Waiting for the world to change

I have written to a few of my friends asking for suggestions of songs for me to learn as I want to build a new acoustic set. ( anyone have any ideas send them to stewartniaceo@yahoo.com) I miss playing and I like to play out but my old set list is stale and I have not been listening to much new music these past 11 years my life consumed with family and Nia. Each one of them suggested among others one song in common “Waiting For the World to Change” by John Mayer. I learned the song it is a very easy song for me to play, basic blues and my voice can not only reach all the notes but this sort of song is simply my kind of song both from a tonal and voice perspective.
But as I sat learning the song I found myself sad and depressed. Here is a guy who is very popular and an influence on his generation singing that basically, there is no hope and that he and his friends are “waiting on the world to change.” He speaks of the hopelessness of the situation and how powerless he feels in the face of the powers that be. I find this sad, it maybe true to a degree but sending a message to the world or at least his fans and a generation that it is useless so you might as well kick back and wait?

I had dinner with a couple of young 40 something’s who are into the big development business here in Phuket. Although these are the only developers I have spoken too I will assume that most of what they told me was true. When we met I asked some questions about the development processes here in Thailand and this led to our dinner together. I drilled them with questions. I asked them how can a foreigner buy land and develop. Are all the buildings made of concrete. Who are the buyers the list goes on but for now this will give you an idea of what I found out. In one of my last post I described a large condo development where the workers lived in a tin shack shanty town across the street from the development. At that time I questioned where was all the money being spent to build 40 unit condo projects with the starting price 1,000,000 and going up to 2.5 million. I knew the materials were cheap and the labor as well. I even went into a fixture store with high end fixtures and found that this was not where the major expenses were. At that time I assumed that the land must eat up a major portion of the expense budget. The developers I had dinner with told me that while the land prices are high certainly higher than just a few years ago and going up all the time, they were still very reasonable and still very cheap compared to the world we know. These gentlemen are from London one is an economist the other marketing man. Neither had any prior building experience, but they knew of Phuket the marketing guy had a second home here for years which included a Thai girlfriend , whether or not his wife in the UK knew of the girlfriend I did not ask and so therefore do not know, this has little bearing of my conclusion however it does give insight to the character of the team. Both of them worked for a major UK bank and were posted in Hong Kong when they were both let go at the same time. Marketing guy tells economist guy let’s go to Phuket and chill and regroup and decide what to do next. They decided to build this development company. They put together a plan found investors along with a Thai landowner who put up the land and off they went. I think they were interested in getting to know me better as I maybe some one who could join their group as an investor or at the very least sell me a Condo. Now don’t get me wrong these are very nice men, and of the proper English type. Blue blood well schooled and very well mannered and charming. So in the end I asked them if the materials are cheap the land is cheap and the labor is even cheaper than where is all the money going “In our bank accounts we are making a killing here!” I am sure that there are less successful stories of foreign investors here in Thailand as well as other third world countries but the bottom line is the rich are getting very rich here and in China and India and Vietnam and the poor are just staying poor. Is this right? If they paid the workers a higher wage would it screw up the culture or the economy? These are very big questions, the workers all seem happy enough. At the end of the evening as we paid the bill of thirty dollars apiece (this was a very nice high end restaurant) I tipped the waitress 3 dollars, I handed the money directly to her as I wanted to be sure that she knew it was for her I bowed and said thank you in Thai. My dinner hosts told me that I tipped her way to much and that I would spoil her for next time, this was not good for them. Now remember that these are young millionaire developers; something is wrong here at least by my estimation.
I tell you this story because as I travel I am becoming more and more aware that the world does not need to change the people do. You try to tell a trucker in Beijing that he needs to not drive his highly polluting truck and he will just laugh at you as will the government that supports him, they as he are delighted that he has a truck, any truck that will transport goods so they can keep getting richer. Why are all the big tech companies moving all their manufacturing to these countries? Not because they are going broke and need the economic advantage it is because they are capitalist and as so the primary objective is to make more money keeping the stock holders happy so they can afford to travel to these beautiful lands and travel in an isolated style much like me in my Oriental limousine touring Bangkok for a day. They stay in protected enclaves and never see the poverty and the reality of the land except from beautiful hotels on pristine beaches or on luxury cruse boats meandering down the beautiful rivers. All the while being waited on hand and foot by servants who are making 20 dollars a day at a hotel that is charging 300-5,000 dollars a night. That’s right John Just keep on waiting and in the mean time you can do so with your millions of rock dollars in a 5,000 dollars a night suite on a private beach almost anywhere in the world. But be sure to use the helicopter service I would not want you to get your 3,000.00 cowboy boots dirty. Maybe you should call up Bono and see if he can join you for lunch you may learn something.
A few years back I was taking some classes at Portland State University I had enrolled in a student taught class titled Anarchy. I loved this class it introduced me to some of the great writings of some of the great revolutionaries and anarchist in history; Noam Chomsky, Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, and many more. My class mates were primarily of the expected group young anarchist in their own right although mostly uninformed and naive they were a passionate group. One day we were having a discussion of Aids in Africa. For the most part the group was passionate as always making judgments and questioning why it was such a big challenge to get these people to recognize the danger of unprotected sex with multiple partners. After a considerable amount of debate on the subject a young woman who I must say looked as out of place in this group as I. She dressed conservative was blond bright cheerful face, one would wonder if she was missing cheerleading practice. To this point she had stayed out of the debates and was for the most part a bystander. But this particular debate really pushed her button and she stood up and told us that she had just returned from Africa living in the bush for two years with a nomadic tribe. She told us that the one thing that none of us could never understand without experiencing it was that these people had nothing, their lives were full of day to day survival, death of children starvation and disease and fear of an invasion of any of a number of ruthless marauders from either the government or maybe a neighboring tribe. The only thing they had to look forward to at the end of the day was love and human touch and when they crawled into their tents at night they could give a damm about unprotected sex and as far as multiple partners they were happy to have anyone to hold and love. Tell them that if they continue these practices they will die, and they have not the capacity to relate. They are dying anyway and their children are dying in exorbitant numbers and so what difference does it make to them if it is Aids, starvation, or any other disease or marauding thugs from other tribes or the government that slauters them for little or no gain. Needless to say this humbled all of us and shut the righteous down a couple of notches.
If we want to change the world we have to change the people. From the big cat capitolist right down to the people in the streets in all countries western world and third world alike.
Because as it stands we have no unity and we have not collectively reached a point of pain that will force change, and when we do will it could be too late.
Wouldn’t it be great for the capitalist to learn that they can spread the wealth and become even richer. But I imagine this would involve a certain amount of undetermined risk and this is the most feared concept to any capitalist undetermined risk. It will be long time coming for this to happen. Thank you bill Gates an Bill Walton, Bono and my friends JR for doing what you can but it is a drop in the bucket. But if we can all get off our butts and away from our noise boxes (TV’s) and go out into our community and spend time with fatherless children volunteer time at the schools and at the SBA, follow in Paul Newman’s steps, maybe there is hope. Here is a math project for you if the richest 15% of the planet gave one days income four times a year to change how much would that be.
I think it would fill the bucket. And if the rest of us spent one days time four times a year sharing our knowledge or our sweat and time how much would that be. Can we ask the hard questions and would it be enough I think so, it would be a great start. And if you need to feel pain to change take your imagination to the future where we risk all in hopes of having it all so we can play golf on yet another pristine golf course while our wives luxuriate in the beautiful spa being pampered by people who make less in a year than your purse cost.
Think about it someone needs to, or do we.
Nothing radical is going to happen in our life times or will it and who gives a damm.
I do.
And don’t forget all the money in the world can not buy you piece of mind or a full heart.
The problem is even though we are all the same we are not.
How do you change the world if 90% of the people in it are very content with things as they are, they cannot see beyond their own backyard or their bank account.

One last story I met a man in Bangkok who is in the jewelry business. He grew up in New York City he his 59 years old and was immersed in the hippy movement remember the hippies. Peace love hippy beads and a passion for changing the world. So many of the songs of that era were on this very subject. He fucked around with his hippy ideologies until he was 30 then kids came he settled down and got into the jewelry business. To this day he smokes pot daily and dresses like a hippy, his two boys went to the best schools both of them being hired in the first round draft picks from major investment houses both of them choosing careers in investment banking. They are both not yet 30 and already multi millionaires living in million + condos on the upper eastside. As you can imagine dad is very proud of his boys. What was he this Jewish pot smoking hippy jeweler doing in Thailand? Checking up on his 400 person factory in a remote area in Thailand. Why is his factory here….
Labor is cheap. What happened to the dreams of most of an entire generation of dreamers. They had families and that is more important than the world.
I leave you with an assignment, Get out a collection of your old hippy disks a bottle of wine lie on your living room floor in your beautiful home and remember and think what can I do in one hour a week to make a difference, and if your are are you doing enough.
I suggest you begin with John Lennon Imagine and end with the same.
And for you John Mayer your assignment is to write a song of hope and action.
It is our world and we hold the paint brush to paint it any color we want.
Whether or not we like it the power is in our hands, too change or not.