The Butterfly Goddess Sheds Her Cocoon

A special thanks to Artist KAd Collins for allowing me to use the image of her exquisite "Butterfly Goddess" as my avatar. She is truly magical! Thank you Kate.

Butterfly Goddess © Copyright by Artist, KAd Collins.
To find out more about the artist, go to ArtistKAdCollins or KAd's Etsy Studio.

Artist KAd Collins is currently working on two new collections for release sometime in 2012 and 2013. If you are interested in becoming a collector, contact the artist directly.

Living The Big Sky Life: “T T” Territory

My first on-the-ground experience with “T T” territory happened long ago, once upon a time, in a state, far, far away - a state that still fancies itself “Big Sky Country”. Tourist propaganda notwithstanding, my quality of life in “the last best place” was the equivalent to hell on Earth with little hope of deliverance no matter how loudly I squealed.

In hindsight, I don’t know that anything could’ve truly prepared me for the small town initiation I would get when I set up shop in the cliquey postcard community I was to call home for the next four years, three months and fourteen days. And the citified and seasoned business sensibilities I brought along as baggage only burdened me with a naïve assumption that doing good business was good business no matter where you were from. Suffice it to say that I have never worked so hard to make a living that barely scraped the poverty line as I did during my tortured tenure in this state of purgatory.

The descriptive captions written on the back of every photograph taken of me during this time read “deer frozen in headlights”. I was convinced that the country gods of big sky country had used my own tube of red lipstick to make a life-size bulls-eye right on top of me, and the look of trapped panic that rarely left my face was testimony.

Sources have told me I’m a survivor, and surviving the harsh elements of "T T" territory demanded that I significantly alter my approach posthaste, which really meant that it was time to put into practice the old adage “Keep it simple, stupid”. So I grudgingly "KISS-ed" them all in the name of survival, and refined the art of doing business on a handshake while shootin’ the breeze with them good ole’ boys of the backwoods smelling of cow chip campfire and dried fish guts while all duded up in cowboy hats and big silver belt buckles, or sporting hunter orange vests stained from buck ‘n duck blood and speckled with goose down particles.

Just because survival made it necessary for me to blend into a world that was far removed from any civilized grid I’d ever known, doesn’t mean for one second that I was inclined to turn all ‘wild west’ or anything. You know, like trade in my little urban-mobile for a Ford pick up with a gun rack. Or replace the business suits and pumps in my closet with bib-overalls and Dingos, or my briefcase for a well stocked tackle box. OK, I admit - I did have to slip into a pair of hip-waders on occasion because frankly, someone had to wade into the creek (alternately pronounced ‘crick’) at the edge of the property to tear down those damn beaver dams that flooded my backyard every run-off season.



View of my backyard

As far as I was concerned, this strange land was a poster child for “T T” territory - raw and uncensored. And while I internally obsessed about escape, I came to understand why many never did.

Part of it was financial, of course, because barely making enough in minimum wage to cover the cost of room and board, boxed wine and beer means there’s not enough left over to lease a U-Haul. I realized, however, that the greatest impediment to escaping for the majority was simply perception – meaning it was less about being so po’r that you can’t afford to buy an extra “O”, and more about what escape really means to you.

The keyword here being ‘motivation’, and it usually begins with the standard line of questioning: ”escape from what? go to where?” If we perceive ourselves as content and congruent with the mentality and ‘quality of life’ around us, then what could possibly need changing? Escapism can be easily achieved in thousands of ways that happen to be a lot less complicated than packing up the shack for no good reason.

Feeling that sense of belonging to a community with those of our own ilk is a natural tendency and can hardly be summarized better than “birds of a feather flock together”. Ultimately I didn’t feel so bad when I recognized that even the migrating flocks of ducks and geese passing through big sky country who were lured in by the ‘quality of life’ struggled to make their escape after landing, especially those peppered with buckshot.

Clearly some never made it out alive.

Living The Big Sky Life^TM 
© by DK King

“T T” Territory: Laying A Block Foundation

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video speaks volumes; and the most epic and honest mobile home commercial ever made can show you in about a minute just how easy it is to cash in those empty beer cans and make a down payment on a “T T” starter home.

…looks like there’s a price range compatible with almost every budget. And while it may be one thing to agree upon a price for your new abode with a spit and a hand shake, it’s quite another to get a loan from the bank to close the deal before all of the kids move in - especially when loan underwriting guidelines are so excruciatingly tight, as any weak economy would dictate.

Not that getting a mobile home loan was ever very easy, even in the best of times. Perhaps it’s because banks just can’t decide what kind of loan they’re actually making, so the asset ends up on their books in some catch-all general ledger account called “Deliverance Loans”.

It always seemed like a ‘collateral conundrum’ to me since a mobile home isn’t really a house that is permanently affixed to a foundation in the space where it’s parked – ‘parked’ being the operative (or it is inoperative?) word here. Nor is it really a car (even though it’s parked) in possession of a built-in engine powerful enough to move it down the highway autonomously. In summary: A mobile home is basically a trailer-type movable living unit that can be relocated anywhere on a whim and a belch or occasionally on a twister; and this bestows upon it an unsavory classification which, by its very nature, creates a special lending niche with a tailored style of underwriting.

Given my long, and perhaps not-so-illustrious, career in the world of real estate finance, it was inevitable that over the course of time I would find myself in circumstances where I was forced to learn how to do something I never thought I needed (or wanted) to know. Reflecting on my days of “living the big sky life”, I confess that learning how to close a mobile home transaction was one of those occasions.

Special loan niche or no, most prudent lenders like to at least appear as if they’re underwriting loans that hide behind the three “C’s” of lending: Credit (“T T” mindset), Capacity (size of welfare/disability check), Collateral (the Trailer/MH).

Back when lenders had a shelf full of underwriting books (now everything is on-line), there was usually a book for mobile home loans as well. Although I never had any proof (and no one ever copped to it), I was convinced a second book existed - a secret book that was locked up in some back office which contained the real guidelines for making a mobile home loan, or “T T” loans as they came to be called.

Based solely upon personal observation, I wouldn't have been surprised if excerpts from that secret book had faux guidelines that looked something like this:



Since discrimination is prohibited by law, every requirement itemized below shall apply to each Borrower regardless of gender. Should the following conditions not be met, exceptions will be reviewed and approved on a case-by-case basis.

1. PHOTO IDENTIFICATION

Photographs of each Borrower shall be included in loan file under review, and shall give evidence that supports two out of three of the following requirements:

A. Each Borrower must have a minimum of two tattoos. Said tattoos shall be displayed to best advantage in photograph(s) of Borrower posing in the traditional (what once was white but is now beer stained and/or yellowed with age) wife-beater tee-shirt.

B. Photograph(s) must give evidence of an official mullet haircut. (This appearance assures underwriter that Borrower is all business up front and the party will stay out back). Underwriter may take exception to the mullet requirement should hair otherwise reveal re-growth/dark roots of not less than 1” sprouting from a ratted mass of over-bleached blonde hair, OR a large smattering of wiry grays intermixed with stringy and/or dingy hair.

C. Photograph(s) must give evidence of yellow (brown or black OK) and/or missing teeth, any silver/gold capped front tooth shall be deemed compliant; AND the hardened yellow fingernails that can only be acquired from years of smoking filterless cigarettes. Chewing tobacco stains on scraggly facial hair may replace yellow fingernail requirement with underwriter approval.

2. TRAILER – MOBILE HOME (MH)

A. MH Trailer may be parked on top of blocks, log stumps, old tires, beer kegs or anything recycled from the local dumpster (think green). Level floors are not required, and Borrower is free to design a contoured floor slant that allows beer cans to roll from the icebox to the couch undeterred.

B. MH Trailer may be parked in a facility that has met all pre-fab specified standards and received prior underwriter approval. Otherwise, MH Trailer must have predominant access via dirt road (insured access optional), and should be parked in one of the following ‘Bufu's’: i) ‘Desert Bufu’ will give evidence of sagebrush acreage with tumbleweeds, scrawny cactus, and swirling dust devils; and ii) ‘Bufu in the Woods’ will give evidence of bark beetle and tick infested forests dripping in Spanish moss, and surrounded by swampy pastures and patches of bear grass.

C. MH Trailer shall not be required to have a sanitary-certified water supply, flush toilets, or a functioning septic system. Cesspools and outhouses shall be deemed compliant. Dried up wells on property OK.

D. MH Trailer shall not be required to have a code-approved electrical supply. An electrical line that has been properly hot-wired from the big transformer running through the back of the property or along the gully shall be deemed compliant.

E. MH Trailers (single-wides) built prior to 1969 that have corrugated side panels rippled with asbestos are considered acceptable. All MH Trailers are required to be officially registered with the proper state vehicle licensing department, and must display a personalized vanity plate approved by underwriter. Some examples of previously approved vanity plates are: 
“imahick”, “heehaw”, “tattme”, “Tbagger, “TTtude”, "TSquare".

Enough said.

© by DK King

"T T" defined

“T T”, acronym for “TRAILER TRASH”. n. Archetype.

Popular opinion tends to stereotype those belonging to the “T T” culture with a double-widely accepted description that more or less pigeonholes a fairly diverse group as being comprised of those who “seem well-suited to residential life in a mobile home park and are distinguished by poor hygiene, foul language, slovenly or slutty clothing, and general ignorance. Recreations include drinking malt liquor in lawn chairs under tattered R.V. awnings and teenage pregnancy.” (urbandictionary.com). And “poor white people living in a trailer park in the U.S., especially the South.” (dictionary.com).

While these distinctive characteristics are frequently evident in those who boast the purest of “T T” pedigrees, they can be limiting in scope.

Certainly appearance, behavior, poorness, and location all make uncontestable contributions to the “T T” prototype; however, like those of the “Moldy Old White Bread” persuasion, the determining factor of a true “T T-ite” inherently comes down to mindset. The trailer is merely an accessory.

A “T T” mindset is an inbredded thing, and more than skin deep, or skin color for that matter. You can take the trash out of the trailer park, but you can’t laser off those K-Fed tatts without leaving scars. And no matter how you dress it up, the “T T ‘tude” can’t stay suppressed for long.

Evidence of a “T T” mindset will oftentimes emerge in ordinary conversation when a “T T-ite” unwittingly lapses into the “T T” mother tongue which has over time evolved into a drawling language filled with double negatives and contracted half words; and is something that, well, just can’t be taught in schools.

It’s been suggested that a good portion of the “T T” population traditionally lives and breeds in the South, but anyone who’s seen the "Jersey Shore" would know this to be a misconception. The red states may indeed prove to be fertile territory for “T T” culture cultivation, however, their borders are simply not enough to contain the mindset or keep it from spreading.

And there just ain’t no more to say, except maybe...

Adjectives: T-squared, trailericious, trailerlectible, trailerflashy, T-T-dacious

Synonyms: T-square, white trash, T-P trash, red neck, hillbilly, hick, bumpkin, rube, yokel, inbred, kissin’ cuzin, squealer, T-bagger, Wal-Marter.

© by DK King

The Eyes Have It

Here's me looking at you!

© Copyright by Artist, KAd Collins.

To find out more about the artist, go to ArtistKAdCollins or KAd's Etsy Studio.

Treasure Map Makes Detour Through The Poorhouse

What's wrong with this picture? 

Dan Edstrom for DTC Systems, Inc.

Frankly, I don’t know what’s scarier….trying to follow the trail of one borrower’s mortgage loan through the system pre-2009, or the fact that I know how to read the map.

No wonder the system imploded all over itself and expeditiously took down half of the world’s economies. I'd say it tossed that old “too big to fail” notion right out the window as well….and with it obviously went the middle class livelihoods of millions.

Is it realistic to think our financial system will position itself from here on out to learn from the mistakes of the past, as it continuously strives to outdo the bottom line performances of the past without thought of long term consequences? Don’t count on it.

Should history prove a worthy gauge, I figure the next wave of aggressive newbies who grow up and hit the “Street” in about 20 years will go in short on memory about the economic collapse of 2008 (except perhaps what they learned in their history books), and go long on the invincible belief that they’re the exception to every rule governing market lifecycles.

So when that next wave eventually does hit, I too would like to think that I’ll be smart enough to voluntarily jump off of the bull’s back before I'm violently bucked off, then mauled by a bear. 

© by DK King

Holy Humanity!

My guess is that only a true contrarian would polemically deny that the last couple of years have delivered unto planet Earth a concentrated dose of disasters, natural or otherwise.

Being a fellow resident fully dependent upon this orb to sustain me just as my neighbor does, I find it difficult to helplessly stand by and watch as families and livelihoods are ripped asunder with little or no warning by destructive forces that are usually beyond the control of those most affected.

And I know I’m not alone in my compassion for the beings who have suffered tremendous losses at the whim of a volatile planet…..a compassion that admittedly springs from a line of internal questioning that typically begins with "what if that had happened to me or mine?", and ends with "how can I help?" 

Well, a media fed by catastrophe has yet to fail in answering my last question with anything other than a cry for $$Cash$$, since apparently the best way to help those who have suffered is to drop as much cash as possible into the humanitarian collection plate every time it’s passed around.

This bothers me.

Not because I don’t recognize that there are huge costs associated with providing the humanitarian aid and rescue efforts needed for those in distress, and that the costs need to be covered.

My aversion to these predictable and repetitive pleas for cash and more cash lies deep within the layers of bureaucratic corruption that invariably pads the rescue efforts with a greed quotient so top heavy that nothing is left over to help those for whom the aid was originally intended.

After this month’s monsoon season submerged one-fifth of Pakistan under water, I began to wonder if maybe we’ve got it backwards. That maybe the bigger picture in all of this is more about encouraging the Earth’s tenants to go on the offensive by investing more money into working harmoniously with our landlord vs. defensively reacting to an endless river of devastation that might have been preventable had we better listened to the Earth’s rhythms.

For all of our scientific and technological advancements, as a people, I think we’re still behind the curve on this one. The world may have been as flat as the lack of progress seen throughout the dark ages, yet the wisdom of that dark age placed great value on the voice of Nature. Perhaps the ignorance of the dark ages was really light years ahead of today's more enlightened age.

Mankind's overall attitude today may be that money makes the world go ‘round, but our landlord, Mother Earth, really does hold all of the power. She obviously can't be bought. And she will win. 

Looks like we’re in this one together.

Holy Humanity!

© by DK King

In the Spirit of Independence

Artful Tax Dodgers

Being accountable is tough business, and apparently not very cost effective.

As an ordinary citizen, I find it hard to not be a little envious of corporate America when I stop long enough to consider some of the advantageous loopholes it has persuasively lobbied into the tax code ‘just for corporations’ over the last decade or so. These loopholes have been decidedly designed to reward only those belonging to the Corp Club, and should they ever be applied to the itemized personal tax return of an average American taxpayer, that individual’s insolence would be rewarded with the threat of a prison sentence akin to Al Capone.

A twisty loophole that has made recent headline news can be found under the tax code catch phrase “transfer pricing”. Also known on Wall Street as “income shifting”, “the Double Irish”, and for some insiders “the Double Dutch”. To the locals feeling pick-pocketed on Main Street, however, it’s known as another case of “Greed Takes a Holiday”.

Any true capitalist would logically expect every large American corporation that is fully committed to increasing its bottom line profits and dispensing hearty executive bonuses to make full use of this highly remunerative 'income shifting' loophole without compunction. Nevertheless, I'll bet the accounting office over at Forest Laboratories, Inc. has become quite depressed since it's had the misfortune of being singled out as the new face of ‘income shifting’ in Bloomberg’s latest exposé.

Forest Laboratories, Inc. is the maker of Lexapro - the third most popular anti-depressant sold almost solely in the United States. Just because Lexapro generates billions of dollars in U.S. sales every year, doesn’t mean that the U.S. Treasury has seen any reduction in its deficit from all of the tax dollars you’d expect it to be collecting on Lexapro’s U.S. revenues. And “Why not?”, you might ask, when the real question is “What tax dollars?” 

Thanks to 'transfer pricing', Forest Laboratories, Inc. effectively - and legally - evades paying U.S. income taxes on much of its Lexapro U.S. profits by transferring said profits overseas to a subsidiary in Ireland. From there (and Ireland ironically gets shorted along the way as well), the profits take a brief holiday in Amsterdam before making an electronic landing on the no-tax island paradise of Bermuda.

Back when the world was busy feeling flush, all this talk about the Double Irish would’ve likely been swept aside with relative indifference. Attitudes have dramatically changed now that the bottom has fallen out. It seems to me that the implemented systems of taxation around the globe have become so incredibly convoluted that when the boom went bust, the masses went looking for accountability from the very administrators and regulators who’d been busy looking the other way as their civic treasuries subtly mushroomed into a big Ponzi scheme. Now there’s nothing new coming in from the top to feed the bottom.

I do believe that most of us genuinely appreciate the infrastructure and communal support services that are made possible through taxes paid into the system even though few really admit to wanting to pay those taxes.

Unfortunately it’s the same old story every time a cash flow crisis hits, and those responsible for managing (or mis-managing) the money start crying out for more, more, more. And historically it’s the tax paying population least able to afford the cash call that finds itself burdened with the bulk of the tax bill. So when the levied tax increases become untenable for the citizens who don’t have access to the same tax evading loopholes as the Corp Club, these citizens tend to create their own underground loopholes.

In America it's called doing business ‘under the table’. Around the Mediterranean it’s called doing business 'the Italian way’. Just ask the Greeks...or the Spanish…or the Portuguese…and of course the Italian experts.

Are you depressed yet? Perhaps it's time to stir the pot with our own version of the Double Irish. It might go something like this: you ask the man in charge for a second bowl of gruel, and I’ll quickly stir in the Lexapro.

Please sir, I want some more…
© by DK King