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GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD,
HELLO CRUEL WORLD?
August 18, 2006 - What is the cruelest joke that you can think of? I keep coming back to thinking that it probably has to be God being a Christian Neo-Con Republican, and the vast void of spirituality, meaning and hope in America today only stands to prove my point. What if God is an accountant? What if the object of life really is to collect the most toys and St. Peter stands at the gates of heaven and judges you by your credit rating
and size of your SUV? What if art is truly devoid of all meaning and beauty can only be judged by the anorexic beauties Hollywood parades out for us on a regular basis? What if Americans were really put on this earth to express their hatred against Mexicans and Muslims?
| I'm just not sure how real or imagined any of these passing thoughts are anymore. On the news today, it mentioned the recent Israel-Hezbollah war lasted for 34 days. Did it seem more like two weeks to you too? I swear, if World War Three actually does start one of these days, someone please tell Mel Gibson to not steal the headlines for a damn week.
I've always been one to defend the importance of true art and beauty in the world to the bitter end, but I'm just not sure what it changes or makes better anymore. We've all been programmed into our little slots and cliques in life at the onset of high school - jock, nerd, weirdo, loser, over-achiever - and really, once the bills and kids start coming, life has a way of beating you down and keeping you there. |
Is Tracy Flick what we should aspire to?
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Whatever the existence of God, meaning of art and trivialities of Hollywood and high school have to offer, I do know I'm passionately rooting for the end of 2006, and 2007 will be welcomed with open arms. I've never been one to love even numbers or even numbered years, and over the past month, 2006 has been labeled by some of my closest friends and I as the year we've decided to hate being broke.
I've been depressed all year, at first I thought it was a temporary malaise, but things never got better. As the calendar is about to flip into its last quarter, I'm a bundle of frayed nerves and shattered dreams. I'm tired of being broke, tired of my friends being broke and each day, I look at my life and wonder just how I've kept going for so long on so little.
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| I received two text messages the night Alison got booted from Project Runway. Just a couple nights removed from randomly catching the a rerun of the last half hour of last week's show, my friends grew anxious about how I'd take the news. The messages read, "Did u c project runway 2nite? U will b shocked". That message of foreboding was followed by a middle of the night text that simply read, "Don't watch project runway" My
fragile state of mind, still reeling with the visceral and haunting experience of watching Gummo whilst inebriated and pondering the future of cinema with the unfortunate release of Snakes on a Plane took the departure in stride, reminding myself its merely another reality TV program. |
But its summer in Austin, on the news tonight the little weatherman boasted it was the twenty-first straight day temperatures hit 99 or higher. It was a miserably muggy 92 degrees when I was coming home from the market at 9:21 tonight. I looked at the ten day forecast and the lowest high they predicted was 99. This summer has been a killer more than others I've spent in Austin, with each month since April a bit more humid and hotter, and the wear and tear of it all is starting to show on the normally easy going
populace here. Fortunately, I'm sneaking away to the amenable moderate climate of southern California for a couple weeks to recharge and decompress.
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Beautiful World by DEVO
Its a beautiful world we live in
A sweet romantic place
Beautiful people everywhere
The way they show they care
Makes me want to say
Its a beautiful world
For you
Its a wonderful time to be here
Its nice to be alive
Wonderful people everywhere
The way they comb their hair
Makes me want to say
Its a wonderful place
For you
Hey
Tell me what I say
Boy n girl with the new clothes on
You can shake it to me all night long
Hey hey
Its
not for me
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I've got a lot of canvasses lined up in the studio, with a ton of work happening this weekend and a plethora more when I get back home. With the busy season of November's EAST tour and the Blue Genie Christmas show coming up, I'll need to be at full steam and see what happens next. I just hope Mel Gibson can stay away from the bottle long enough for me to get some work done.
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