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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson walk into a bar...

Abandon taste, all ye who enter. My perspective doesn't seem to be welcomed on facebook, so this is going to be my own little pressure release valve.

"You know how he really died?" Cory, one of my customers today, asked. "Food poisoning. He ate an 8-year old weiner."

Think of all those prosthetic parts. What's going to become of all those spare parts when his body decomposes? The inside of his casket is going to look like a Mr. Potato Head kit, sans potato.

Hey, maybe we can go for a triple-play and something will happen to Carrot Top.

I've been strangely unaffected by this whole thing. I think it's because I said my goodbyes when I was 8 years old, around the time Michael Jackson quit making good music and started raping people.

I'm dumbfounded by the outpour of sympathy. Sure, let's celebrate his music. I've got no problem with that. What irks me, though, are some people I know who are acting like they lost a member of their family. I guarantee you, though, that if Jacko was your uncle you would be able name more than three of his songs. And you'd also be in therapy indefinitely.

This is what happens when Americans lose a mainstay. We've never known life without Michael Jackson. We elevate our celebrities (especially the trainwrecks) only to watch them crash. And then we mourn them like Mother Teresa. I guarantee you-- guarantee you-- that when Britney Spears keels over here in the next few months there will be those who push to nominate her for sainthood.

And so when I write the line on facebook, "Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson walk into a bar," I'm jumped on by a former high school classmate who condescends from her lofty perch upon her ivory tower to remind me that these people are "real people too."

There's no such thing as just a joke. At least not with me. It's all commentary. Now, Gina Trapp, do you really think I'm so jaded, disillusioned and shallow that I get a kick out of making fun of dead humans? Or, maybe I'm subversively trying to indict a culture just as perverse as the biproducts we manufacture and worship-- our celebrity class.

Gina, it's true, they probably are real people. But not in the way the majority of us perceive them. For 99% of us, it's pure soap opera schlock. I think if there were an appropriate time to play the "humanity" card here, it should've been twenty years ago when the tabloid infotainment media began to feed us stories about the drawn-out, pending decline of a once-was pop icon for the sake of ratings.

Maybe the focus shouldn't be on a joke I made (hardly a joke-- doesn't even contain a punchline) but rather on the way our society has disgraced these individuals with the inhumane treatment our media has served them, and the eagerness in which we scarfed it down.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Circling Swallow

During the life span of a cigarette this morning I watched a swallow nesting above the patio inside a small gap in the corner of the roof. He caught my eye as he had been repeatedly flying in circles, each time hesitating at the entrance of the hole but not entering.

Swallows are excellent fliers and use this ability to feed and attract a mate. But at this particular instance, his greatest strength was mocking his own efforts as he seemed unable to fly into his nest, perhaps due to some perceived misjudgment-- he came in too fast, too low, a hair too far to the right or left. And so he would circle around and try again.

After numerous passes, I saw him grow tired. His circles became smaller, his movements more drastic. He was exhausted, and this only impeded his confidence as he tried to enter the nest. It was as if he knew he was going to miss before he even got there, and so his mind was already ahead of him, planning another circle.

Then other swallows, who misunderstood the severity of the situation, began swooping at him as he made his repeat passes, throwing him further off course and accentuating the already dire predicament.

It was then that I noticed what possibly was even more inhibiting than some sort of passerine inferiority complex. The piece of straw he carried in his mouth was simply too large to fit in the hole. He knew this long before I did, but tragically it was a lesson he learned again and again with every passing swoop.

A popular definition of insanity is repeating the same actions expecting a different result. By that standard, this swallow was insane. It seems cruel to diagnose a creature whose existence is jeopardized by his own ignorance, but it's a lot easier for me to critique someone else's situation than to try and rationalize my own.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

When the train left the station, it had two lights on behind

When I was a child I would often spin around in circles, arms outstretched, and it would take me to another planet. Sometimes lying in bed I would close my eyes and press against them with my thumbs, causing me to see strange shapes and colors.

I do not believe I was doing this to run away from anything; to escape reality. I think I was doing it solely to experience something that I otherwise could not, in ordinary circumstances. As I've grown older I have found other ways to achieve this state.

Tonight I found myself witness to the apparently pending divorce of my heart and my mind. They separated for a while, likely due to poor communication. But after too long a time passing since they last communicated, they grew distant and now wish to formerly divorce due to irreconcilable differences. But they both (as well as myself) know that's bullshit.

With their permission, I acted as mediator to one of their counseling sessions. I aimed to merely facilitate a dialogue between the two, and despite my best efforts at assisting both parties in speaking a language the other one might understand, I fear the operation was a total failure.

The sad thing is that my heart and mind, at this point, actually plan to stay together. During the discussion, they began to act empathetically toward each other and are under the impression that their relationship is salvageable. However I know them both too well, and believe that they have successfully tricked themselves into thinking they are back in love with each other. The truth is they're merely in love with being in love.

All their love's in vain.

The situation took a horrible turn for the worst during the exchange near the end of the session. At this point, the heart had begun confessing to the mind that he was right all along. Meanwhile the mind similarly yielded to the heart, vowing to never again second-guess her.

The tragedy is not that they want two different things (though in many ways they do). What really kills me is that they want the same thing: what each other wants.

I fear it is only a matter of time before one of them realizes that it is impossible for both wishes to coexist-- they likely are mutually exclusive. But despite what they think, it is impossible for them to divorce. They're stuck with each other. The decision isn't even theirs. Unbeknownst to them, my gut is the supreme regulator of all things organ.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Let It Bleed

Occasionally I will find a song that I feel summarizes my life at that particular time. Only in the rarest occasions, however, do I come across an entire album that speaks to my present existence. Tonight, in what may be only the second or third time in my life, I've found that strange phenomenon in the album, "Let it Bleed," the 1969 release by The Rolling Stones.

The album weaves complexities like delicate threads, but a loose summary of the album, not unlike a traditional narrative, can be summarized in three acts. Act 1 warns of impending danger followed by mourning of love lost and the red flags of a potential downward spiral. Act 2 moves into loathsome, self-destructive behavior aimed at masking the pain by way of aimless, hollow pursuits, all of which lead nowhere. Act 2 concludes with the title track, "Let it Bleed," in which the narrator finally begins to heal when he turns his focus from his own pain and onto that of another person in need. Act 3 charts the path of healing and from there, to self-discovery and rebirth.

The album comes to a close with a moment of lucidity and, for the first time since the opening track, complete honesty and objectivity as Mick Jagger sings, "You can't always get what you want." It was during this moment that I flipped the last light switch to my old house, and as I locked the door behind me and walked to my car, he concluded with the line, "But if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need."