Money

[Doreen Peri]

It's all about money. Everybody wants money. You can't do anything without it.

We were so pleased to read an article in the Washington Post about the Capital Fringe Festival they are planning for the summer of 2006. They describe it as a festival where performing artists will be doing their thing in a variety of venues all around DC. So, we thought, GREAT! We can get involved and be part of this and do our Cabaradio Show! We thought, terrific! They will have these every summer and we can do our shows regularly.

So, they had this meeting for performers to attend so they could tell them about the Festival and talk about planning. We were out of town but I got an email update which directed me to their website where they describe how to get involved and participate.

They want $400. Plus proof of insurance. Now, if you find your own venue, they only want $175. LOL! This means that if I had a friend who owned a restaurant or bar who wanted us to come do the show there because it would bring in business, they'd still take $175 from us. In exchange for the money, they give tech support and provide marketing. Ok, so I do see that there is some value in tech support but what's the marketing consist of? Your name on a flyer?
http://www.capfringe.org/capvenue.html

Alright, so I was on vacation and enjoying my stay at a resort where there was an indoor pool and an outdoor pool and an fitness club. I loved it. Driving home, I said to Clay, I'm going to join a gym when I get back. So, I started looking for a gym that had a swimming pool.

I finally found the YMCA in a nearby town. I looked at their website. It had everything I was looking for plus they had a statement on their site that says they make it affordable for everyone. I was elated.

I just called them up and asked them how much a membership was, thinking it would be similar to a health club membership but probably less. A health club membership around here costs about $45-$50 a month. Pretty expensive. Last time I was a member of a gym, they honored my long term commitment and I only paid $25 a month.

Anyway, so I called and asked them how much and they told me it was $78 a month. Good grief! Who can afford $78 a month? Not me.

I hate money.

I just want to work out. And swim. And perform my poetry and music.

But it costs too much.

Gotta buy your life, I guess. Who knew it would be so costly to get the life you want?

Fuck money .

[stilltrucking]

"I found me a woman as warm as the sunshine took her a year to slip out of her dress
She talk about havin' a little rose covered cottage
But roses cost money and you know the rest
So open the gates up...
Yes I'm back home in Huntsville again"


Open the gates up hey screw did you miss me Jimmy I see that you found a new friend
Warden come down here and kiss me hello cause I'm back home in Huntsville again

This suit that I'm wearing cost two hundred dollars
But I got it free with a three dollar knife
I got tailor made shirts with them long pointy collars
And all it's gonna cost is ten years of my life
So open the gates up...

Sorry what were we talking about? Money. Yeah what ever happened to art for art sakes.
I been thinking about my young punk friend, with a mother and father like he has it is a wonder he is still kicking at twenty two, a desperado making quick money,

don't know why I got started on this ramble
you made a perfectly innocent remark about money and I think of prison.

Singing the white boy's blues. I saw Bobby bear on some info mercial for one of those goofy country music video's the ones my hill billy friends in The Valley Of Virginia find so offensive, how did bobby get so old?

I always feel like I want to stand up and sing dixie, or Will My Soul Pass Through The SouthLand when I think of my Shenandoah home. Which reminds me of the fourteenth ammendment and Judith posted thay link to cyber deck and the fourteenth amendment. So long since I rambled about nothing at all I appologize for this Dor, speaking of slavery and the fourteenth amendment and ascent and you are straight away sane. Yeah I got them OCD's torment torettes syndrome for sure, sorry I missed the improv play, I wanted to be tinker jack mender of broken hearts in an asylum for the terminally vain. I been think about prison and what it would be like for a jewish kid with a swastika tatoo with a red circle and line crossed through it. I suppose prison is a lot like combat, not something anyone who hasnot been through can talkabout with someone who has not been there.

"have you unwittingly submitted to a life of servitude to Big Brother?" (http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v308

[stilltrucking]

what a dot damned mess that was, I got no excuse, or would you believe me if I said i haven't learned howto use the edit button yet?

don't even try to read it. fix it laterand repost, but I won't delete it.

[hester_prynne]

Yeppooroni! Wages are going down, health care is getting the slip, jobs are being eradicated by the thousands...life ain't what it used to be!

I quit thinking about gym clubs about two years ago. Now, what I do, is everyday, i run up and down my stairs twenty times. Up and down being one time.
So far, I'm in good shape.
Course, if I can't pay the rent in the future, i'll lose my damn stairs!

But who cares. I've been doing my radio show again. (volunteer of course, no pay.) I just got done with it actually, half an hour ago. First song I played was fool on the hill! Brazil 66. I had it going around in my head all day yesterday, in honor of the 4th of July for this year.
My new show is every other tuesday from 1pm -3pm. Been on air about two months now. Today I got 14 calls from listeners who said they absolutely loved the show. Folks at the station say its' the most calls anyone gets from listeners!
And no pay, remember?
Nope. they can pay jessica simpson, paris hilton, celine dion and folks like that millions to jump around and bounce their fake boobs for everyone and sing like cows.
I'll just stay poor and do music for free, mind you, singing, and doing a radio show for free, in abject monetary poverty, but really, I'm feelin richer than many.....

money money money money!
MONEY!

There's enough for everyone. Too bad everyone doesn't think so.......

It's a drag Doreen. It is.
I'm just so used to it at this point....very glad for what little i have anymore....
H

[stilltrucking]

The spirit of christmas fifteen hundred dollars, we were all down in Music City with jitterbug when he was trying to be a country music star. It was around that time of year and somebody got the bright idea of being part of the annual Music City Christmas parade, the organizers told us there was still a spot on The Spirit Of Christmas float for fifteen hundred dollars. I like that a lot. Serving two masters is a hard way to go. Thinking about the yankee dollar and what some people are willing to do for it. Sell their bodies for it, I suppose we all do, big brother and the corparate state. Just a matter of life and death when it comes to health care. Imagine that. Me I am still a kid giving it all away. plenty of money. Me I am only in it for the feeling, but Poncho wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to fear, my young friend the anarchist punk, making that easy money, living out some dark fantasy, skirting the edge, and the gold rolled through his veins like a thousand railroad trains,

I think I ripped off a couple of country songs there,

what was that seventies song from the dark side of the moon, don't give me that do good bullshit, thesound of a cash register and get yourself a stash, working for the yankee dollar drinking rum and coca cola. Hey in god we trust and consumer confidence is high and george bush is in the white house and security moms can rest easy. andI am just a rambling fool. I got thirty five bucks to see me thru to payday and a pack of dorals, cheers

[stilltrucking]

Money, it was a difficult month in june, quaterly taxes due, car resistration, inspection, did not make it through, stopped taking my meds for a week, slammed down with sugar mania, finally had to borrow a hundred bucks from jitterbugs wife, then bust my ass at the Goldwater Foundation in a struggle for the legal tender, but the tender was pretty hard to take, cognitive dissonce maxed out. Selling office supplies so much easier than selling a cure for cancer.

I don't lose no sleep over money anymore. Just don't go there anymore, but I still get high sometimes with a little help from my friends. SHe says the money was a gift, don't worry about paying it back, but home is where you go when you need to talk to a friend, so I made enough the last two weeks to pay her back and that feels good.

you touched a deep one there Doreen, I don't know what the Jap word is that describes thinking with our bellies, our gut feelings, I was always too good a salesman, and a good sales manager knows the best way to keep a good salesman slaving away is to get him in debt.

My only un easy feeling about money these days is my "{final expenses} I don't mind living in despair about not sailing my thirty foot sloop to Ireland, cruising down to the ocean shore on my motorpickle, but dam it would feel good not to stick homeboy with the bill.

[merlynh]

I think it’s the golden cow concept where everyone digs through the dirt until their fingers bleed so they can put pretty eyebrows on the fat old cow glowing in the moonlight. Everyone has sold their souls and is now obligated to worship, and are left to stare at what may come out of the other end. I often look around and wonder how I got cloned into paying the admission fee to get into the forest, which was once free. I’m often confused why I can’t have someone pay me to mow my lawn as part of an exercise program.

[judih]

If we play our cards right, it'll only be a matter of time before we're paid to keep our mouth shut and mind our own business.

no look - no talk - big bucks

mmmmmm........couch potato salary

[hester_prynne]

A matter of time?
I'd say it's happening now Judih! This very minute!

I mean gee, if I'd keep my mouth shut and look the other way, i'd have a good paying job and probably even a useless man in my life to support as well! The current American woman's denied reality= conditioned misery in relationship. Submission to dysfunction. Not everyone, but most. I'll never figure out why so many women resort to insults like this. I don't get it. But I see it all the time, more and more.

Anymore, i keep my mouth shut because I just can't muster up alot of meaningless rhetoric, which seems to be the order of these killing days. Diatribes about history and the way it should or shouldn't be done today....bla bla bla.

The weight of inaction and continuance is what is killing me.

Today, a darling little 23 year old woman, whom I happened to know and like very much was hit and killed last night by a drunk driver, right on mainstreet downtown. She was so sweet, and so very innocent.
The driver I know too. Works at Safeway in town. He is devastated that he did this.
But alcohol is another legal lethal isn't it.

I can't help but be angry at the power of the current male energy rising and the ensuing crimes, wars, murders and rapes of children it is permitted to commit. It's all too obvious where the majority of humans mistreating humans comes from. Dare I say it? Risk being called a "Feminist", or "hysterical female" when really, i'm a heartist? When really what I want, what I long for is the collective, genderless best for all? For crimes against all people to stop.

I can't wait for women to come out of their shallow hazes, in numbers too big to ignore, so we can clean up this mess. This mess is gonna take guts, not ego, and certainly not bravado, if it's going to get better, if it can get better at this point. I have grave doubts. We've been had.
Mr. Bush has been allowed to take us all hostage.
And we will pay for it, and try to politely make him a notable President, regardless of the fact that he totally fucked us over with deceit.
If we had any guts, he'd be in prison, NOW. And we all know it.

Sure doesn't look like many men are going to do anything much more than gutless ranting, as usual. They sent another female scapegoat to jail just today......
Shrug.
Oops. I forgot.
It's not "ladylike" or "spiritual" to question or be angry is it?
I'm no lady I guess.

In love, peace, caring, kindness, observation, OM and all that shit.....
H

[YABYUM]

find someone in you area with a pool, and offer them free poetry and music recitals for use of their pool once a week. Or you could always fill up the bathtub and just pretend.

All kidding aside, I know what you mean. When I was living in Montreal I had the same problem. I need to swim. I love being in water. When I cant have the ocean, I seek out pools. I lived three doors down from the YMCA. I could see the pool from the sidewalk. I just didnt have the money to be part of that elite club of indoor swimmers. It was awful and depressing.

[Artguy]

"Grab that cash with both hands and make a dash...."

[Traveller13]

A matter of time?
I'd say it's happening now Judih! This very minute!

Actually, it's more like
if you don't keep your mouth shut
then I'll shoot you

damn people
grrrrrrrr

[Glorious Amok]

sing it hester!!

if i kept my mouth shut, i'd have a husband and a job in investment banking right now, with massive annual christmas bonuses, extended health coverage, RRSP matching, and paid vacations to boot.

upper class hoarding leads to a poverty stricken culture, who are marketed to relentlessly, and we wind up in a desperate nation of folks willing to do ANYTHING to get ahead. there was a day when that phrase suggested sexual compromise but these days it means something quite different, spiritual and intellectual compromise.

i find myself among a generation of child-women, who when they need love and attention resort to baby talk, all wide-eyed and pleading, "pwease wuv me, pwease do what i want woo twoo." i am so surrounded by this that i catch myself DOING it sometimes, and this DISGUSTS me!

women, have the balls to ask for what you want, to ask for what you need as mature, full-fledged WOMEN! personally, i'm concerned that i'm never going to be able to grow up, because i live in a culture that worships the teenager. insecure and totally dependent is the new chic. and you're actually REWARDED for behaving in this manner!

my personal revolution involves speaking in my natural, deep, prone to hints of butchiness voice, and referring to my higher intelligence before i even begin to speak. it involves living loudly and openly, and yet privately all at the same time. it involves curving where no rich woman would dare to curve, and thinking where a rich woman would only giggle.

[mtmynd]

Glorious... where's Trout?

[Glorious Amok]

i don't know. and he doesn't know where i am, and that's generally made us both pretty happy since about christmastime. pretty damn happy.