Dream Log: "Friends" with Money

Money money money money. Moolah. Skrilla. Cabbage. Cheddar. L'argent. Clams. Lucre. Currency. Simolians. Smackeroonies. You know what I'm talking about.

I dreamed that the characters from "Friends" were real, and that I knew what had happened to them since the show. I was not a friend of theirs. Not really even an acquaintance. More of an observer of the Friends. 

 

Ross and Rachel stayed married for 61 years! What happened then? Divorce? Death? I don't know. But somehow, I do know that they made love to each other 5 times during those 61 years. They made love to OTHER people much MORE than that. For example: on their wedding day, Rachel said something, and Ross, not for the first time, over-reacted. But during their wedding reception was the first time he had a 3-way with Rachel's sisters, played by Reese Witherspoon and Christina Applegate, and Rachel got really mad -- it was sort of like what happened over and over again in the show.

Don't feel too bad for Rachel, though; she had lots of sex, just, not with Ross. They got along pretty well with each other, just, not in that one way. Like in the show.

Chandler quit his job in advertising, and became an actor. Monica was doing better and better as a chef so they didn't need Chandler's income anymore. They never said in the show what sort of business Chandler was in, but in the dream, I knew it was advertising.

In real life, at least in the US, lots of people go from advertising to show business. I don't know why, but I do know why a lot of show business sucks so hard: all those assholes from advertising. You thought you were going to spread your wings, but you're still a weasel. And weasels don't have wings. 

Phoebe stayed on guitar and vocals, but Mike joined her on air piano -- yes: air piano -- and they made it big. Multi-platinum albums all over the world. They became billionaires. Air piano.

You may recall that Joey went out to Hollywood after having been in a huge blockbuster movie with Gary Oldman. In my dream, he kept making blockbusters. He starred in like twenty hugely successful movies in a row, it made him a billionaire. Then he started directing and producing and made some REAL money, and the first thing you know, Joey's head of Paramount Studios.

But he missed his Friends. So he re-located Paramount HQ from Hollywood to Manhattan, bought a huge townhouse in Greenwich Village, just a block away from where Joey and Chandler and Monica and Rachel lived during the show, with Central Perk downstairs. And he gave the townhouse to Chandler and Monica and moved in with them.

If I Had a Billion Dollars --

-- the red light on my computer's mute key, f6, wouldn't go from functional to non-functional or vice versa every time my OS updated. And similarly, I wouldn't have to tell my blog software not to count my own pageviews for the blog every time I turned on the computer, because that box unchecked itself every time I turned off the computer. I can't afford to get a new computer every time one malfunctions, or get it repaired or other fancy rich-guy stuff like that.

If I had a billion dollars I'd have an EV and solar panels on my roof, and so would a few nonprofit organizations, courtesy of me.

If I had a billion dollars I'd have an extra-fancy strap on this watch, here, and I'd pay somebody to attach it to the watch because I'm really bad with that sort of fingertip type work.

If I had a billion dollars, I would finally find out what truffles taste like if you just eat one whole, as opposed to eating some food which just has tiny specks of truffles in it which you can barely see but which make the food irresponsibly expensive for you to eat.

If I had a billion dollars, I would finally know once and for all if becoming rich still leaves you unhappy. I strongly doubt that a billion dollars wouldn't make me very, very happy for a very long time, maybe forever. I think that people who say that money lacks such power simply don't have enough experience with poverty to appreciate being rich. And you'll notice that most of the rich people who say money can't make you happy do NOT give all their money away, and that that's not just because they are too kind to make others unhappy with money, but because they're basically full of shit, in addition to being full of money.

I just did an update, and the red light on my f6 key went from working to not working. I really like that red light when it works. That's what set me off into thinking about having enough money to own multiple computers and and an EV and solar power and to be able to give generously to causes I find to be good and to be able to obtain a truly fine watch band without giving it a second thought and eat all the truffles I could eat.

Here's to Fully Automated Luxury Communism bringing all of those things, and much, much more, to everyone on Earth, very soon. Cheers. First step: vote Trump out. I know, I know, Joe is hardly a Fully Automated Luxury Communist dream come true, but beggars can't be choosers and right now the choice is Trump or Joe, and Joe's a lot closer to want we want even though he's very far from what we want. The Communists in Germany should've voted for Hindenburg along with the Social Democrats in 1932...

MB&F L’Epée 1839 Grant

This is Grant.

Grant can be moved into 3 different positions, and is about 7 inches wide and 8 inches long.

And, as you can see by this photo --

-- Grant is a clock, a joint venture between the companies MB&F, who make mostly somewhat out-there watches, and L’Epée 1839, who make mostly weird and playful clocks. Grant is named after a WWII tank which was named after Ulysses S Grant, was made in a limited edition of 150 pieces, and retails for a little over $20,000, which is a real bargain when you look at all of the high-quality craftsmanship and fine materials which have gone into this piece.

Can we talk about socialism? There are some socialists who hate wealth and money and want to do away with it. Then there are socialists such as myself and George Bernard Shaw. Shaw wrote, in the Preface to Major Barbara,

"To teach children that it is sinful to desire money, is to strain towards the extreme possible limit of impudence in lying, and corruption in hypocrisy. The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization, the one sound spot in our social conscience. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty as conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness. Not the least of its virtues is that it destroys base people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people. It is only when it is cheapened to worthlessness for some, and made impossibly dear to others, that it becomes a curse. In short, it is a curse only in such foolish social conditions that life itself is a curse. For the two things are inseparable: money is the counter that enables life to be distributed socially: it is life as truly as sovereigns and bank notes are money. The first duty of every citizen is to insist on having money on reasonable terms; and this demand is not complied with by giving four men three shillings each for ten or twelve hours’ drudgery and one man a thousand pounds for nothing. The crying need of the nation is not for better morals, cheaper bread, temperance, liberty, culture, redemption of fallen sisters and erring brothers, nor the grace, love and fellowship of the Trinity, but simply for enough money."

(My emphasis, lest some careless reader think that I or Shaw were telling the lazy poor to complain less and work harder.)

The other sort of socialist -- the Puritan sort, even though they often are atheists -- will point to things like Grant and say that they represent all that is wrong with the world. They may bite their tongues, if they were raised as Christians, to keep from saying "all that is wicked," but that's what they mean. Shaw and I favor universal basic incomes, that is: giving money to everyone, because everyone should have it. We see nothing wicked about Grant. What is wicked to us is that the world is arranged so that so very few people can afford to buy themselves something like a Grant, if they so choose. (Not everyone could buy a Grant even if everyone were rich, because there are only 150 of him, but there are many extravagant things like Grant.) And that other sort of socialist, the Puritan kind, ought to brush up on their Marx, especially Marx on the subject of leisure, if they think Marx is on their side, and not not mine and Shaw's.

It strikes me how many of these socialists who say they're against wealth are a lot wealthier than I've ever been. They have varying definitions about how wealthy is too wealthy, but, conveniently, it tends to be much wealthier than they are. Bernie Sanders may well be a millionaire, but billionaires really grind his gears. For them not to be much more focused on poverty requires, I think, both a lack of experience of it, and a lack of empathy. It happens now and then that a rich Puritan socialist will actually give away everything they have, to the point where they actually become poor on purpose, but it doesn't happen often. Shaw, as far as I know, was never close to being poor, but he was gifted with enormous empathy. He was able to spot suffering without having experienced something similar to it himself. And he was clever enough to see that one doesn't reduce the amount of misery in the world by becoming miserable.

Anyway, I just came here to say: lookit Grant, he's wicked cool!

All You Need Is Money And Love

It just now popped into my head: A medly and/or mashup of John Lennon singing "Money" and "All You Need is Love."

All you need is love
I want money
Love, love, love
You can give it to the birds and bees
There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Give me your money
It's easy
Whoa! All your money!
Love, love, love
But your lovin' don't pay my bills
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
Now give me money
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
Now give me money
It's easy

Apparently it's very easy to slip your mind how important money is, if you have lots and lots of it, and John certainly did when he wrote "All You Need is Love." Much, much more than he had when he recorded "Money."

If you have lots and lots of money, it may well be that the only thing more which you urgently need is love.

This ain't rocket science. It's amazing how often people who are where John Lennon was in 1967 forget what he knew in 1963.

Information Is More Valuable Than Money

Someone I know just said that information is worth more than money. She got a lot of disagreement for saying so, but of course she's right. For example, the information that money is worth exactly as much as people agree it's worth, no more and no less. On the microeconomic scale, for example, persons A and B may have identical items, but A sells his to a for $75 and, on the same block, 2 houses over, B sells hers to b for $200, if that's what A and a and B and b agree upon. And such price fluctuations are hardly unusual. And information may not be the only factor in the price difference, but it could be a major one. For example, a, B and b were all in possession of the information that items similar to these are selling on eBay for $250 and more, but A didn't know, so a was able to bargain him down to $75.

For another example: b didn't know that a seller with better prices was right down the street.

For another example, all 4 of these people knew how much the item would get on eBay, but a knew that A needed cash right away and was willing to exploit A' situation.

Or, the other way around: A knew that a was in a bind financially but was too proud to take an explicit handout, so he gave a a hidden handout in the form of taking $125 off the price of the item.

But it's not just on the small scale between individuals where money is worth exactly what people agree it's worth: on the largest scale, states can declare that their currency is now worth 1% of what it was worth up until then; or they can issue a new currency and say that every new dollar or pound or peso is worth 10, or 100, or 1,000,000 of the old dollars or pounds or pesos -- they can declare whatever they want. And other states can agree or not, it's up to them. And no matter what the states decide, their individual citizens can agree or not, just as they like. They can prefer to use foreign currency, which is a way of agreeing that the domestic currency is worth less than the state says it's worth. They can start a revolution if they entirely disagree with the state's fiscal policy, and attempt to install a new regime. One state can interfere with another, whether it's meddling with the other state's currency or attempting to overthrow the other state entirely, which is usually done wholly or in large part over considerations of money.

If you know earlier than most people that state I is planning to devalue its currency, or issue new currency, or to interfere with or overthrow state II, you can use this information for your own great financial gain; or you can publicize the information to the benefit of many other people. If many people have certain information it can have a huge effect on the prices of certain commodities and certain currencies. Mis-information often has similar effects.

The examples of information affecting the values of things including money are vast in number. The primary position of information is very simple and plain to see once you grasp it. Apparently, many people don't yet grasp it.

And THAT most certainly has a crucial effect on the value of money, and on people understanding what money is for, and coming to better, more sensible and mutually-beneficial agreements.

I don't know whether this post helped anyone, or if some people already understood everything I said and others still don't understand what I said.

There's another example of information controlling financial things: if an author can quantify and demonstrate information about the effect of his or her writing -- quantities like book sales, blog pageviews, readers' comments, etc -- he or she can use that information to justify an asking price for a publisher to reprint a blog post or take over the publishing rights for a book. And just with A and a and B and b at the beginning of this post, the amount of information the author has about the publisher and vice-versa can greatly affect the amounts of money involved in their interactions.

The possible examples just go on and on. I've given you examples at the microeconimic end, with individuals bargaining over the price of a single object, and at the macroeconomic end, with the fiscal policies of states. In the middle, businessmen are thoroughly familiar with the primary importance of information -- or at least they ought to be. Say that X owns a retail electronics business, and manufacturer Y is offering a shipment of computers to X at a certain price. If X knows that a new manufacturer is about to flood the market with computers priced much lower than Y's, then he or she may be in no hurry to do business with Y. However, if X knows that the new computers are of very low quality and that many retailers are going to buy more of them than they can sell, he or she just may want to get as many of Y's computers as possible.

Of course, if Y knows that X knows all of this, then Y may decide to up the asking price, or may be less inclined to offer X a big discount for quantity.

Information is key, the examples go on and on.

Poets, Artists, Hollywood, Money

For a long time I thought that I was very good at remembering passages from books and dialogue from movies and TV word-for-word. In the past few years I have come to grips with the fact that I am not especially good at it. What seems to me like a vivid and exact memory to me is, over and over, in fact quite different from the original text. For example, for a long time I was quite certain that I remembered a character in a movie -- I couldn't recall what character in which movie -- saying, "When poets dream they dream of money." I'm now fairly sure that that was a mis-remembering of a line spoken by Ricky Jay's character in David Mamet's movie The Spanish Prisoner --a terrific movie, by the way, and very much about money among other things. The thing is, I'm not sure whether we're meant to understand that Jay's character is saying (approximately if not word-for-word), "As the poet said, 'Let us dream,' and when we dream, we dream of money," or, "As the poet said, 'Let us dream, and when we dream, we dream of money.'"

I had assumed it was the latter, and thought that it might make sense because poets -- poets in the USA, at least -- tend to make very little money from poetry, so that they would dream of money as naturally as hungry people dream of food.

If it's the former then it sounds much more like the attempt of a man whose business is money to lend an artistic air to his profession.

In the past couple of days I saw another character in another movie, an actress, I've already forgotten which actress and which movie, say something like, "Don't they say that artists dream of money?" The actual line may be quite different, the only thing I'm reasonably sure of is that the movie didn't seem particularly interesting to me and I didn't watch the whole thing.

Movies are probably the art form which makes the most money. Movies or pop music. Gene Siskel said, in a good PBS series about Hollywood from the early 90's, said it with notable conviction and no ifs ands or buts, that Hollywood movies were the biggest big-time in showbiz, implying that if TV people doubted this they were deluded. Remember, my mortal enemy is Cliche Man, and cliches are cliches, not necessarily, as the cliche says, because they are true, but because they sound good. But Siskel may have gotten this one right.

Guy Ritchie's movie RocknRolla --another terrific movie, by the way, and also very much with money as one of its themes --seems to suggest that rock n roll is the biggest big-time in show biz. Perhaps that's true when you compare British rock n roll to British movies, and and false when you compare the most big-time pop music to Hollywood movies.

Without a doubt, the biggest big-time Hollywood movies involve a lot of money. Folks is gettin' paid. (The producers and studios heads are gettin' paid much more than the stars.) And so perhaps this business about artists (or poets) dreaming of money, if it does not merely sound good but is also true, is more true about Hollywood movie folks than about artists in general. It may be relevant, not because it applies to impoverished artists, but, quite on the contrary, because it applies to the very wealthiest people who could conceivably be called artistic or poetic, and it may be that these rick folks are rich because they're always dreaming of money, and the poor poets and artists, generally speaking, may not miss the money as much as I would think. Perhaps, among the group of children with anything like an interest in writing, the ones more preoccupied with money tend to give up poetry before they're full-grown, in favor of writing screenplays full-time, or the better-looking ones among the potential screenwriters may have tended to have gotten their teeth whitened and noses fixed in order to go after the bigger movie-star money, if they haven't given that up to become movie execs, if they haven't given up Hollywood altogether for Wall Street, to work with people like Ricky Jay's character in The Spanish Prisoner and tell each other in their spare time that they're artistic.

As with so many posts on this blog, I have no answers here, but mainly just a few questions, which I hope some reader or another may have found to be interesting food for thought.

Beware of People With Lots and Lots of Money Telling You You Don't Need Money

THEY don't need money. You DO.