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8/23/2006
NOT JUST LOAFING AROUND
The latest Loaf effort is here:
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A114414
In other news, I am officially a homeowner. I bought a slum in the hood from my
ghetto landlady, noted author Hollis Gillespie. I already live in the place so
it’s not really that exciting but it might get certain degenerates off my back
about saving for retirement and shit, so it may be worth it for that alone. I
promise I will not turn this column into some dull bitch-fest about the
challenges of home ownership.
In yet more news, I’m headed to Portland, OR, in a few weeks for the first opera
based on a comic strip, the Too Much Coffee Man opera! It’s an excuse to get out
of town for a well-needed few days away. Full report upon return.
Crap, what else? Well, if you’re interested in a blog about the dating game, as
played by a straight 30-something male, check out
http://bachelorone.blogspot.com
With all this action, I haven’t done the photo dump I promised last week. If
you’re lucky, and I’m bored at work, I may get to it this week before work gets
really busy next week. Then it’s Labor Day weekend for Drive motherfuckin’
Invasion! Oooh, I can hardly wait!
EAR PLUGS
According to a post on their Myspace page, the Immortal Lee County Killers are
not more. They’ve all split off to do solo stuff, dammit.
BLASPHEMY
The Onion hasn't done nearly enough sociopolitical commentary lately, but here's
a good one:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/51849
In other news, here’s some rambling commentary by degenerate OW:
Slinging Hash With a Prophet of Doom; or, Republicans Ate My Future By Orestes
Wilkinson What mother in her right mind would even think of naming her son
Orestes?
And while that one sinks in or floats on by, let’s be honest – my inheritance
wasn’t what I wanted all the way around. Here I am, 40, prow end of "Gen X" as
it becomes Gen Ex, the Generation Formerly Known as X, i.e.
nothing in particular. Free Love – dead. Consciousness Expansion – dead.
Peace – dead. Love – dead. Rock & Roll – Britney Spears.
Pass the bubble-gum flavored Zima, please.
Just what the freezing Fuck has gone on here in these, our United States, Land
of the Free, Home of the Low Equity Home Loan? Gen Ex’s future looks about as
full of promise as Kurt Cobain’s after deciding smack addiction and bipolar
disorder go together like Fred and Ginger dancing in a Kansas tornado.
Well, holy losing hand, Batman, what the Hell did you expect? Your parents’
all-knowing, Howdee Doodee, swing-to-the-right, born-again,
wall-to-wall-and-tree-top-tall-Jeezis-is-my-co-pilot, Jack T. Chick-Jimmy
Swaggart-Jim & Tammy-Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson-Gawd Bless Amerika-Ronald
Reagan-neo-conservative-fascist-asshole-motherfuckerin’,
sit-back-and-enjoy-the-ride-folks-cos-you-ain’t-got-no-choice, there’
s-more-of-us-than-there-are-of-you-and-we’ve-figured-it-all-out, and (besides
that) we’ve-got-the-bucks-and-the-good-jobs-and-refuse-to-retire (Fame! We’re
gonna’ live forever!) cap-you-chino-suckin’, you-talkin ’-to-me?-gruntin’,
9/11-hysterical, wild-eyed-paranoid,
my-Hummer-looks-like-a-military-vehicle-maybe-it’ll-scare-bin
Laden-gas-suckin’, Dick
Cheney-has-my-best-interests-at-the-core-of-his-hardened-arteries-believin’
lifestyle pretty much spelled your doom before you had a chance to say, "Uh,
what is this man talking about in this amazingly long sentence full of vague and
not so vague references and accusations that, yet, somehow remain beyond my
finite, public school maltrained capacities to interpret adequately?"
Dude, would you like fries with that? And if you wanna move up in the world, I
hear Waffle House needs a cook for the night shift – last guy got busted for
dealing meth off the back porch. Scattered, smothered, AND covered.
Yes, it’s all good. And yet, no, it isn’t. I mean, if your parents’
generation is, as a generation, sort of like an Überparent – let’s say, your Mom
– and assuming parents are supposed to do things for you, mmmm, like be
nurturing, caring, sacrifice for you – what sort of Mother has Gen Ex had?
Let me put it to you another way since I’m damn sure it hasn’t sunk in through
the Zima fumes or proven half as entertaining as Britney’s ass: why would any
mother name her son Orestes? Especially since Orestes killed his murderous
mother, Clytemnestra after she engineered his father’s death?
My name is Gen Ex’s secret name, our secret wish, our collective Complex.
Until our common Mother and her vicious neo-Conservative lover dies, we will
labor under a heavy curse. Our teeth will ache for meat and blood, our hands for
broken bone, our feet for the carpet of a harpy’s corpse. Our days will be
chains until then.
Clytemnestra should sleep scared of something besides terrorists because some
generations give birth to their killers.
Albeit, in this case, the "killer" has recourse to the ballot box and the soap
box to work his vengeance.
But maybe the old girl wised up a long time before we did – or will, as most of
our bunch are still sold on the idea they can Get By lying low, smoking the
sacred weed, talking Indie Revolt over Guiness while paying Clytemnestra’s toll
to live in the basement. You grumble beneath your breath at work, but work until
you can’t stand it, then get another job (second verse, same as the first;
repeat as needed); follow, do as you’re told, don’
t vote since it’s a damn waste of time (plus you never bother to find out
anything about the candidates anyway). You play guitar and paint when no one ’s
looking and no one can hear; and if all else fails, there’s porn and Fear Factor
to amuse you into sleepyland where you will be of no difficulty to anyone
anytime soon.
In other words, though you’d like to kill Mom, you’ll spend the rest of your
days earning money for her rent, living by her rules in that cramped, damp
basement apartment in her house; and then, when the time comes, you’re going to
wipe her ass and change her Depends until she keels over and leaves her material
possessions to Gen M-I-C-K-E-Y.
Y?
Because of nostalgia – Gen Y appears at times so thoroughly lobotomized it’
d be a miracle if they could reason their way out of a paper bag with holes on
six sides with a freaking roadmap and a hunchbacked midget to hold their hands
and coax them into coming along. "Please – it’s this way master! We’ve been
doing this for hours and I promise that this hole is what you’re looking for…
please stop looking at Britney’s ass and come along…."
And so on.
Gen Y has the same thing going for it that the Boom Generation did and
does: there’s more of them than there are of us. Gen Ex is a minute rag of cheap
deli pastrami sandwiched firmly between two slab-sized slices of resource
draining, power wielding, All Amerikan White Bread. They know what they want and
they want it now and, By Gawd, they have the Divine Right to Whatever Their Eyes
Hath Coveted simply because there are so many of them it would take a plague to
lay them low.
And may God (some real one) forbid this. The only other thing that’s morally
conceivable is that somehow our generation might get on the ball and Change
Their Minds, but I think we’ve got about the same chance as that midget in the
paper bag: "No, really, this is the way out – yes, Britney is fascinating to
watch but we really need to be moving along. You don’t need another Zima, No,
really…."
And Gen Ex is apparently never going to rise to the challenge partly because of
this attitude it carries, this resentment for The Way Things Are married with a
feeling of malaise. Or, in plain English: "Fuck it Dude, let’
s go bowling." When the going gets tough, Gen Ex is about 50 miles away looking
for paisley retro clothes at the thrift store and comparing the relative virtues
of Blue Grass to Ska.
Which is a fine way to spend a weekend, who can argue? But when the fate of the
world hangs in the balance, perhaps an hour or two a night might be devoted to
reading something with more words than pictures (unless it’s a comic book by
Alan Moore, in which case all is forgiven). Perhaps an hour or two could be
devoted to… reading something as long as that "something" does not involve in
its title words like "people," "in touch," "star,"
"enquirer." You get the pictureless picture here? No pregnant Britney; no big
lipped woman done stole Jennifer Anniston’s husband (who, by the-way, never
looked half as good or came off half as slick as George Clooney in the Ocean’s
re-make); no Desperate Housewives, no win a Desperate Housewives desperate
Tupperware Party Contest, no purchase necessary, void where prohibited, Teri
Hatcher will dance the fandango wearing a thong on your dining room table
topless smoking a Virginia Slims (you’ve come a long way
baybeee) cigarette precariously held between her pearly whites in a foot long
ivory & gold-holder.
No! None of this insanity. Philosophy, politics, art, literature, and history –
lots and lots of history. This would be a good start. Didn’t learn this shit in
college? Good – teach yourself. Didn’t go to college or didn’t like it when you
did have to read stuff like this in the past? Fuck you.
Read it anyway, this time as an addict trying to get the combination to the
locks on the drug cabinet, or as a horny bastard trying to figure out how to
seduce that deliciously unseducable strumpet who – you feel in your heart of
hearts – has a weak spot, one which you will locate with the aid of those stupid
books.
Ah, Hell, maybe she won’t give it up. Maybe you’ll just fumble around enough to
get your face smacked. Maybe you’ll never figure it out, maybe you ’ll
unendingly sling hash, the same hash, at the cosmic Waffle House for an eternity
like some bizarre sort of greasy Sisyphus. Maybe your teeth will quit aching and
half of them will fall out after you stop dealing meth off the back porch and
start spiking it yourself just to stay up all night to Work – for humans exist
to work. Don’t you know, "Man is for the Sabbath?"
And who are you working for? Mom, dear ol’ Ma’, and pretty soon you’ll be wiping
her ass all day and slinging hash for her all night, mainline crank, stare
blear-eyed at Britney’s ass wanting to have it or have your own be like it, and
drink that Zima. And when Ma dies, you can go to work for her replacement, your
little sister; second verse, same as the first. Except when you get old, you’ll
be in prison or under a fuckin’ bridge because Ma will have exhausted the
resources you need to get old and live like a human.
Whatever happened to "Won’t get fooled again?!"
I don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows, either. Except I’m
no kid – I’m 40 years old.
*
I’m a little dog living in a house full of screaming cats and, damn, they’re
getting’ loud, always getting their picky-assed way, spraying the shit out of
everything in sight, filling the air with their heavy cat reek while I sit
calmly at the window watching the sun go down and wonder how I could con ye olde
flaming orb & All Seeing Eye to burn this worthless Satanic Mill to the ground
so Somebody could start over again and do Something that looks like a halfway
human, or canine, job with the smoking rubble.
And next time, with no goddamn George W. Bush-loving cats.
Arf.
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