Do you know what percent you are? If not, it’s easy enough to find out. It is a pretty safe bet that most of you reading this are not in the upper 1%, but in the bottom 99%. I am referring of course to percentages of the population by income. The 99% includes everyone who makes less than $500,000 a year.
If you wish to know into which bracket your household income places you, use this link from a Wall Street Journal article published earlier this year. Simply type in your annual household income and the calculator will give you your percentage ranking.
For the record, our total household income places us in the upper 3%. We are demographically advantaged because we are DINKS or GCWOKs. (Double income, no kids or Gay Couple WIthout Kids). My only response to that news is….Jesus H. Christ….there sure is a BIG difference between being a 3% versus a 1%. The real laugh is that the entry fee for the upper 1% is $500,000 yearly income. Can you imagine the spread within that 1% slice of the pie? It contains households that go from half-a-million dollars in annual income to billionaires. Everyone is always screaming for diversity..well that is a VERY diverse group, isn’t it?
Two things happened this week that made me think more about all these percentages. God knows, it wasn’t dreams about math class. One of the most traumatic moments of my childhood was when my sadistic third grade teacher, Ruth Ellen McCracken, slammed the door of the janitor’s closet shut, turned off the light and locked me and a friend in the dark.
Miss McCracken's Third Grade Class
My BFF, Chris “Dodie” Tidwell and I were washing used popsicle sticks in the sink. When cleaned and dried, they would be grouped into bundles of three, four, five and so on, with rubber bands, to illustrate the concept of “sets” in the “new math” we were studying. I am sure this is the kind of math problem being done in utero by today’s children. But, please, give us a break, John Glenn had just gone into space the year before and American had’t yet become “advanced.”
Of course, we had to make our chore time fun. We were dicking around, laughing and splashing when Mrs. McC heard us. She didn’t like anyone to have fun. She slammed the door, turned off the light and locked us in. I, of course, did not play junior football on the “Eagles” like Dodie. I had a different “personality,” shall we say? I read movie magazines, typed on the typewriter and secretly read my mother’s copy of “The Carpetbaggers” whenever I could steal it from her nightstand. Although that trashy novel didn’t in any way relate to football or sports, I do remember that it contained a word that rhymes with “punt” that I was unable to define. [FYI: I did find out many years later.].
My sensitive and “refined” personality unfortunately, wasn’t an asset in this crisis After all, we weren’t on GE College Bowl or Jeopardy. And, to just be blunt, I was still afraid of the dark. In Mr. Lane’s smelly sink closet, I began to cry. My friend slapped me, not unlike Cher slapping Nicolas Cage in “Moonlighting,” and Dodie also told me, in effect, to “Snap out of it!” I did, and we were eventually released and would you believe we are still BFFs? Yep, and he’s still man enough to not be at all insecure having a close gay friend, even though he is a straight as they come. As Ina Garten would opine, “How good is that?” And, despite this particular third grade trauma, I am pretty good at math.
Earlier this week there were entertaining news from both groups, the 99% and the 1%. Here in Nashville, a few of the 99%, who were identifying themselves publicly as “Occupy Nashville,” were forced to vacate Legislative Plaza, where they had been camping for a few months. Their occupation of public land was an attempt to publicly affirm their displeasure at the gulf between the well-off and everyone else. Of course, we are lucky, despite their displeasure, that we live in Tennessee, because the admittance to the select “well-off” club here is much, much cheaper than most places.
And the “low bar” for being considered rich is only surpassed by the lax entrance requirements required for being considered a “smart” person. All that’s required: know about anything more sophisticated than “My Redneck Vacation” and possess more than six teeth and you’re in like Flynn. And, it certainly helps if you are one of the “snooty” snobs who went to college instead of being home-schooled by your evangelistic parents.
Unfortunately, the “smart group” doesn’t seem to include our state legislators, who spent much of their time drafting laws to make camping out at Legislative Plaza illegal, thereby forcing the Occupy Nashville folks to fold their tents and leave. Other notable legislative debates this session included such vitally important subjects such as whether the law forcing motorcycle riders to wear helmets should be abolished and an absolutely riveting discussion about sexuality. Many state lawmakers have definitely determined that our teachers are not supposed to say the word “gay” in our schools. Apparently that rule has not yet drifted down to the third grade playground or junior high locker rooms. It would be nice if children were taught that “gay” is a perfectly good word, but it was not intended to serve as a multipurpose, pejorative slur whenever they wish to hurt the feelings of another person. Or as my dearly departed Mother used to complain (she was a teen during the late 1930s) “Gay was a perfectly good word until the homosexuals took it over.” Sorry, Mom.
But I do hope our elected officials and those wishing to de-throne them, do their own calculations and percentages and remind themselves that 10% of the population, the supposed percentage of Americans that are GLBT, or 1 in 10, could definitely make a difference at the polls. Plus, if you play nice, we might give you free decorating advice or tell you where the really cool places to drink and eat are in Nashville.
But I didn’t want to leave y’all without letting you know that the 1% is suffering, too. Why poor old Ann Romney has only Cadillacs. Dear Lord, anyone can lease one of those! I would have expected a least a Bentley in the garage at one of those houses. Why, I saw one in the valet line at Maggiano’s the other night, so they are not that rare anymore.
To further affirm that most people do indeed feel poorer nowadays, the April issue of Town & Country magazine is themed, “The Reversal of Fortune” issue. Inside are articles: “Park Avenue’s Costco Secrets,” “The Heiress in Search of a Stolen Inheritance” and “other tales from the era of envy, revenge and reduced circumstances.”
Don’t miss the article, “Style Spy,” page 44, that announces that two “80s icons” are “unloading baubles, ball gowns and other relics of their past lives.” Yep, Carolyn Roehm, formerly married to bigwig Henry Kravis [their exploits were the inspiration for the novel “Bonfire of the Vanities”] and former Ford model Nina Griscom, of whom T&C opines, “cut a wide swath in her day with her third husband Daniel Baker, a handsome plastic surgeon,” are having a tag sale at the Regency Hotel in NYC, May 9-10.
If you are headed to Manhattan to hear the Nashville Symphony perform on May 12 at Carnegie Hall, you might wangle an invite to this snooty tag sale in order to peruse gowns by Bill Blas, Arnold Scassi and Christian Dior. Invites are being posted on Facebook and Roehm’s website. Griscom is donating a whopping 10 percent of her proceeds to the Africa Foundation and Roehm is donating an undisclosed portion to dog shelters and the Good Dog Foundation.
Griscom was quoted, “I don’t go out to many black-ties or ladies’ luncheons anymore.” To me, that indicates that she is not only in the 1% but also in another group, the 60% of people older than 50 who have been there, done that, and strongly desire to find a more personal and individual way to put more meaning into life before they shuffle off this mortal coil. And, dear readers, 100% of us will indeed shuffle off. So get busy. That includes all you “Occupy” kids. Can’t you find a competent, unemployed PR expert to help you get a cohesive message? I just know you can!
Mark My Words 
Hey Mark! It’s Amanda Cate Willoughby. I liked your article. I found it by accident and loved the story of Mrs McCracken’s class. I had Mrs Blevins and she was mean too. I’m not on Facebook but I will leave my info. By the way, I read the Tennessee Lookout and our legislature is something!