Election time. Yes, we can. Promises. Status quo to death: big change on the way. Cried in front of the cameras. "Kill the rich, help the poor." Helped the rich, kept the poor. Power outages corrupt. All Isms cause diarrhea. The system's constipated. The sheeple are ignorant if not downright stupid. Fists in the air: short, choppy lies. Good people gone clumsy. Government will not solve society's problems. Let it be, has been. Yes it will; we did, we do. Country boy, the one we all wanted to have a beer with sang: "It ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it."
Anton, Luna, Bucky, Wolfgang and Irene were in Whole Foods slurping down green tea and passion fruit spritzers. Irene spilled some on her Prada purse and there were no napkins left on the table. Bucky leaned over, wiped it off with his tie-dyed t-shirt, spilled his double soy latte mochaccino and dropped his Gucci wallet on the tile floor. Pick it up before I do, Anton said. A stranger walked by and quoted Oscar Wilde's essay "The Soul of Man Under Socialism." OK, said Luna, I like the parts where he talks about the leisure class of artists and thinkers who are free from coerced labor, free to fully realize their true nature. Jobless and privileged? Ah, genius, Wolfgang agreed.
Touted the party line. Talked values. Good citizen. Things crushed, broken into sides. Became a stooge to the system. Bucked the party line. Got angry and told yourself and others that you're not a goddamn stooge to the system. Everybody: I'm right, you're wrong. Hit the streets for revolt. Window-shopped, stopped into the Revolution Café for a 2 for 1 special on the plate du jour: "Peace de Resistance." Chicken gizzard bouillabaisse with a side of mashed bananas. Played the battle march. Strummed the folk song. Frittered and wasted the hours in an offhand way. Worked on setting up a new committee to hire an outside agency to make recommendations on what else to do.
All over the AM dial, The Logic Annihilator: a one-track loop tape of stereotypical blabber and vitriol: populist perception as reality. "The thing about old Formica is that no matter how ugly, chipped and broken it is, you can bleach it down, sterilize the surface, and you can eat off of it. Not so with ideas." Relationship advice and sports analysis: moment-by-moment we made a life. "Calling that play in that situation was equivalent to throwing a drum set down a flight of stairs." Independent cranks sold out to the Man. Changed frequencies. On an FM classic rock station, Bob Dylan sang: "take what you have gathered from coincidence." It's a ruined Eden, so move on. In the cold, dark night, watch out for vomit on the Spanish Steps.
Too skinny in the middle, sat on the couch and waxed on about change. Trickle up, trickle down. Identify with the brands that sell products you think will change the earth, thus life, life thus the earth. Spare change, small change, slow change. Conscience. "Big Ideas leave little room for reality." Government will do the best it can. Good change. Grabbed a rifle. Up the stairs. Nobody listens. What's the point to all this. Just point and shoot. It's not about point. Down the stairs, out the window. Took a poll. It's about process. It's monotonous. Time takes time. That's a slogan. That's stupid.
Late for work one morning, stuck at a stoplight, I noticed a guy in a red convertible with a bumper sticker that read, "if it works in chess, it'll work in life"—but life is more of a poker game, don't you think? Make a move. Don't get distracted. It's about the bluff and the calling out of bluffs and when some criticize what seems to them butt-laden, ass-speak—they might be right, maybe wrong, but it's a lack of imagination that flat-lines the bloody game once in motion. Or something.
Measured, quantified, and qualified. Doled out charts, stats, and figures. On the bus, in the limo: groupthink. How many ways are there to achieve the ends by which you speak. Only one, thought of them all. Whatever he says, she says. "I'll do it, you do it." Ran the sidewalk, handed out brightly colored flyers. Why won't they do it. The people are righteous, power to the people. Mock trials, burnt effigies. Employed. Unemployed. Entitled. Unentitled. Celebratory gunfire. Democracy: now and then. Good citizen. Bought up those brands. "Identify and buy." Wore the t-shirts, washed with the soap.
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy meets girl, uh-huh. Let's start a commune. Become paunchy, corrupt, self-indulgent and cruel—like villains in an old Western. Then it's bad vibes from otherwise good people. The personal is political. What we need is liberation and quick. Because you're a delinquent if someone expects something of you and you don't deliver. Yes, togetherness as a way to Individualism as a way to live a truly free, creative, spirit-filled life. Bob Marley sang "One love / One heart." Of course, if the personal is political, then that togetherness is not immune from the danger of devolving into a dictatorship. Therein lies the rub.
Let's compare doctrines. Punched a clock and proselytized in the break-room, drinking decaf. Talked bullet points. Your heart bleeds green, mine blue. Argued inside a cafeteria of white noise. You spiked your tuna with salsa, mine with mac-n-cheese. Heads hurt. Agreed. What's wrong with these sheeple. Everybody on the left get out. Everybody on the right go die. Soul beats money. You little yellow monkey, you silly long-snouted trickster. Hardwired to lie and believe lies. "Big reality in rooms for little ideas."
At work, snug in my cubicle, I daydreamed about people who don't take things as a matter of blind faith, people who think too much or too little, have doubts, ask too many questions or not enough, people who choose not to be well cared for, who choose to be damn fools, damned souls, people who choose to go at it alone. I wondered about the long, arduous process of charcoal into diamonds. Dirty, black and brittle—into hard, shining clarity. I wondered if diamonds themselves contain anything useful.
Got fat in the middle. Empowered yourself. "Individualism is messy." Empower others. Took a poll. Pulled a toke. Disenfranchised. There's an answer, where's the answer. They don't fucking listen. Don't make a shit of difference who's in office, depends on who's in office. Government will not solve society's problems. Juiced in. Government will do the best it can. Holy authority. Dark passageways. Love and death is political. Like blues, like reggae. Some dance to the groove, some build fires.
The guy in the red convertible was wearing a shirt that read, "where there's doubt, there's liberty!"—that really should be expressed in Latin. Yeats said the best lack conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity. Actually, his shirt said nothing of the sort, but I imagined he really wanted to pull me over and whisper that phrase into my ear, like the voice of a hit and run God, pupils shining with fire flames. Or, cut me off violently and speed away flipping me the bird. Couldn't see his eyes. He wore aviator shades and a gray suit and tie.
Hypnotized but not necessarily lying. A shrewd woman and/or a man of the people. Faith in facts, fact in faith. Or something. The quiet, feckless crowd waited. Powerlessness erupted. Nervous about life, but livin' it: the status quo. Cried in front of the cameras. Sound-bitten by dogma. Change you can believe in, belief you can change into. Palms in the air, cue the theme song with looped beats and frenetic synthesizers. Can you believe—same as the old boss. Wait until the next election. All Isms cause diarrhea. The Who sang "Pick up my guitar and play / Just like yesterday." Copasetic battle march folk songs. Fashionable unrequited love marches.
Conspicuously engaged in a kind of quaint pretense, holding an unlit pipe, wearing a smoking jacket, I've taken to twisting my goatee, scheming on how I can rise within the ranks of bureaucracy. It's altruism by committee, and I'm certain that I care more than everyone else. Outside the building where I work at the Ministry of Kybosh, there's no smoking within at least 25 feet of any entrance or exit. The long jump world record stands at 29' 2 ½". Now that's an achievement. Yesterday was Friday, I lit one up in the men's room, ducked into a stall with my headphones on while listening to Leonard Cohen sing his song "The Future" containing the lament "When they said repent, repent / I wonder what they meant."
Chris D'Errico writes, plays blues harmonica and works as an exterminator in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. He is the author of several poetry collections, and his writings have appeared in print journals and online magazines scattered throughout cyberspace. He shares a home with his wife, Tracy, and their two cats, Hank and Arlo. Sometimes he does this: Sidewalk Beggar.