Paradise Wednesday

Paradise Wedneday. Quiet still. A few idlers laugh between martini sips. A couple against the wall hold a quiet conference on the ideology of republicisms. Two employees in the wine room exchange gossip from an illegal rave at some father’s mansion and no – he was not out of town. He was the life of the party.

Joe is guest bartending for Bruce who is skiing with the family in tahoe. I expect an explanation when he returns. One to the tune of : my wife made me go.

Joe recommends a book he is enamored by: “The Blood Meridian”. His enthusiasm for the novel has convinced me. I’d run to Borders but my New York with sautéed spinach is its way.

The time. We divide everything into measurable bits and then struggle to stave off accumulating them. The dollar amount spent each year, believing the tally will be reduced. But why?

Our belief in the reduction only increases our consumption.

The end of the day. Night falls. Darkness descends. Our small existence migrates under the cover of stars. To and Fro. That’s what I need to do. Migrate. To change existing conditions to my image of what I believe they should be.

I would like to set up shop somewhere: Venice, Seattle, Mendoza. And write. Even if I had nothing really to say.

And visit Bhutan, and Iran and tell the locals it is not my fault. That he is the most unpopular president in history at the moment. I would like to hear how the people of Kabul speak of their new rulers.

And the wine makers in Ukraine. How different are they from you or me.

And then we get a drunk at the bar in a white collared shirt starched to the point of suffocation yelling and slurring and cursing about how the Yankees lost a playoff game 5 years ago. 5 years! How small is his life? How empty? And then there are a series of baseball enigmas going back 20; to when he was a child and still he is upset with the calls, the players, and the seats he had.

We do not relate stories of playwrights or novelists anymore. There is not enough cable to cover them.

Long ago the media learned that controversy sells. The state does not want you to go to bed happy. Then you might concentrate on the problems that attempt to govern life; your elected officials, the environment, hell, even your child’s inadequate education.

So the media throws at you phrases like steroid testing. The Cruise Break up. Illegal border crossings. And emphasizes: You are not safe.

There are not enough moments left in the day to worry about global warming, to contemplate the destruction of our natural resources, let alone how we hate our job, friends, living environment. Or how unfulfilled we feel.

And if we do, there are always the malls with their Louis Vutton, Prade, Coach stores. And an convenient bar to help erase our guilt from purchasing the equivalent in two hours of a Nigerians Lifetime salary.