Oh, The Financial Mistakes We Make (part 1)

Want to have a quick lesson in real-life economics? Check out the May issue of The Atlantic and read Neal Gabler’s essay, “The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans,” in which he summarizes the financial plight of many Americans – which is enlightening enough – but then boldly summarizes his own life and the mistakes he’s made that helped lead to his rather precarious financial position. I admire his candor and plan to share it with all three of my children because his story reads like a what-not-to-do manual. If you ever wonder how someone who makes good money can become a financial mess, this is the article to read.  Gabler did virtually everything wrong, and though I suspect there are many other people who’ve gone down similar paths, he may have undermined his argument by lumping his experience into those millions of Americans who’ve done everything right yet still find themselves in financial dire straight. Gabler has no such claim.

(After you finish the article, scan through the comments section over a glass of wine or two or three – some are critical, some are empathetic, some are self-righteous, but nearly all are illuminating.)

The essay begins with frightening statistics about American’s lack of savings, lack of liquidity and lack of assets. Nearly half of Americans couldn’t cover a $1000 emergency room visit or $500 car repair out of their own pockets. This should scare the hell out of all of us, because how long can a society thrive and survive when half its population is “financially fragile”? These are real problems with real ramifications, no matter what your financial situation, and I suspect it’s why we find ourselves in such a heated and unexpected political campaign this year.

But then Gabler takes the courageous step of telling us his story, and in it he comes clean. He writes, “I am a financial illiterate, or worse—an ignoramus.” He’s not joking, and it’s troubling because he – like many Americans – not only hasn’t learned from his mistakes, he seems determined not to learn from them, as if being financially illiterate is a condition instead of a choice. In a world where TV and radio have made mini-celebrities out of financial self-help gurus like Suzy Orman, Dave Ramsey and Clark Howard, there’s no excuse not to become at least somewhat educated on financial matters. It’s as important – hell, it’s more important – than learning how to swim or throw a curve ball or learn a Bach prelude.

As parents we need to do much more to help our kids grow up to be financially-functioning adults. I’m going to do my part by forwarding Gabler’s article to my kids and I encourage you to do the same, but I also recognize that the odds of them actually reading the article are low. So next week I’m going to write a quick summary of financial no-brainers that I hope encapsulates all the what-not-to-do’s that Gabler did (and probably many he did not do) and then discuss it with my kids over dinner.  Stay tuned for part two...

Father John Misty at the Riv

A year ago I didn’t even know that Father John Misty existed, but last night I found myself at Chicago’s Riviera Theatre (which, despite being a shithole, has its charms) to see the singer-songwriter perform before a packed house. Backed by a terrific five-piece band (and sometimes extra backup singer) the artist plowed through a powerful set that faithfully reproduced the lavish production of his most recent album, I Love You, Honeybear, and enhanced the sound of 2012’s Fear Fun.

A commanding presence on stage – tall, bold and limber – Father John Misty uttered virtually not a word between songs, but what he lacked in banter he made up for with his intensity, taking over center stage with passionate dips, angry kicks and desperate gesticulations. He knows how to get an audience excited. Midway through “Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Cow” I witnessed what had to be the longest and highest launch of an acoustic guitar I’ve ever seen (the stagehand caught it – but just barely), and it was met with enthusiastic approval. 

Like the production of his most recent album, the extensive layering and reverb of the live performance sometimes masked what is one of the singer’s greatest strengths – his witty, sardonic, and occasionally moving lyrics. Listening from the balcony, had I not already known songs like “I Love You, Honeybear” and “The Perfect Husband,” I wouldn’t have understood more than a few words of these performances. Perhaps it sounded clearer on the first level, though I distinctly remember Joe Jackson complaining about the acoustics of the Riv back in 2001. Judging from the peeling paint on the ceiling, I suspect the theater owners haven’t done much to improve the sound or anything else in the intervening decade and a half.

Most effective to me were the times that the band broke down and allowed Father John Misty to shine in a more intimate setting. “Bored In The USA” – a song that would have felt right at home on Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection – was the highlight for me, with the fans interjecting faithfully the canned laughter of the recording. First encore “I Went to the Store One Day” – the sparsest performance of the evening – was also terrific, along with “Holy Shit,” whose mellow first half was interrupted by such a frenzied finish that the downbeat jolted a listener to my left practically out of his seat.

These moments of potency were supported by the most impressive lighting I’ve ever seen at a small venue, especially the effective use of moody backlighting that bathed the stage with eerie reds that silhouetted the band, and the strobes used prominently in the frantic finale of “Perfect Husband.” 

Aside from a cover of Nine Inch Nail's “Closer,” the 110 minute performance consisted entirely of tracks from Father John Misty’s two albums, ignoring the repertoire of the singer’s previous monikers. Surprisingly absent to me was the song that first introduced me to the artist: “The Night Josh Tillman Came to our Apt.,” and I wonder if he’s already grown tired of its overly mocking, cynical lyrics. 

At thirty-five, the former drummer of Fleet Foxes has been recording and performing for a hell of a long time, reaching his recent success a little late in life. It was worth the wait. Here’s hoping he hangs in there for a while and releases a few more gems along the way.

Play Review: The Flick at the Steppenwolf

For a while now I’ve contended that real life is far more interesting than any genre that requires a significant suspension of disbelief. It’s why I prefer Tobey Maguire in Wonderboys to Spiderman or Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to Dumb and Dumber. It’s what makes the Seven Up documentaries so fascinating and why Richard Linklater’s Boyhood received such critical acclaim. It’s why I would love just once to see Tom Cruise play a boring suburban man struggling with parenting or household projects, because with his acting chops it wouldn’t be boring at all. It might even be thrilling. Even in my own rather mundane life I find myself jotting down notes on an almost daily basis about potential writing topics. Life is infinitely interesting.

In Annie Baker’s The Flick, real life takes to the stage with near perfection in Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Three hours long, deliberately paced, and with hardly a plot point to hang its subjects on, it isn’t for all tastes. Approximately fifteen percent of theater patrons left at intermission, and according to comments in the question and answer session that followed the play, this isn’t uncommon, but it is a shame, because the second half offers the payoff that even the more antsy theater goers would have appreciated.

The Flick tells the story of three employees working at a rundown, one-screen theater, The Flick. We watch as newly-hired Avery joins veteran Sam clean up after each film, and at first they spend a lot of time, well, sweeping and mopping the floor. Details emerge slowly, little by little, week after week, and we gradually learn more about the characters, including mundane details that appear not to have any significance, such as Avery’s ability to link any two actors in six degrees of separation or less and his vomit reflex when seeing other people’s feces. We learn that Sam is still living at home, seemingly content to watch life pass him by as he silently pines for Rose, a lesbian who runs the film projector, and who – along with Sam – has developed a scheme to take a little extra meal money from the till. 

For all the play reveals, it leaves many questions unanswered. We watch the orbits of these three lonely people intersect but their worlds never collide, and we don’t leave the theater knowing all the details of each character’s lives, which might beg the question from someone who hasn’t seen the play: “Then what the hell did they talk about for three hours?!” Well, for one thing, they didn’t talk a lot, at least not in the first half. The pauses aren’t just pregnant, they’re two weeks overdue and expecting octuplets. My friend Terry thought the first half of the play could have used a good editing job, but I was enthralled from the first sweep of the broom. Hell, it won the Pulitzer Prize, and maybe even a good edit wouldn’t have served the play well.

In the question and answer session that followed the play, I was thrilled to hear other patrons offer insights that I overlooked, interpretations I hadn’t considered, but perhaps my friend Terry offered the most valuable insight of all: that the play sheds light on a world so often neglected. Not the world of theater ushers specifically, but of the people who do the work that allows the rest of us to enjoy a night out. The Flick could just have easily been The Café, The Playhouse or The Nightclub. As George Bailey says in It’s a Wonderful Life, “They do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community,” and their lives are as fascinating to me as a mobster's or a media mogul's.

The Flick continues its run at the Steppenwolf through May 8. I can’t recommend it more highly.