American Dream?
”I lived the American dream,” says Baglio, 70, whose last workday was Oct. 30. ”I would have never thought I’d last 45 years here.”
That’s Louis Baglio speaking, as reported in an article by Johnny Diaz in the Boston Globe on Sunday. This guy cut hair for 45 years in downtown Boston and he thinks he lived the American dream! What a moron!
First, not only did he stay at the same job for his entire career, he only changed his place of employment twice. Even school kids know that if you want to ratchet your salary, you move from place to place. Sure, more than every two years and it looks like you are having problems focusing (i.e., you’re a sexual harrasser), but three places in 45 years? Give me a break!
Then, with all of the haircutting franchises booming, this guy couldn’t manage to sell out? He could have retired years ago. If he wanted to keep working, he could have become a haircutting consultant or a haircutting VC…you know, move up the value chain. But no, day after day, this schlub just keeps on snipping scissors around people’s heads. Oh, and “conversing” with his customers. Yeah, that must have been interesting for 45 years!
Then, he admits that he couldn’t weasel out of the Korean War as a corporal. There’s two years of his life gone!
Sure, he bought his own shop and put a couple of kids through college, but if that’s all it takes to live the American Dream, then, well, we’d better call in Andersen Consulting to do a dream audit because a few things are missing. Where’s the Boxster? The second wife, the one who’s into threesomes? The climb up the ladder? The second home and the the third? The years “lost” to cocaine? The personal trainer and the wine cellar? The guest shot on Saturday Night Live? Where’s the retirement money so large that there’s a whiff of scandal? Where are his enemies?
American Dream? Yeah…for losers!
I assume that this is sarcasm but for people who get only a snippet of your blog postings via RSS, it sounded like you were serious for a while there. I think we all need to be aware of how the RSS snippet will read before posting!
I didn’t write that comment, but admit to having a similar reaction and then a laugh at myself… how many times have I shifted from objective journal to fictive voice? Many.
hey.. this is not a good page!!!! I wnat somne facts about THE AMERICAN DREAM
To Sissel: There is an interesting conversation between Klaus Theweleit (a German intellectual)and Noam Chomsky in Tuesday’s (May 27, 2004) “Frankfurter Rundschau” (www.fr-aktuell.de) – a German newspaper. They talk about what the term American Dream means. Chomsky demystifies the notion by saying it means almost nothing: “If you have submitted sufficiently to a system of propaganda, you will take the illusions it has created and turn them into an unfullfilled reality” (my translation). Chomsky would probably answer your request for facts about the American Dream by saying that there are no facts about it – the term stands quite opposed to the world of facts: “There is an American reality. And there is a European reality. There are ideals that are aspired by decent people, but they have little to do with reality.” He says there is hardly anything specifically American about the term: “It’s nothing but propaganda. Even in North-Korea you could talk about a North-Korean Dream. It too would consist of freedom and justice and equality and so on. But that is not North-Korean reality.”
maybe that man didnt live what we thought of as a spontaneous life. but i think we have forgotten that what we have isnt offered to everyone in other counteries. That man lived a life that some would enjoy living because in counteries in the Middle East and elsewhere there isnt freedom you cant say whatever you want and get away with it because you have “the freedom of speech”. WEALTHY REPOTERS are improsoned and killed for telling the truth about the government…In other places everyhting is screened u cant read what you want you read what the governmant wants you to read..i feel really sorry for the man wrote this “blog” becuae he has forgetten the true essence of the American Dream…FREEDOM..to be whoever and what ever and still be equal!