Tuesday, September 26, 2017

State of the Nation - Suburban Eccentric Edition

Pajama Man lives down the street from me. I've dubbed him that because i've never seen him wear anything other than pajamas, he could be mowing the lawn or shoveling snow or staring off into space while the smoke from his cigarette spirals upwards, it's always pajamas that are made of thin material and striped, his shoes always appropriate for the weather he reminds me of some weird amalgamation of Martini and Taber from the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a happy and pleasant psychotic, there are times when he just strolls around the front yard with his disheveled hair talking to himself, oddly enough i find myself doing much the same thing except i don't have any pajamas so i'm usually in clothes...

There's this recurring theme of self examination here in the lounge, it runs through it's annals and might someday be used to chronicle the plight of the post-modern layabout and his tedious march towards whatever the opposite of respectability is, i'm sure there's a word for it but i've been in the garage too much tonight to come up with it, and so as we pass another Patriot's Day i add another ring to the trunk and take stock in just how little i've once again managed to accomplish, an incredible feat for a man-boy within touching distance of his AARP card and all the free fucking coffee he can guzzle!!

So there are the usual questions of who am i? what am i? where am i? but fuck all that, i've got a pretty good grasp on the who, what and where, at least for the next second or two and then none of that will exist anymore... these days i've taken to wearing rather colorful socks for a person my age, of course i shouldn't say these days because i've always had a penchant for colorful socks, the new batch i found while aimlessly wandering a TJ Maxx which means not only are they colorful and stylish but they were cheap as well, made by a surf company that is known for it's exorbitant pricing, it's not like anyone ever sees these socks, it's a bit like Ebby Calvin "Nuke" Laloosh wearing garters while he pitched, it's just comforting to know they're there... the sad and silly rituals of the suburban eccentric...

These days i wonder just how long it takes the denizens of the suburbs to figure out how much of a degenerate pot head i am, it goes back once again to having no "job" or "career" to speak of, put a pack of suburban males together and there are exactly two topics of conversation, work or sports, and while i can hang quite well on the sports end it seems that work is always the more prevalent topic and one that i'm loathe to talk about even when i had a gig, the Don Drapers of the burbs don't want to hear about my uncanny ability to get stains out of the boyos shirts, they can hear that shit from their wives, and so inevitably (as what i believe i recognize as a defense mechanism for the undercurrent of disdain and animosity) i've taken to fucking with the lot, usually it involves any number of authors, philosophers, comedians, musicians and artists and my post-modern mashing of these fucked-up ideas i get running around my head, i've refined the attack so that it's barely discernible until i'm hoping sometime much later in the evening when it wakes them up sometime around 3am and rattles their sensibilities...

These days the crux of my argument has to do with time and how it is the only thing you really own and it's most likely the most valuable thing any human has as we have only a finite amount of it to get done what we want to do even if what we want to do is nothing at all, and how too many people give it away so cheaply doing things they don't really enjoy doing, much of that little soliloquy i ripped from Alan Watts but when i combine it with a covert indictment of our educational system  (no. 28 in the world) along with  not so covert jabs at capitalism and the cult of money it pleases me to no end to see the furrowed thinking brows of men who's main joy in life is hitting a little white ball with a stick and investing in the stock market, i know they honestly believe they are doing the "right" thing, they have careers and BMWs and for the most part believe all the lies they've been told without ever thinking they might be getting fucking duped, when you add the fact i live in a district that was won by an orange complected, comb-overed buffoon it only adds to my ire that some of these well-heeled and upstanding types are nothing more than closeted racists, bigots, homophobes and misogynists ...

The world i inhabit is populated by yoga pants and over-sized smart phones driving around in mini-vans and high end SUVs, there is a contest to accumulate things and then replace those things with newer and shinier things, things with ever more impressive names and logos if you are one to be impressed by such names and logos, there are men who talk knowingly and low about dividends and shares, can there be such a thing as smart phone envy? stock share envy? i'm quite sure there is and i'm quite sure Dr. Freud could somehow explain it all, i just want to get stoned and listen to the new Oh Sees record, i don't understand the names and logos in the same way i don't understand organized religion, but i do understand that the sun on my toes feels warm and pleasant and the relaxing purr of my little white cat...

There is a wave of melancholy that washes over the suburban eccentric when i realize how the grown-ups have given up, i can see the love of learning is lost, i can see consternation and confusion and bemusement when i ramble on about acquiring knowledge while admitting i know nothing, to do nothing more than keep the mind engaged in pursuits even though those pursuits are not designed to increase the bank account or upgrade the logo on the front of the car, i can see the look of disdain when i mention going to see rock bands on weeknights, apparently that's not an adult thing to do in certain social circles and that's okay, just cuz you grow up doesn't mean you have to get old, this here life is a terminal illness except most of us won't get much of a warning on when we're checking out, i don't need to ponder what the world will be when i'm a non-entity, it won't matter because i won't be here, but i can give the boyos the ability to read and write and think and laugh and cry, to equip them with the skills to follow their own path, not in the name of money or possessions but in the name of living and using their time wisely, and even then it's up to them, just like it's up to me, and just like it's up to you...



6 comments:

daisyfae said...

the best brain fuckage is on a timed delay - gotta wake 'em up at 3am, cold sweat, questioning their choices, their lives.

the 'burbs. they serve a purpose, but also can suck the soul out of a body. studley and i are considering a future with cohabitation - as a minimum, we'll share a place when we move into 'assisted living'. but also considering chucking the two different condos on different sides of the same suburb, and either buying a ranch on a couple acres in buttfucknowhere, or just get a cheap loft downtown and share space with the non-homogenized masses...

Exile on Pain Street said...

There was a Mafia Don in Little Italy who, in an attempt to convince the law he was insane, used to walk up and down Mulberry St. in his bathrobe all day. He thought that would get him landed in a hospital vs. a jail. They threw him in prison anyway.

It's not that these loves are LOST. They've been supplemented out of necessity by work, family, keeping the mortgage paid. That shit takes all you've got. Who's got time for Kierkegaard when there's a parent/teacher conference after nine hours at a desk?

Kono said...

Daisy- have no fear lady nothing will suck the soul out of this weirdo, i keep moving right along, water never stops flowing...

Exile- i know that Don... and allow me to disagree, that second paragraph is exactly what i'm getting at, it's the soulless capitalist scourge, keep us on the hamster wheel, keep the carrot out front, it's why we work more for less in this country and are up to our eyeballs in debt, they want us working and not thinking, they want us occupied with as little free time as possible, the American Dream is a scam, and i now work in the lowest paid job of all with the worst fucking hours i've ever had, this shit ain't easy, i go from 6am until 9 or 10 before i get a chance to stop and yet i still find the time to do what i do, it's a commitment to not giving in, so yes after all that and a parent/teacher conference i'll sit down and read some Kierkegaard or Alan Watts, it's a rejection of what i've been taught and i'm slowly trying to explain it to the boyos, just so they know, it's up to them what they want to do but if i can create to people who don't buy into the system, or at least understand the scam and what they're buying then i'm doing okay...

looby said...

One of the worst side effects of recently having started a full-time job is the way it reduces my time for reading -- although that's not really the case. If I stayed out of the pub I could get through a book every few days :) But I think you *make* time for things that are important. I've asked my mum for a book which is an introductory course on Logic. We got talking about it down the pub the other day and it made me miss the days when I could bluff my way through Propositional Logic, which I enjoyed when I was at uni.

Have you read Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates? It's a brilliant dissection of a couple's gradual disenchantment with the suburban life that they were so looking forward to.

And yes, in general, I find women's conversation much more interesting. Apart from cricket I'm really interested in sport, cars to me -- never having had the slightest desire to own one -- distinguished only by colour, and I've never been interested in a career. I can't stand that question "what do you do?" "Well, loads of things, very few of which I get paid for."

looby said...

*not* really interested in sport

Kono said...

looby- i have read Revolutionary Road and thought it was a great book, i wasn't excited to move to the burbs but i'm of the believe you are where you are so might as well try and enjoy it, it's a good laugh even if all the pubs are shit, lol...