"Life is tough...even tougher when you're stupid." - John Wayne
During a recent visit to Wall Street to discuss the status of my vast investment portfolio with E.F. Hutton, I heard a commotion going on some short distance away.
I followed the scent of urine that seemed to float on the breeze, and before I knew it, there I was in Zuccotti Park.
I was surprised to see a familiar face grinning at me from beneath a hoodie. It was my old high school buddy Slug. I hadn’t seen him since I helped him to get on-line a couple of years ago.
“Dude, have you come to join us?” he asked.
I was distracted for a moment by a pirate on a unicycle, and when I turned back around, Slug was standing beside me, holding a crystal pyramid in the palm of his out-stretched hand, waving it in circles over my head.
With his arm raised so close to me, I couldn’t help but notice that Slug had been neglecting his personal hygiene.
“Slug, what are you doing?” I asked as I tried to hold my breath and back away.
“Can’t you feel the aura? I just want you to become part of the vibe we have going here,” he replied earnestly.
Suddenly, Slug grabbed me by the collar and yanked me off the sidewalk just in time to save me from being knocked down by a tattooed kid on a skateboard wearing a Spiderman mask.
“Dude,’ he said, “You gotta watch yourself around here. The 99% are restless and on the move.”
“I see that,” I commented as I looked around at the milling crowd.
“So how long have you been here, Slug?”
“I was here the first week, man! I got to see Roseanne Barr give her speech.”
“That had to be a Kodak moment,” I interjected.
Slug ignored me and continued. “When I saw that first night of protest on TV, I knew I had to come down and join my brothers and sisters. The spirit of the 60’s is back, man! Look around, dude, it’s almost like being back at Woodstock.”
A young woman, with more hair than clothing, walked past us while beating a drum and chanting, “Shame on you! Shame on you!”
“Slug, you weren’t at Woodstock! Your mom wouldn’t let you go, remember?”
“Yeah, dude, but I was there in spirit! I saw the movie AND bought the album.”
I jumped back to avoid being hit be a stray Frisbee and stepped right into a pile of poop.
“Slug, this is disgusting! How can you hang out with these slobs? Can’t you people poop in a bag or something?”
I was starting to get a headache. Between the smell and the noise, I was just not feeling the aura. I said, “Slug, aren’t you getting tired of living out here in this noisy park?”
“It’s not so bad, man. We have people cooking for us, and there are rallies every afternoon when the TV crews arrive. At night we have campfires and some pretty good jam sessions. It sure beats sitting around the house.”
“Speaking of home, how is your mom doing?”
“Mom’s fine, dude. I’m sure she misses me, but she told me to stay here as long as I want. I’ll tell her you asked about her whenever I go back.”
My head was still throbbing. “Okay, Slug, so just what exactly are you protesting?”
“I’m here because of the injustice of the capitalist system. The 99% of us struggle for survival while the elite 1% gets rich off of our labor. I want my share of the wealth. I want to have decent housing, free health care and a guaranteed pension when I retire. The corporate power structure owes us for what it has stolen from us!”
I was reaching the limits of my patience.
“Slug, what are you going to retire from? You’ve been mostly unemployed and living at home with your mom for the last 12 years.”
“Hey dude, the system is rigged so that a guy like me can’t find a decent job. I’m not going to just do manual labor…I’ve got my pride, you know.”
“So you’re too proud to take a job loading trucks, but you’re not too proud to collect food stamps, unemployment and a free unfunded pension?’
“Dude, you just don’t get it. You’ve sold out to the man. You’ll never understand how we’ve been oppressed by the system!”
“Slug, I have to go. Take care of yourself, and try to keep in touch.”
“Dude, just give me your email. As soon as my IPad recharges, I’ll make sure you’re in my address book.”
I watched Slug wander off into the crowd: A crowd of Gen-Xers eating free food, camping illegally in a public park, texting and video-recording and organizing themselves with all the technological wonders produced by the capitalist system that they claim to despise -- the same capitalist system that created the national wealth that makes possible a society rich enough, and free enough, to tolerate the immature and ungrateful behavior of a group of left-wing wackos like Occupy Wall Street.
Slug was right. I don’t get it.
