Some years ago while living in Hawaii and lit up like a Christmas tree, as I was a lot of the time then... I’d given up waiting for life to cover me in laurel and started to behave as if it already had... I was in my living room with my girlfriend and a couple of her friends and we were probably doing drugs and being boisterous; which was something I did a lot of...
It so happens that there was a football game on and I did one of those things I often did which was to turn the sound off and become the announcer. At the time I was doing a lot of standup comedy so my groove was well oiled and I did...
the play by play and the color, switching back and forth between the characters. It was funny. I have that gene but I seldom use it anymore. In any case, once finished, after about five minutes of this, my audience of three or however many there might have been all got to telling me that I absolutely ought to be a sportscaster.
At this point you are probably thinking, “Okay Les, why don’t you tell us how you could moonwalk all over the room and never disturb the lampshade on your head?” No... that’s not what this is about. I never did slapstick anyway. What this is about is...
...well, I’ll tell you... I said to whoever was there, “Not a chance. You can’t just do your thing and be entertaining in these venues. You have to conform to guidelines and you have to do commercials and you have to engage in all sorts of embarrassing events with idiots who are that clueless that they think meeting an on air personality at a public event is a big deal. In other words, it’s hell.
The reason I’m talking about this is because I have just been around to all of the mass media news organs this morning... from a distance, my usual perspective... meaning I don’t have to be photographed with one of them in my mouth... and I read the articles that the usual hacks put out and I saw the slants and the little tricks they learned in journalism school and from people they worked under on their way to a byline and I cringed at the thought that anyone has to do the things they do for money.
I thought about how often they are wrong and how it never matters the next day. I thought about those loud guys with the beer bellies that tell you they have the winning picks and, unlike the people they take money from, I remember how bad their picks of the week before were and then...
I went over to Slate.com and I saw articles like “How to survive a 47 story fall.” I saw some headline that was about getting a picture of your baby with every one of the political candidates. I saw a headline where one of the worst writers going, William Saletan, appears to be saying that slasher movies lower crime.
Given the odious dreck that continuously appears at Slate and all the rest of the bimbo-oriented news-zines you might say that there actually are no guidelines. Yes, there are guidelines. You can’t tell the truth. You can’t talk about anything important. You can’t talk about red-tagged events in any way other than the way you are told to. You have to be a company pump. The people who write at The New York Times and the people who write and commentate for Fox-News are the same people. The former think they live at Park Place and the latter are comfortable at St. James Place, if not Baltic Avenue but it’s all the same Monopoly Board.
Some people think prestige is attached to these positions. I never understood what the point of a large audience was when you couldn’t use the position to speak truthfully. Studying the phenomenon I found that there is no such position... ♫I’m only a bird in a glided caaaaage...♫ Well... that would certainly qualify for putting a good face on it. Bird you are not and glided cage it is not but we’ll leave the real definition of both to those who know it best.
What kind of person do you have to be to lie for a living? There are a lot of these people so you can ask them on your own. What kind of a person lies for a living when their lies are partly responsible for lives lost and ruined? What kind of a person puts on a monkey suit so that he can hang out with other monkey suits in mood-lit rooms full of drunken monkeys and call that success? What sort of a person covers their body with aerosol sprays to conceal the stink of bad diet and props up tortured hair or, failing that, gets new hair?
What kind of a person spends enormous sums of money on a suit to conceal the flaccid state of their sedentary form when sooner or later they have to take that suit off to engage in romantic congress with the fantasy they took their job for in order to make such a congress possible? Yes, they can pay for it because the job allows for that but does their vanity run that deep that they imagine themselves to be desirable? I guess they’re just giving back what they get in their day to day to a better looking version of themselves that they will never be and just call it even. Love doesn’t enter into the equation... sheer naked ugly need will do. It’s like a lifetime of Glengarry Glen Ross when five minutes was more than I could take.
I hadn’t looked at the Slate.com front page in possibly a year until this morning. It has probably been longer than that since I was by the NYT and The Post and most of the rest. Distance does grant perspective and insight.
It appears that life is a tradeoff. You can have a lot of shiny items and luxurious temporary lodgings if you lie. A lot of people think that this is a good deal.
I’ve had to live without a lot of things in my life and endure some difficult times. I can’t say I miss what I didn’t get. My payoff is that I am never going to have to do any of these jobs and although I don’t get paid for the job I do in the same coin as the rest I don’t see where I’m being shortchanged.
I think about what it would be like to wake up in the morning as the transsexual Ann Coulter or the mega rich Rupert Murdoch or any of the countless laminated fuck-toys or people who buy them and I feel compelled to fall to my knees and lift my hands to heaven and say, “Thank you God.”
I remember parties in New York City and other cities. I remember conversations with important employees of some firm or another. I remember passing through these moments the way I walked past shop windows filled with images and objects. I remember thinking how I didn’t belong here, experiencing all of the words and facial gestures and activities of the walking dead that surrounded me and wondering what the Hell is going on.
I remember thinking there must be something more and I remember being certain that there was. What do these people tell themselves at the end of the day? Do they imagine there will come a time when they will be on top? ...on top of what? Well... this is just the way it looked to me this morning as I went by these sites and I can assure you it will be a long time before I go by any of them again. I feel like I ought to have a drink and its only 9:00AM right now. I’ll bet these people feel like that nearly every single day.
'Right Thru My Heart' is track no. 5 of 12 on Visible's 2007 album 'Almost A Capella'
Lyrics (pops up)
6 comments:
Never usually awake at this time, but i managed to not fall asleep yet tonight. Im quite thankful of this, cause for now i will be able to sleep with a mind of peace. That privelage is of course thanks to you.
I too put myself in the place of the blind, mentally poor, and the disassociated with reality. Not to say that my vision is superior, or that I'm rich in thought, but that i do place myself just a little higher on the mental chart than those at abcnnbcbs. I know that many times those of our ilk tend to despise the people we see to be the root of many problems in todays society, but like yourself i find it comforting sometimes to know that they are there. They serve as a sort of reality check to compare myself to and boost my confidence in what Im thinking is right. I also believe that their capacity to harm the faceless is countered justly by the ability of the faceless to partake in righteous deeds to help the whole.
This makes me think, and sorry to rant, of the saying " the ends justify the means'. It doesn't necassarily remind me of the actual meaning of the quote, but more of the individual parts mentioned. I begin to think that the "ends" are just a necassasary illusion, and the means are the important part. For we all know our earthly end. And well i don't mean the Means are important as in you gotta pick the "good" side over the "bad", whatever that means, but that you only choose what your innermost being compels you to act upon. The yin and yang permeate throughout all, so maybe our good deeds are only the evil deeds other half, and the purpose of the dance between the two is not for victory or defeat but for the beauty of the dance itself. We brought ourselves here to stand in awe of what we have,are, and will created,creating,create, but we get so caught up in thinking that we have to stay in tune with the parts we must play that we actually forget what it was all about. The best of creation that there possibly is, is playing itself out in right front of us, and although there are parts that hurt the eyes, scar the flesh, and poison the soul, they are moments that are there to broaden the emotional palette so that we may paint the universal landscape with a wider spectrum of sensual color.
Maybe the evil is quintessential in making the good so beautiful. So doesn't that, in a way, make the evil just as gorgeous?
Truthfully i don't even know what the point of this is. Haha. Just some thoughts you spurred, thanks again.
Good morning/Goodnight,
Alonelywanderer
Quite the sea change Les.
Tony
You ever notice how the Necrophilainfidels always, without fail, have huge subterranian personal issues ignored as perfectly and profitably as everything else they can't see? Its why they can't see. To see means they would have to give up their reason for being. All the little castles in the sky would crumble.
hey posted a message earlier. just wanderin why its not up , or maybe i just never sent it, not sure,...
Thanks Les. mmmm...good read... Tastes like more. :)
Hey Nina!
So true, so true. And provoked me you did, by helping me crystallize instantly what I wanted to say: I don't need a reason for be-ing. I only need a reason for do-ing.
Be-ing is so effortless that I'm convinced it's our natural state. Well, it's my natural state, that's for sure.
As for do-ing. I need strong motivation for do-ing almost anything. I just enjoy be-ing so much. And I'm often baffled by those who don't. I can guess why, but it still baffles me.
Yup Les, all the shiny thingies, I enjoy looking at them. Sometimes I marvel at them too. Thru shop windows, sometimes in mags or on tv. It might be nice, sure it would be nice, especially if ever'body could enjoy those pretty manufactured things. Lovely houses, swimming pools, for e.g. But I don't lust after them. Besides give me a clean river or a clean ocean/beach any day! Nature does it better. We imitate. alas...
And I have no longing for plastic, or artifice, including formalities, ritual and especially "show". Especially not when the real deal is more beautiful, more elegant, wayyy more permanent, lasting. Used to be free too. Free and accessible to all. But the fuckers, damn the greedy fuckers, they co-opted all the best real estate. All over this planet. They will have to pay the piper for doing that! grrrrr
I've been attracted by the look of a lovely dress, or shoes, or jewellery for e.g. But they've never moved me or held my attention or fascination, nor delighted me in the way that a face or a sunset can...I've cried sweetly over the softest of words received or heard, or the kindest of gestures received or witnessed.
And music, oh music...moves me to sway or glide, or jump up and boogie. and some soothes or heals. Much magic there.
I've sampled some of your music too Les. And my cheeks pulled my face upward. I know my eyes were sparkling too, cause the room got brighter.
I'm delighted you didn't become a sportscaster. It might have taken forever to meet you, otherwise. Then again, maybe I'd a developed an out-of-character (for me) interest in sportscasting. haha
Some have tried to tempt me towards their/other lifestyles. I'm proud to say that they all failed. Don't they know? How come they don't get that there's a price and usually a hidden cost, particularly for those things that are manufactured, not real or lasting. hmmm?
Some only regard the price of a thing, and often fail to realize the cost or that there was even a cost involved... until it's late, very late. Sometimes too late?
I'm rambling again. Lord I was born a ramblin' gal... Let the other kids have a turn. The more the merrier. Happiness loves company too. :)
annemarie
Really like that song, by the way!
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