Once upon a time, late 70s, early 80s, I dwelled in a beach town just this side of the Mexican Border

I’d enrolled in Grad School down there and was determined to extend my college life well into middle age. I’d run out of G.I. Bill money long ago and with no grey-haired broad willing to support my ass I worked door-to-door jobs for quick cash. Eventually I cut out my own Gig promoting Auto Service Coupon Books. But before I started my own business I learned the ropes under a series of Professional Chiselers. Mostly the Door-To-Door kind. Briefly, however, I worked a phone-sales gig called Phoenix Industries. This was definitely mole work. We sat at cubicles for six hours a day, dialing numbers like hop heads tossing dice. We occupied a neglected corner of a dark airplane hanger. A space ripe for some outfit on the make. It was like being on a dimly lit stage facing a deaf and hostile auditorium. White rats don’t gaze up from the maze to consider the role of the Scientists. God didn’t fit into our scheme. We had no time for philosophical speculation. Each tiny desk held a solitary blue phone lit by a dome lamp. We were meant to work our phones relentlessly…hunting the cheese. They got a name for this kind of work environment. It’s called a boiler room.

slang. a. a place where illicit brokers engage in high-pressure selling, over the telephone, of securities of a highly speculative nature or of dubious value. b. any room or business where salespeople, bill collectors, solicitors for charitable donations, etc., conduct an intensive telephone campaign, esp.

Phoenix Industries was one of the outfits offering a product of dubious value. I made 2 hundred calls a day. Numbers plucked from a phone book I chose from an indifferent mass of random directories heaped on a center table. Long as I proved my worth I was free to choose my target region. Some days I’d use a New York city directory. Other days Boise, or Scranton, or Atlanta, or Cincinnati. Or any Urban Catalogue with a sizable and gullible population. Being Americans, they were all gullible. One day, out of boredom or a deranged glimmer of curiosity, I picked my own home town, Santa Cruz, California. Nobody was interested in what I had to sell. Several of the Marks had already been contacted by Phoenix Industries, and they questioned my sanity.

The manager of our den of scammers, my pal Hal Dabble, supplied us with all the coffee we could drink. I’m sure we had a meth head or two among the crew of 20 or so cold callers. I wasn’t one of them. Had I been I probably would of closed a lot more more deals.

The pitch was simple. “How ya doing, I’m Don with Phoenix Industries. We’re the original and genuine Mega Clear Windshield Scraper. The only product indorsed by three U.S. Presidents. Listen, I’m not calling cuz I’m trying to sell you something. I got a real disaster on my hands. You heard about this tanker strike we got down here in good old San Pedro? I know you have. It’s front page news. Well, I’m stuck with a ship load of product I can’t move to Japan. So I’m forced to pay a huge storage bill. That’s right. So what I’m doing I’m giving it away. Every single crate is going to somebody. That’s why I’m calling you. I’m offering you a box for nothing. All you gotta do is cover the excise tax. That’s right. 1500 windshield scrapers for 200 bucks. You can sell them for 14. 99 a piece easy. That’s a 9000 percent profit. Do the math. You’ve seen our scrapers on T.V.. Our Mega Clear Scraper is guaranteed unbreakable. Made out of Buterin. What’s Buterin? It’s what Nasa uses to coat the space ships. LISTEN! If you can take a box or even a half a box I’ll fed ex em to you and you wont need to pay the excise tax until the product arrives. Whattaya say? It’s like you won the lottery! Plus, you’d really be helping me out. BUTERIN. How’s it spelled? Just like it sounds. Whattaya say? What? That’s a hundred twenty for a half box. Whattaya say?”

Thinking back I’m surprised I ever made a sale. But the 10 percent rule was fairly reliable. From say 2 hundred dials I could count on maybe thirty full pitches. And if thirty people actually listened to my full pitch I could count on three sales. My commission on a full sale was eighty bucks. Times three I’d clear 240 bucks. Roughly 50 bucks an hour counting breaks.

Not bad money for a days work back in 1980.

$50 in 1980 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $195.06 today, an increase of $145.06 over 45 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.07% per year between 1980 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 290.13%.

As for Buterin? There’s no such thing. My pal Hal Dabble invented the word. Most people didn’t look up stuff back in 1980. You couldn’t just google a thing and let A.I. figure it out for you. You had to make a trip to the library. Or slog through an encyclopedia. Or call somebody in the know. So for my customers Buterin became this invincible material. You could scrap your windshield for a million years and the scraper would still be like brand new.

A chiseler’s Lament

So I’ve been selling something or other to normal citizens as long as I can remember. But here’s the kicker. Tramping down this trail of my life, banging doors, pitching my schlock, getting by on a smile and a promise, landing on my feet, you might say, pretty much intact…doing what I do…and yet, all the while I’m doing what I’m doing I’m lugging a full-sized inferiority complex on my back.

It’s a baked in part of my life package.

A complex as tough as Buterin. It hangs with me like a hermit crab shell. This complex defies personal growth. I’ll out grow one shell only to abandon it for yet another larger shell. All of them are tough as buterin…

Nowadays this “complex” is called Low Self-Esteem. A wish to be something I’m not. Why am I not a more noble creature? Never mind the possibility of abandoning what I am with the intent of striving to become something more perfect. In my younger days I ran toward rainbows. With age I’ve come to understand there’s no Alchemy that can change Lead into Gold. At my core I am what I am. A cockroach that strives to become something more perfect only manages to become a larger and more perfect cockroach. Learning this is what’s called wisdom…

The hard part is abandoning the lament. I often look down on myself. Why am I stuck as a Weasel? Why do I gotta steal the farmer’s chickens? I’d rather be the dog guarding the coup. A lion instead of a weasel. An Eagle instead of a seagull. I wish I was a butterfly instead of a cockroach. A bee rather than a fly.

What I am bothers me.

This is what fuels my Low Self-Esteem.

The Trumpy Cloud Silver Lining

Lately, in spite of my nagging and persistent feeling of inadequacy, I’ve noticed a change. A muting of my mental irritant. A lessening of my negative self-appraisal. You might say the wind has shifted, drawing off the mosquitoes. Clearing the air. Leaving me more relaxed and content with what I am. A kind of resolution or if not so much a resolution then at least a pause.

Because for some reason I see myself these days…what I’ve become and what I am…in a more compassionate light. I see myself far more favorably now than at any prior time in my life. You might say I’ve come to admire the Weasel in me. Especially the Cockroach. Certainly the Seagull. They’ve all taken on a Nobility I never would’ve believed possible. Indeed, I now observe that fly buzzing around the room as a truly remarkable and miraculous display of perfection. And I’m pleased to observe the airborne bug rather than swat it.

Why this change?

I call it the Trump Cloud Silver Lining.

Six months of low-life dog shit evil pecker-headed sanctimonious alleged human beings occupying the highest platform of our country has contributed to the change in my self-appraisal.

I can very easily judge my self-worth against the current Nobility posing as Noble.

These shed skins of Rattle Snakes that now possess the keys to the kingdom.

Posing as the Better People.

These purveyors of wretchedness may or may not believe God is on their side.

These are not your everyday people. They chase ambition like disease germs chase their benign hosts. They wallow in offal to kiss a squatting Lord’s bare ass. They join their peers in a comingling of swine.

Witness our current Nobility.

The better people in the age of Trump.

And what they do is the new form of Winning.

These are the winners.

I don’t know, if, in the history of civilization, there’s ever been a more repugnant and vile display of Leadership as we are enduring here and now at this moment in the good old U.S.A.

Yet we offered them the Power and they naturally snatched it.

The winners of our age are certainly not your everyday people. What are they, then? They claim to represent, yet they’re certainly not, the Common People. The people of the street. They’ve proved to be from somewhere under the street. Like loathsome Elves, they’ve arrived from a fetid source. Yet now they are the best of the best. Confirmed in their positions. Branded, you might say, by accepted convention.

So what is my point here?

Oh, yes, the Silver Lining.

The Trump Cloud Silver Lining is simply this: From an obvious comparison I’m able now to claim with dead certainty that I am not now nor have I ever been in a class with these people.

I’m not like these people…I’m better.

I may be a cheap chiseler but I’m still better!

I hail from Everyday People.

I’m happy to be Everyday People.

In fact, I’m grateful for it.