The Unbearable Banishment: Sweet Home Bryant Park

Friday, August 22, 2008

Sweet Home Bryant Park

Each morning before work I sit for a spell in Bryant Park. Bryant Park is a beautiful patch of grass located right behind the big library on 42nd St. and 5th Ave. I'll either read the paper or bang out a blog entry or watch the pretty office drones parade by in their summer dresses. On Fridays, my peace is compromised by the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series with Diane Sawyer (sponsored by Listerine mouthwash). A stage is set up and a different band plays each week. Not long ago by bliss was ruined by Miley Cyrus. This morning it was Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock.

When I was in Junior High School, a humungous lump of dumb named Greg Schopell use to take my lunch money away from me whenever I couldn't run fast enough. He was a big Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. He always wore Lynyrd Skynyrd tee-shirts (that smelled) and had a Lynyrd Skynyrd belt buckle that was the size of a sewer lid. Do you know what? FUCK Lynyrd Skynyrd! Their music suuuuucks. It’s repetitive and it fed the violent tendencies of Greg Schopell. But I like Kid Rock. He's great.

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I am employed by Benevolent Dictators, Inc. It is an asset management firm. They manage pension funds, endowments, foundations and, my favorite, High Net Worth individuals. I recently discovered that there’s a tier above that. They are called Ultra High Net Worth individuals. Can you believe that!? Even if you're High Net Worth, you’re STILL not the top of the food chain. This gives me a whole new benchmark for my own mediocrity.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have visions...flea markets...NASCAR...vacant kids mindlessly slurping on 32-ounce Big Gulps...did I just wander into an episode of King of the Hill? Oh no, it's just the guy sitting next to me, infecting my bliss with trailer park junk rock.

Feel ya, man.
SA

August 22, 2008 at 10:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lynrd died in a plane crash, right? so it's not even the real readnecks...

i feel your trailer park pain... and live it at every family wedding, where "Freebird" is the "Family Song". i could not make that up...

August 22, 2008 at 11:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On Valentine's Day in the seventh grade, I gave my girlfriend a gold chain. She gave me a cassette tape of LS's "One More From The Road." I broke up with her after typing class soon thereafter and feel the same way about LS now as I did then.

August 23, 2008 at 8:06 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

sonny: I hate to resort to stereotypes, but if the shoe fits…

daisy: Not to slam your fam, but in the entire LS oeuvre, Freebird is the worst of the worst. I was sick of it the first time I heard it.

annon: A cassette tape? What’s that? Oh, I remember. You betray your age!

August 23, 2008 at 9:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wow daisyfae has a "family song". I didn't know such a thing existed.

that's given me an idea for my next competition.....

August 23, 2008 at 6:51 PM  

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