Shady (or The Lottery Ticket)

Can someone explain this grift? I'm quite puzzled. So... Well, let me start at the beginning... Sunday afternoon at loose ends and needing to escape the pandemic and getting depressed at America gearing up to vote (again) for depraved indifference, I thought I'd go buy a Powerball ticket...

Now I'm an engineer, a devotee of Bayesian thinking, I weigh probabilities on almost every decision I make, risk averse is my middle name. Let alone the cautious immigrant, protestant/Quaker influence. So this business about gambling (even with a billion dollar jackpot) was a big step.

Earlier, I'd been discussing lotteries, gambling, and addiction with The 11 year old, pointing out that I was more likely to be struck by lightning walking to buy a lottery ticket than to win, that most saw lotteries as a tax on poor people or the statistically challenged etc.

I'd pointed out that what most people gain from playing the lottery is the psychic benefit of imagining what they would do if they won. Two dollars for a fantasy of affluence is cheaper than dinner and a movie (pandemic permitting) or a montly subscription for a Netflix and chill.

She'd heard all the cautionary tales of substance abuse, addiction and obsession - the black sheep of the family. She'd heard how my second semester at Harvard was almost derailed by those three weeks bingeing on Tetris (of all things) so that I immediately uninstall any games on any device I own.

The 11 year old was unconvinced, she knows about obsession. "Just don't go overboard, Daddy. Maybe just buy a couple of tickets". She also made me agree that I should share any winnings with her and her brother. This one is actually interested in money.

The only time I've won a game of chance was 10 pounds at the lottery in England in 2012, just before the Olympics. That was the trip where Theresa May's hostile environment welcomed me by withdrawing my residency to Her Majesty's lands. Call it My Windrush (or Indefinite Leave to Remain).

Tell a lie, I did also win the Green Card lottery in 1995 - the first time I applied. And the first (and only) time that bureaucracy had ever tilted in my direction.

Normally I am fated to run into a Never Never Man. Sigh...

Anyway, my US residency and the 10 pounds I had won were the consolation prizes when I returned from that disastrous trip to London. I wasn't deported, but I'd have to be dealing with lawyers to contest and regain my UK residency. My animus towards Theresa May is rather personal...

Incidentally, IBM's lawyers helped expedite my naturalization and I was able to submit the paperwork just days before the first Gingrich Federal government shutdown. Thank you Clinton-Gore for keeping things moving. Those 1995-1996 shutdowns really caused upheaval and backlogs.

My salary increased by $30,000 that year. A commentary on just how exploitative the H-1 visa process is. Much as I'd like to think that IBM thought I was a stellar employee, I know that the salary adjustment was a fraction of the money they'd save on legal fees for processing an H-1 visa

Anyway... I walked down to our local corner store. Four years in the neighborhood and I've never entered the place. The Wife had warned me off in the early days. Their stock was stale, rancid even, the one time she'd bought some bananas, "They were rotten!".

But mostly it's the corner that's the issue. We've been doing the African gentrification of East Austin but that pocket is the last holdout of the bad days. I guess you'd say it's an active scene. Not quite Hamsterdam, but it's not wholesome. If there is still a drug scene, it's around there.

The South East Asian lady behind the counter looked at me with jaded but anthropological interest - wearing a KN94 mask in these times seems to be a cultural signifier. The Grand Reopening of Texas was in May 2020.

I asked whether they sold lottery tickets, and asked for $20 worth of Powerball tickets - I haven't used cash since March 2020, so the bill that I pulled from my wallet looked quite the worse for wear. Dusty, but I plopped it down on the counter with alacrity. You have to look confident.

Eyebrows raised at the layers of pocket lint on the bill, she moved to the lottery machine. And then the puzzle starts. I expected a 30 second transaction. Press to select Powerball, press 2, press 0, press Enter ($20). Press Print to print the ticket.

Instead it sounded like a old dot-matrix printer was at work, and it was going on for an eternity it seemed. She kept punching numbers and she kept printing. What gives?

Anyway after a good 3 minutes she walked back brandishing a stack of tickets. Okay I thought, maybe it was an older machine and she couldn't print all the tickets on one slip. Still, it was a little suspect.

She then proceeded to count out the tickets ostentatiously. 1, 2... to 10. Handed the 10 tickets to me, and pocketed the other 3 at the bottom of the pile. She smiled and turned to the movie she was watching (a Bollywood joint).

"Thank you ma'am. Have a good day".

So as I walked out and took off my mask, I started to wonder about the nature of the grift that was being perpetrated here. I first checked that I indeed had my 10 tickets. I satisfied myself that I wasn't being directly stiffed but I felt used somehow - dirty, unclean.

Was she stiffing the lottery company? And how did the scam work? I know that there was a notional $6 excess that I'd last seen go into her pocket. Call it the bezzle. But how was it redeemed? Was it the $6 that mattered or the lottery ticket? Or were both the bonus she sought?

Double entry accounting. Where was this $6 surplus going? If she was reporting a $26 sale to the lottery, where was the other $6 coming from? Was she doing a Breaking Bad money laundering in a cash heavy business type of transaction?

Or was it just about the ticket? Was there a pool of extra tickets that the owners can distribute? Launder money while potentially increasing one's odds of winning? Tilting the scales of "It could happen to you!"

Can someone explain the likely mechanics of the grift? What is the nature of the bezzle? Who is getting shafted here other than us taxpayers? There's skimming going on, but how exactly?

Shady, a playlist

A soundtrack for this anecdote (spotify version)

• Shady by Dwele
• Shady Lady by Ohio Players
• Something Just Ain't Right by Keith Sweat

Postscript: I obviously didn't win the lottery but gained 25 odd tweets and food for thought for my trouble

File under: life, culture, observation, corruption, fraud, perception, humour, Observers arew orried, toli

Writing log. November 6, 2022

The Corruption Tango (Part 4 The World's Lawyer)

Part 4 of The Corruption Tango (see previously)

IV. The World's Lawyer

My dear uncle, of blessed memory, used to work at the World Bank
He had a seat at the table, he'd risen to a high rank

With world movers and shakers, many said to be covered in glory
From his vantage point, up close and personal, he saw the backstory

Of many of the headlines that we would later read in the daily news
He was intimately familiar with the ways in which due process was abused

The haste with which the bounds of propriety
   would be promptly set aside
And the board's directors would say the magic words: let's override

It often happened to coincide happily
   with what the American president wants
The fig leaves of accountability
   that were forsaken in light of such demands

A lawyer, he rose in the profession
   to become the bank's top legal counsel
Jokingly, he referred to his job as the restraint of the world's scoundrels

For even though he constantly sided "with the ninety nine percent"
His very salary and position placed him firmly in the one percent

He saw through those demanding structural adjustment and reforms
Shifting the blame to Third World cultural traditions and lax norms

For much of the impetus came from these selfsame First World rogues
Who would emphasize whatever fine words happened to be in vogue

The hubris of people in glass houses and all that
He chose his moments to bring up inconvenient facts

What with his work on matters of compliance in the banking sector
Conversations with him were always revelatory chapters

He was quite jaded, if not cynical, about human fallibility
Hard-boiled even, such are the wages of observing venality

I imagine it was like shooting the breeze with a vice cop
He'd seen it all, try as I could, there was nothing that could shock

The media accounts always focus on
   the weak country and the bribe taker
Scapegoats: the low trust culture, and the willingly suborned insider

Thus it was written, that huhudious drama of the cease and desist
Almost always turned out in practice to amount to a mere slap on the wrist

It makes you wonder who is writing the script
About these scandals and dirty politics

While there would later be an almanac of political corruption
His contribution was to write the book on combating corruption

Human beings were not too far removed from the garden of Eden
When it became second nature for some to deceive and scheme

Lying for money is akin to original sin
Envy, greed, all these can pave the way to embezzling

There's always the other side to these affairs and imbroglios
Recall the old song, it takes two to do the corruption tango

The Corruption Tango: A Playlist

A soundtrack for this note. (spotify version)

• Takes22tango by Dwele
  The funky shuffle and irresistible step, see Snoop vibe out to the groove.
• (It Takes) Two To Tango by Lester Young With Oscar Peterson
  A fun romp in the studio. "Take off your drawers ...", now there's a seduction
• It Takes Two by Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston
  Baby... to make a thing go right.
• Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock - It Takes Two
  You better think
• Think (About It) by Lyn Collins
  One of James Brown's great productions. Mama Feelgood herself, duly sampled by Rob Base and countless others.
• Just the Two of Us by Grover Washington, Jr. and Bill Withers
  We can make it we try, you and I
• Two Of Us by Cameo
  Although this is more in the devotional mode, the lyrics are instructive

  You've got to help one another

• Think Twice by Erykah Badu (feat. Roy Hargrove)
  A lazy groove, easy living
• Sleaze by Abstrac'
  "A low down dirty excuse for a man"
• Hypocrites by Alpha Blondy
  I too am scared of hypocrites.
• Thinkin' One Thing and Doin' Another by Miles Davis
  On the Corner, he went for the electric funk.
• Tea For Two by Thelonious Monk
  Well the Criss-Cross album is full of contention. A real cooking session.
• Two-Part Contention by Dave Brubeck
  Continuing in the jazz mode, this is a solo piano piece
• Takes Two To Tango by Ray Charles and Betty Carter
  Two great vocal stylists enjoying their meeting. We know that Ray was one for the ladies, but there's no word on if he was able to corrupt her royal highness.
• Talkin' Out The Side Of Your Neck by Cameo
  Speaking with forked tongue
• Two Can Win Jay Dee
  An ironic title, he samples "only one can win". Dilla's donuts are bananas.
• Baby, You Oughta Think It Over by Bobby Womack
  Walk away with your head held high
• Dinner for Two by Michael Cooper
  The Cameo alumni goes mellow
• Who Do You Think You're Fooling (pt 1 & 2) by Symphonic Four
  Quintessential soul music, a divine lead falsetto and rugged background vocals, the boys are a chorus: "when your mind stinks, you forget your soul"
• Carriage For Two by Tricky
  In the background you hear Lady Day's lyrics: "God bless the child that's got his own". The album title is apposite: Angels With Dirty Faces
• Hypocrites by Bob Marley
• Tea For Two by Jacky Terrasson & Cassandra Wilson
  A delicate, nightly rendezvous

The Corruption Tango

A dance in four movements.

1. A Touch of Sleaze
2. Cease and Desist
3. The Temptation of Black Gold
4. The World's Lawyer

I nominate this internal displacement for The Things Fall Apart series. It's a family tradition to call out Fallen Angels.

File under: corruption, culture, observation, perception, humour, USA, rogues, oil, Black Gold, gremlins, parasites, interplay, capitalism, poetry, economics, regulation, Fallen Angels, Africa, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log: Concept: July 7, 2005; March 11, 2021

The Corruption Tango (Part 3 The Temptation of Black Gold)

Part 3 of The Corruption Tango (see previously)

III. The Temptation of Black Gold

Meanwhile, this century has seen a number of elections in Nigeria
Our West African brethren, branded poster child for chaos and disorder

And the conventional wisdom from, say, The Economist was hardly honorable
Sample headline: Nigeria's elections - Big men, big fraud and big trouble

Home of the hustle, the country is continually in the headlines
Tales of shenanigans galore and the entrenched climate of the 419

You'll read things like "rotten at the core", fodder for scoundrels
But doesn't that also describe the options backdating scandal?

Western media hardly covers the good news in the darkest continent
Would that they would apply the same scrutiny to shell games on their end

I actually think it's miraculous for such a large country to keep moving
And even take more than baby steps after decades of misrule and killing

Everyone wants things to move fast,
   corruption is surely a tax on the common man
But every complex ecosystem has parasites,
   that shouldn't be hard to understand

So there will always be the temptation of black gold
It's human nature, a golden target will never get old

Then there are stories like "Saudi prince received arms cash"
That focus on the recipient, the venal prince with the stash

And not on the British multinational arms company
That so happily disbursed those fistfuls of golden money

Observers are worried, how doth the little crocodile?
It seems as if many prefer to affect denial

There seems to be something rather structural at hand
For perverse incentives, seem to be part of the plan

It doesn't seem to matter that the shadow looms of the regulator
The threat of enforcement actions and severe sanctions hardly matter

High profile companies are unbothered
   by the specter of the compliance officer
Ignored, and written off, with a touch of sleaze
   and the workings of the human factor

Or, more formally, the temptations are an inherent part of the process
In this light, bribery is viewed as part of the cost of doing business

There are two sides to this social disease, it just goes to show
That it takes two to do the corruption tango

Black Gold, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note(spotify version)

• I am the black gold of the sun by Rotary Connection
• Black gold by Gene Harris and the Three Sounds
• Black gold by Flying Lotus
• Black gold by Esperanza Spalding
• I am the black gold of the sun by Nuyorican Soul
• Filthy McNasty by Horace Silver

See also: The Corruption Tango: A Playlist

The Corruption Tango

A dance in four movements.

1. A Touch of Sleaze
2. Cease and Desist
3. The Temptation of Black Gold
4. The World's Lawyer

I nominate this internal displacement for The Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Fallen Angels.

Next: Part 4 The World's Lawyer

File under: corruption, culture, observation, perception, humour, USA, rogues, oil, Black Gold, gremlins, parasites, interplay, capitalism, poetry, economics, regulation, Fallen Angels, Africa, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log. Concept: July 7, 2005; March 10, 2021

The Corruption Tango (Part 2 Cease and Desist)

Part 2 of The Corruption Tango

II. Cease and Desist

I was piqued by a little commented-upon story the other day
Well it was a while ago, a little illustration of the games people play

It happened in the shadow of a tragedy you might have heard in the news
It concerned the dealings of a company that rhymes with Baker Hughes

Baker Hughes then being the world's third-largest oilfield services company
You'd no doubt hear its name in the same breath as other high flying somebodies

Like the more notorious Chevron, Exxon, or say Haliburton
Oil and gas services icons and so forth, etcetera, anon

The company's slogan they extol, I must say, is quite endearing:
Core values of integrity, teamwork, performance and learning

Indeed Baker Hughes completed 100 years of corporate history in 2007
It's a wonderful company, Texas-raised, Katrina relief, volunteer heaven

It couldn't have been good to be front and center in the New York Times
Luckily for them, a couple of fallen towers had changed the headlines

The following passage has to be one of my favourite illustrations
Of the corruption tango's reach, and enduring vexations

In an action that was filed on September 12, 2001,
And received little attention at the time, (imagine that?)
Baker Hughes agreed to a cease-and-desist order
Issued by the Securities and Exchange Commision, which said that
It had (repeatedly) violated the Corrupt Practices Act
By bribing an official in Indonesia.

That cease-and-desist order appeared to have had little impact
On the company's behavior, (they stayed on the wrong track)
The S.E.C. action filed Wednesday indicated
It said the payments in Kazakhstan and Angola
Went on from 1998 to 2003, while those to an agent
Involved in securing business in Russia
And Uzbekistan went on from 1998 to 2004, and payments in Indonesia
Went on from 2000 to 2003. Payments in Nigeria
Were made from 2001 to 2005, the S.E.C. said.

In 2003, the company initiated an investigation,
But, the S.E.C. said, it did not uncover some of the violations,
Which allowed them to continue. (End of digression)

Now we shouldn't tar the company with a broad brush for the sins of bad apples
As we surely know that there are rogue elements in the wild, at any level

We need to tread carefully with allegations of insider trading
The bezzle takes a plethora of forms, not least self dealing

It's a matter of concern that culture can undermine the sinews
Far be it to attack the company that rhymes with Baker Hughes

There is a serious commitment to governance, audit, ethics and the environment
I need not say more, there are vast quantities of material on their web site

And, of course, all companies are made out of people in reality
And there are only people behaving, and sometimes, behaving badly

Go back to the founders, Howard Hughes senior's name adds color to the dance
James Ellroy made American Tabloid pulp out of the sleaze of the son

Heck I know some of those characters, the company's storied alumni include Red Adair
Good old John Wayne depicted him in a great b-movie as a prized hellfighter

So distinguished is the composition of its board, it isn't funny
I guess it's plainly obvious that Big Oil attracts Big Money

Check the resumes: Big Banks, Big Real Estate, and Big Property
Curriculum vitae: Imperial Tobacco, Big Insurance, Big Industry

Big Politics, former U.S. Ambassadors to Israel, Syria, the Pentagon
Big Men, Generals and Comptrollers of the U.S. Army, Federal Credit Unions

Needless to say the lineup of shareholders and executives are storied
How then could they possibly be out of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley?

With that kind of oversight, no one should ever question their integrity
I only mention the story to highlight the interplay, the weakness of humanity

The logic of capitalism: the perverse incentives for those in the know
It is no secret, after all, that it takes two to do the corruption tango

Cease and Desist: A Playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Don't Be that Way by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
• Stop Shammin' by Big Daddy Kane
• I Don't Want To Do Wrong by Gladys Knight & the Pips
• Stop! Don't by Count Basie and Joe Williams
• I Don't Need This Trouble by Alice Russell
• Stop by J Dilla
• I Don't Go For That by Quincy Jones
• Stop Think it Over by Jimmy & Eddie
• Stop by Lizz Wright
• It Don't Work Like That by Bugz in the Attic
• You Can't Stop The Rain by Loose Ends
• Can't Stop A Man by Beres Hammond
• I Can't Go For That by Hall & Oates
• Can't Stop by After 7
• Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough by Michael Jackson
  I was tempted to use I Can't Help It instead but I think this message better fits the behavior and modus operandi of the company that rhymes with Baker Hughes and others in that vein.

See also: The Corruption Tango: A Playlist

The Corruption Tango

A dance in four movements.

1. A Touch of Sleaze
2. Cease and Desist
3. The Temptation of Black Gold
4. The World's Lawyer

I nominate this internal displacement for The Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Fallen Angels.

Next: Part 3 The Temptation of Black Gold

File under: corruption, culture, observation, perception, humour, USA, rogues, oil, Black Gold, gremlins, parasites, interplay, capitalism, poetry, economics, regulation, Fallen Angels, Africa, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log: Concept: July 7, 2005; March 9, 2021

The Corruption Tango

A dance in four movements.

I. A Touch of Sleaze

I know, I know, an oil company bribing in Kazakhstan,
Angola, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia and Uzbekistan?

Captain Obvious, who would have thought it? Why bother, very passé
Or, alternatively for the more world weary, isn't that so blasé?

It's the very definition of oil barons everywhere in the wild west
That's how robber barons and monopolists amass their treasure chests

So nineteenth century, so railroad tycoon, so captain of industry
So very Portuguese explorer, so very East India Company

And truth be told, it's really no big thing,
A bit of imperialism or monopolistic trading

To make a such a fetish out of a few bribing actions
In a world of rampant stock market manipulation

Where we celebrate ruthless and unscrupulous business practices
On a frequency and scale worthy of a swaggering industrialist

It's not like rubber farming in Liberia by way of the Dunlop family
It's not like a banana republic run by the United Fruit Company

It's a small thing, just a temporary lapse in ethics
That found ordinary Joes caught looting in a crisis

The post-facto rationalization of age old greed is termed mercantilism
Humbug, as Marx might have remarked, it's the thin veneer of capitalism

Fortune favors the bold, the lure of black gold makes brave men take chances
Well... yes and no. Bear with me if you will, as I invite you to a dance.

We aren't talking of eccentric moguls in wonky health
Using exploitative strategies to amass wealth

Profit making for those with an aversion to shame
Pure pricing power for winners of the great game

Rapacious, these highway bandits, to the third degree
The simple secret of their success is a touch of sleaze

There will be blood, if not exploitation, by these canny merchants
There's always a shortcut when you encounter Never Never Man

The preferred tactic of this nouveau aristocracy
Best exemplified by Rockefeller and Carnegie

Is to scrub reputations with overdue philanthropy
Extravagant gestures, museums and public libraries

Serenely unrepentant in his lifetime was the colossus named Rhodes
Even since, the legacy scrubbing has taken on colleges and scholarships

So manifest was his destiny - his confession of faith doth nakedly appall
That centuries later, the cries continue to ring out that Rhodes must Fall

The biographers can argue about his complicated legacy, of course
But unlike Alfred Nobel's example, there was no buyer's remorse

Fallen angels like him and King Leopold
   practiced the conqueror's catechism
What many forget is that, during their lifetimes,
   they faced the charge of racism

But these are merely the opening steps,
   as when the dancers gather for the show
The intimate legacies of men,
   it takes two to do the corruption tango

The Corruption Tango: A Playlist

A soundtrack for this note. (spotify version)

• Takes22tango by Dwele
  The funky shuffle and irresistible step, see Snoop vibe out to the groove.
• (It Takes) Two To Tango by Lester Young With Oscar Peterson
  A fun romp in the studio. "Take off your drawers ...", now there's a seduction
• It Takes Two by Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston
  Baby... to make a thing go right.
• Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock - It Takes Two
  You better think
• Think (About It) by Lyn Collins
  One of James Brown's great productions. Mama Feelgood herself, duly sampled by Rob Base and countless others.
• Just the Two of Us by Grover Washington, Jr. and Bill Withers
  We can make it we try, you and I
• Two Of Us by Cameo
  Although this is more in the devotional mode, the lyrics are instructive

  You've got to help one another

• Think Twice by Erykah Badu (feat. Roy Hargrove)
  A lazy groove, easy living
• Sleaze by Abstrac'
  "A low down dirty excuse for a man"
• Hypocrites by Alpha Blondy
  I too am scared of hypocrites.
• Thinkin' One Thing and Doin' Another by Miles Davis
  On the Corner, he went for the electric funk.
• Tea For Two by Thelonious Monk
  Well the Criss-Cross album is full of contention. A real cooking session.
• Two-Part Contention by Dave Brubeck
  Continuing in the jazz mode, this is a solo piano piece
• Takes Two To Tango by Ray Charles and Betty Carter
  Two great vocal stylists enjoying their meeting. We know that Ray was one for the ladies, but there's no word on if he was able to corrupt her royal highness.
• Talkin' Out The Side Of Your Neck by Cameo
  Speaking with forked tongue
• Two Can Win Jay Dee
  An ironic title, he samples "only one can win". Dilla's donuts are bananas.
• Baby, You Oughta Think It Over by Bobby Womack
  Walk away with your head held high
• Dinner for Two by Michael Cooper
  The Cameo alumni goes mellow
• Who Do You Think You're Fooling (pt 1 & 2) by Symphonic Four
  Quintessential soul music, a divine lead falsetto and rugged background vocals, the boys are a chorus: "when your mind stinks, you forget your soul"
• Carriage For Two by Tricky
  In the background you hear Lady Day's lyrics: "God bless the child that's got his own". The album title is apposite: Angels With Dirty Faces
• Hypocrites by Bob Marley
  Dry land tourists feigning airs
• Tea For Two by Jacky Terrasson & Cassandra Wilson
  A delicate, nightly rendezvous

The Corruption Tango

A dance in four movements.

1. A Touch of Sleaze
2. Cease and Desist
3. The Temptation of Black Gold
4. The World's Lawyer

I nominate this internal displacement for The Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Fallen Angels.

Next: Part 2: Cease and Desist

File under: corruption, culture, observation, perception, humour, USA, rogues, oil, Black Gold, gremlins, parasites, interplay, capitalism, poetry, economics, regulation, Fallen Angels, Africa, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log. Concept: July 7, 2005; March 8, 2021

Never Never Man

Never Never Man, portrait of the naysayer
Altogether satisfied with his station,
   atop his perch, call it his fiefdom
"How about a donation, young man?"
   He laid out the usual corruption
Frustrated, for all that was required
   was a signature or a stamp
How hard was it for him to do his job?
   It was hard to understand
Blaming bureaucracy was beside the point,
   the obstacle was clearly this man
Stalling, and then declaiming action,
   "It's out of my hands"

Never Never Man, you know, you're really a trial
When it comes to getting things done,
   your only response is denial
Nevermind that some of us have wider ambitions
Now we've run headlong into your mounting obstruction
Gnomic. "It can't be done",
   and other pronouncements with no explanation
And, when confronted,
   a torrent of lies, misdirection, and evasion
A bright remark, a non-sequitur,
   and you simply change the subject
Then you act like you don't understand things,
   "with all due respect"

Never Never Man, what kind of life is this?
For weeks now, I’ve been trekking early to the head office
Camping out, waiting for the appointment I’ve been promised
The labyrinth of corridors and offices that I roam
It feels as if the waiting room is now my second home
Trapped as I am, internally displaced in the torrid zone
I've learned that home truth: no one is coming, you're on your own

Never Never Man, being around you
   has turned into a kind of quagmire
The roadblock was this man,
   with his easy, expectant smile, and baleful laughter
Who had no conscience, no compunction,
   treating me as if my name was Kafka
I'd never given bribes before, this would be new territory
But then I'd never encountered such a brazen adversary
Finally, I gave up on my scruples because I really had to go
The moral of the story: it takes two to do the corruption tango

Never Never Man we can't pin you down, you're inscrutable
Nay, your fortress of ineptitude is impenetrable
The original Doctor No, a real life Bond villain
Messing things up for my wife and children
Try as I can (and I've tried) to make my point understood
Never Never Man, simply put, you're no good

This folktale is dedicated to my mother's favorite insult and, sadly, our perennial foil, Never Never Man, the patron saint of the stall and runaround.

Never Never Man, a playlist

A soundtrack to relieve my frustration (spotify version).

• No Good Man by Billie Holiday
• Waiting in Vain by Bob Marley
• You Know I'm No Good by Amy Winehouse
• Never Change by Jay-Z
• What Have You Done For Me Lately by Janet Jackson
• Never Enough by Groove Theory
• Never Stop by The Brand New Heavies
• Never, Never, Never by Josh Tatofi
• You're No Good by Linda Rondstadt
• No Good Man by Nina Simone

Postcript

When I shared this note with The Wife, she read into it another Never Never Man that was the bane of our existence some years ago, a jobsworth sans pareil. I had completely excised his face, his name, and indeed the eighteen month ordeal we suffered at his expense, from my memory, which is how I deal with post-traumatic stress, I suppose. The Wife couldn't see any humour in things, she still bears him a grudge for what he put us through. I pray you have the good fortune to run away at the first chance when you encounter your own Never Never Man. As I can attest, it's much safer in the long run.

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: humour, rogues, life, satire, folktale, culture, observation, corruption, perception, bureaucracy, gremlins, parasites, frustration, poetry, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: March 16, 2021

Cooking Session

Stomach infrastructure they called it
As they prepared the gravy train
The new procedures thickened a stew of no bid contracts
The compliance regulations were taken with a grain of salt

Everything was on the menu, advance fee appetizers
Intricate patterns of exchange, they favored mob lawyers
And accountants cooking books as their waiters
Private bankers their sommeliers and kitchen managers

All you can eat buffets were their favored configuration
The restaurant served as chef's special an awoof conception
The nubile hostesses made sure to procure golden mangos
Presentation is all, they danced the corruption tango

The Cayman Island cocktail umbrellas were made of Panama Papers
Elaborate Swiss cheese accounts and other stylized confections
Tax sheltering strategies, ever heard of Bahamian thyme leaves?
Divert this way and and that, there is no honor among thieves

Some had bland taste, they didn't care for exotic spices
They simply laid on the pork and summoned greasy bribes
Others went for prime cuts of steak and sometimes jive turkey
They liked their portions wrapped in bacon or beef jerky

Still others in their tribe preferred things medium rare
They hid old wine in new bottles in offshore tax havens
And for desert they loaded on mints and chocolate candy
The back end of any transaction with a confirmed sugar daddy

After dinner they would pass the Courvoisier, Schnapps and brandy
A few had low taste and chose Bucks Fizz and Drambuie
Those at the high table went with choice liquor and aged port
To nosy squares they had the ready retort, "See you in the courts"

Later, they would steam open the overstuffed cash envelopes
Punch drunk on money, their elixir of life, that champagne bubble
They were secure in the knowledge that they would enjoy the bezzle
At the very least until the first untainted auditor's report

As the cooking session ended they would sing together with soul
That old favorite blues song, I want a little sugar in my bowl
Mouth watering profits the fruits of their shell games
For these grifters had herd immunity to shame

"Pot belly democracy" is the Ghanaian expression. "Stomach infrastructure" is the Kenyan term. African politicians know the deal.

— Shell Games

Further listening and reading:

• Comfort Food and Rare Groove
• A Hungry Playlist
• An Awoof Conception
• A Dictionary of African Politics by Nic Cheeseman, Eloïse Bertrand, and Sa’eed Husaini.

Timing is everthing
Observers are worried

File under: humour, satire, culture, language, corruption, food, rogues, crime, fraud, observation, hatchet job, shell game, Observers are worried, poetry, metaphor, toli

Writing log: February 14, 2021

The Justice and The Secretary

While the good books say that the sins of the fathers
Shouldn't always be visited upon the sons,
They are silent, however, and take no stance
On the disposition of the sleaze of the fathers.

I'm thinking, of course, of Thatcher, mère et fils,
And now, curiously, as I read my morning paper -
A news item that provided head-scratching fodder,
Of Justices and Secretaries, that is, Scalia, père et fils.

It is no calumny to note the phantom thread of greed
That ran through the members of the earlier generation,
But one hadn't counted on the sense of aristocratic entitlement,
Let alone the behavior of the younger outlined here: rule aversion

The brash prickliness and manifest destiny
That the latter are displaying freely suggests
That everything in their world boils down to access
Thus the apple never falls far from the tree of iniquity.
The claim was that he "broke with normal department practice
In seeking a settlement and abused his authority"

As I read the article, it was full of uneasy phrases, and a minor miracle:
The scion's "intervention in a pay discrimination case against Oracle".
My ears perked at the mention of my erstwhile employer
There's "a lot at stake in the case, which originated in the Obama
Administration". Well, well, well. Say it ain't so.
I recalled that it takes two to do the corruption tango.

"Nothing irregular or improper"
"Declines to comment on personnel matters"
"Does not comment on ongoing litigation
Or improperly disclosed settlement negotiations"

No one wants such formality, hell,
In a pandemic, we are all disheveled
"Surprised that she would involve herself
On such a granular level"

We're talking billions here, it's no small amount
"The Labor Department had no comment on that account"
"Sought to reassign [her]... to a job.. that does not involve litigation...
A few weeks after she raised renewed concerns about his intervention"

"It was not unusual for lawyers
To send her drafts of briefs in important cases
But that she would have commented only on the overall arguments,
Not word choice and grammar."

My former employers were seen dancing in a rather unseemly fashion
The corruption tango starts, as peacocks do, by preening for attention
I would have thought they would leave the messy work to their minions
Keep clean hands, social distancing, as it were, from the rotten action

Maintain tradecraft, and observe well-worn business protocols
But it seems that there was rather haste to grab the loot at hand
Firm believers in the hard sell, there were many late night phone calls
They were clearly going for the short con, it was hard to understand

'Twas a puzzle, Catz can hardly be viewed as an ingénue
And Ellison is beyond what you would call Croesus rich
In the matter of malfeasance that seemed to ensue
One would rather have expected The Secretary to be the naïf

The surprising thing is that, by and large, in this kind of show
No one would really begrudge a little pork, even when the whistle blows
We mostly care about how the sausage tastes, not how it's made
Ask Boss Tweed, of vintage memory, how long he managed to get paid

That the long con is the most profitable
Type of shell game is the obvious lesson
Ask the red-nosed Murdoch of the fable
About the joys of generational succession

Useful idiots open doors for the real power brokers
But these factotums of capital can be easily discarded
The symbolic few made to fall on diamond-encrusted swords
When Pentagon and monopoly contracts are the real reward

Fandangos seen as uncouth are made to pay the price
I'm minded that Prince sang of Victor's Sacrifice
Like moths who came too close to the gilded candle
This comes with the territory of Fallen Angels

After all, there are only minor fines they can easily afford
Or, typically, a tsk-tsk from an Inspector General's report
It's unlikely any prosecution will have any sharp teeth
When one can pay off gambling debts to buy some supreme seats

In extremis, like Martha, a few months of white collar jail
Stewards of the craft know there's nothing beyond the pale
Yet some are recidivists, they simply can't help the grift
Remember Jack Abramoff broke the law that was custom written for him

But when they said all the gloves would come off
They really meant it was open season
Pigs could freely feed at the federal trough
They're not even trying to hide their dealings

As statues of problematic rogues were falling, or painted blood red
The word was "Send in Federal troops, our monuments need to be protected"
The President also suggested a new garden of American heroes
Including, what do you know, a statue of Antonin El Supremo

The anointed doctrine was coined originalism
A wonderful excuse for self-centered exceptionalism
Everything frozen in place, even foundational sin
Survival of the "fittest", call it Social Darwinism
No need to reconcile the fiction of partial personhood
The Justice's take on Dred Scott clarified where he stood
No, the burden of chattel was rather on the owners,
They were the ones, Jim, who needed compensation
Fig leaves that crowed in the age of Reconstruction
It was taboo to mention the concept of a living constitution
Let alone the American third rail, the matter of reparation

We hold the levers of power
We'll never give them up
Sure, you can now come to the front of the bus
A minor concession to your courage
But we'll continue the customary wheeling and dealing
Feel free to watch us through the glass ceiling

Poll taxes to the left of us, dividends to the right
Literacy tests and the carceral state is our birthright
This year, pardon she, marks 100 years of the Nineteenth
While the glare of protests also highlighted Juneteenth
And so it took a good further half century, if I recall
To actually achieve the dream of universal suffrage
So enslaved were they to the demands of capital,
Even amended, it took good trouble, and many bloody marches

It all goes back to "a suit filed by several financial industry
Groups which were represented by" the scion before he was Secretary
That "the rule's history is a bit tangled" is understating the case.
Said suit "succeeded in dislodging the rule before it was ever put in place"

The nexus is quite clear of rather unbounded corruption
"Now at the labor department", the Labor Secretary is no fool
He "is moving rapidly to change the rules and to impose new regulations
That would be weaker than those intended by the original fiduciary rule".

There's a certain logic and, well, brazen candor
To install a servant of capital as Secretary of Labor
Par for the course for iron men in the American shell game
It merely underlines the conqueror's supreme disdain.

Still, righteous indignation is their bread and butter,
Irony, as in African life, is their key register
As is a belief that regulations were only written by the winners
The strict application of the law is reserved for losers and suckers

And so I watched the parade of Silicon Valley buccaneers
Flirt with presidential, but amateur, physicians
Citing quack cures and dubious prescriptions
The tick tock of corruption is the sum of all fears

The laws that the Justice claimed to uphold were written in sand
The Secretary of Labor's charmed life off the fat of the land
A tribe with herd immunity to the matter of moral disgrace
The belief is that a chosen few are alpha rats in this here rat race

A parable of rank nepotism:
The Minister and the Mercenary
A folktale of nether capitalism:
The Justice and the Secretary

Her legacy is of public division,
private selfishness and a cult of greed,
which together shackle far more of the human spirit
than they ever set free

— Margaret Thatcher: the lady and the land she leaves behind

Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.

— William Sloane Coffin Jnr as quoted in Class Act by Lewis Lapham (Harpers, July 2006)

Of Justices and Secretaries, a playlist

As is my custom, a soundtrack to this note, a little heavy on reggae this time since that is a music much concerned with labor, and matters of supreme justice. (spotify version)

• Private Secretary by Gregory Isaacs

  You're a middle-aged business man, she said
  And I sure wanna give a hand

• Justice by Cassandra Wilson
• It Never Entered My Mind by Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins
  Bean and The Hawk play for The Justice and The Secretary. Nothing improper and irregular here, just sublime balladeering.
• It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones

  It's not unusual to be loved by anyone
  It's not unusual to have fun with anyone

• The Morning Papers by Prince & The New Power Generation
• Supreme I Preme by Finley Quaye
• Secretary by Betty Wright
• No Justice by Jimmy Cliff

  I can't get no justice under this system
  I can't get no justice in this society

• Circuit Court by Gregory Isaacs
• Sweet Justice by Jill Scott
• Justice by Tiken Jah Fakoly
  He castigated the entitled rule of Houphouët-Boigny
• No Justice No Peace by Steel Pulse
• Justice by Ziggy Marley and The Melody Makers

  The poor man cry, why do they do the wrong?
  Justice, they make me sing this song

• The Sacrifice of Victor by Prince & The New Power Generation
• Justice by Wayne Marshall & Vybz Kartel
• Supreme Hustle by Ice Cube

  I'm on the grind all the time

• Justice by Buju Banton

A closing thought

A woman who wants a child doesn't sleep in her clothes

— Angolan proverb

Previously in a similar vein: He of The Little Green Book

File under: poetry, USA, hubris, corruption, huhudious, sleaze, greed, law, culture, observation, perception, politics, shell game, Observers are worried, shame, hatchet job, grifters, gremlins, Thing Fall Apart, toli

The Wages of Thermidor

I did not have to wait
For the distance of history
In order to pronounce judgement.

For theirs is a legacy of bloodstains and unnecessary suffering.
And it was scarred on our stunted bodies in real time.
The jagged marks of their chains endure.

Venality without compromise,
Wrath without provocation,
And vitriol as compensatory cover.

Neither do they deserve
The nuance they denied others
In their unseemly haste to spill blood on the earth.

We noted at the time
Their pecuniary motives
Those strutting peacocks
In khaki uniforms
Extorting bribes as they went,
In exchange for curfew passes,
Score settling amidst an orgy
Of all too common thievery

The rhetoric of grievance
Couched in class resentment
But masked as the moral midgetry
Of thin-skinned men.

I had a dream
Of tyrants destroyed
With all available indignities.
But when the voiceless sphinx awoke
It was to an unvarnished vision
And an unbidden gift:
The welcome irrelevance
Of that baleful cohort
Their evanescent stature
A fugitive reality

Yet revolutionary justice
Had soaked the ground,
Leaving those reflective pools.
Their essence was curdled crimson.
They caught the early morning light,
Flickering in the eye of a seeker
And so he stopped,
And made a mark next to the path,
Fixing a signpost there
For future travelers

Then he stepped aside
And continued on his journey
He stumbled at first,
Recalling his early crawl
Out of infancy
But soon he righted himself,
Serene about the memory.
The next steps were more resolute,
Tradition demanded surety
He would never forget the encounter
And always remember the wounded
With no amount of wist or nostalgia
And so on he proceeded,
Forever the modern traveler

And all this happened
Almost imperceptibly
Their dreadnought weight lifted
For such are the wages of Thermidor

---

I suspect that one should read this updated fragment in its original context to fully savor the outrage I continue to feel about military strongmen and their rhetoric. As I've written previously, it's a visceral reaction, I'm blinded by the accompanying blood.

In any case, a little J'accuse never hurt anybody. There is truth, and there is reconciliation. Most consciences can surely handle the occasional volley of scribbled words softly lobbed towards their person. That is, of course, if said consciences could be located. The search parties haven't returned for the souls of many African despots, even as their shells are now dressed in Savile Row suits...

I'll close by invoking my favourite poet who wrote about the same crew far more concisely than I can ever hope.

When bad men
Pass through a place
The way is closed
Behind them by the injured,
Even to innocent men.

- The Force of Evil by Kwesi Brew

Fin.

I nominate this revised note for The Things Fall Apart Series under the banner of The Rough Beast which poses the question: who is writing the script?

See also: Structural Adjustments

File under: poetry, Ghana, culture, history, violence, blood, murder, coup, rogues, politics, memory, perception, loss, observation, corruption, hypocrisy, Africa, The Rough Beast, Things Fall Apart, toli

Timepieces

I present the following item from the Remembrance of Rogues Past collection: a campaign watch for the YEAA '98 campaign, namely the Youth Energetically Advocating Abacha shell organization that supposedly was spontaneously formed to campaign for that suffocating, murderous and dictatorial rogue, General Sani Abacha — late, unlamented and so forth.

I'm a avid collector of this kind of historical artifact and you'll sometimes find me bidding for a mint copy of the Franco sings for Mobutu album, to take a recent example and different rogue (quite a good album actually). The Abacha watch, while in the mode of praise singers and sycophants, is not your standard piece of dictator chic, it's much more functional and thus perhaps more insidious. In any case, it's worth some brief notes.

Back in the twilight zone of military rule in Nigeria circa 1998, it appeared that the dictator was feeling some pressure to make gestures towards democracy. The response was of course to think about how to hand over to himself, accordingly he devised lots of gestures. Having outlawed all organized opposition, the general decided to organize two approved political parties, "one a little to the left and the other a little to the right". Manifestos and constitutions were written, ostensible political philosophies were crafted and so forth, all by the military. The remaining question was who would lead these newfangled parties and there were any number of sycophants auditioning for the right to head these organic parties sometime in the future, if indeed elections would ever be held.

This is where the Youth Energetically Advocating Abacha came in.

The first order of business, as if this stage managing wasn't enough, was to start a whisper campaign urging both parties to nominate said dictator as their flagbearer. When more than whispers were needed, YEAA was to be the public face of the campaign, ready to whip naysayers into place. The idea was to coronate Abacha and win by acclamation the nomination from both of the parties a little to the left and right. A man of the people, he simply wanted to underlie that the youth wanted him to serve them and, moreover, that they were energetic — an obvious warning to anyone who might oppose the general. The thought was that he would face off with himself in new elections and succeed himself, or something of the sort - the main point was to hold elections.

On the one hand these actions were crude and ridiculous, on the other, they are simply sad. Whenever I look at the watch I think to the whole contingent of lobbyist firms, replete with consultants, who came up with the strategy and the inspirational name (Yeah!), the graphic designers called in to design the logo with the arrow and the wheel mechanism (perhaps fitting, for Nigeria under Abacha was on a road to nowhere), the coinage of the snappy slogan, the time spent uploading artwork and discussing typography with the design firm in California, the negotiations with Singapore factories for the production of watches and other insignia (for there were many containers worth of this stuff produced, T-shirts, key tags etc.), the shipments to Nigeria, the distribution of this largess around the country... The watch is like an open wound in the Nigerian body politic, testimony to the workings of a global criminal enterprise.

No one advocated for Abacha unless they were paid. Youth Energetically Advocating Abacha is a simple byword for coercion, cynicism and an illustration of the lengths to which people can go when in the grip of greed. The depressing thing is the sheer energy of this huhudious regime and the scale of the graft (billions of dollars were stolen for sure) — one wonders how many millions were spent on similar minor accoutrements. What a waste but perhaps such is the world of riches.

From all accounts Nigeria is much changed these days and a few of the victims of the regime are even (belatedly) getting their day in court. Perhaps it's best to move on and call this ancient history, perhaps one's outrage should be curtailed; let's leave it for the historians.

For the record, the battery never worked.

II. Measuring Time

Helon Habila in his second novel Measuring Time continues to make a claim for prominence in the roster of young lions in African literature. Instead of the claustrophobia of Waiting for an Angel (which I recently discussed) he stretches his shoulders and decides to take on entire decades of African history.

His writes in a deceptively simple style and focuses on storytelling. There's no overt lyricism; he'd claim that he is simply channeling the many stories that come to him. Still his is an ambitious agenda and he covers a lot of territory, after all his subject is modernity in Africa and all that means.

The options available to the two twins who tell the story of Measuring Time is a simple statement about Nigerian society. On the one hand, there is life as a mercenary soldier following warlords like Charles Taylor from Chad and Libya to the messy Liberian civil war. For a political junkie like me, this would be enough to focus on for an entire novel, for Habila this is merely interstitial.

On the other hand, the bulk of the book and the other twin's story is about stagnation and making do at home. There is lots of striving but precious little light. Yet the stories of the past need to be told, the politics need be engaged in - however programmatic they may be, the youth need to be taught, we all need to fall in love. There's no time to dance or to succumb to navel gazing. Life has to be lived in full.

In his populist writing mode Helon Habila is perhaps heir to Cyprian Ekwensi whose favourite subject was city life. Like Ekwensi he has a talent for empathy with his characters and draws you in with detailed portraits. He really knows how to capture moments in time. I am also reminded in this novel of another ambitious second novel that packed a lot of ideas albeit in a different genre, Colson Whitehead's John Henry Days. But perhaps we shouldn't tie a talent like Habila to others. He's writing delicate novels of ideas disguised as unvarnished, personal stories of Nigeria; the whole world is his.

III. Wasted Time (a soundtrack)

Me'Shell NdegeOcello - Wasted Time

Wasted Time, my favourite song from her appropriately-titled album, Bitter, finds Me'Shell in a suitably bitter mood. She has an unerring way of capturing an atmosphere in song. Bitterness is a transient emotion but one that is intense when one is in its grip. It's the only vaguely uptempo song of the album, building up the groove slowly as she reflects on a break-up. It's not quite a lament and she hasn't yet resolved the episode. It is a raw meditation on wasted effort. Fittingly the song cuts off abruptly, unsettling the listener. Wasted time never to be recovered.

Update: A good friend sends along a Cambodian twist for the collection: a Dictator Hun Sen "fashion" watch. He notes, "Never tried wearing it. Battery assumed dead".

File under: Nigeria, rogues, Africa, corruption, politics, history, memory, culture, cynicism, literature, dictator, toli