periXscope
Sex and the Citi

It’s Saturday morning and I am in a sort of Sarah Jessica Parker mood, sitting on my art nouveau sofa, having my (caffeine-free) green tea and with my lap top on my lap filling this empty space with words that come and go as easily as Sarah Jessica’s lovers. Only there is not much sex – my wife has just washed dishes and is doing laundry – and the only city in my immediate surroundings is Citibank, with its plethora of bills that have to be paid, or else--! As a taxpayer I will also have to pick up another bill in order for the Citi to be saved, if it can be saved, because its stock went further down, below the dollar, at 99 cents! Forget about e*trade, from now on we could buy stocks at the 99c stores, as Bill Maher said the other day, and if this trend continues there will be a lot of choices, not just Citi (with or without sex)!

I tend to not pay attention to conspiracy theories, although I have to admit I enjoy it sometimes, because in their hopelessness they offer the possibility to explain things that otherwise you can’t within the constraints of regular logic. This economic meltdown – which proves that--global warming is an undisputable fact – seems to have gone out of control (if you know what I mean, my fellow co-conspirators), and it threatens to submerge entire countries under surging …bills! Nobody appears to know what’s going to happen, when this thing will stop, or where it will possibly lead. And the media, controlled in this country in a way that knows no parallel in human history (NEO is an exception because nobody would bother censoring it, at least not yet) despite what regular people think, seem to either be lost in the vortex or to play games of which neither they nor we are aware. Because how can we explain the fact that they systematically sustain this notion of complete uncertainty which makes more businessmen lay off workers preemptively – another legacy of Ws – and people to cut their spending to minimum levels. Now, I’m not an economist, but this is a consumption based system, so unless you restore some kind of confidence to consumers, how do you expect to come out of this hole!

Another thing that worries me a lot is that each one of us owes to China close to $6,000 and the last thing I want is to be indebted to my neighbors (most of them are Chinese). I promised to myself to make sure I somehow come up with that money and give it to them! I always felt bad watching on TV those poor people in Chinese villages--imagine how I feel now that I know I owe them money!

It seems the only way out of this gloomy mood is to turn to Greek TV. Lately it’s become a source of consolation and it’s too bad that most Americans don’t have access to it (in this case, too, a few of us are Greek and the rest barbarians!) so that they get this ray of hope coming from the birthplace of civilization, etc. When you hear President Obama saying we don’t know how to deal with the crisis, we try various things and we keep what’s working, and then watch some other European leaders be equally at a loss, Greece comes to the rescue!

The Greek government assures people every single day that, yes, they have a plan to deal with the crisis and once approved by the European Union, case solved (same as with Olympic Airlines, basically). It’s that simple, don’t panic, people, spring is in the air after all (and the Eurovision song contest)!

Then you have the main opposition party (and what a party it was: 20 years in power with minor interruptions) PASOK, that claims, again on a daily basis, that it – and only it – has a plan that will for sure lead the country’s ship to safety (there is a whole ministry of maritime affairs, too)!

Again, look at the contrast between Greece and the rest of the (civilized) world! When others preach the imminent doom, in Athens politicians are competing with who has the best plan, same way mobile telephone companies are advertising their plans!

Time is ripe for American media and people in politics to turn to Greece for leadership. As this country’s founding fathers looked to ancient Greece for inspiration, so too our modern day “fathers” should try the proven recipe and forget about improvising. We, the people, too, should look to Greece for ideas and take to the streets to celebrate democracy, by, yes, smashing a few store windows and burning down banks (already burnt anyway)! Too bad the Christmas season is over and we can’t burn the tree at the Rockefeller Plaza as they did in Constitution Square, Athens, this last December, prompting the mayor to place a new one with a 24/7 guard around it. (If the famous tree in the Garden of Eden was equally guarded, many things would have been different, but it wasn’t Greek territory and municipal authority could not apply.)

I’m not inciting people to violence, as some of you probably have rushed to think. I’m just saying that in the spirit of trying different things to see which ones might work, why not really turn to Europe for some inspiration. And while I strongly condemn smashing windows and banks (we are going to pay for the damages) it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try some form of protest to what is going on around us. So many thousands of people have been laid off, and yet, no public outcry. Billions upon trillions have been stolen or wasted and now we have to take the bill and yet nobody is demonstrating his or her outrage. For more than four years gas prices quadrupled and again, we paid and shut up. Isn’t about time to raise our voice at least at an equal volume as Citi’s interest rate (if you fail to pay them on time just once), and say enough is enough (before you pay the bill anyway)?.

Changing the subject now: The pictures you already saw on this page--and perhaps that’s why you stopped and decided to take a look (I left this for last in purpose so that you would read the whole thing!)--are from the concert my friend Spiros Exaras (www.spirosexaras.com) and his ensemble gave with the Queens Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Constantine Kitsopoulos, who had the original idea, this past February. It was a memorable evening, as ancient rhythms that made it to traditional Greek music mingled with jazz (whose basic rhythmical structure is also built on ancient Greek tunes, refined by the mastery of African American tradition) having as background support the acoustic abundance of the symphonic orchestra. It was a unique combination that produced I could say a new sound, neither ethnic, nor jazz or classical, a sound that if properly amplified and cultivated might lead to breakthrough musical mutations of innumerable possibilities. It was also a successful combination of the ideas we discussed previously: Exaras, an accomplished jazz guitarist and composer, turned to Greece for inspiration and like Obama, he combined different things and they worked together. Let us really hope that Obama’s jam sessions will prove likewise…

DEMETRIOS RHOMPOTIS
dondemetrio@neomagazine.com

©2009 NEOCORP MEDIA

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