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Commentary - Jun 13, 2006 - Printable Version
- The Lords of Gaylordia
by Mark Faulk
I have a confession to make: While I write commentary after commentary about the demise of the not-so-free world, about how the “one-percent” are robbing the other 99% blind and leaving the carcass of America to rot in the streets and gutters, I earn my living off of the ultra-rich. Every day, I climb into my eight year-old car, leave my little middle-class neighborhood, and drive north to Shangrila. The particular Shangrila that my company spends most of its time working in is called Gaillardia, a walled, gated community of multi-million dollar homes surrounded by a lush golf course and a country club even more palatial than the grandiose homes that surround it. There’s a lake that meanders through the neighborhood too, ironically, a lake that I used to fish in as a child, way back when this was nothing more than a pasture with a few cows and a nice fishing pond in the middle. Way back when I lived in poverty, before I worked my way to the top…..okay, not the top, not even the middle. More like the layer just below the middle, but definitely not anywhere near what could conceivably be called the “lower class.” I’m one of the lucky ones.
So I get into my car, drive up to the gates of Gaillardia, or as we affectionately call it, “Gaylordia.” This phrase is generally preceded with, in an appropriately booming Godlike voice, “I AM THE LORD OF GAYLORDIA!!” Gaillardia, which is owned and developed by the Gaylord family (hence “Gaylordia,” get it?) of Oklahoma Publishing Co. and Gaylord Entertainment Co. fame, that bastion of right-wing capitalist greed that owns everything from newspapers and television stations to the Grand Old Opry and half of Nashville, and Lord knows how many other corporate chunks of America. (Note: They descended on Nashville because they already own Oklahoma City lock, stock, and gated community. Must be rough.)
I check in with the minority population of Gaillardia, who can be easily spotted because they are either guarding the entrances to the community from unauthorized access by “commoners,” or they are busy mowing, pruning, and planting the exotic plant life that line the streets and fairways of this private utopia. And to make it even easier to keep track of the minorities in Gaillardia, they are further segregated by race – all employees of African or any other “black” descent are designated as guards, while anyone of Hispanic descent is automatically assigned to the landscaping detail. I’m guessing that color-coding the hired help saves a lot of confusion later on. So….I drive up to the guard shack where the (black) guard checks my credentials, pinpoints my destination, slaps a “I don’t really belong here, I’m just here to serve the rich” sticker on my windshield, and waves me in. My sticker tells anyone who sees me that I have to be out by sundown….or else. I’ve never stayed long enough to find out what “or else” means. My vivid imagination tells me that it wouldn’t be pretty.
And now I’m in, and the world suddenly changes. I drive past the dozens of (Hispanic) landscaping workers, around the fairway surrounded lake that used to be a fishing pond, and pull up in front of the “house” that we’re working in. I own a tile and marble company, and after 25 years in the business, my background as an artist has landed my company in the “upper echelon” of the building industry. This month (and for months to come), we are working in a 14,000 sq. ft. home that looks like a palace, with a full balcony “Grand Upper Loggia” overlooking the “Grand Salon,” sporting a 30 foot tall ceiling, a silver room next to the butler’s pantry adjoining the wine storage room leading into the bar, and of course, ten bathrooms, which should be more than enough for the three people who will live there. It is so large that for the first month, I constantly take wrong turns and find myself lost – inside the house. And…this is not a Jay Leno joke…the house is so large that when I go to meetings with the builder or the designer, we actually call each other on our cell phones, once again, from inside the house. “Ed, it’s Mark, where are you?” “I’m in the silver room. Where are you?” “I’m upstairs in the live-in tutor’s wing. I’ll meet you in the Grand Salon.” It is in all honesty a disgusting example of excessive greed and selfishness.
I see the greed firsthand on a daily basis. Sometimes it overwhelms me, other times it angers me so much that I want to climb onto one of the five balconies overlooking the golf course and shout to the one-percent below: “What the hell is wrong with you people?!?!? Can’t you see that your country is coming apart at the seams while you wallow like overfed sows in your riches and splendor? Don’t you understand that YOU are the reason that our country is dying? There is enough to go around for everyone, but you’ve taken the entire pie and left the rest of America to fight over the crumbs. WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?”
I could easily rattle off the statistics, about how the top 20% of Americans earn almost ten times what the bottom 20% live on, about how the wealthiest one percent controls one-third of the wealth in our country, and how the wealthiest 10% controls two-thirds of it. I could shout from the balcony until it echoes over the fairway and bounces off of the country club that there are 37 million people living in poverty in America, 12.7 percent of the population, the highest percentage in the developed world.
But I don’t. As I said, I’m one of the lucky ones, so I say nothing.
I take some small comfort in knowing that practically everyone I’ve ever hired has been from the “inner city,” from the same lower classes that the (black) guards work so hard to keep out of Shangrila, out of Gaillardia. My employees are black, Hispanic, and sometimes even white, and they are artists and skilled craftsmen every one. They are usually people who might not have had an opportunity to make a decent living had I not given them the chance. And these “inner city” commoners are the best of the best in their field. And because they are the best of the best, I have managed to do what most people haven’t been able to accomplish – I squeeze every single dollar I can out of the ultra-rich, the one percent, and I give it back to the inner city, via my skilled employees.
Unfortunately, as I look around the 14,000 square feet of opulence that we’re working in, and as I climb back into my 1998 car at the end of the day and retrace my path back through “Gaylordia,” back through Shangrila, back into reality, I know that it’s not enough. I know that in the end, it's still them against us. It’s the powerful and wealthy against the so-called "commoners." It’s the one percent milking the masses of their right to live reasonably comfortable lives so that they might live like kings…like lords. And I know this too: if the ultra-rich living in the multi-million dollar palaces in the golf course/country club gated communities don't stop and hear the cries of the voices outside of the gate asking “WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?” then one day, and I fear that it will be sooner instead of later, the gates themselves will fall, the walls of our country will come tumbling down, and all of America will pay the price for the gluttony and greed of the lords of Gaylordia.
And when that happens, it won’t be enough to be “one of the lucky ones.”
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