A Day In The Life Of The Bouncy Banker-Letters and donuts

Letter to the Bank Manager #88 (Art Meditates on Bankers and Wild Beasts)

Maurice Vlaminck-The Circus

Dear Bouncy BM,

This is my SHUT UP letter. I tried it out first on an unsuspecting crowd and they were so loud I had to repeatedly yell: “Shut up! Shut up!” I must admit it was quite exhilarating in its own way but that said it verged on the rude. Anyway here, without further ado, the letter:

I think you’ll agree I’ve always been upfront regarding my own inexpertise when it comes to issues of finance. I specialize in exercising my right to talk about stuff about which I know nothing. It must drive you bananas. At least you are free to totally disregard everything I have to say as my outpourings are surely the ravings of a lunatic...nobody! I hope those two words strung together lean towards the poetic rather than the insulting but one never knows. Besides it is me I am being rude to so I’ll sue myself and demand an apology. I'll sue me before someone else does. When playing with words one steps into a minefield. They are explosive in their potential to do damage or offend. I’m anxious to cause damage without offending. I wish only to chip away at those edifices founded on utterly unsound principles, i.e. unprincipled. Financial institutions are overly revered. Out of them come a lie of expertise with which we are bombarded daily. One day the markets are great and strong, the next day they are shaky and nervous. Such market forecasts and readings have nothing, nothing to do with regular people. The experts talk about trillions here and a billion, or two there, knowing full well I cannot relate. It is like the opposite of small print—big print! Print so big we look on it and feel like little ants observing the bottom of a dirty boot! People who live with day to day realities of having to pay a mortgage, feed their kids, feed their souls in pursuit of their dreams, their art, a small organic farm, getting their kids...this one is a bit pushy...an education cannot relate. They must constantly deal with enervating forces imposed on them from without: Jobs they don’t like which fail to appreciate them for their best talents, health insurance supplied by a dubious industry that charges astronomical amounts of money to give one the lie that one will be taken care of in the event of one’s death. They’ll come through for you when you’re dead. Oh! You’re dead! Never mind then. Of course I exaggerate for effect. The cost of everything is getting everyone down, seriously down. People drown in debt as meaningless numbers get tossed around like confetti, numbers that are supposed to explain everything. If you don’t understand...well...you wouldn’t would you? You are not an expert. If you were you’d know how to make money and feed your family and keep a roof over their heads. You’d know better than to take on mortgages you can’t afford. You’d know better than to take on student loans. You’d know enough to not go get educated! You are a failure, a loser, a lazy good-for-nothing. It is easy to throw around putdowns and insults. My favorite insult for you is: Banker! It truly has become a dirty word. Not one to hurl insults I should stop using it but for convenience sake I shall keep employing it in the more traditional sense.
    So what else am I apart from being a loser? Oh yes! I’m: A liberal! A WPA wannabe (spit) artist! A s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t! Maybe! Probably I am—all those things and more! The list is massive. The labels go on and on and on. I am a self doubter—jeez! I suffer from scruples—nasty! Your put downs become my badge of honor*. Can I share with you one thing that really bugs me about bleeding hearts? They will not simply admit they care! I would like this government to take care of its poor and hungry, wounded and broken. I’m not sure where you stand on such issues. You are slippery. Corporate value systems are without principle, mutable, they change with the weather.

In my letters I’m trying to express, from every possible angle—like a car mechanic scratching his head in disbelief that he cannot nail down the problem—my continued amazement at an apparent disregard, indifference, to the human toll of the financial crisis shown by those who continue to accept those obscene bonuses with impunity, and by those whose job I thought it was to police them. I meditate on an image of a banker hoping he...the image on my wall is a he as it happens...might one day mutate into the banker of my dreams.

That is it in a nutshell. Of course it cannot stay in a nutshell. It must grow into a mantra. That is why I love the Occupiers. They won’t let this drumbeat stop. Some will try to paint the movement with a broad brush suggesting it is built on envy, is fringe, is the product of snarling fury. The spotlight must be aimed at those who try. The name callers must be outed! They are the modern day equivalent of strike breakers and agitators and  they should be pulled into the conversation whether I, you or they like it or not. With gentle persuasion we might just encourage them to go work in a soup kitchen instead of wielding pepper spray.

Boy do I go on! I bet you put me on speaker phone when I call. I would!

Yours most sincerely your good friend and conscience,


Art O’Connor

PS—Kristian might be back next week to regale you with stories of his travels among the dispossessed. I’m sure you can’t wait.

PSS—* The Fauvists, the wild beasts, adopted the name thrown at them as an insult and now their art is sold for millions! Art is always worth more than money in the end. When will you finally get to grips with this fundamental truth?

Letter to the Bank Manager #86 (Guy Fawkes?)

Dear BM,

A couple of days ago in the UK they celebrated Guy Fawkes night. As a child I enjoyed the bonfires, the fireworks and the marshmallows. Burning in effigy a figure of Guy Fawkes once a year strikes me as a bit strange these days. He was part of a plot to  blow up the houses of parliament, get rid of King James 1st, and return a catholic monarch to the throne. Since then he has become a blank slate onto which people have projected many different agendas. Some prefer to burn an effigy of the houses of parliament, in general I’d say more creative (ever tried building a cardboard effigy of the Houses of Parliament?), and more about challenging institutions rather than attacking individuals—a big up yours if you like to the power of corporations and government, or powerlessness of government given that corporations hold the purse strings. Currently his visage is popular within the Occupy Wall Street movement. Why is harder to answer, a question I’ll leave others to try and answer for now.

Meanwhile today is /Leave Your Bank Day! I’m feeling a little shy on this front, torn even. As not only my dear bank manager and mentor, you are also my nemesis. That I bank with you, one of the big five banks, is a source of deep embarrassment. You know all to well how complicated it gets for people to simply up and change their accounts over to a credit union. Online banking is both a convenience and something of a trap. Life is complicated enough without diving in to the sisyphean task of trying to swap out all that information, let alone find ATMs when you need them, if one should choose to move over to a credit union, none of which are easily to be found in my neck of these troubled woods.

Yours remaining reluctantly loyal,

Art O’Connor

Letter to the Bank #75 (Voices-even the confused ones-must be heard)

Letter to the Bank (Occupying Wall Street)

Dear Bank Manager—if you can call it managing because really all you’ve managed to do is get all of us (sigh)—this is why it is hard to remain polite—you know, in a great, big ol’ mess,

Where were we? Oh yes. As one who has made a specialty of politely being rude to banks and bankers these past few years but who also expends much time and energy in the earnest effort to keep channels of communication open it is with pleasure that I can report back from Zuccotti Park and tell you they’re on the same page! They don’t plan to insult but to engage! By setting up camp they ask for and establish their right to do so. I’m down with their talk, their agendas, their hopes and desires, and above all I’m down with the fact that they are out there trying to speak their minds. The voiceless are finding their voice and what a powerful voice it promises to be. I’m waiting to hear those voices rise up in London, in the City, in Paris, France. Go Global. Don’t remain a Western voice or a white voice or a male voice become universal. This is about bigger things than banker bonuses. Those are just the shame of the old order.

Winter will come and those camping out will be stubborn. They can’t stop now. This has become inevitable. They are on a roll. People will bring hot soup and tarps, tents and socks. Doctors will bring mobile flu-shots and medicine (though some at Occupy Wall Street will balk at the idea of a shot in the arm administered without questioning the effectiveness of flu-shots, and good for them). Question all authority because for all too long we’ve hung our heads and done as we were told and that in a country where we should feel free enough to loudly debate everything. We've listened to the refined arguments and explanations of the 1% for oh so long and have heard oh so little of substance. Now it is time to listen to the daft and the silly, the extreme and the difficult, the messy and the clumsy and even the barely legible. That is where graffiti and poetry come from, the soil of art is the almost inexpressible and only if that soil is tended with loving care can those voices emerge. Nurture them and encourage them and show them the whole complexity. It takes a special talent to role the whole big ball into something we can all grapple with and maybe right now that is what is in the works.

Dear BM, I have to highlight one of their demands in light of what, despite your resistance, I’ve been insisting all along:

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

I’m personally delighted to see the protesters out their articulating (however inarticulately) their/our numerous grievances. Did I ever send you a Delete All Debt mug? I know it is absurd. I know it is preposterous! What? One day everyone at the stroke of an agreed upon clock will push a button and kill all debt? Too big to do? Bit tired of the “too big” argument. Very tired of the “too little to succeed” actuality.

I’ve been banging out these absurd letters to a bank manager who does not even exist who goes by the preposterous name of Bullrider, or Banks, or BM, for the past four years or so and honestly it may do a lot for the soul, my soul, get it off my chest at least, but it doesn’t really go much further. You know I’m not even sure it gets it off my chest. I think all this time I have been hoping my rage (I call it rage but is the simmering kind, the kind that is no doubt familiar...the fuel to the 99%) would form into cogent arguments for change. Once they did I’d get out there and share my thoughts loudly in the Public Square. My mistake? Waiting for these arguments to clarify. I should've been out there long ago. We all should've with are simmering fury at the state of the world and its sad attempt at economy. Well now we know you don’t need ghee. You just need butter. Fact is I get so caught up in nuance and language I forget to forge my thoughts through with threads of...there I go again...I forget to speak clearly. And actually that is okay. Speak up! Write me back! Argue me down! Put me back in the enveloping folds of my ragged armchair in front of my dismal TV with my potato chips and beer.

Sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay on behalf of the Bruxist Collective. 

Thanks to Hyperallergic for this image.

Letter to the Bank #73 (Occupying a little of Wall Street's Valuable Time))

Letter to the Bank

Dear Mr. Bullrider, My beloved bank manager, my very own BM,

Throw me a bone here.
Do you not manage my money? Is that not why I deposit my money with you? Am I not your client? Do you not work for me? Are you not, in effect, my employee—our employee? Are you not indeed a public servant? Was this not supposed to be the case? Do I not give you my money—albeit a paltry sum—so that you might invest it wisely? You guys are magicians! We stare at you in wonderment. You have us in the palm of your hands. Pull the bunny out of the hat! Go on! Make my money grow! I’ve seen you do it. You are amazing how you take nothing i.e. what I give you—the aforementioned paltry earnings of a toiler—and end up with bonuses for everyone but me! One moment your financial edifice is teetering on the edge of financial ruin, the next you’re riding high! That poor bull of yours is plum tuckered out! Then you bounce right back! Your manic energy is an inspiration to us all! What fabulous tricks you do perform and I look on in amazement. But then I ask: where’s my ice cream?

I am not naive. I know you are all in it for yourselves but you are in it with our money! You get your hands wicked dirty for pathetic little investors like me, but as owners of feeble checking accounts that never, ever grow it is hard to applaud you for the evil you do on our behalf.  Actually you must be quite bitter. See? That is your opening. That is where you can screw us good and proper—by hoisting us on our own moral petards* (see note). We are compromised. Banking as we do with you we are therefore culpable and thus you can render us mute, voiceless. Or we could insist you take our monies and make ethical investments. These days I am really trying to fathom why we have our money in your banks in the first place. At the best of times you were clearly an inspiration to us all. Suddenly everyone wanted to become a banker, a financial engineer, a ...mortgage broker. And apparently it wasn’t about intelligence or skill, it was all to do with who you knew. Any Tom, Dick or Jane could get wealthy over night if they weren’t encumbered by scruples and had the right connections. And because there was no money to be made anywhere else even the brightest amongst us sold our souls to become derivatives traders. Suddenly getting a Master of Business Administration degree was the way to go. It was the best of times...for you and continued to be the not so good times for everyone else. But now it isn’t looking so good for you either. The suits arew in trouble! Once more money is evaporating everywhere. Thanks to new regulations gouging your customers is not so easy so now you have had to find another trick. You are no doubt mad at the regulators and decrying their crimping of the flow of currency from our accounts into yours. If you’re so mad at big government meddling then perhaps you should show yourselves up to the task of handling our monies in a fiscally responsible manner and go after the few bad apples that are giving your industry such a bad, bad, bad, bad, so terribly bad name! Instead, in another example of your shining brilliance, you intend to charge us for spending our money, tax us for using our debit cards! Now if ever seems like a good time to forgo the banks and withdraw all ones money and stuff it under the..., up the, in the.... Look all I am saying is if there should be a run on the banks you’d only have yourselves to blame. With your hidden fees and smoldering agendas you have lost the trust of the people entirely, lock, stock, and two smoking barrels.

I trust you understand that I care about you and that is why I share these thoughts with you my very own, if elusive, possibly non-existent bank manager. I’m trying to save you from yourself
, or an MFA, which was seen as a kind of MBA  but that is another story)

In these letters I’ve tried so hard to keep my tone reasoned and polite, and intrapersonal, between you and me. I’ve tried for the most part to avoid going down the rabbit holes of politics and religion and keep the message simple: From one human being to another. We are alike in so many ways, you and me.

We are not provincial thinkers. We both think big. We see this as a world wide crisis and this spot as its epicenter. This isn’t just about America. This is about the whole planet. Where on this planet can we hide our money these days—in your case to avoid taxes in ours to avoid those pesky debit fees.

Another thing we have in common is our need to make money. How we make it is another matter. I make art and you invent financial instruments. We are both so creative. But never forget art is worth more than money.

Yours sincerely,

Art O’Connor on behalf of the Bruxist Collective

Letter to the Bank #66

Dear BM,

Even as I play my own role in The Great Cover Up, a wonderful play than not only seeks to convince you that everything is fine but almost succeeds—its that good—the veil is lifted. I’m outside on a hot day gardening, sprucing up the yard. I’m actually...edging the driveway, and in the process no doubt pleasing those neighbors of mine who have lawn services and irritating those who don’t and who will now feel obliged to go out and do same:

Edging—
1. anything placed along an edge to finish it, especially as an ornament, fringe, or border on clothing or along a path in a garden
the act of making an edge, in gardening and/or sowing, or metalwork and crafts

I’m a homeowner and homeowners with gardens and driveways are forced, once in a while, to edge.

So here I am with my sharp, flat edged shovel, acting the part of homeowner/gardener, cleaning up my own backyard, making things look as if they are in order, hoping people will observe the fine garden and not the peeling paint on the side of the house, hoping I can convince myself that everything is right with the world, overly protecting the family, hoping against hope I can turn my face away from the all too obvious fact that society is fraying, breaking down, falling apart at the seams. Then, sowing needle and thread in hand, I look down to see, in the weeds, a dime bag, this one nicely emblazoned with black spades. For me in my little MC Northern New Jersey enclave these things are more easily evaded. Naturally if you live in Anacosta, half a mile from the White House with 28% unemployment, they are more prevalent than weeds. In Bohemian Williamsburg, before the Time of the Trust Fund Kids, they were everywhere as the Dominicans, the Poles, resisted the influx of artists and other alternative bottom-rungers, even as they uneasily co-existed with their neighbors the Hassids. Friends made artworks out of them or talked about doing so. They are signifiers of hurt and pain, of the disenfranchised and the dark side in ourselves that allows that, the part of us that does not want to get angry and just wants to lead a blameless life. If you get angry you have to get involved. If you get involved you might have to make commitments, follow through on promises, volunteer for stuff, and that takes time and money, both of which are in short supply.

So I sit and stare at this dirty little dimebag with the sun shining through it, my soil on it, or the Bank’s—because they own my mortgage —and wonder why a country that had so much would watch it vanish as countries the world over seek to attain what they thought we had. 

I hear the kids upstairs, laughing as they master more card tricks, card tricks that might put them in better stead than a college education.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

A.K.A Art O’Conner

Known to some as RC, ever restless in his own skin

Resignation Letter

Official Resignation Letter




Dear Financial Engineers, Money Guys and Bank Managers,

I am formally resigning from my position as Concerned If Numerically Dyslexic Artist/Citizen/Observer of the Ongoing Financial Meltdown (OFM), or Continuing Monetary Tsunami (CMT). My letters to you all—henceforth to be referred to as the Void—have met with virtual silence. I like to read this as your possible embarrassment at truths skillfully revealed by yours truly but suspect you all have simply been laughing yourselves silly and slapping your thighs all the way to the bank. My outrage is your fodder for fun, my economic innocence is risible, my infantile hope that you might be more considerate to those you are supposed to serve, is nothing but a joke! That I remained shocked by your infinite ability to suck blood from a stone, reap rewards, bonuses and slaps on the back for what is in essence criminal behavior, must be very amusing for you all. Or I can can only imagine you are able to defer all blame onto others in your industry, or redefine your industry in such a way as to make it plain it wasn’t you guys but those guys; or your job but their job. You can stop right now blaming the Consumer. You asked us to consume and we did because you are the Experts. You are expert consumers and you showed us all how it was done. You are even consuming us. Thank you for all your advice over the years. Thank you for dismantling Trust in this: the society I live in.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

PS—No longer required to write absurdly naive letters to the Bank I shall now concentrate on the far more important work of creating Art, Art that you the people with money must eventually Own.

Remember this:
•Art is worth more than Money
•Our relationship is deeply symbiotic
•Your lives without Art are worthless

Letter to the Bank #61

Dear Bank Manager (in the age of Twitter BM will do),

I don’t know what to say to you any more. It is all about money isn’t it? Is it good that Libya is collapsing? Is the West sorry to be losing an evil ally or happy to see the people of Libya breaking their bonds and reaching out for this elusive quality that we call Democracy? All is ambivalence. In the years to come we will no doubt hear of feckless attempts by agents on all sides to effect outcomes for better or worse. One can only hope their attempts to do so come to nought and all that occurs is the result of people taking control of their own lives and learning to hear each other and build institutions that work for the common good. I suspect banks the world over want only stability at whatever the cost to people on the ground. They stand forever neutral to the damage done to individuals and families and communities. All that ever matters is the bottom line. Unless you can see the human face of your actions, the lost home, the unfed, the uneducated, the unclothed, the struggles faced by the individual who once upon a time would sit across from you sharing his or her dreams for a better life and would look to you for advice we are all lost. Even if we loathe it this is a planet founded or foundering, leaking lifeboats of cash. Not knowing what else to do I join the desperate, stampede once in a while ducking into a doorway where I’ve seen a shortcut to reward. Briefly afloat on an all too temporary cash infusion I reward myself with a moment of contemplation, a luxury I use to make a stab at Art. A small window is leapt through and the result is a small artwork fit in to a respite from anxiety. Surely life is more than wealth accumulation? This brings us neatly back to my contention that Art is worth more than Money, my mantra. Miserable in their wealth where do the rich turn but to culture, culture being growth of a meaningful sort.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay, muckraker.*

* My favorite current technique is to take mounds of paint and scrape and drag them across surfaces until the result satisfies on a deep and elemental level.

Letter to the Bank #60

Thomas Gilray

dear BM,

As we start not only a new year but a new decade I think again about the motivations I have to write these letters to you my imagined financial advisor and therapist, the target of my ire and my confident. You are asked to fill a difficult role. You are my punching bag and sounding board.

I am a bird in your ear, and your rear, twittering away and clearly, with so much to say I should be Tweeting to. I’m just a little shy of the medium for no reason I can find. The quiet persistence of blogging with the high probability that nobody reads what I write is almost comforting. I do and I don’t want to effect the Conversation. I’m slightly mistrusting of my own motivations, and not sure of my wit or candor. By Tweeting I’d be going out on a limb. I’ll have to be pithy and precise. I like messy but few have time for that. My long winded, old fashioned letters will be converted to haikus in the near future. I’ll miss wordy. In the world of art the word baroque conjures up images of too much gold and too much in general. That said I love dense passages in books and rich images, symmetry and patterns that are taken to the nth degree. I’m just not happy with ostentatious. Shakespeare is rich and even over the top but he delights in language and has something to say. What would he have done with twitter?

On another matter I do hold the responsibility for the words I utter though often uttered under a fragile pseudonym. The pseudonym acts as a character in my plays not a front to hide behind. I believe in being open when expressing one’s opinions. This is a luxury we still have in the USA that is still sorely lacking in so many other societies. To not be up front in this country with one views strikes me as cowardly. I will not read anonymous articles or thoughts by others if they cannot be sourced back easily. This quote from Stanley Fish’s article in NYT Opinions page today (1/4/11) puts it well:

The practice of withholding the identity of the speaker is strategic, and one purpose of the strategy (this is the second problem with anonymity) is to avoid responsibility and accountability for what one is saying. Anonymity, Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago observes, allows Internet bloggers “to create for themselves a shame-free zone in which they can inflict shame on others.” The power of the bloggers, she continues, “depends on their ability to insulate their Internet selves from responsibility in the real world, while ensuring real-world consequences” for those they injure.

My blogs feel powerless and that is okay. I’m interested in civil discourse. Anger is effective when expressed with clarity. If you shout at me I’ll cover my ears after trying briefly to tease out what it is you might be trying to say. Draw me in don’t shut me out and let me see you as we converse. You meanwhile remain silent never responding like a Freudian analyst. I always preferred the idea of Jungian therapy where there is some give and take. Do you agree with my musings on greed, my postings about the filthy rich and the dirt poor? Are you in the middle—slightly mad at your superiors, your bosses, though disinclined to blow a whistle or stick your head up above the trenches incase it gets blown off?

Remember I am always happy to talk about art. If you do not want me to discuss the awful underpinnings of this ownership society then let us talk about Art and I don’t mean blue chip art, or popular art, or even satire. Tell me about a painting or a play or a poem that stuck with you and try to tell me why.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

PS—Don't take my image choice too personally.

Letter to the Bank #59

Dear BM,

I’ve been reading so many op-eds, editorials, books, columns about the worldwide financial crisis that I’ve hardly had time to pen my own artsy and numerically illiterate response to the crisis. You could well argue, given the volume of words on the subject one does not need me to add to the pile but humans need to vent as is clear from the millions of bloggers and twitterers out there. I’m just one of them.

What gives my letters to you, my essays (as defined by Montaigne an essay is a melding of the intellectual and the personal) their particularity is the angle I offer of an artist obsessed by greed and its sad counterpoint poverty. In a world that could feed itself if only it could agree to do so it makes me mad to see individuals piling up obscene amounts of personal wealth given the desperation out there. I also cannot stop opining on why some choose the pursuit of creativity and others choose to create money. This fascinates me I suppose and the difference between the two is not always obvious. There are people in the world of finance who seek to create wealth and end up trying to eradicate malaria, and there are artists who decide to make things and discover a way to make objects that is tantamount to printing their own money—quantitative-easing-explainedquantitative easing if you like.

I met a real banker last night. I was not seeking a loan to fix my leaking roof. I was at a party making conversation! I was holding a glass of—well in my case water because I was still coping with a hangover from my spouse’s office party the night before—but it could as well have been fine wine because fine wine is a specialty at our good friends’ Jane and Debras’ Christmas Party. The gentleman I was speaking to said he worked for the Bank of Scotland and in my scattered readings I’d gathered this was one, big struggling institution so I deigned to ask about its’ troubles. He was forthright saying like many banks an act of hubris had lead to its’ current precarious state. I added my interest was that of a mere dabbler in the dark arts of finance and that I described myself with regularity as numerically dyslexic. He said that really a bank is just a big version of what everybody is dealing with when it comes to their own personal finances. Some handle those finances well and some don’t. This struck me as a nice conciliatory note with which to end my last letter of the year. He was a nice man and struck me as, at the very least as honest as I attempt to be. The only difference was that he handles a substance of nuclear proportions and my medium is, when it remains distinctive from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the United States Mint, much like sand—loved and much trodden upon.

I do want to add one more little story. Planet Money did a piece the other day about the little island of Yap, Micronesia, where money or currency took/takes the form of huge limestone disks called rai, disks described as stunningly beautiful when radiant and white in the sunshine. This is a great example of what I’ve been trying to say all along—Art is definitely worth more than money. Art is what people should be exchanging for the things they need. If instead of being passed on like regular currency it is kept and enjoyed all to the good! People just have to make more money—I mean Art—and it wouldn’t be considered illegal.
Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

Letter to the Bank #57

From Russell Christian Illustration

My Dear BM,

These letters are turning existential! I think that is the right word. Rather than be mired in the humdrum world of my own crumbling finances I like to look up and out and on. I cannot stand just thinking and breathing anxiety all the time, or being pulled to shreds on the torture rack of the need to make art (and live and breath it as and when moments in the day open up) and make money not only to confront the impossible task of paying down debt but also to keep the little people in my life, at the very least, away from robbing banks i.e.—in modern parlance—off the computer. I’m confident my brood would make fine cyber-hackers given enough incentive and believe me if you deprive them of their candy, their toys, their sugar-bloated cereals they will find a means to acquiring these things themselves. You mark my words. In fact you’ve always known this and that is why, not so long ago, you were giving them credit cards as soon as they could walk. This whole financial crisis is THEIR fault! Let’s blame the toddlers! This isn’t far from the truth either come to think of it. Blaming naive, wannabe homeowners for the crisis, beginners who’d were sold a bill of goods, toddlers who dreamed of home ownership, were What did you expect? You guys didn’t understand what you were doing and still do not understand the half of it so how dare you point at those who fell for your sales pitch? If it was too good to be true then why were you selling it in the first place? And now you want to take their toys away! Simply put your behavior was criminal.

Gosh every time I start writing these letters in hopes of soaring poetical I end up dragged to the ground by these sorry, all too earthy and humdrum truths.

I was going to write about how life is so much more than money but money somehow always inserts itself into the picture. It destabilizes me every time I think ont (sic—I believe this is an acceptable Shakespearian term).

I was going to share with you all the current questions in my head. Some examples:

How would people respond if I burnt the books of Ann Coulter?
What if I framed a book of hers and titled the now completed artwork “Unburnt Book by Ann Coulter”, could I sell them? Make some money?

How about an artwork so insulting to bankers it could never possibly sell? You’d buy it, right?

Do you thinks bands who perform on a nice sunny day at an open air concert are sorry for those who are cancilled the next day due to rain?

Do you know what GOP stand for*? I bet a good fifty per cent of the population has no idea.

Do you like ambient music? That one just popped into my head.

Yours trying so very hard to remain polite,

K.W.

GOP stands for "Grand Old Party". Its a nickname for the Republicans who resent any form of government because it always gets in the way of them having "Fun."

Letter to the Bank #56

Hello Bullrider,

Finally another letter!

Funniest thing is writing these letters is such hard work but I keep doing it anyway. Finding a moment to sit down, getting comfortable (so hard to do when your ceiling is leaking), finding a pen that works, finding a stamp for goodness sakes!

Fortunately I am a patient man and so I go to this effort for you, my bank manager.

Funnier still is the fact that you are, frankly, the last person I wish to write a letter to but here I am, pen in hand, doing just that.

Feel free to explain!

Foolish Harry here certainly has no idea what is going on.

Frankly though I keep writing in hopes an explanation will be forthcoming.

Felicitous greetings aside why do the rich feel so entitled?

Falling stocks, crumbling edifices, collapsing DOW and they keep partying?

Fold your newspaper under your arm and join me for a drink.

Face to Face perhaps we can figure this thing out together.

Ferocious cold aside I think you should touch base with your real clientelle—those like me with nothing to offer but the shirts off our backs because we’ve given everything else.

Sincerish regards,

Kristian Witherkay

PS-To keep things lively I might start a series of letters whereby every sentence begins with the same letter—a madcap creative exercise guaranteed to infuriate my BM (you!) and keep me on my toes and out of  oh I dunno—Debtors’ Prison. Oops! I forgot! I'm already in Debtors' Prison! My own home! I exagerate only a little. Fond of it though I am it is a ball and chain around the neck. 

I’ll work my way through the alphabet in no particular order starting today—it would appear—with F.

Letter to the Bank #55

Dear Bullrider,

I made a shocking discovery today. I believe I’ve become physically allergic to banks! I was required to enter one of your fine if a little unkempt facilities to deposit a meagre check (enough at least to tide us over until our next direct deposit so I shouldn't complain) when I found myself all of a sudden paralyzed from the knees up. Below the knees seemed hardly affected. I could only presume this is related to the vicinity of my wallet—its placement about my person. As a frequent wearer of baggy cargo pants/shorts this can be anywhere along the length of the thigh depending on where the pocket is attached. I won’t go into brand differences between say Old Navy and whatever one might find in the local charity shop. Because I am left-handed the pocket I usually use is also usually to be found on my left side. My left side definitely became far more rigid than my right. You could say it is all in the mind but I found this compelling back up for my theory.

Needless to say this truly puts the kebosh on further efforts to engage with my BM in person at my local branch—can’t do it anymore! Previous attempts to do so have been so hopeless any way especially given your proclivity for face-lifts. Either you are a master of disguise or a victim of botox treatments run amuck. Your name on that little bronze plaque remains the same but your look changes with every visit? Is it that I don’t have a personal BM anymore? Is this a thing of the past? In numerous letters I have addressed this issue and yet still I cannot come to grips with the awful possibility that you, my BM, are in fact many, many different people.

How about Skypeing in future? This would demand minimal effort on your part (and is cheap!) and I could closely observe your features without having to step into your strange and alien world, a world that, these days, is a proven danger to my health.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian A. Witherkay

PS- I’m not about to appologise for not having written in a while. You NEVER write to me —unless you count those dry missives churned out of your department suggesting I transfer higher rate balances to your oh so briefly lower rate.

Letter to the Bank #54

Dear Longshot,

It's been so long I've completely forgotten your name. It is possible your bank changed hands since we last spoke, and I use the word spoke loosely considering we have never, in fact, spoken. Are you still you, or have you morphed into someone else? Has your staff turned over? Is it facing the other way? Is the new new team on board with financial regulation or already finding ways around it? I gather all financial regulation is pretty much demolished before it can ever take hold. Sad really. I'd like to get this relationship going again if only to keep you on your toes. You certainly keep me on mine with your continually badgering me for my next interest payment. Like I told the previous gentleman I'd appreciate it if you threw more of my payments at principal in future. Then we might get ourselves on more of an even footing. We'd almost be able to look each other in the eye! A society where the distance between the rich and poor had been substantially eroded would be a thing to see wouldn't it?

Yours sincerely,

K. W.

PS-I'm feeling a little flush! Sold a couple of drawings and have more than enough in my pocket to pay for lunch this week!

Letter to the Bank #52

Dear Mr. Bullrider (or current BM if not available),

This idea is so insane…it just might work. Why don’t we simply delete all debt? I know it is a simplistic but I believe simplifying is good. We can assume debtholders won’t like the idea too much but visionary ideas must always face and overcome resistance. If we are ever to restore balance to the universe this is the only way. To the Mr. Potters of this world, for those who have never encountered debt the idea will no doubt be seen as dystopian, nightmarish, but for those in the hole—the other 99% —it is not just a utopian dream but one that is within reach! As the majority we can vote to end all debt because we live in a democracy. Of course the debt doesn’t stop at the borders and not every country believes in the democratic process. There are problems we’ll have to overcome. Naturally picking the date for Debt Deletion Day would be tricky. The whole thing would have to happen instantly so people don’t go hiding their assets or knocking down doors to find them. This is more of a headache than I thought. You could help. Give me your thoughts—the thoughtful ones not the reactive kind.

It is funny to think that communist China stood in counterpoint to capitolist America for half a century but now holds the purse strings. They are the greatest debt holder of all! My idea should appeal to capitolists everywhere. Even the banks that are too big to fail owe money to someone, somewhere! The US woud bennefit enormously if China freed it from its fiduciary obligations. At the other end of the spectrum homeowners could keep their homes to salvaging the remaining tattered remnants of this beleagured society. Surely that would be a good thing? Oh I know…legal paperwork would be voided. Ownership would have to be reconceived that sort of thing. These are minor details. The point is to let people be. Leave them alone. Get off their backs. Cease with the threats. Go silent. Be gone. Let people live their lives, their all too brief lives, with some semblance of dignity! This current system is no longer tenable. We need to circumvent, short circuit, the system. Spelunkers in the Matrix can surely find a way.

Perhaps we can find a happy compromise. If we were to be more modest in our goals and merely iron out the wrinkles in debt, even it all out, spread the pain. It would be good for people to feel in control again, self-respect, and bodily hygiene would return and, having learned to iron they’d all be well dressed to boot.  If we all took less and gave back less…for example you keep the art I sent you, keep the books you borrowed, and, for goodness sake, keep all that paperwork you insist on sending me. You know I never read it. And I’ll keep what I already have which means you’ll hardly notice a thing! If you don’t want me to write to you any more I won’t—all the less paperwork for you to deal with!

In short I’ll stop bugging you if you stop bugging me.

Yours sincerely,

Art Witherkay

Letter to the Bank #51

Dear BM,

I’ve been attempting to write haikus of late though not in their strictest form. They are pop haikus, westernized impoverishments of a transcendent form.

In a World That Shoots its own Foot
There’s a hand I often see
That likes to point at me.
Paralyzed from the shin bone up
I gawk at the passers by

My mind feels like a spiral cooked ham these days, hurtling inward to the core, soon to be turned into soup. All I wish to do is turn my protracted whine into an oratorio, convert my confusion into clarity. The desire to share the fruits of my labor with the world is overwhelming but who wants wrinkled skins, and mushy texture, spotting and bruises? It would be nice to share excitement for a change, the thrill of travel, of making new discoveries, the joy of painting.

Why do I keep addressing these letters to you, my friend? Because it seems to me essential that you, more than most, must come to your senses. I’m hoping you will finally grasp the extent of the havoc you have unleashed on this ravaged world.

I’ve always had an angry bent I suppose but mostly have always been regarded as an optimist by nature, not all dark and bent out of shape. That is the awful power of debt—it turns you into gnarly roots and vines. I’ve become an ancient olive tree in the past few years but you wouldn’t want to make oil out of my olives, no siree! Debt crushes the life out of a person. Lack of financial health is more damaging to one’s physical health than lack of exercise! You are positively no help. I can’t trust you any more or any of your ilk. Money experts are expert at making money, but not at helping people manage their own. If people do manage their money well, the experts, I suppose, make less? Is that how it works? I thought if you helped me and I did better then so did you.That is how naive I have been for all these years.

I suppose I keep writing to you out of that optimism I mentioned, that part of me that strains to comprehend, or rather find, the heart in you.

Sincerely,

Art Witherkay

PS_Here is another haiku for you:

We are the bankers’ wet dream
All that we earn they get
For a job poorly done
To maintain good credit
And a debt that will never
Ever diminish

Letter to the Bank #50

Dear BM,

I keep writing in hopes of discovering I am not alone. But you never answer my letters. I persist because I have hope. I’m a hopeful pessimist. Also you not responding allows me to speak my mind. Here is my latest thought:

The institution of banking as we know it has had it’s day. I do wonder what you observe from the inside though— do you see fine marble columns that bolster a sense of security—or do you see decay? Do you notice the gilt work (as it were) or the guilt, that insidious virus, working its way into the fabric of your networks, despite all efforts on the part of your guilty peers to ignore, sideline or deny that any such thing exists, or would even have reason to exist as all that they do is above board and beyond reproach?

So it is that I find myself standing on the pulse of my local branch, the sunlight streaming through that splendid rose window setting my hair aflame. I hold on like some heroic sailor going down with his ship. Then I hesitate. Is this how I want to go? Do I lash myself to your mast and keep making those massive interest payments to your floundering institution, into that leprechaun pot of gold you so cherish? Or do I jump ship, abandon my obligations, and attempt to swim all the way to the shore? The latter feels no less noble these days. This life of indentured servitude in a society so batty it can’t tell its head from its toes doesn’t ring right. I’d like to try something else for a while, somewhere else, somewhere off the grid where it is warm and the life is a simple one. I loved Robinson Crusoe when I was a kid!

Best regards,

Art Witherkay

Admit it. You enjoy my letters. Without them you’d be terribly out of touch with how the other half, rather the other 90%, think.

Letter to the Bank #49

Letter to the Bank 50


Dear Bullrider,

Art here. That is what I’m sticking with these days, Art.

Kristian, my first name, despite being spelt with a K, feels too burdensome, too high fallutin’, even a little dishonest. Though I do put you through the ringer on all that moral stuff like having scruples and actually using them I never pretended to be perfect myself. But I am just an artist. What I do effects nobody. I can be immoral because I can be ignored. You cannot. If I mess up my finances I now understand it is my problem and the ripples caused will barely register on your radar. What you do or don’t do has consequences for everybody and these days, don’t argue, you are causing pain. I’d call you a sadist except I’m still not sure you see it. I’m not convinced it is intentional. You’re just callous, blind. I’m Art. I see all so watch it. I’m everywhere but so elusive. Just when you think you have caught up with me I disappear around the corner. Go ahead. Foreclose on me. My home is in my heart. Trouble is that is also where you’ll find my family. That is where you get to me. You hurt the children. This is why I can’t let down my guard. I might lash out. This is why I must bone up on finance. I warned you about this in my last letter because I am never anything but upfront. I’ll read “Investing For Kids”,and Money For Dummies” and then I’ll come play with you! I can’t let up but I can be lighter. Light interests me so much more than the darkness of your turgid world, the darkness I refuse to let you pull out of me.

I may not write many more letters to you because I can safely say that the only letters I ever receive from the bank are the least poetic, least enjoyable correspondence I ever have the misfortune of receiving. I had hoped you might respond with real advice. I hoped you’d make human your institutions, accessible your world but honestly we are all shut out who do not spend a quarter of our life times joylessly balancing our check books. It is only because I feel I’d be in a position to act on your conscience if (having relentlessly chipped away at your cold granite facade) I eventually find something in you I can relate to. Then I can hold you to account. I write to you as a last act of defiance, defense and hope.

My time would be so much better spent writing to the people I admire in this world, the people who truly make this world a better place. Just the act of writing to them would be uplifting. This would surely be a better use of my time.

Yours sincerely,


Art (Witherkay)

Letter to the Bank #48

Dear Bullrider,

As a self confessed financial neophyte I must confess this letter writing campaign of mine has been good for me, if nobody else. The feedback has been nonexistent. There is something to be said for getting things off one’s chest but this has also become for me a crash course in understanding the world of finance. I am becoming (lord save us) a self taught financial expert. There are many more like me out there—people who barely knew how to balance their check books, had no understanding of how to finance a mortgage, and certainly no comprehension of what caused the Big Meltdown, or what those big, strange words you all used meant—who are now waking up to a new and frightening reality: A multitude of us now see  there is no safety net to speak of any more and that pursuing any interests besides those of acquiring money (by any means necessary) is an ass’s game. Painting for example, who needs painting? Who needs Art or creativity? Workers? What are they? Machines are easier to deal with so the machines will come. So now we are joining your game. If that sends shivers up your spine it probably should though our expertise may prove no more dubious than yours in the long run. Frightening for you is the possibility that we may even attempt to exercise good judgement, fair practice, and mat attempt to make our transactions ethical. Our arrival presages a change of language in the banking sector. Gaining real Trust might make a come back as a winning formula. Aware as we now are of the condescending viewpoint of the bankers on high we’ll tread warily. Given that they tend to regard us all as poor fools I do think it rather kind of me to point out this thing they may not have noticed: A flood, a tsunami of self taught financial wizards is pouring onto the trading floor because, with rising joblessness, and most available jobs failing to pay enough to even cover basic health insurance costs, a tide of humanity is betting on one last great gamble—playing the bankers at their own game. Armed with creativity and a willingness to work, actually work, who knows? Some of them might just find a crack in the system through which to squeeze and so be in a position to unseat the unscrupulous souls at the top.

Yours sincerely,

 Kristian Art Witherkay, financial neophyte

Letter to the Bank 47

Dear Bullrider,
Art here. I've had a fantastic idea. What if you didn't ever have to lobby government, congress, your senators ever again? What if they simply said: Okay! We'll play it your way. From now on there will be no more regulation. Whatever tricks you come up with you can employ without fear of consequences. Bring on your financial instruments, bet against the economies of whole countries. You go right ahead. We will leave you alone on the one condition that you give us, your government, ten per cent of your profits, and, what the hey, give the American people ten per cent as well. You are on such a winning streak just now all you'd have to do is factor these commissions into your work as you go ahead with your next game plan. Let us all forget ethics, moral responsibility. You'll save a lot of time and energy, let alone money, if you don't need to lobby folks anymore, and you would finally have bought the American public hook, line and sinker. We could all suck the planet dry together! I'm now of the opinion if you can't beat them join them."You can't buck the market," said Margaret Thatcher. Madeleine Bunting, in her article in the Guardian Weekly, goes on to say:
"...and no British government has disagreed since. It was the adage that was used to justify soaring pay for the highest earners and stagnant earnings for the low-paid. The market ruled, and questions of injustice, honor or integrity were all secondary or irrelevant.
A poll for the World Economic Forum last month found in 10 G20 countries that two thirds of respondents attributed the credit crunch and its ensuing economic recession to a crisis of ethics and values."
Well yes! You guys figured this out long ago! The crisis is this: The ethics and values just get in the way! I've seen the light. Aspiring to be Superman is a mug's game! If we all get on the same page, if we get rid of our scruples, things might run a bit more smoothly! We all get a piece of the pie and we are all happy. It turns out you can buy happiness after all.
Of course if your piece of the pie is dramatically bigger...jealousy followed by populist anger might rear its ugly head once more...and I suppose to avoid such a thing happening we might need to develop a code of conduct, honor amongst thieves and so forth, because there is no getting around it thieves is what we are. To avoid eating our own shinbone we might need to even develop ...some ethics. So here I am back at square one.
Please let me know if you can see a way out of this maze.


Sincerely,


K. A. Witherkay