is that Israel dare not entertain the notion of peace. On the deepest of traumatized levels, it is fighting an existential battle with its own soul. A state of war is the sine qua non of the Israeli state. The victimhood of the holocaust has been replaced by the dehumanizing use of brute force. It is a classic case of an abused child wreaking vengeance in adulthood. I have just joined the US Campaign to end the Israeli occupation, an umbrella group to which a few Jewish groups belong. One of its primary aims is to change the unconditional support of Israel which every US regime offers and to call into question the $3 billion a year in economic and military aid which has sustained the 40-year occupation. Naomi Klein is surely right when she says it is time for the sort of global movement against the occupation that put an end to apartheid in South Africa. She has called for the campaign entitled ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ which was founded in 2005, to be ratcheted up.
BRIT LOST IN A SEA OF TAILGATES
My friend Scott, fellow Tottenham Hotspur supporter and anglophile (for the benefit of my American friends , Tottenham are a North London soccer team), invited me to attend the Arizona Wildcats American football game at the University Stadium here in Tucson. Undeterred by my lukewarm response (I’ve always thought of American football as the poor man’s Rugby), he proceeded to sell me the whole package. The game itself was almost incidental, it was all about the socializing beforehand. Everybody tailgates, there are barbecues in abundance, the booze flows for hours on end and the atmosphere would be in keeping with the weather-sizzling. Come and experience some real Americana, Scott said. All of a sudden, it seemed rather enticing so I agreed to give it a go. I don't know exactly what I expected, I guess that my European life experience could not have possibly prepared me for a barbecue event of such gargantuan proportions. This was hyper-real America up close and personal. Bigger, brasher, louder and more in your face than a Palo Verde beetle on heat. I saw battalions of barbecues and burgers, squadrons of sausages and sodas, tons of tailgates and televisions, acres of Arizona wildcats’ navy and red merchandise, guys gigging and copious cabals of college kids baring more flesh than you would see in a roman amphitheater. Rigged up to the nth degree, some of the set-ups I saw beggared belief. Let me try to describe the pick of the bunch. A huge pick-up van with the tailgate down and steps up to a dining area covered with artificial grass. Diner style metal stools, huge parasols, a satellite dish and an enormous flat screen TV. (What, they can’t even go out for a day without watching TV,’ I said. ‘Don’t be stupid..this is America Dude' was the predictable response). And the coup de grace, a massive stainless steel barbecue unit. And there was our man, in his element, kitted out in a red and blue striped apron and chef’s hat, busy flipping quarter pounders and sizzling onions. Take all the paraphernalia away and you would have been left with the biggest car showroom on earth. 30 foot winnebagos, 4 x 4’s, Harley Davidsons in a handlebar heaven, jeeps, pick-up’s. There was more gleaming metal per square inch here than on a NASA launch pad. So there I was, timid, middle-class, little Brit in my brown socks, sandals and Spurs shirt, nibbling on a veggie burger and a quorn sausages. Ducks and water sprang readily to mind. It was hardly a case of trying to blend in, I mean, some of the time I felt like I was an invisible non-entity on the set of The Sopranos and the rest of the time I was mesmerized like a kid on his first school outing to the fair. A far cry from a picnic of tea and sandwiches on a rug in a London park that I was brought up on. So what of the game itself? I have to admit that I am not well versed in the minutiae of American Football so I am bound to miss any subtlety that exists. What I did observe were short, frenetic bursts of activity, a blur of bodies and heavy duty machismo and then a player appears from nowhere and crosses the line for a touchdown. High chests galore follow. (High fives are obviously passé in this environment). I was amazed when Scott told me that there are only 11 players a side on the field. Maybe it is because they are all so gigantic with their helmets and padding, plus the fact that the play is so often condensed into a small section of the pitch, that it seems like there are so many more. What is astounding is the amount of substitutes who line up on the edge of the pitch, there are at least 35 of them per side. And the fact that although the playing time is only an hour, there are so many time-outs and breaks that a game can last 3 or 4 hours in real time. We only stayed until half time, at which time the University of Arizona (U of A) were trouncing a team of whipping boys from Toledo in Ohio. Apparently, they were offered half a million bucks to turn up so that the U of A could duly thrash them and get the points on the board. Scott tells me that I should reserve judgement until I have seen one of the big games, such as the derby between the U of A and the ASU (Arizona State University) who are based in Phoenix. He is probably right although I have serious doubts that I will ever be able to really get into this game. For me, there just is not enough variety and grace. However, in keeping with Tucson itself, I found the vibe really mellow. Lots of kids and families enjoying themselves and nobody going red in the face and uttering foul-mouthed expletives. As is, regrettably, so often the case at English soccer games. All in all, a worthwhile experience. Scott was as good as his word. Nothing whatsoever was in short supply, except perhaps a nice hot cup of tea, a buttered scone and a cosy, tartan rug to sit on.
MICKEY MOUSE ECONOMICS
A few days ago, my friend Bonny woke up $600 richer. She was one of millions of US citizens who had benefited from the Bush government’s economic stimulus package. A cheque from the Federal government, ostensibly a tax rebate, landed on her doormat. The theory behind it is that those who receive the money will immediately plough it back into the economy, thereby stimulating the profits of corporations which will prompt them to expand and employ more staff. Well, all I can say is that so far, I have spoken to about 7 people and only one of them, a friend of mine, has rushed out to spend the money on an impulse (on a Kayak, would you believe. Guess that is a lot better than a gun or a gas guzzling Hummer. And what is more, she is a staunch Democrat who would never have a good word to say about the current regime and its policies). All the others had either paid off a credit card bill with it or deposited it in their savings account. And yet, there is a consensus between the Republicans and the Democrats that such interventionist measures really do work in times of economic recession. It is believed that low-to-middle income people, however financially challenged they are, will still go out and indulge in some retail therapy. Both Clinton and Bush, back in 2002, implemented stimulus packages which were said to have been efficacious. Those who earned less than $3000 in 2007 are not entitled to a rebate and yet, a couple with 3 children whose income was $145,000, would benefit to the tune of $2100. Does not sound very equitable to me. By and large, serious economists do not like economic stimulus packages. They say that they are all about creating a short term feel good factor and do not address the structural problems in the economy. A fairly obvious conclusion which seems about right to me. Some say that, paradoxically, if you make unemployed people feel richer, they will be less likely to try and rejoin the work force. Others point out that simultaneously trying to encourage investment by way of tax cuts to businesses and consumption by way of rebates to individuals is counter- productive. Without wishing to get too technical, they say that to apply demand side and supply side economics at the same time is a flawed approach. I called my friend, Larry the Birdman (he makes bird art using palm leaves) to see what he made of it. ‘Well I didn’t get one but the folks who did seem to be sharing some of their wealth around, so it’s alright by me,’ he said. I asked him how they were sharing their wealth and he told me that there was more meat in evidence in his neck of the woods in Virginia and he had been to a couple of barbecues where there was an abundance of good quality steak. I finally heard a statistic on the radio, that only a third of people who received a lump sum have spent more than half of it. Not a particularly good return on the government’s $150 billion investment. AMERICAN ENGLISH -BRITISH ENGLISH UPDATE AM.ENGLISH :::: BR.ENGLISH CHINKY :::: CHEAP YOUR ACCOUNT IS DELINQUENT :::: YOUR ACCOUNT IS IN ARREARS/OVERDUE A TEMPEST IN A TEA POT :::: A STORM IN A TEA CUP LAY- AWAY :::: PUT TO ONE SIDE (YOU CAN PAY FOR SOMETHING IN INSTALMENTS BUT YOU ONLY TAKE POSSESSION OF THE ITEM WHEN YOU HAVE PAID IN FULL) DUMPSTER DIVING :::: RUBBISH SKIP SCAVENGING JET JOCKEY :::: PILOT JUMP DRIVE-STORE’N’GO :::: COMPUTER MEMORY STICK GALLAHOOTING :::: GALLAVANTING
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