Grizzed Out - Memphis' One Good Thing

First, I'm not gonna lie, when we first moved here and heard about the Memphis Grizzlies, my immediate reaction was, "Aw, that's cute, are they like a college team here or something?" Someone corrected me rather grumpily, that they are, in fact, an NBA team. I swear, I'd never heard of them in my life. Now, I've lived in Boston and in the vicinity of Miami long enough to be well aware of the Celtics and the Heat, which are both really good and somewhat iconic teams. My immediate thought was "Wow, the Grizzlies must suck really bad for me to never have heard of them".

So after that, I didn't hear about them again until: HOLY CRAP, THE GRIZZLIES ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS. And not only that, it looks like they're sending the Spurs home. Well, and that's when it happened. I became a bandwagon-jumper. I started watching the games, even know a few names of players like Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, but it wasn't until we just went to the Forum this week to see game 3 against the Thunder until it occurred to me: THE GRIZZLIES ARE THE ONE GOOD THING THAT MEMPHIS HAS GOING FOR ITSELF.

Since we went to the Forum for that game, it became quite clear to me as I looked around: Memphis has a new Religion. Not the preachy kind that the South is so unfortunately known for. It's called Grizz-Nation. It seems like every man, woman and child is soaking up this team and all the news around it, and it does something good for both the city and it's inhabitants. Suddenly, there is a reason to take pride in this godforsaken town. It's really quite amazing to watch, the faces light up by the mere mention of "the Grizz", finally something that causes everyone to get on the same page and believe in. Fittingly, the house slogan of the Grizzlies is "Believe, Memphis".

In the middle of it all, I watched myself morph into a towel-waving, high-fiving and opponent-boo-ing (not my finest moment, I agree) FAN. Despite the fact that nobody (including myself) believed in them before, I think after the game I saw at the Forum, even the last sceptic in that stadium (which might well have been me) was convinced that this team is something worth believing in.  Loss after TRIPLE overtime was the outcome, only happened 5 times in the history of the NBA, but this was a good loss if I've ever seen one. The Grizz fans of Memphis walked out, their heads held high, as if they had just witnessed the grandest win in the history of basketball.

And then they went out and spread the word. Religion, I'm telling you. The good kind. This entire week you can see on people's faces that they're following every game. Why do I know this? It's the collective Zombie look after Monday's game that went until almost 1.30 in the morning. Nobody cared, everybody is tired, we all feel as if we've played the games ourselves, even talk about it as though we did. Now, there's no doubt the players are tired and worn down, which the Wednesday game and it's massive loss made quite apparent.

Now is not the time to give up though! Now more than ever is the time to dig deep and BELIEVE, MEMPHIS. Believe, that they can pull it off on Friday and send this series into game 7. Believe, that if anyone can do it, its OUR Grizz.

This is an opportunity for you Memphis, don't mess this up. Even if they lose, and go home (which they most likely would, facing the Mavericks, or after that the Heat), this is when we have to keep up the spirit that this team has given this entire city and continue to keep the momentum going. Memphis is a city that long ago seems to have given up, so the Grizzlies are as good a reason as any to continue to believe that something can be made out of this town, if we all just tried a little harder.

On that note, I end my post. I believe. Go Grizzlies.

    

The Power of Many

This is a long one, folks, brace yourselves. I've had my eye on the banks, mostly my own, Bank of America, for a while now. As I'm being hit with more and more fees, most recently a new $20 monthly account maintenance fee, I've had it. I started not only informing myself about banking in the US in general, but also about the Federal Reserve, their business practices and any news stories about banks, most of all Bank of America that I can find on independent websites.

About that particular $20 fee, I called Bank of America up when it first happened, and asked what the fee was about. The response was that I was a "preferred" customer, who holds several different types of accounts and hence that was my fee... Preferred customer? What does that even mean? I asked them, what it would take to "un-prefer" myself, to get rid of the charge! The nice BOA rep was of course happy to help me with losing my "preferred" status, resulting in a lowering of the fee to $14 a month. Still high, but better. Believe it or not, I feel just the same now, not being a preferred customer, as I did before when I was so very preferred, I never even knew the difference.

Prior to that was the $35 overdraft fee. Another stunt BOA pulled and thank goodness was finally held accountable for in a court. I personally did not go overdrawn more than once or twice in my 10 years as BOA customer, but things happen, you don't pay attention, don't make a transfer on time, while still going ahead and sending your rent check. At the same time you go to home depot really quick and buy a couple of things for the yard, stop for gas on the way home, see a Starbucks on your way back and get a coffee. Here's what used to happen: BOA made the choice for you, to put your rent check through first, sending you overdrawn: here goes your first $35 charge. Then, Home Depot comes out, again, $35 charged for overdraft, and then the gas station, $35 courtesy of BOA, and, you guessed it, Starbucks for your $3 tall Chai latte, another $35 charge for using your debit card. Have you been counting? $140 in fees and I am somebody, who is actually on top of my accounts ALL THE TIME. It still happened to me on one or two occasions.  Now, in all honesty, this practice is over, but only after many complaints, government intervention and a $410 million class action settlement did we get rid of this practice. Shame on you BOA!

Do we really have to go this far, just to not be cheated? That settlement cost millions in legal fees not to mention the amount of time wasted. If you had put that money and effort into something that really matters, we may actually have cured cancer or some infectious disease by now.

Now we're all realistic here, no customer asks to be rewarded for going overdrawn, but honestly, I've had a business, do you think I'd have any customers left if I treated them like that?

After this experience, I couldn't help but ask myself: what else have I missed? And what else are busy mom's with two jobs missing? Or small business owners, who run the whole show, working all the time, what are they missing?

If you don't have the time to put in, to read all the letters and "full disclosures" BOA sends you on a regular basis, filled with legal jibberish that any normal person takes hours to decode, what you may be missing in those "new policies" may cost you a bunch of money before you even realize it is happening. The seed of suspicion was planted with the overdraft fee debacle, and you better believe, since then, I scrutinize my account statements every month. The slightest inconsistency, I call them up or go to the branch until I get to the bottom of charges and changes.

Luckily, if you're looking for it, the information is not hard to come by, since the big banks are making news almost daily. Either they are crying about million dollar losses, announcing new fees to cover for those "losses" and of course, their last quarterly bottom lines are public knowledge and readily available. If you actually care to obtain said information, you find that BOA has no reason to cry about anything. They are sitting on billions of profits, courtesy of you and me.

But, since the financial industry is always good for another whammy against those very people, who keep them in business, on came the $5 debit card fee. Once again, as soon as I heard, I dragged my butt to the branch, this time ready for confrontation. I asked the very nice BOA rep what the fee was about and if I'm affected by it. Mind you, I was fully ready and prepared to launch the "I've been a customer for 10 years, but I've had it, I'm taking all my accounts out of BOA"-speech, when I was informed that, lucky me, I was an "advantage" customer, who of course is exempt from the fee. Again, no clue what that even means, advantage, but I'm pretty sure it boils down to this: I had the "advantage" of having had the time to go to the branch and investigate and was pissed-off enough to leave my banking institution, so I did not get a fee.

Just recently we are seeing other people, people just like me, folks, who have had it with the games and gimmicks, take action and succeed. Much like my own experience with BOA, many have thought to themselves: you know what, I didn't do anything wrong. I never even had my account overdrawn, I always keep the minimum balance, pay my bills on time, but yet, I still get all these new fees from my bank, never did anything to deserve it, but here I am, at the mercy of my credit institution. 

Where does that leave us? It leaves us with this day that marks the first breakthrough that "the power of many, the power of "the people" has achieved, on November 1st, 2011. When BOA first announced the $5 fee, and many other banks were due to follow suit shortly thereafter, Wells Fargo, Regions, etc, there was no longer just a silent grumbling acceptance in response to fees being introduced.  Instead there was an uproar. That fee, although comparatively small, was a drop on an already full barrel, leading to the rise of not only the individual, but whole groups of people. Protesting on the streets (Occupy wall street, who were already there, got involved), on facebook, you found groups such as "Bank Transfer Day" calling for people to pull their accounts from the big banks, and thus reducing their power and influence, even setting an ultimatum, as to when to pull the money out collectively, on November 5th (a play on Guy Fawke's night, remembering the plot to blow up parliament in England in 1605). With the result: Bank of America's stock plummeted by 6% in a day and counting, as investors heed the people's warning. Enough achieved right there. This, was both a warning and a reminder of the power of the masses. Imagine what else we can do, if we just get on the same page.

Here are a few links, in case you're interested in joining the cause, or just informing yourself on your own time.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bank-of-America-drops-5-debit-rb-2224200831.html?x=0

http://www.facebook.com/Nov.Fifth

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/113719/big-banks-new-card-fees-wsj?mod=bb-budgeting

I have a feeling that nobody at BOA will have trouble remembering the 5th of November this year. ;-)

The Coupon Necessity - A Side Effect Of Our Current Economy.

I used to never worry about clipping coupons. I always did alright, never had to pinch a penny and frankly, I thought coupons were for someone else to use. Someone, who needed them, kind of like social security, it's for those in need. I still feel like that about social security, basically if both your hands and feet work and you got half a brain, ya don't need it, because you can work and pay your way.

When the economy took a nosedive right around 2008, even I was just like before, always working, always putting my best foot forward, but I started to feel the pinch, just like many thousands of others. Suddenly things weren't going so great, and it was just around that time, I changed my view of the whole coupon game.

Truly, it is a game, and if you figure out the strategy, the system to the madness, it can actually be fun and save you a ton of money in the process. Let me put it to you this way: If you find a ten dollar bill laying on the ground, do you pick it up? Most likely your answer is 'yes'. If you ask me, picking up that ten dollar bill is a lot like picking up a couple of coupons, say, from a circular in a store, in a newspaper or even online and using them to save money on the things you were already going to buy. Basically, coupons are found money.

In this economy, where even the routine trip to the grocery store puts a strain on our wallets, coupons to me, have become almost a necessity. It's money, laying around for you to use, it costs you virtually no effort to obtain them and they can save you big-time.  I see it like this, coupons allow your money to stretch a lot further. You may argue that you spend the same amount at the grocery store still, and while that may be true, I can honestly say, it keeps my pantry stocked and I get a lot more product for the amount of money I spend. With coupons, I manage to save between 25% and 50% on the things on my list, combine them with store deals and you got yourself a cart full of stuff, spending exactly what you would have before on only half the items.

I'm lucky enough to live in a state where Publix is my main supermarket. Publix is famous for its 2 for 1 deals."BOGO", as 'us couponers' like to call it. You get to buy two for the price of one.  Already a great deal, but as the avid couponer knows: I can do better than that! This is where the game comes in. The hunt for the coupon to "stack" on top of the deal. Get a manufacturer's coupon AND a store coupon on top of the BOGO deal and you're something like the uncrowned coupon-queen (or king). Things like that can easily reduce the original shelf price to a mere fraction of it, enabling you to end up with way more product for way less money.

Interestingly, if you spend just an extra minute or two to think about a purchase that you're going to make, it may well be worth your while to check for a coupon or deal. It may not be right for everyone, but for me, it did two things:
ONE: I think before I buy. This allows me to check for a deal on the store shelf or in the store circular, because quite frankly, does it really matter if you buy Wheat Thins this week and Cheez-it's the next, or the other way round? I go with the deal and get more for my money, next time the other crackers are on sale, I'll get them then. Follow the deal, you'll get more product. Simple as that.
TWO: When ordering or buying big items, I always go online and even just do a google search for a coupon for a particular item. The last time I did that, I had to buy contact lenses, an absolute necessity for me, I saved $30 off and free shipping, a total of $50 OFF my order instantly, just because I spent exactly ONE MINUTE searching for a coupon code.

I'll always have that minute to do that. That minute, paid for my next water bill. Think about it. Try it. What do you have to lose???

By the way, my last grocery bill was $125.00 before coupons. After coupons, it was $76.



Here are some sites that I can recommend, to use or check for discounts before you buy.

http://thefrugalgirls.com/

http://www.retailmenot.com

http://www.coupons.com

http://www.redplum.com

Happy Place

People keep saying that happiness is not a place. It's an attitude, a lifestyle or a mindset. I agree, to an extent. For me though, happiness has a lot to do with my surroundings. Not just the place (as those "happy-place-is-not-a-place-haters" would surely remind me), but the whole picture. Being surrounded by good friends, that's a happy place. Doing something that you enjoy, happy place. Being able to do the things you enjoy, meaning having the time, means and conditions to do the things you love, that's happiness.

Well,  after three years of living in Memphis, which was something like the anti-happy-place for me, I've finally made it back to my home of choice: South Florida. Just in time, because I had almost forgotten how much I loved the place. Back in my old neighborhood, Florida really makes it easy for me to be happy. Or as I would put it, Florida will give you on any given day an opportunity to start the day out better than a lot of other places. If for no other reason than the weather alone.

First of all, most of the time the sun greets you when you wake up, the palm trees, in my case the lake in the back of my house. The first thing I do here is look outside and breathe, thinking, how nice is this??? For some reason though, even the rain seems better here than other places. Weird, I'm telling you! I don't know what it is, maybe it's the "rain like you mean it" deal, because seriously, when it rains, it pours down here.  But its also something about the smell and the looks of it. It never seizes to amaze me, how nice a rainy day in South Florida can be.

What's funny, I grew up in Germany, where when it rains it automatically gets cooler. To this day, every time it rains, even in Florida, I catch myself looking for a sweater or a jacket or some socks and then when I go outside I realize, nope, I'm still in Florida and it is just as hot or hotter than before the rain. Gets me every time. Programmed from years of growing up in Germany.

It's just nice, to be able to go outside, for example, I can rollerblade right outside my front door, for a really long stretch, without once crossing a street. There's a pool in the community where I live, people go fishing in the lake. Aaaahhhh. How nice.

I wonder what everyone else's happy place is? I think, whether your happy place is inside you or surrounds you, I'm pretty sure if you enjoy it more than anything else, then it's a good place. South Florida is my happy place.

Memphis, the City I Love to Hate

I'm just gonna come right out with it. The unhealthy lifestyle in this town makes me sick. Memphis (and the rest of the South), you're gross. You cannot drive or even walk (what is that? You have to use your feet? Naw...) a half a mile without being smothered by fried chicken, fried pickles, fried fish, even fried butter (thanks Paula Deen) for heaven's sake.... Add some, you guessed it, super-sized french FRIES with that, maybe some ribs and smother it all in ranch dressing and you got yourself an everyday Memphis heart clog. Don't forget the 18 extra regular sodas that contain about a half a cup of sugar each, and now we're talking. (By the way, that super-sized Dr. Pepper that you're holding weighs in at about 500-600 calories, other people would call that dinner).

Trust me, I'm not excluding myself. Since I've been unfortunate enough to live in the South, I've gained probably the better part of 30-40 pounds, not to blame only on the South, of course, it is after all up to me what I feed my body. But do your surroundings influence you? I think yes.

Having grown up in Germany, lived for half a decade in Florida and for several years in Boston, Mass., I've always led an active lifestyle, used to go to the gym 5 times a week or walk or roller blade, ate vegetables or fruit with every meal, I've always been more or less healthy. You didn't find a kernel of white rice or an "elbow" of white pasta in my house. No white bread, no processed sugar stuff, none of it. Since I live here I've worked 12 hours or more a day and have not only adopted, but always blamed the unhealthy habits on, "oh, I've got so little time to cook". Bullshit. It takes the same time to cook an unhealthy meal as it does a healthy meal. Yesterday night it occurred to me that nothing has to be smothered in cheese or fried in oil, just, because you don't have time. That's a sad cop-out. Not justifiable by anything really, and that's why the buck stops here. Because it makes me sick. And because its unhealthy. I will not be corrupted by a society that has so little self-respect, that it has become fat and lazy and then in turn applies the same attitude to everything surrounding them. 

Consider the chart that I put below. Now you tell me why Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana are the fattest states in the country? If you can live covered in crime and trash, might as well do it weighing 200+lb. Life has gone to down the drain already, so why not continue on that path... Just saying, if you've got nothing good surrounding you, why would you take a step to change for the better? For what?

Obesity Statistics in the United States Updated: August 2010 Obesity Trends Among U.S. Adults, 2009 | 2009 State Obesity Rates| Percentage of Children Who Are Overweight or Obese:  2007 | Prevalence of Overweight Among Children and Adolescents |State-Level Estimated Annual Medical Costs of Obesity | Obesity and Disease   Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2010 To view a CDC powerpoint presentation on obesity trends over the last ten years, click here.  2009 State Obesity Rates State % State % State % State % Alabama 31.0 Illinois 26.5 Montana 23.2 Rhode Island 24.6 Alaska 24.8 Indiana 29.5 Nebraska 27.2 South Carolina 29.4 Arizona 25.5 Iowa 27.9 Nevada 25.8 South Dakota 29.6 Arkansa 30.5 Kansas 28.1 New Hampshire 25.7 Tennessee 32.3 California 24.8 Kentucky 31.5 New Jersey 23.3 Texas 28.7 Colorado 18.6 Louisiana 33.0 New Mexico 25.1 Utah 23.5 Connecticut 20.6 Maine 25.8 New York 24.2 Vermont 22.8 Delaware 27.0 Maryland 26.2 North Carolina 29.3 Virginia 25.0 Washington DC 19.7 Massachusetts 21.4 North Dakota 27.9 Washington 26.4 Florida 25.2 Michigan 29.6 Ohio 28.8 West Virginia 31.1 Georgia 27.2 Minnesota 24.6 Oklahoma 31.4 Wisconsin 28.7 Hawaii 22.3 Mississippi 34.4 Oregon 23.0 Wyoming 24.6 Idaho 24.5 Missouri 30.0 Pennsylvania 27.4  Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2010

Now look, I get it, we all need comfort food sometimes. The operative word being S-O-M-E-T-I-M-E-S. That is not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the morbidly OBESE 10-year-olds, shoving some more pizza and fried chicken into their faces and the parents standing by and watching, sometimes even encouraging. And when you throw them a dirty look you might get an unprompted justification such as "that's all he'll eat" or "he doesn't like vegetables" (lady,  you don't have to justify anything to me, justify it to your child when he/she is old enough to blame you for the difficulties they now encounter later in life, because of your "lovin'" you think you gave them when they were a kid).

Oh, and, yes, you moron, that's all he'll eat, because he is bombarded by ads about fried stuff and fast food 24/7, which it is your job to divert him to healthier options, believe it or not, they're out there, all you gotta do is care (refer to my last post "distraction nation" for the vicious media cycle). Also, because you, Missy, haven't cooked a whole meal in a decade, he/she doesn't even know what home-cooked food is (No, no, wrong again step away from the KFC bucket that you just brought home. Newsflash: just because you just took the fast-food home, doesn't make it any better for you).

But then, we live in a world, where food has become an instant gratification. Bad day? Comfort food. We as adults do it and we teach the kids that it's OK. Birthday? Let's get Pizza. Good grades? Pizza. Food has become the go-to reward for everything. Many in today's society have become too lazy to go bowling or go and pick out a good book as a reward for a child. Let's go eat, that way I can get away from my chores, so that way the reward goes further. Truth is, mostly, parents are rewarding themselves, not the kids.

Home-cooked is the thing where you put the pan on the oven and make water boil and stuff. That square box in your kitchen with the four round thingies on top, that's your oven, it's just been sitting there since it was delivered to you two years ago along with your brand new state of the art "show" kitchen that you're not using. That's a whole other story. 

It always fascinates me, how people have kids like they're going out of style, apparently just for the sake of saying "kids, yeah, I got some of those" but yet, they don't give a crap about them, or even at the very least even take a little pride in them... you're the one that brought them here in the first place. Most, as a matter of fact, only have kids to validate their own existence, passing on the gene-pool, for the benefit of the parents so as to tell themselves they've accomplished something in their lives.

So much to rant about so little time....

Distraction Nation

We live in a day and age where distractions are omni-present. TV, Sports, Social Networking (I have been myself guilty of spending too much time on sites like facebook), fashion trends, an infinite number of electronic gadgets, Lindsay Lohan's latest mishap, Reality TV, Advertising --just to name a few, are all around us. For God's sake, even the newscast is interrupted by advertising or what I like to call "non-news" such as Paris Hilton and consorts. The scary part about this development is, one cannot rely on TV news for information anymore, especially, if one actually wants to be informed and know what is going on in the world. This might be fine for the person, who actively seeks information, since he/she will go out of her way to find it elsewhere, like on the internet or other media. That person I'm not worried about, those who seek shall find.

What about the ones that do not seek? Joe Shmoe, sitting on the couch, relying on someone to bring the news to him, waiting to have it rain down on him from Heaven or the TV set, whichever comes first. He's getting battered with an abundance of useless information and force-fed a gigantic amount of whitenoise that does not have any informational value and no bearing on his life whatsoever.  --That is if he even makes it to the newscast and doesn't first get distracted and sucked in by college basketball, CSI anywhere or some Jersey Housewives Show that may possibly cause you to lose a couple of braincells rather than furthering your knowledge in any kind of way..

I wonder if we've just gotten to the point where we have "untrained" our brains and consequently they have forgotten how to digest complex information, because they haven't been "fed" with anything worthwhile in so long. The information overload, overstimulation, and the vast amount of useless information, have literally paralyzed the sense for what's important in many people today.

Just yesterday I saw a commercial of a car that can update your facebook status and also read your status updates to you. Really? REALLY?

I come to two possible conclusions: We're either not supposed to be informed and think for ourselves, because independent thinking is "dangerous", therefore we're bombarded with all this useless crap to keep us busy.
Or we choose to be ignorant of truth for with knowing what's wrong with the world and society comes responsibility and accountability and nobody likes either of the two.

I cannot offer any solution other than, think about where in this equation you want to stand. Inform yourself. Don't take anything for granted. Don't accept just anything that you're being told. SEEK information actively and use your brain for independent thinking.

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) 

Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture?

For quite some time now I have grown frustrated with the economic situation, not only in this country, but all over the civilized world. The picture that is unfolding before us in the news, is quite similar all around, whether you look at the US, Germany, France, England, you're pretty much seeing a common denominator: companies going under, bigger companies getting bailed out by their country's governments, banks being bailed out, foreclosures and short sales left and right... and all the banks around the world, but specifically in the US, crying bloody murder about all the money they're losing. 

Hard to believe that they're doing this in the wake of the regular guy losing house and home, safety and security for their families etc. 

The banks, at least the big players, whose names crop up everywhere, seem to largely come away unscathed. I wonder why that is?

But that is not even the point that I'm trying to make today. The point involves the two charts that I have placed below, deliberately without headings. LOOK  at them closely and COMPARE. I have looked these up after recently watching the "Zeitgeist" movies, which by the way I recommend to anyone who is interested in critical thinking and questioning the status quo. Now that you've looked at the charts, by now you have figured out that a lot of the same names pop up in both. It therefore may come as a surprise to you that the first chart outlines the major campaign sponsors of John McCain in the past election. The second chart, you probably guessed it by now, outlines the campaign sponsors of Barack Obama. 

NOW YOU TELL ME, ARE THERE REALLY TWO PARTIES IN THIS COUNTRY AND SUBSEQUENTLY, ARE WE THE PEOPLE REALLY THE ONES WHO ELECT OUR GOVERMENT?

After looking at this information, I truly have to question who's in power here. 

Feel free to dig deeper into these charts, this is where I got them 1 for obama :http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638&cycle=2008

2 for John McCain:http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?id=N00006424&cycle2=2008&goButt2.x=12&goButt2.y=5&goButt2=Submit

Merrill Lynch	$373,595
Citigroup Inc	$322,051
Morgan Stanley	$273,452
Goldman Sachs	$230,095
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$228,107
US Government	$208,379
AT&T Inc	$201,438
Wachovia Corp	$195,063
UBS AG	$192,493
Credit Suisse Group	$183,353
PricewaterhouseCoopers	$167,900
US Army	$167,820
Bank of America	$166,026
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher	$159,596
Blank Rome LLP	$154,226
Greenberg Traurig LLP	$146,437
US Dept of Defense	$144,105
FedEx Corp	$131,974
Bear Stearns	$117,498
Lehman Brothers	$114,357

University of California	$1,591,395
Goldman Sachs	$994,795
Harvard University	$854,747
Microsoft Corp	$833,617
Google Inc	$803,436
Citigroup Inc	$701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$695,132
Time Warner	$590,084
Sidley Austin LLP	$588,598
Stanford University	$586,557
National Amusements Inc	$551,683
UBS AG	$543,219
Wilmerhale Llp	$542,618
Skadden, Arps et al	$530,839
IBM Corp	$528,822
Columbia University	$528,302
Morgan Stanley	$514,881
General Electric	$499,130
US Government	$494,820
Latham & Watkins	$493,835

Memphis, the City I Love to Hate.

Memphis, I've lived here for just over two years, and still I can't come to terms with it. The Music City, the City of Barbeque and Southern hospitality... for insiders maybe or visitors, not for someone that wasn't born and raised here, but unfortunately for one reason or another got stuck with living here. I'm what you would call an outsider here, not only am I not from here (being the south), I'm from Europe. In Memphis terms, I might as well be a green or purple alien with telescope eyes and antennas sticking out of my head. I speak other languages, which is already mildly suspicious and threatening to the average redneck. It's not that people are openly hostile or unfriendly to me, it's more like a cautiousness kinda like someone would be with a raccoon that's out in plain daylight and you're not sure if he has rabies or not. In a way open hostility would be better, I'd prefer that, because at least it would be honest. I can live with that.

But being an outsider here can come in many different shapes or forms, such as not being republican, not being baptist, having gay friends... So if you're not churchy or conservative, first thing you'll notice is, it isn't easy to make friends, as a matter of fact, it's damn near impossible. The cause of that is everyone on the inside is in one of these groups. Now, I've always considered myself moderately religious, grew up in a Roman Catholic household.  Turns out despite 13 years of religious education in German Schools (it's mandatory there), plenty of church going in my youth, I'm not churchy enough for Southern taste, and then I'm also not the right kind of religion, which previously hadn't occurred to me. I've spent considerable time of my life in Germany, Florida and Boston, yet, I had never had my being catholic be frowned upon, but whaddaya know: It's possible in the South. I was floored when I figured out that I was a minority here.

Now don't get me wrong, whatever makes people happy, I really think everyone should live their lives as they see fit, but please, please do not force Jesus on me, especially, when I've already got him, the fact that you're excessive about it, isn't at all my problem. I'd like to define my own level of involvement, just as I let you define yours, forcing it on me doesn't make me anymore "christian", au contraire -it makes me pissed off at both you AND your religion, and yes, that really is YOUR religion.

Anyways, but it's not just that. It's the vast amount of mismanagement and greed (not at all christian if you ask me) that has brought this city to its knees and that makes this place so upsetting to look at every day. You only have to walk around downtown to see it. The sheer amount of empty, abandoned buildings, storefronts and even landmarks (yes, I'm talking about you, Pyramid) is painful proof of the corruption and bloodsucking that has wiped the life right out of this one time great city that in the past was worth being called the city of music. Now, Memphis mostly sings the Blues and not in a good way either. Elvis would turn in his grave if he knew that the roads he once drove along in his pink Cadillac are now not only crime-ridden but also abandoned, lined by fallen-down buildings and boarded up windows. And we're not talking little shacks either, we're talking, former Grand Hotels, large office buildings, embellished with columns and stucco, sitting there waiting for their slow demise, abandoned. THERE IS NO downtown anymore, because this city and its inhabitants do not even have the self respect to care enough and to maintain the place they live in.

What a ginormous waste. And the buildings they do/did restore, guess what, yes, they're either empty or so ridiculously expensive to rent or buy (condos etc) that most Memphians wouldn't be able to afford them anyways. Not to mention the stigma that by now is attached to "living downtown", that sinful place, where Beale Street and all the drinking and loud music is (the very reason why some of Memphis Tourism is still alive in some parts of town, and don't even talk to me about Elvis, those who know him are a dying generation and not around for longer, that one thing that Memphis had going for itself is slowly but surely on its way out too, and then what, I scream, then what??)

Memphis has officially missed the train. Compared to the now"glorified" suburbs, haven for the "little man", the redneck, the mud-loving, wild-beast hunting, gun-loving slob, the only thing that is worthy of his family is the suburb. And with that, downtown has officially died, because instead of filling all these storefronts, condos and apartments, if necessary at lower rents to establish another downtown , the greed-filled city of Memphis, is smelling the opportunity to make money. They would rather have an empty downtown and cash in on whatever government money they can lay their hands on, because "boohoo we can't get our space rented, poor us", than to breathe some life into that place. I wouldn't be surprised to see a tumbleweed rolling down the street someday. It's a vicious cycle, with the empty buildings you attract homeless people and with them you attract drugs and crime and in the end who wants to live alongside homelessness and drugs and crime. It's a trainwreck...and it makes me so mad I can't see straight. When you see the pictures from the 40's and 50's, the place was hopping, what happened?

(This won't be the last post about this city that I love to hate unfortunately, I can't help but write about my frustration for I might burst if I don't talk about it...)

Mind-ing my business

Definition: What I mean by mind-ing my business, is that I'm aware of my surroundings; I go through the world with my ears and eyes wide open, senses intact. I like to stay on top of things and I don't mind interpreting what I hear and see in my own way. Sometimes I'm painfully aware of things others wouldn't notice or care about.
It can be as simple as hearing a bird above the hustle and bustle of the city, or just noticing the light fall through some tree branches. I guess you could call it paying attention, being alert. Does that make me special? Not at all. It just helps explain what I will be doing with this blog. I will write about things I see, hear, and think about. Situations I find myself in. I
Writing the blog will help me put my thoughts in order about things I care about,  need to make sense of or just want to share with no one in particular. I often get stuck on my thoughts and have a hard time letting things go, particularly when they mean something to me.  Writing them down may help.