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Op Ed

5 Reasons The Sixties Were Better

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iconic-photos-1960-man-on-moonA lot of folks will tell you this is the best time to be alive. Look at all the technology. The access to information. We’ve got entertainment coming out or going into every orifice. But some of us are old enough to remember a time when life was a bit simpler – and not just because we were young, although that’s a huge part of it, make no mistake.

Life wasn’t better for everyone in the sixties, that’s for sure. There was plenty of oppression to go around. People still hated other people because of the color of their skin or who they wanted to sleep with. Humans still stole money from each other. In fact, those things have been happening since they invented money, skin and sex – and will likely continue until the Earth resembles Mars. So why then were the sixties better? I thought you’d never ask.

5. You Could Actually Be Alone

Unless you’re stuck on a deserted island or tied up in the basement of a remote cabin in the wilderness, you can’t be alone today in ways that were possible in the sixties. Every kid today has a cellphone tethering them back to home-base. They don’t leave home without that connection, so that they can fill every bored or uncomfortable moment with screen swipes and emojis. In the 60’s you could tie up a sandwich and your little green army men in a bandanna at the end of a stick and get lost in the woods for hours. Do they even make woods anymore?*

4. The Movies Were Better

I know there are examples of bad music and movies from every era, but moving-making in the 60’s was an art. Sure, there were exploitation films and fluff, but theaters were teeming with auteur cinema like Midnight Cowboy and 8 1/2. Even the expensive studio pictures had lasting substance, like West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia and any number of Hitchcock classics. I’ll put up 2001: A Space Odyssey against any sci-fi film made today.

martin-luther-king-jr-august-19633. Hope And Change Were Everywhere

Civil rights movements were the real deal in the sixties. Not to downplay the successful movements of our day, but Martin Luther King got shit done. In fact, counter-culturalism was happening everywhere you looked whether you liked it or not – and some of those leaders were killed in the process. People were rebelling against the government and social norms in ways only halfheartedly mimicked these days. Everything from race and gender equality to gay and lesbian issues. You’d think we’d be a lot further along by now, although an African American President and gay marriage is nothing to sneeze at. Did I mention we made it to the moon in a ship made of tin foil and popsicle sticks?

2.  The Music Kicked Ass

Are you gonna fight me on this? Can you really compare today’s music with that of the 60’s? The 60’s is when music opened its own mind and invited everyone inside. There was something for everyone. You could turn on terrestrial radio and hear folk, blues, jazz, country, and rock in equal measure. Musicians were bursting with talent. Can you really compare Justin Bieber to Ray Charles? Or Demi Lovato to Aretha Franklyn or Janis Joplin? Can Coldplay ever compare to the Beatles or the Stones? Methinks not. And as good a guitar player as John Mayer may be, he’d be nothing without trailblazers like Hendrix, Clapton and Page. And if you’re gonna try to compare Lollapalooza to the original Woodstock, don’t waste your breath. There were no little boutique booths at Woodstock, I can assure you, and you were about as far away from a latte as humanly possible.

1. No 24/7 Media

There’s a lot of folks on this planet. Shit is gonna happen. But the more you hear about it the more paranoid and anxious you become. Unless you’re the kind of person that can put these things into proper perspective, you might be overwhelmed by factoids whose sole purpose are to make you uncomfortable. I’m not saying ignorance is bliss… oh, maybe that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Let’s put it this way… if the media decided to run stories everyday about folks getting struck by lightening, you’d be anxious about being struck by lighting. Meanwhile, you’re just as likely to win the lottery – and we both know you ain’t never gonna be struck by lighting or win the lottery. In the sixties we learned that the media is the message. We were warned that those that control the media control the minds of the great unwashed – as well as a generous helping of the washed, let’s be honest.

TV was doing everything it could to carry the outdated messages of the 50’s into living rooms everywhere. But not everyone had a TV, and if you did, you had a handful of stations that all signed off when they ran out of stuff to say. Like I’m gonna do now.

EssexVT1965_01_3000

 

 

 

 

*Apologies to George Carlin

Article

Rest Easy Eric Curran a.k.a M.C Krispy E

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Almost every year for the past 6 years and on the same day, I’ve posted the same pic of me in the hospital  during my temporary and untimely demise  in 2015. A few weeks after I was back to “normal”, I asked Eric “Why’d you take the pics?” And he said, “I knew you would want to write about it if you lived.” Eric was right. Eric was often right and Eric always had my best interest at heart. I am going to miss my friend.

You ever meet someone and become friends immediately?! Well this was not the case with Eric. Before he was my manager at Morgan Stanley, I would often see this 6’4″, giant white guy walk up to the only black woman at work, say something then walk away without any hint of human emotion. Naturally I thought he was a jerk until I asked her “Yo, is that dude bothering you?” She laughed and proceeded to tell me he was a great person, which I ultimately got to experience first hand. Little did I know this Italian from Staten Island was more Brooklyn than most Brooklynites.

Eric was not with the shits!! If there were ever someone who lived their life in direct, honest and no uncertain terms, that would be Eric. He would ask me questions at work like “Why are the other consultants making more money than you?” I knew the answer to that question and so did he. Eric then proceeded to increase my salary by 15K. After arguing with all our managers that “You need to hire Alfred!”, they eventually did 1 year prior to the 2015 incident. In the hospital, one of my friends asked me, “What if you didn’t have health insurance when this happened?” I would be in debt for the rest of my life is the obvious answer. I still am in debt for the rest of my life but at least, it is to those who made sure I had a more enjoyable life and for that, I will gladly repay.

My mom loved to tell me the story of how she met Eric. After they told her I was going to be in the ICU for some time, she told the doctor “Well I’m not going anywhere.” She then hears a voice from that back of the room that says “Well I’m not going anywhere either!” That was Eric and in true form, he was at that hospital every single day until I was discharged.

Eric passed away in December 2021 of stage 4 cancer. After feeling faint on his way to my bbq, he went to get checked out and was diagnosed. During the past 5 years, Eric lost his mom, twin brother and dad. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like but I’m glad that pain he was feeling is no more.

It’s been a bit difficult to deal with it to be quite honest and I’ve been writing this in my head for years but never had the bravery or grace to accept that my friend wouldn’t be here soon. I also can’t imagine what it must be like to lose your entire family nucleus unexpectedly. In true Eric fashion however, I would like this to not be about me but whomever has lost someone and has been coping. I’ve always intimated that my life would not be as enriched as it was were it not for the people in it. The problem with that is there is also no way to deny that it feels empty without those who helped craft your path. Rather than focus on the negative, I would rather focus on the examples of duty, family and emotional intelligence. All concepts reinforced by Eric that have led me to have successful relationships since I’ve put them into practice.

From being my manager to my business partner, writer, book editor, artistic director, and most importantly, my friend, I am going to miss you MC Krispy E a.k.a “Enrique Pollazo!” And although you told me Enrique means Henry in Spanish and not Eric, it was too late!

Sidebar. The day I was discharged, while everyone was deciding what was best for me, no one had remembered that I would need clothes in order to leave the hospital. Eric shows up (unasked) with all the clothes I had on the day I coded, laundered and ready to go. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve friends like this but i need to keep doing it! Sidebar complete.

Rest in Peace Eric. “Be Good.”

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Op Ed

And Knowing is Half the Battle…

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I’ve seen Terminator references used to argue against Artificial Intelligence, foreign movie clips used to “prove” the pandemic was a well executed plan and baseless clips from folk with large media followings telling me all about vaccines and how I should interact with science.

My concrete and definitive conclusion is that the person least likely to make a mistake is the person with the most training / experience, not the person with the most social media followers / apprehension.

We put too much faith in what lies behind a screen instead of those who actually engage in the practice. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with paring common sense and common science.

I get it though. I like to take part in conversations too but if you aren’t willing to do any work further than clicking a share button simply because you just want to engage, you were genuinely more effective sitting on the sidelines.

I trust NASA more than I trust Rocket Racoon. I trust Tesla more than I trust Cyberdyne and I trust DOCTORS more than I trust my friends, celebrities and any other schmuck burger with a social media platform propagating nonsense.

SIDEBAR I don’t know if y’all heard of this thing called The Internet but its amazing! People mostly keep their booby pictures on it but it also has something called GOOGLE that you can use research stuff. Some of y’all should check it out. SIDEBAR COMPLETE.

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Op Ed

Robbing Hoods and Stopping Games

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Ten bullet points for your reading pleasure:
  1. Every single time the stock market crashed, it was done by the “professionals.”
  2. If a group of folk can get together in a chat room and legally take BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FROM YOU IN YOUR OWN PROFESSION…IN DAYS, you may wanna reevaluate how professional you are.
  3. Retail investors had nothing to do with the Great Depression, Black Friday, Black Monday, the internet bubble or the housing bubble. That was Institutional.
  4. I’ve never seen so much call for regulation in the stock market from those who typically make the most money in my life. I believe the correct financial term is #BigMad
  5. They aren’t upset retail investors are making money. They are upset retail investors are making the market place volatile, making it harder for THEM to make money long term.
  6. Why was there not this level of concern when retail investors were losing their pensions and IRAs at all other instances?
  7. Why are hedge funds even allowed to use people’s pensions to short sell?!
  8. If you are using your rent or mortgage to invest in the stock market, you have bigger issues. #gambleholic
  9. Retail investors have never had a platform nor the income to throw markets off. They still don’t.
  10. No one has a problem with the rules until it works against their own interests.

Bonus: When you gamble, you could either win or lose. Investors don’t need to be CPAs to understand that concept.

Sidebar; Pay more attention to your money management!! Sidebar complete.

Happy Friday!!

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