THE TOP 10 REASONS YOU TOOK OUT YOUR SCRAPER BOX IN 2012.

Think Outside The Scraper Box!

10. Because The Worm Is Living With Shayna In The Trailer. Why call him The Worm and not The Wriggler or The Snake or The DigDug Creature or The Silverfish? Because he’s The Worm! And he’s living with Shayna in the trailer! So you fired up the Scraper Box (again) dammit!

9. Because Your Daddy Took Out His Scraper Box And Your Daddy’s Daddy Took Out His Scraper Box. There’s nothing so powerful as the notion of three generations taking out their Scraper Boxes, driving them around properly in the usual manner, returning them to a sensible storage area, and disembarking to the traditional welcome that one would receive, including a reasonable portion of suckling pig.

8. To Join The 1,000,000 Scraper Box March. What a spectacle! All them Scraper Boxes amidst the circular wavings of Patriotic Towels, amidst the droppings of Patriotic Confetti, amidst the Keynote Address by the ghost of Marlon Brando, and his Keynote Refrain: “The Hauling, The Hauling!”

7. Woke Up In The Middle Of The Night And Didn’t Know Where You Were. Nothing comforts a touch o’ the Nocturnal Paranoia more than a little trip on the Scraper Box, unless, that is, the Nocturnal Paranoia does not abate, and you were then a Paranoiac riding around on your Scraper Box at night.

6. To Show Someone Else A Good Time. Uh huh, okay, I see how you—wink! wink!— ‘took out the ol’ scraper box last night’, you ol’ devil you, you ol’ Casanova you, you ol’ PLAYA!

5. One Too Many Jokes That Began With A Boot Up Someone’s Butt. So, a patient appears in the Emergency Room, complaining of an “Inability to Void.” Upon further examination, the doctor discovers a boot lodged in the patient’s butt, and says, (Irish accent optional), Would that Inability to Void ‘ave anything to do with the boot stuck up your arse? Oh that, says the patient, Nah, that’s but a coincidence, been there for years, the boot. No, I really cannot void, I can’t!

4. The, Everything Happens For A Reason, Reason. Don’t know why you took out your Scraper Box? Many Americans cannot fathom the Action-Consequence Continuum, either, so let’s just say what they say—that Divinity wanted you to take out your Scraper Box, and anything that happens (e.g., happy or destructive) must be due to Divinity.

3. To Think Outside The Scraper Box. One always sits outside the Scraper Box, of course, but the real trick is to do some Deep Thinking while astraddle your Machinery.

2. The Economy Is Rebounding. The rebound will lead to Many Possible Americas, including DigDug Creatures, Breakfast Potatoes, and Obese Conservatism, thus choose the off-ramp for your Scraper Box judiciously.

1. Willard “Mitt” Romney Was Defeated. Good ol’ Mitt wouldn’t own a Scraper Box, unless Cadillac made one, and then I spoze he’d strap the dog to it, or drive it into an elevator, or buy 50 of them: two for each house. 

WHEN RAPID GROWTH UNCOUPLES FROM LOCAL PRINCIPLES: REFLECTIONS ON THE WICKEDNESS OF MY FIRST EMPLOYER, ARTHUR ANDERSEN & CO.

The horror! A rediscovered notepad.

The man who founded Arthur Andersen & Co. nearly a hundred years ago in Chicago, a young professor conveniently named Arthur Andersen, once refused a client’s plea to ‘cook the books’ during the client’s annual audit, even as Andersen was struggling to pay his employees. He famously proclaimed that “all the money in the city of Chicago” would not lead him to compromise his ideals, and the client, the owner of a railroad utility, fired him. The railroad company, as the story continues, failed, and in the wake of this double bankruptcy—both commercial and moral—the little accounting firm stood, vindicated, in the sturdy terrain of ethical principles. (Two heavy wooden doors, replicas of the firm’s original entrance-way, would become the company’s enduring trademark.) A partner rehearsed this ditty for me when I joined ‘Arthur’ in 1990 as an entry level research economist charged to support the firm’s growing practice in cross-border transactions. In short, my group would assist foreign multinational corporations—mostly Japanese and German—in dodging their fair share of U.S. tax. These corporations, from the lands of the former Axis Powers, did staggering American business in vehicles, machinery, electronics, and other goods, yet in many cases, paid little or no tax on their U.S. operations. Given the deep pockets of these clients, Arthur could out-muscle the understaffed Internal Revenue Service, which otherwise sought to collect. A two million dollar investment in hiring the heft of Arthur, for instance, would likely avoid a two billion dollar judgment, and in the end, fewer than all the Yen in the city of Tokyo and fewer than all the Deutschmarks in the city of Berlin could, indeed, purchase creative reporting from Arthur. Work-products were often tailored to please the client, and amid the firm’s break-neck sprint to amass billable hours, professional objectivity was discarded in the name of profits. Around the same time, the United States entered a fairly steep recession, one that underscored the decay of American manufacturing, and where U.S. manufacturers had shuttered their doors, Japanese and German companies in many industries prospered. To my knowledge, Arthur did not engage personnel in Tokyo or Berlin to assist American multinationals in avoiding their fare share of Japanese and German tax, or if it did, the firm derived little revenue from this activity. The idea of growth isn’t, by itself, corrupt, but growth uncoupled from the ‘local’ principles upon which Arthur Andersen & Co. was founded, did lead to systemic corruption. I sat at a cubicle for two years, researching and writing bits and pieces, occasionally directing small client engagements, leaving in 1992. Numerous scandals could have erupted in various corners of Arthur, and eventually, some court actions did materialize. One in particular, involving the audit of Waste Management, served to weaken the firm’s clean-cut aura, before another case, Enron, drew considerable attention and toppled both companies in 2002. Before the Enron debacle, the firm’s consulting wing severed itself from Arthur and became Accenture, a company that continues to thrive today. At its peak, Arthur had been the ‘Titanic’ of global auditing firms, with billions of dollars in annual revenue and a couple hundred thousand audit and consulting employees worldwide. In its greed, however, the firm misapplied its role as independent auditor and consultant, enabling other enterprises in their greed to shelter profits (among other scams). Ten years after Enron, many wealthy corporations—notably led by the financial services sector—continue to abuse their relationships with money . . . and the law. It’s easy to argue for oversight, and there should be oversight, of course, but on the other hand, the larger and wealthier and more arrogant the corporation, the more it comes to resemble a disease. After Arthur’s indictment in federal court, its worldwide practice buckled and perished in a matter of weeks, one client after another dumping its former auditors. I resigned from the firm for three reasons: a supervisor refused my petition for a reduction in overtime so I could care for a dying relative; the unethical commerce at play; and I accepted a small fellowship to write poetry. Ultimately, I, the little poet, endured. 

ALL THIS TALK ABOUT TIGER WOODS.

A Fair & Lovely Lea.

All this talk about Tiger Woods and his ‘sex addiction’ as if the man were humping what, the front nine holes at Augusta? How many American men regret not going out for JV Smurf in high school? That, of course, could’ve led to Varsity Smurf, and ultimately to lettering, i.e., a jacket, but no, didn’t go out for JV Smurf. Instead, these men grew up trying to emulate Captains of Industry—as if a ‘Captain’ in this context were some kind of ceremonial post, as if one would be the ‘Captain’ of Exxon, or Mercedes Benz, or the House of Hapsburg. As if there was any industry for anyone to captain, in any event, as opposed to a bunch of shoddy warehouses rusting the very dead ground upon which they were erected. What’s the greater joke—that our business leaders are ‘captaining’ square feet of empty air, or that generations of ‘Captains’ have presided over one big ejaculation that squandered the nation’s fixed assets? Perhaps a prophylaxis should be administered to every chap who seeks to emigrate or establish asylum in our fair land. He should be read the words “Welcome to America” as he is being flossed. His sons, he will think, in that moment, will grow up and go out for JV Smurf. That, or they could, one day, make love to a bearclaw or a cruller. It would be too dangerous after all to masturbate with a doughnut, seeing how the average law enforcement professional gravitates toward those confections. The clouds, the clouds, over the water tower, the water tower. Despite all the human activity to the contrary, the cycle of beauty—nimbostratus, stratus—can reassemble every day. 

THEY DON'T LET YOU LIVE 3: THE BLUE SWEATER FOOTAGE.

My pop responds to stimuli w/ his favorite phrase.

When I arrived Chez Gutstein for Thanksgiving, it was clear that my pop had readied himself for some serious Q & A, given his choice of sweater. Blue means business, so we didn't waste any time getting right down to brass tacks, and once again pop proved to be singly opinionated, and audible, both. The magic is in the answer that really isn't an answer, and with that thought in mind, I give you The Blue Sweater Footage. 

TO ACHIEVE A MORE DIGNIFIED POVERTY.

“Airing one’s laundry” used to be respectable!

Let’s start by changing the word “ghetto” to “grotto”, in that, you don’t live in The Ghetto, you live in The Grotto, and how about that girl you’d like to chase?, she doesn’t dress “so ghetto” but she dresses “so grotto.” Consider some famous people who arose from humble circumstances, such as the First Artist of the Renaissance, Giotto di Grotto, and the fifth Marx brother, Aleppo, the Syrian Marxist, who engaged in Trumpet l’oeil, which is Vaudeville for ‘Trompe the eye.’ It’s all about getting to be Persona au Gratin as opposed to being Potato non Grata. Are you hiring? Who’s hiring? Well, how about employing a word if you’re hiring, and that word is Celestiality, the urge to have relations with the constellations. Have you lost your virginity? Have you found someone else’s virginity? Either way, you can visit the Virginity Lost ‘n’ Found, to claim a lost virginity or make-available a virginity you discovered in an underwear state, like Ohio. I mean, I’m from Ohio, and I can tell you that Ohio is home to any number of people who have Truss Funds. Sonny Pro Bono didn’t Cher & Cher alike, but he did act in the public interest, he did install his Cherware, and he didn’t really flaunt his timecher in Vietnam, where the Vietnamese kosher pig situation has hardly been resolved. That is, the pig has come to understand that it’s not in his best interests to chew his own cud. I say the pig because there’s only one pig in question, so even if he were declared kosher, there’d be a considerable battle for him and his, uh, loins. Up that alley, Ask Not For Whom the Taco Bell Tolls — the Taco Bell Tolls for Thee.  

THE GREAT SCANSION OF 2012.

This was a stressful election!

This is, what I would call, “Trochaic / iambic dimeter.” You could argue a secondary stress on the “ba” in “Obama” but I prefer the “THUMPety” of the trochee, myself. I don’t consider myself a “Trochee Man”, necessarily, since I like to think of myself as a “Man of All Meter.” (I’m quite egalitarian in that way.) Of course, there’s a trochee to “Willard” but we won’t need to deal with that trochee very much longer. Some trochees come and some trochees go. Some trochees spend billions of dollars over seven years doing nothing more than complaining. While this blog, and this post, are 100% free. One election won’t solve our problems but I’d like to borrow an old joke and say that “iamb hopeful.” And I’d like to vote for Joe in 2016. 

DUO EXCHANGE.

 

Thursday, November 8th, 7:30 p.m. at the Squirrel.

November 8th will be roughly ten days after Frankenstorm, and two days after that other storm, i.e., The Election, so we'll either have lots to celebrate, or good reason to move on. In that spirit, join us for DUO EXCHANGE: Rod Smith / Dan Gutstein (words) and Argos (music). The two writers and the two-bass band will trade sets of poetry and music in a 'Duo Exchange', an event influenced by the 1973 free/avant album of the same name, featuring Rashied Ali and Frank Lowe. Free and open to the public, no cover charge, The Black Squirrel (tap room -- downstairs -- 40 craft taps), 2427 18th Street, in Adams Morgan. For complete information, visit our Facebook event page. 

For more information on Rod Smith: click here.

For more information on Argos: click here. 

We look forward to seeing you there, and for all festivities before, during, and afterwards.