Le Chat Noir

A couple of months ago not one, not two, but three black cats crossed my path on the way home from work. As I told a good friend of mine, I was actually looking for a fourth one, hoping they would cancel each other out, nullify the streak of bad luck.

Much like the idiocy of Excel that doesn't accept the pure MINUS function, I was hoping for a SUM(black cat,-black cat) sort of outcome. No such luck. Just as I thought the black cats were nowhere to be found, tonight, as I was walking home from yet another movie ("Haven" - not a complete waste of time), a black cat started walking beside me. I was about to turn left, she hesitated and turned right at the red light. It may be just me, but it's highly possible the bad luck is over.

To make things more exciting, I'm looking forward to a bit of music at the lovely Chat Noir in Geneva. New York has its Fat Cat, but leave it to Europe to embrace the dark side. And jazz is truly the best thing one can get out of black cats.

Right is Left

A wise guy's always right. Even when he's wrong, he's right.
- "Lefty Two Guns" Ruggiero

Unless successful business means wasting money, the top-three nightmares of your average Romanian company (and my daily management pesters) are by far:

3. Corruption
2. Social Taxes
1. Labor Code

Oh the Labor Code... In a country where less than two years ago the so-called "Right" came to power, one may have expected heavily-Socialistic laws to die vertiginously buried in amedments and abrogations.

Not the Labor Code. It is by far the single, most leftist element of the Romanian civil law; it sends chills down employers' spines and builds invisible Lenin-like statues to the wonder of it all, the one and only worthy product of a civilized society, the pinnacle of existence, the almighty social warrior - the Employee.

Decreasing but existent corruption and humongous social taxes are a strong deterrent to prevent investment. For a given net salary, an employer has to pay about 80% more in taxes; that means the cost of hiring someone for EUR 1500 net is actually EUR 2700. No wonder salaries stay low. Nevertheless, investors keep showing up motivated by recently-decreased income taxes (from about 70% to 50%), high-profile anti-corruption cases and the land of opportunity that is 21st century Romania. Until the gold runs out, that is.

While fiscal laws and EU-induced regulations are slowly but steadily steering the legal system away from the Communist path, the Labor Code and employment law in general show no signs of change. How is it possible, I ask, that in a country where the Liberal party took over the government on anti-Communist speeches and where the Right is supposably leading the country, a law recently passed (2003) so heavily favors the employee?! Just a few examples:

- overtime is limited to 8 hours a week, except for specific cases (legal field not an exception, of course);
- remaining vacation days cannot be reimbursed, nor do they roll over; it's an inviolable right that cannot be renounced unless you quit (and I thought only the French believed in the God-given right to relax);
- as an employee, you can pretty much break an employment contract anytime you wish, pending 15-day notice;
- determined contracts are just a capitalistic invention meant to trap the helpless employee, therefore all contracts are undetermined, with minor and almost impossible exceptions;
- you cannot fire your employees unless extensive anti-disciplinary investigation is carried through;
... and so on.

I cannot but conclude that as a foreign investor I would think twice about opening up a branch in Romania. Maybe the low salaries and the sharp minds are worth the trouble; maybe there are poor employees that need protection. But a government that sustains anti-capitalism laws and builds its policies on pro-capitalism speeches is all talk, no action. Admittedly, here I favor the "Right" more than the "Left"; honestly though, there is no true Right. It's at most a Center-Left government with delusions of liberalism. The Right is Left in as much as the Left is Communist.

In the U.S. I would disagree with Donnie Brasco's "Lefty Two Guns"; but in Romania, I concur: A wise guy's always right. Even when he's wrong, he's right.

Cab Chat

What Rachel Weisz, Pit Bulls and Gypsies Really Have in Common

Math time: If I had a nickel for every cab ride I've ever taken in my life - no matter the continent - I'd probably be at least 20 bucks richer. At least. Before this fall I was convinced that New Delhi - ahem - New York cabbies definitely win the cup for casualty-free, four-wheel madness (btw, that trophy should exist; I refuse to think there's no reward for keeping passengers alive.) Then I got a closer look at the most frightening specimen of the branch - the Bucharest cab driver. Requirements to survive on the job: drive on sidewalks (aha), make U-turns on one-way roads, do NOT slow down over bridges, tail the tramways - hell, tail everyone, even your mother's car if it's not fast enough. Oh - and pretend your passenger is a shrink in desperate need of pro-bono work.

Unlike many other women in Bucharest (or anywhere else I've been for that matter), I like to sit in the front seat during cab rides. Heavy morning or afternoon traffic can easily equate 30-40 minutes to the distance between home and work. Subways are cool generally, but comfort and fare reimbursement (yeah, job's quite OK) are great motivations to stoically put up with the unavoidable cab chat.

In the last month I have come to regard the occasional taxi conversations as social observations. The most heartfelt confessions occur during the evening rides, after a hard day's work. Morning chat is often more pragmatic, politically-charged or downright discriminatory.

Exempli gratia...

Evening ride:
Cabbie: "Miss, are you a psychologist?"
Me: "I would say no, but how do you mean, sir?"
C: "Well, if a woman said to you - I'm a psychologist - what would you think?"
M: "Errr... dunno... she could hold a degree in psychology and practice... Why, did anyone say that to you?"
C: "This woman I was dating. She sells newspapers. A few weeks ago she told me -
I'm a psychologist, you know. I'm psychoanalyzing you. You are being scrutinized. I thought she sounded smart... was a bit afraid, to be honest."
M: "Uhum."
C: "The other day I met another one."
M: "Another what?"
C: "A psychologist."
M: "A real one?"
C: "Well, I don't know but she was a passenger. Wasn't selling newspapers, that's for sure. I told her the story and she said my girlfriend was screwing with me. That I was nothing but a guinea pig. Then this idea got into my head, that she's just using me."
M: "The first one, right?"
C: "Yeah, using me as a psychoanalysis subject. You know, like in that movie... The Shape of Things. You saw that, miss?"
M: "The one with Rachel Weisz, right?"
C: "Who?"
M: "The chick in The Mummy."
C: "Yeah, that's the one. So you understand, I'm like that dude, you know... she makes me fall in love just to use me. I'm a test. So I broke up with her."
M: "I'm sorry to hear it. Though the movie was more about an art project. Maybe the real psychologist can help?"
C: "Well, I didn't get her number. Anyhow, I'm done with women and psychology for now. I'll also stay away from artists, bartenders, lawyers and every sweet-talking type. I'll go out with the dispatcher lady next week. At least I know what she does for sure."
M: "That seems reasonable... pull right here, please."
C: "Miss, you don't work in psychology, do you?"
M: "I wouldn't dream of it."

Morning ride:
C: "Miss, is that a Pitt Bull?"
M: "Yes, I think so."
C: "Damn ugly dogs."
M: "I agree but I'm sure the owner doesn't think so."
C: "Well, yeah, someone has to love them, right? They're like the Gypsies. I personally can't stand them, but someone's gotta... You know what I mean. Stealing is in their blood... but I don't discriminate, I just don't like them."
M: "Well, Pitt Bulls are dogs too, you know."
C: "Uhum, I didn't say Gypsies are less than Pitt Bulls. I was just making an a-na.. a-na-logy with humans, you know."
M: "Yeah. I know."
C: "I own a Bichon. Now those are cute dogs. Why can't Gypsies be more like Bichons?"
M: "I don't know. I like black Labs."
C: "I'd like to be a Bichon, sit around all day, doing nothing."
M: "Do you suppose you'd get bored?"
C: "Hmm, you may have a point there. I drive to keep myself busy, you know. I actually get headaches when I stay in."
M: "You do?"
C: "I tried, but the wife's driving me nuts. My head hurts. The only time it stops is when I walk out the door and start driving. I love the job."
M: "So if you stop driving you get headaches?"
C: "No, just if I go home and listen to the wife."
M: "So the problem is being home, not being bored?"
C: "Well yeah, I guess I could be a Bichon if I didn't live around my wife."

Think Happy Thoughts

If death were a lady indeed, she'd stop flirting with so many damn people. No such luck. Sometimes the scythe hits too close to home; the least she can do is get a lawnmower.

I can't tell if mockery is a means of dealing with, or running from distressing realities, but I do know it provides stress relief. Coincidentally last week I started yet another Coelho time-filler - "Veronika Decides to Die." Oh but this whole grim attitude is very last decade and a girl's gotta stay ahead in fashion.

Must think happy thoughts. A few days off from work, a ton of movies, and chocolate-induced euphoria will just about do it. Hypoglycemia is merely an excuse - Sugar and I are best buddies since infancy, no novelty there. If only I could purchase myself a huge bubble, then the real world would totally make sense.

In all honesty, if "deal with it" were a mantra, I'd make a lousy Tibetan monk. At least for the next couple of days anyhow. I suspect that's how long it takes for pragmatism to kick in.

Reading Update

Nothing quite like the story of a Brazilian prostitute in search for love redemption in Geneva to entertain my morning subway ride. Page turner, wouldn't read it twice. Hard to focus on the plot sometimes with kids around staring over your shoulder at repetitive adulterous words. They teach 'em English really young these days.

Most memorable passage is definitely the intro and (predictably?) it doesn't even belong to Coelho:

For I am the first and the last
I am the venerated and the despised
I am the prostitute and the saint
I am the wife and the virgin
I am the mother and the daughter
I am the arms of my mother
I am barren but my children are many
I am the married woman and the spinster
I am the woman who gives birth and she who never procreated
I am the consolation for the pain of birth
I am the wife and the husband
And it was my man who created me
I am the mother of my father,
I am the sister of my husband
And he is my rejected son
Always respect me
For I am the shameful and the magnificent one

Hymn to Isis, third or fourth century BC, discovered in Nag Hammadi

Now it makes me wanna listen to Meredith Brooks.

The Princess & The Hunger Circus

Besides McDonald's euphoria, green bank notes, Bush antagonism and Hollywood delusions, nothing brings the average foreigner closer to America than malls. Now I'm not going to dismiss malls altogether - they're useful in their own capitalistic, macroeconomic, shop-big-or-die kind of way. But while one may associate malls with Jersey and the West Coast in the States (leaving enough imagination and geographical areas to diversify the coolness realm) - the mall definitely screams coolness in Romania.

I happen to live a block away from a mall (aaah, she's starting to make sense.) The enclosed movie theaters feed my addiction to movies (from dumb to deep to dreadful.) Dunno, something comfortable about the big screen that cannot be explained. And who cares if the premiers are a month behind the civilized world (or two weeks in exceptional cases)? I just like going to the movies - silly, harmless, violent, spooky, romantic, disingenuous, fake, heartfelt, horrible, awe-inspiring as they may be. If it were only for that, I'd be out cheering for malls; hell, I'd run a campaign and distribute brochures for them. But NO. They come WITH PEOPLE. People who love to shop, eat, breathe, dance (aha), smoke, gossip, stare, sample and probably sleep at the mall.

I don't mean to sound agoraphobic, really. Nothing wrong with shopping in principle. What gets on my nerves is the mall mania, the mentality, the gratuitous display of opulence. In comes THE PRINCESS. Otherwise know as the Romanian mall guy's better half, the princess - much like a "cool" car - is a clear sign of a man's success. As a guy, if transition has been very generous to you and you feel like your bank account must be worn on your sleeve - then you have to, absolutely, must, 100% have a gorgeous woman in tight washed jeans, with high boots, phenomenal cleavage and fair skin, who smiles behind the humongous spider-like mascara lashes, smokes Marlboro, Kent or Parliament like cancer is the new black and comes either in pitch-black or bleach-blonde hair versions.

No, I'm not being fastidious. Just terrified; in all truth, there are many types of women in Bucharest and lots of them are to be admired. The princess just doesn't do them justice. It grows around malls and comes with two things attached: her man's arm and a trendy original LV, D&G or (God forbid) Mango purse. Envy much? Sure, I'd love the purses but please can you stop staring at my flat shoes? It's not my fault that your man needs a plant attached to justify to the world that he's a "normal" guy. Without a woman, people may start talking - what's wrong with him? Is he - gasp - gay, deranged, bad in bed? Poor guy, maybe he has an abuse problem, he's too attached to his mother or something? But what's wrong with him? Conclusion: if you are a princess and wish to date within your cast then you have a dilemma: the "normal" guys have to have a girlfriend - hard to date them, but not impossible; the ones who don't - well, they just can't be normal, so obviously you won't date them out of principle. Ergo, I do believe that one must grow a princess; it just cannot survive out in the open without a chevalier attached.

Sarcasm aside, I do find one particular reality quite ironic and representative of modern-day Romania: many malls (like the one I live by) were built over a "Hunger Circus" - the Ceausescu-era systemized buildings intended to feed the masses under the huge protective dome of the colossal construction. The dome (hence the "circus" term) has remained, but where once people used to fight for food there lies KFC and McDo and some Chinese restaurant impossible to pronounce. So the princess - this mythological product of transition gone astray - may dream on and pretend it's always been like this. And if it hasn't, what better reason to exude survival than to display your success and fortune in the hunger circus? Hunger can be evil, so does manipulation of people's need to stall it. But while speedy transition and successful business may justify the desire to forget the times of famine, I'm afraid it doesn't justify poor taste and exhibits of grandeur.