Trouble in Shangri-La

 

 

The author F. Scott Fitzgerald is credited with saying: “The rich are different from you and me.” And Ernest Hemingway, curtly shooting down Fitzgerald's mythologizing the rich, responded: “Yes, they have more money.”

The whole quote from Fitzgerald goes as follows:

“Let me tell you about the rich. They are different from you and me. They posses and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft, where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it's very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.”

--

I have never known people with that kind of money. That kind of money is Old Money and it's in the billions. Think of Andrew Carnegie or Rockefeller wealth that's so massive it can be invested to keep their descendants not born yet in the pink till 2100 and beyond. It's so old it became “respectable” wealth.

New Money, and there are a few I know of, is disgusting. New Money is filthy. New Money has no pedigree, no claim to a Family Coat of Arms that goes back to Henry V of England. This New Money can never find legitimacy due to the fact Old Money families will never let them in the “good” country clubs and respectably knight them. The Old Money clique is pretty tight. This drives the New Money types crazy to the point where some have tried to marry off their daughters to some penniless but landed British aristocratic earl or duke just to claim a relation. No joke, some did that.

The few New Money types I know aren't even close to those pure bloods, at best, the richest one I knew had around $5 million and none of them would even be invited to a golf game in East Hampton. They'd be arrested at the door if they didn't “kindly leave the premises when asked too.” Again, Old Money does not associate with...”those people.”

So how did they get their money? What did they do with it? Where they happy? Are they different?

–

Alan ,who is dead now, inherited his from his Dad who wisely invested in ESSO oil from the 1940's. ESSO became Exxon in time and his Dad kept purchasing that stock till the day he died. There upon Alan took it over and never spent a penny of it nor add to any stock purchases. Alan, instead, just followed a career in government, bought a modest house outside DC and put up with his wife's weekly antique hunts. Since Alan's wife died before him and they never had any kids, we used to bust Alan's balls about him leaving it all to his wife's nieces and nephews who, as far as we could tell, were the type to use the cash to hire a Lear jet, fly to Las Vegas to bet it all on a Black 13 roulette slot.

“Alan! You're gonna leave it to them? Really? You said yourself you can't stand them!”

“Well, who else will I leave it too? They're the only family I have!” And then there is a pause...”Shit...that niece I bought an electric piano for...she's too dumb to learn anything more than 'Chopsticks!' On top of that, I paid for her entire time at UMASS Amherst and she gets a 2.1 GPA? I fear it'll be wasted on all of them!”

Alan died over the summer, and they got it. We can't tell if they've blown through it all yet.

The Exxon stock never did turn Alan into a dick nor heighten his own self worth, but he damn well knew what that kind of money could do for him. All it was was a massive fluffy pillow should his workaday world somehow collapse. His problems with it came to his ungrateful and sort of worthless relations.

--

Carl, who I knew for a couple of years before he took off to Phoenix, inherited $2 million. His Dad was this rare engineer who made very specific parts for the Apollo program back in the 60's and certainly charged NASA an arm and a leg for it. NASA paid because this guy was Einstein smart and solved quite a few problems for the space agency. You want good people? You have to pay for them.

Carl, inherited the company when Dad died but since Carl had no clue to this kind of engineering, sold it all off. He didn't inherit his Dad's brains but was no moron either, he just aimlessly tried one occupation after another, trying to fit in with the friends he made. He came off as a trust fund kid you'd see sometimes on skateboards down by Thayer St in Providence. They want to live a “normal” life but eventually were always found out by their poorer friends. Carl's problem, was that he tried to buy friends, in that he'd pay for everything as they hung out. Well, if someone pays for it all, they tend to stick around till the money dries up or are found out. Then poof...they're gone. Carl constantly found out he had nothing but “fair weather” friends and dumped them when he discovered that, but I suspect unconsciously, he'd repeat that process. His main problem was just loneliness. He told me he never could fit in at Moses Brown nor anywhere else and that's what plagued him for years. Even that gold digging bitch he married didn't bring joy for him. He eventually saw her as a high-priced whore. That marriage lasted barely a year and in the end he was glad to pay her to leave.

I haven't seen him in about 20 years and have little idea what he's doing in Arizona, probably the same thing. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

The only bonafied rags to riches story I know of is Kathy. Now she was born to modest means but had this drive...insane drive to achieve and to be rich. She was usually a A+ student, winning awards left and right in school and finally being accepted at Brown due to her intelligence. She had majored in mathematics, high mathematics solving stuff like this:

That was easy stuff for her. She plied that into business math and landed the job as Chief of the Bond Desk at Merrill Lynch in NYC. Her job was to analyze companies on their probabilities of turning a profit. She was good at it (read: $$$$$$) to where she and her husband bought a condo on Central Park Upper East. Big bucks!

The bond desk at Merrill wasn't enough though, she wanted a slot in the top room, the governing board. Well...high finance back then still didn't think women were cut out for this kind of work, even if Kathy could do math in several dimensions in far away galaxy. Her “pushy bitch” demeanor wasn't well liked even if she could bring the company millions in profit. She knew well enough there was a political game involved too and tried her best to work it. She may have succeeded if it weren't for the 2008 recession that killed the Dow by nearly half of it's value.

Merrill Lynch was in danger of being wiped out completely had it not been for having to cave into other more solid finance houses and getting bailed out by the Bush Administration. It survived, barely, but the consternation in the board room and other offices created tons of firings. Kathy was axed.

Being an unemployed millionaire didn't sit well with Kathy. From I heard, that Shangri La condo had quite a few fights between husband and wife over...money. He telling her that it was time to downsize, live within their means and not hope for a recovery anytime soon where they'd be paying for $500 tickets for the “good seats” to shows on Broadway. She held the belief that one day she'd be rehired by Merrill Lynch if and when the economy found stable footing.

Well, the fights didn't abate and the two separated. Merrill Lynch never did hire her back and she had to “settle” for a position at a bank in Stamford, CT for a paltry $225,000 year. The 5^th Avenue condo was sold and she and her husband reconciled and moved to a smaller life. From what I hear, they're worth a little over $3 million today. That to me, isn't “bad” but to Kathy, who forever was climbing, achieving...it just wasn't good enough. The problem now is that she is my age and I know that this age does not bring with it a ton of mental or physical energy or drive to make it to the top. However, I have to hand it to her, she came from Pawtucket slime to standing in the world's financial center, moving mountains for a while. She made her pile of cash w/o inheriting it, though she became slightly nutso in doing so.

So are the rich different? Not the New Money types that I can see. They're just as fucked up as any middle class family you can come across. Do they think they're better? I doubt that as they harbor personal failings and that isn't easy to hide. When you become old enough to read faces, it's pretty damn evident what they're really thinking about. One fact will slip or a quick lack of eye contact which betrays the entire story. It shows too easily.

Are they happier than the rest?

Here's what I know of people. Whatever situation you find yourself in, large or small, you tend to fill and occupy it's confines to the fullest. You live in every inch of that acreage, wide or narrow. I know of retirees whose lives have shrunk to watching tv, shopping for food and walking the dog. That's it. Within that world, they find something to bitch about. There are a few I know of who can rent an entire floor at Bretton Woods in NH and their worlds are larger, spacious and yet...still yet they bitch about what doesn't go right. Or like one of their kids flipping the Escalade and now are facing DWI charges (ongoing story that is!).

I've yet to find anyone who was ever satisfied for long. Kathy, the bond desk girl once said, “After a while it's not about the condo, the clothing, the best vacations, it's about forever chasing the numbers, making new kills, ever increasing the pot...that becomes your reason to be alive, happy..for a bit..when it wears off and I have to find a new 'hunt' to chase down.” As for the retiree I know, it's about finding programs on the TV that interest him, keeping the fridge stocked, but that requires him to have to wander into the world he has little patience for now, to replenish, constantly.

None of the joy lasts. It's all transitory. You chase down a dream, fill up on it, then it passes and you chase another.

Are the rich different? I tend to agree with Hemingway, no they are not. They just have more money is all. But they live life, it's wins and losses, more stylishly. I on the other hand, will wipe my nose with my sleeve if no one's looking. I was always Shanty Irish and the nobler, better Lace Curtain Irish will never accept my kind. 

 

Kicthen Tables...

 

 

The Irish, by nature, cannot cook unless they're taught how. The reason for this is due to what you can grow in Ireland which is mostly root crops. Though at one time wheat was grown but that was exported and finally abandoned when it was discovered that beef gave a bigger bang for profit on export. With cattle you need grazing lands and wheat fields don't cut it. The peasants can subsist on potatoes as they needed far less acreage to produce enough food for a year. If the Irish peasant didn't like it, tough cookies, he didn't own the land and had no say. If he kept complaining the Constabulary showed up to rip up the thatch roof on his house. Know and keep your place, you Irish pig!

So there you have it, dull root crops to eat. Throw it all in a pot to boil too. Add spices and herbs? Well, that took away land from growing root crops and all you had was native caraway, sage, thyme and rosemary. No problem, the English suffered too from a lack of natural flavoring and their food was just as dull. The only farmers of herbs and spices, the few that were available happened at the Irish monasteries and the monks there were looking to distill medicines out of them.

Know who had killer herbs, spices and access to trade routes? The Italians. Basil, bay leaves, oregano, black pepper, cloves, coriander, cumin, lavender, GARLIC, cilantro, fennel, mint, saffron, blood oranges, lemons... If they couldn't grow it they could barter for the really odd stuff coming out of the Arab states and even as far as China for ginger.

Imagine what you can cook with that vs. the Irish. Geography makes the cuisine!

**

My Mom unfortunately never could cook. Her idea of spicing up a meal was to toss McCormick's Dried Onion flakes onto burgers. I could smell them burning in the grease from my room upstairs. One time when I was 8, playing with an F-4 Phantom jet model I had, I could smell the McCormicks and I got a low grade headache. It sounds awful to say but my Mom's meatloaf was either boring or...disgusting. My brother and I would fetch the ketchup bottle out of the fridge and douse the meat with it. When asked by our Dad one night, at the kitchen table, with Mom present, why we did that my brother and I answered, almost in unison...

“To kill the taste.”

I shit you not. Talk about a total lack of manners and sensitivity to Mom! Odd thing though, not a word of rebuttal came from Dad or Mom when we said that. So...they agreed?

On Sundays it was the BIG meal when families did such things back then. Every god damn Sunday it would be “eye of round” roast. My brother and I could smell it being over cooked from our rooms and we both we dreaded it. We both could not help but to complain about it at the kitchen table as kids do. To my parents, this was a feast because it apparently was “expensive” and being kids from the Depression, this was a rare treat. If fact we were told oh-too-many times by our Dad how lucky we even had meat this good. “Shut up your complaining and eat it...I just had sandwiches for Sunday during the Depression as a kid!”

So out of the oven came this small blackened meteorite. It was served with boiled potatoes and boiled carrots. If not carrots, then those awful canned Le Sueur grayish peas. My Dad wanted the ends of the beef because they were the most cremated. I hoped that I'd get a piece closer to the center because it may be, by luck, more tender. The grayed slice would be plopped on my plate and I'd start cutting it like a surgeon, to debride out all the veins of gristle that ran through it. I'd make a little pile of them to the side of the plate. Why? Because at the time many of my teeth had apical abscesses and it chewing anything tough made them hurt. That was why I prayed for the center cut, there might be a chance it was soft enough and I excised the gristle anyway. As for the root tip infections in my teeth, that's another story for another time. (Hint: School nurse involvement!)

So, my brother and I would gag it down as quickly as possible. We eventually had learned to stop complaining and bolt the food down and we'd be away from the table as soon as we could. Later, if we were lucky, there might be a good movie on channel 56. Sunday TV was tough as it was all news shows and f'ing golf. If I ever see Jack Nicklaus...I may spit on him for hogging the TV channels so much with his damn golf career. They lionized him then like they did with Peyton Manning or Tiger Woods now. Look, if all three died crashing into a gasoline tanker truck, tasting their own blood and burned like that eye of round roast I once knew, golf and football will not cease to exist because they're gone. Sorry guys, you are NOT Gods.

Anyways...

On rare occasions, my Mom would buy a Chef Boyardee's Italian (yes, specified as “Italian”) Spaghetti & Meatball kit. It came with pre-seasoned tomato sauce, spice packets for making the meatballs, instructions and a small can of Parmesan cheese. She once re-read the instruction booklet in some disbelief as it said to simmer the sauce and meatballs for 30 minutes.

“That sounds wrong...seems too long.” she opined to us once. Hell, what did she know. This from a women who never once bought dried granulated garlic for the cupboard.

Even through the wait, my brother and I were salivating as this sauce bubbled away. The kitchen actually smelled wonderful for once. He and I dove into it once it was on our plates. Re read that, we scarfed down the Chef Boyardee for God's Sake. It's crap compared to a slap-together red sauce you might make yourself in a hurry.

**

It wasn't all misery. We used to go out to restaurants too. That was a nice reprise from the grub at home. One of Dad's favorites was Valle's by the airport in Warwick. I had like it because I discovered cubed steak there, nicely pre-chewed food for my sore teeth. He for the slabs of meat he could get on his plate. Add to that baked potatoes drowning in butter and decent, properly done veggies for once, I was a happy camper.

Except for one time...and a few hours later...not.

There was a special for blueberry pie one day at Valles's and my parents both ordered it. I instead wanted vanilla ice cream and my Dad put up a stink about how “I can get ice cream anywhere” and “This is the best blue berry pie around.” My Mom interceded by telling Dad, “Oh just let him have the ice cream” and he relented. When the desserts arrived, Dad, to rub it in, kept commenting to my Mom about how “wonderful” the pie was. He laid it on thick enough to where I just sat their, trying to enjoy my own ice cream hoping he'd just shut up.

Later on that night, when I was lying awake in bed, I could hear my Dad puking his guts out into the toilet with my Mom telling him:

“Richard! It was the pie! It tasted funny...spoiled to me when we ate it!”

“No it wasn'.....Arrrrgggh...Oooog (Splash!). Hack! Hack! Hack!......Ooooooog...a-huck, a-huck, a-huck....Arrrrrppp!” (Splash!)

Upstairs, I lay there in bed listening to this, with a mile wide smile on my face. 

 

 These peas...are the foulest things ever.