Today is the birthday of both of the Wrongologist’s parents, born on the same day in different years. Dad was 2 years younger than Mom, they were married for more than 50 years, and both died at 85. They were born during WWI, were teenagers during the depression, and thus missed out on the education that today, we think of as necessary to get ahead.
They lived through WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and through the greatest expansion of the middle class in our country’s history. They went from horse-drawn vehicles on the streets of Brooklyn to owning cars and consumer electronics. They were Republicans who voted for Dewey and saw Nixon resign.
Their world view was that hard work brought continuous economic improvement. They didn’t feel tied to one job − there was another one out there that paid better, that held greater responsibility, which would pay off your house, send your kids to college and provide for your retirement. They were the last of the majority stay-at-home mom generation. Dad never made more than $40k per year, but they saved enough to buy a waterfront home in Florida, and to live there until just before the time when their money ran out.
Fast forward to 2014, and people have little reason to be so optimistic. On Thursday, the NYT released a poll that found that only 64% said they still believed in the American dream, the lowest result in 20 years. The American Dream for depression-era adults was not about becoming rich, it was about being able to move upwards, to reach a greater level of prosperity, something that, from the 1950s through the 1970s, everyone believed was possible.
Now, that optimistic vision is dying for Americans like my mom and dad, and Washington doesn’t care.
Onward to music. Today we feature Tom Waits, 2011 inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Those who have heard Waits’s work know that he’ll never have to cancel a concert due to laryngitis. We start with a tune that shows how Americans were fools for the advertising of the 1970s. That’s probably an eternal condition in America, one that reflects the continuing (and wildly successful) effort on the part of corporations to sell us shit we don’t really need. Here is “Step Right Up”:
The key lyric is a thought for the ages:
“The large print giveth and the small print taketh away”
We close with “Jersey Girl”. Most people think that this song is by Bruce Springsteen, but it was written by Waits. He wrote it with is soon-to-be wife, Kathleen Brennan. This is a long video for a short tune. You can go to 3:51 where Waits says “this is for Kathleen” and just hear his version of the song, or you can listen from the beginning to his extended shtick with the audience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDAu-jdXd_c
See you Sunday.
I like most of Tom Waits songs. this one is excellent.
re other, my mother was of the same generation (born 1915). my father almost a generation older. my father worked mostly as a bookkeeper and manager in the automobile industry. he managed dealerships. maybe 6 during his career. never graduated from HS. mother was a nurse, but lived her first years in Shenandoah PA – father died in the coal mines. after marriage, she stayed at home.
though we had much less materially when i was a child (so economists might have seen us a poorer) a single earner owning his modest house and able to send his kids to college says a lot. they were better off. it is better if more of us have jobs and that the jobs are good one, than to have fewer jobs but more material goods. the economists are completely wrong.