{"id":15123,"date":"2015-02-09T12:25:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T17:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=15123"},"modified":"2015-02-09T13:14:56","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T18:14:56","slug":"some-got-plenty-and-some-got-plenty-o-nuttin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2015\/02\/some-got-plenty-and-some-got-plenty-o-nuttin.html","title":{"rendered":"Some Got Plenty and Some Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five years after the Wall Street crash of 1929, George Gershwin wrote what he called a \u201cbanjo song\u201d for “Porgy and Bess.” It turned into “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” with lyrics by Edwin DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. The second verse goes like this:<\/p>\n

De folks wid plenty o’ plenty
\nGot a lock on de door
\n‘Fraid somebody’s a-goin’ to rob ’em
\nWhile dey\u2019s out a-makin’ more
\nWhat for?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>

Illustration: Elena Caldera<\/p><\/div>Heathcote Williams reminded me of the song when his poem Rich People<\/a> was posted the other day by the International Times in London. His second verse goes like this:<\/p>\n

While the gap between the poor and the prosperous
\nWidens and widens and leads to despair,
\nThe rich hide from the consequence of their actions
\nIn gated communities. Unwilling to care.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s less musical than the Gershwin tune, which is to be expected of an indictment rather than a folk opera. But by a nice coincidence it arrives right on time. See this week’s New York Times series<\/a> about the real-estate rape of New York by the world’s wealthiest crooks and shysters, who are able to hide their identities behind legal shell companies. OK, some of them are merely rich celebrities … Jimmy Buffett, Ricky Martin, Tom Brady, and Kelly Ripa are name-checked in the series. Barbra Streisand isn’t. But she does figure in the poem: <\/p>\n

\u201cI want only two houses, rather than seven,
\nSaid the millionaire Barbra Streisand blithely.
\n\u201cI feel like letting go of things,\u201d she said grandly
\nAnd without the least trace of irony.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years after the Wall Street crash of 1929, George Gershwin wrote what he called a \u201cbanjo song\u201d for “Porgy and Bess.” It turned into “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’” with lyrics by Edwin DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. The second verse goes like this: De folks wid plenty o’ plenty Got a lock on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,18,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-literature","9":"category-news","10":"category-political-culture","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/RICH-PEOPLE-illustration-Elena-Caldera.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-3VV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15123"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15154,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15123\/revisions\/15154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}