mcgrew's Journal: .Wall Street and Main Street

The clueless Wall Streeters invoked rule 48 this morning which, as you must know or you wouldn't be here (or are a die-hard anti-star trek Star Wars fan), is The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife.

Beware Ferengi bearing gifts.

Jim Hightower is noticing what most of us 99%ers are noticing: Wall Street is clueless.

While there is a plethora of particular issues being raised by the protesters â" from the corrupting power of corporate money in our elections to the demise of middle-class wages â" the unifying theme is that each one adds to the rising tide of economic inequality thatâ(TM)s enriching the most privileged few by knocking down Americaâ(TM)s workaday majority. And, Mr. and Ms. Streeter, guess who are the most powerful perpetrators of this greed-fueled disparity: Yes, you.

Perhaps an example would help you grasp the obvious. Even as the protest was spreading in mid-October to hundreds of cities, tone-deaf executives at Bank of America announced three moves:

One, to goose up their own extravagant pay, theyâ(TM)re socking financially stressed debit-card users with a new $5 a month fee.

Second, theyâ(TM)re dumping 30,000 of the bankâ(TM)s worker bees onto Americaâ(TM)s already swollen unemployment rolls. Goodbye, and good luck finding another job.

Third, two top executives who are departing the bank are being handed golden parachutes totaling $11 million.

In the midst of this, Steve Bartlett opened his mouth. A former Congress-critter who was promoted to be Wall Streetâ(TM)s top Washington lobbyist, he is a perfect symbol of the infuriating corrupt coziness between financial elites and lawmakers. Yet Bartlett blithely says, âoeWe (donâ(TM)t) see ourselves as the target (of the protests).â

After all, he explains, Wall Street âoehas to be well capitalized and well financed for the economy to recover.â

Golly, Steve, I think we capitalized you extremely well. What part of the publicâ(TM)s multitrillion-dollar bailout of the Streetâ(TM)s elite did you not see? We the People see every glaring dime of it. And we also see that rather than helping our economy recover, youâ(TM)re now lobbying Congress to kill Wall Street reforms so banksters can grab even more at our expense.

Amazingly, Hightower is a syndicated columnest from, of all places, TEXAS!

While you're at the IT, if you're planning on visiting the Cartoon City's main street (which isn't named Main Street) in the next year, have a look at the best of Springfield as voted on by Springpatch residents in IT's annual poll.

Oh, wait -- the electronic version is seriously abridged. Nothing on that list is important at all. Where's best bar, best restaraunt, best hoseshoe? Nope, not in IT's electronic version. They got it backwards. The paper version is free, so they probably don't get many eVisitors from Springfield. Most would probably be from Chicago or St Louis. Kinda dumb if you ask me. Here are a few from their paper version.

Best outdoor dining, original menu, horseshoe, place for a working lunch, comfort food: D'Arcy's, of course. It's everybody's favorite.

Bset downtown dining and Italian food: Saputos. They indeed have good food.

Best romantic dinner: Bella Milano. Can't say, as I haven't eaten there.

This one gets in every year, and I can't for the life of me figure out why, and that's Charlie Parker's. It's been on the shows on the Food Channel, in magazines, everywhere but in my opinion, it's vastly overrated. The food is ok, but nothing to write home about. The service is absolutely horrible.

My dad used to go there a lot when he lived here, so we ate there a few times when he came visiting (not many places to eat on Sunday except on Dirkson parkway, all the way across town). One visit they got my order wrong three times in a row. The third time my food came out, everyone else at the table had finished eating and I was starved, so I ate what I hadn't ordered anyway. Even starving, the food isn't that great. Despite what IT says, Charlie Parker's isn't the best of anything.

There are pages and pages of bests, and I can't understand why they didn't put it in the online edition.

Best pizza: Gabatonis. Well, their pizzas are ok, but I'd vote Bernie & Betty's.

Best fast, cheap lunch: Head West Sub Shop. Again, I disagree with all the cartoons that voted in this poll (remember, this is Illinois, so vote early and often, even if you're dead). The best fast cheap lunch is Top Cats. You can be seated with your food brought to you faster than you'd stand in line at Burger King, and a "grandma's cookin'" type meal that's cheaper than Burger King as well. Top Cat's is my second favorite restaraunt in town.

Best beer selection: Brewhaus. Yep, ever since the Barrel Head closed down, they have more kinds of beers on tap than anybody.

Best beer garden and live music venue: Curve Inn. Yet another I disagree with. They do have a good beer garden, except there's no shade in the summer or warm place for smokers in the winter (and face it, beer gardens are for smoking and live music). Better is the Blue Grouch, with shade trees and a heated tent, bands every weekend.

Best new band: The Dave Littrell Band. I haven't seen Dave in years, we used to hang around together a lot. I didn't know he had a new band. The IT says that Jeff's in his new band; Jeff used to play in Posamist with Joe Frew. Joe's mostly been doing solo stuff lately, although I haven't seen any of those guys in a long, long time. They're all featured frequently in the old Paxil Diaries. You can find all these guys' music at archive.org; here's an Ogg Vorbis version of The Station's cover of In Memory of Elizabeth Reed. Here's an original, Raul. This one is a .shn file of The Fog, which was the first Station song I ever heard, and it's mentioned in the Paxil Diaries.

Best blues artist: Black Magic Johnson. I have to say, Reggie Briton is talented as hell. He's the band's singer, trumpet player, and drummer. It's a three piece band with a black guy (Briton), a white guy, and an Asian guy. Most of their music is comical, like "Jaybo won the lottery". Unfortunately, I can't find any of his stuff at archive.org or at Google. Maybe you could find it at the Pirate Bay.

Like I said, this is just a tiny sample of what's in the paper edition, which is free and available just about anywhere in town. Just how comprehensive is this list? It has a "most interesting restrooms" category (Stella Blue). Only in Springfield!

dave littrell?

[ObitMan]

didn't he used to run a guitar shop in Jacksonville? then moved it to Winchester?
or is that someone else i'm thinking of.
the name sounds familiar.

Re:

[mcgrew]

Hmmm... there's a Jacksonville not far from Springfield, and he does play guitar (and sax and a few other instruments), but I never heard of him running a guitar shop. Don't know.

But Dave's young, not yet 30. Maybe it's his dad or a relative.