Men Without Eyes Multiply Like Flies

Another weekend is stalking me.  I worked nights all this week.  I’m not really complaining, I kind of like the schedule.  Not really the hours so much, but the shake up.  I like being forced to stay up and do things I wouldn’t ordinarily do.  I often put myself into situations where I know I will be forced into certain scenarios that will fuck with me in different ways.  More than just the philosophical mumbo-jumbo though, I just like the night.  I like the ocean at night, the sound of it.  Empty streets, the way fog hovers over the city, the clicking of street lights, the buzz of power lines.  I like an empty city, abandoned to me and my every whim.  I swerve lazily all over the road.  Peel out in empty parking lots, pull off the road and watch things.  Appreciate things that are for the most part unseen.  I walk through an empty golf course; I sit and think in an empty schoolyard, I wander through a desolate shopping mall window shopping at everybody else’s life.

These nights remind me of when I was back in high school.  There were no bars to go to, no job to get sleep for, no bullshit to worry about.  My friends and I, the only escape we had from the drudgery of the banal world was to sneak out at night.  Explore the abandoned places, the night our companion, showing us things that the sleeping world didn’t know existed.  I think this later became adulterated with alcohol and partying and hooking up, but the fascination with the night has never left me.  In the military I always loved the night.  Learned new ways to appreciate it.  The sound of the woods, the way the stars move, the stillness that tells you so much.  Being silent and alert means being plugged into this great dark mystery. It will reveal everything to you if you are patient enough to listen.  So I listened.  And I keep on listening.

But it’s only temporary.  Eventually night turns into morning.  Things start to come alive and go about their initial programming.  People driving to work, dogs walking, lawns watering, coffee brewing.  I try not to hate the rest of the world as it goes about its business.  I remind myself that it is me that is the freak. The human race.  Fuck.  The farther away I am from the human race the better I feel.  The more human I feel.  I guess everything is temporary.  Samurai, mercenary, hit man – you can’t live the life of a pro forever.  I’ve had long runs in the past, but something always comes along to break my streak.  I am not simply a machine.  The curse of the brain stem.  I want to blame it on the world, say that it is what’s flawed, but it’s just me.  At this exact moment in my life I lack the discipline to follow the rabbit hole all the way down.  Booze and women kill a killer. I need to push myself into a corner, make shit happen.  Ah fuck it man, I used to lay drunk in alleys and I probably will again.

I drive past a Red Lobster.  This recession is insane.  How the fuck does Red Lobster stay in business!?  What the fuck about Sizzler?  I mean, yeah, white trash fancy up their Friday night with a little Applebee’s.  Old ladies love the shit out of some Marie Caladers (you know, for the soups).  Outback and Lone Star can pretty much take care of themselves.  But who the fuck eats at a Red fucking Lobster?  Who are these people?  Aliens.

I guess the world is changing.  They are changing it. Them.  I’m not some crack-pot conspiracy theorist but when Monopoly stops printing money something is wrong. Yeah… Monopoly!  The paragon of good ‘ole fashioned board game fun.  Well the “old fashioned” part had to go.  Parker Brothers is phasing out the cash-based version’s funny money and replacing it with an “Electronic Banking” flavor that could leave Mr. Moneybags turning his pockets inside out as his stash is replaced by a magnetic strip. New kits are completely devoid of the famous multi-colored bills; instead, you’ll find phony Visa debit cards and a calculator / reader which keeps a running tabulation of your riches – or lack thereof. A deal was struck with Visa to design the mock cards and readers, presumably after surveys showed that 70% of adults used cash less often now than they did a decade ago (no surprise there). When asked about the dramatic change, Parker said replacing cash with plastic “showed the game was moving with the times.”

Spokesman Chris Weatherhead said: “The new electronic Monopoly reflects the changing nature of society and the advancement of technology.” This game is atrocious.  They’ve bastardized the only thing a family can possibly do together during a modern holiday, besides stuff their faces to avoid conversation.  They might as well call it New World Order Monopoly!?  Cashless society, one world banking system, even the prices are ‘updated’ by multiplying everything by 10,000.  I guess that is just taking into account the hyperinflation we are about to have in the US. The credit cards can’t show you your balance and you’re left guessing what you can afford or how much you are actually being charged.  By the way, everything is sponsored. Visa branded the cards and the machine. The properties are sponsored by sports arenas and tourist attractions, etc.  For my money this is blatant brainwashing. Hey kid, try this credit card.  First swipe is free – but you’re gonna pay for the rest of your life after that.  Fuck.  So for those anxious to get their swipe on, or if you’ve simply forgotten how to use bills, the new version will set you back around $50, while the now “antiquated” cash version can be had for around $20, but only while supplies last.

Pop culture… fuck me Jesus.  I would say that Mickey Mouse has a greater influence on the American imagination than Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Rabelais, Shostakovich, Lenin, and/or Van Gogh.  Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.  Yeah, I’m a tortured outsider, but it’s not rocket surgery.  Imagination is prey. It is bullied and cut down.  Hunted until it lays down, a tired animal, a surrendering virgin.

I know this girl who worked for Disney.  Let’s just call her “Wendy Jones”.  She was working in the call center where people ask about the hotel rooms and the amusement park and basically stuff like that.  She like would describe the rooms and how ‘disneytastic’ they were to people from all around the world, basically she was a human agent of Disney propaganda endlessly chattering away on the headset all day about amenities and scenery.  She worked there with a blind man who she described as going into great length as to the beauty of the hotel rooms and scenic attractions.  Madness.  Wendy would call me up and say things like “I’m starting to believe in Walt’s vision.”  This from the girl who would call anybody out on everything in the most embarrassing way.  Her mouth was a bomb waiting to explode. Tell her no secret, confess no personal feeling, or it would be dangled naked and awkward in front of everyone at the next gathering.  So you need to understand that Wendy was not the kind of person to try and force herself to believe in the candy-coated plastic Prozac insanity of mainstream culture.

Wendy tried to kill herself. Slashed her wrists wide open.  Suicide.  After I found out I drove up to Orange County and visited her.  She seemed ok, but just completely sick of living.  Why suicide?  Because its the only way out.  Because the world is better off without you.  Because now they’ll listen.  !?  I mean, yeah, life is miserable and you die at the end no matter what but why hurry things along?  Wendy was the girl who you would hang out with in the cemetery, read poetry and drink red wine with at midnight.  She was no stranger to death, but maybe working at Disney did something to her soul that it couldn’t continue to tolerate.  What the fuck is this world doing to us?  Men without eyes multiply like flies.

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