But I won’t care.
I’ll watch anyway.
I will unwillingly succumb to the media.
Media.
Media.
Media!
The media controls us all.
Without the media there is no civilization.
Someday I will kill the media.
I’m going to kill it with a kitchen knife.
You watch.
It’ll be historical.
Mark Swift kills the Media on November 10th, 2022.
Civilization will collapse.
The monkeys will break out of their cages at the local zoo and take us over.
Then there will be the monkey wars.
America will lose.
Because Russia will sell helicopters to the monkey warriors.
We will all die.
It’ll be great.
Everyone dead.
Lying all over the place.
It’ll stink.
But the monkeys won’t care.
They won’t even bury us.
They’ll throw us all in the ocean.
And let us rot.
Absurdity.
Jimmy and I head to the bar for crapieoke.
Crapieoke is karaoke but with drunk kids in their early twenties and late teens at a piece of shit bar in Youngstown.
In the car I listen to the war reports.
It sounds sinister.
Death.
Bombs dropping.
Blowing up.
Then rubble.
I wonder what my children will think of this war.
Bush is a madman.
He doesn’t care about anyone.
He and Nixon could be best friends.
America, when will you vote for a decent person.
I’d like to ask America a lot of questions.
But I don’t even think they know the answers anyway.
I get to the bar, and go in.
The bar is on a shitty back street.
I go into the bar and stare at all the freaks who go there.
All the outcasts from Youngstown and Warren go there.
Goth kids, punks, indie kids, painters, skateboarders, and musicians.
A bunch of shitfucks basically.
I go and sit at the bar.
I order a Black Velvet and Coke.
I sit there in my own world, enjoying the view.
The war isn’t on the television; it’s some comedy show.
Everyone is laughing hysterically.
I’m in my own personal hell.
I rub my eyes and shed a tear.
And then Missy comes over and sits next to me.
Missy is this beautiful short-haired brunette.
I love her dearly.
She’s a painter and reads Rimbaud.
If she would allow me, I would marry her.
“What’s up Mark?” Missy says.
“Oh, nothing, getting drunk,” I say.
“That’s all one can really do in this time of crisis.”
“You got that right.”
“But I don’t want to talk about the war. I can’t handle it.”
“I can’t handle it either.”
“Today is my last day at work,” Missy says.
“Why, what are you going to do for money?”
“I have another job working for a make-up company. I sell make-up to old rich women for thirty dollars an hour.”
“That sucks.”
“No, it’s all right.”
“I hear you graduate this year. What are you going to do for the big job?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yeah, I don’t care, I don’t even know why I got the degree. It’s a fucking painter degree. What can I do with that?”
“Go to New York and be a star,” I say.
“Fuck New York, I’d rather stay here and be a big fish in a little pond.”
“But you’ll never make the money you could in New York.”
“I don’t want New York, I like my life in Youngstown.”
“I wish I could say the same thing.”
“Why do you stay here?”
“Because I’m mad and poor.”
“That’s a good reason,” Missy says.
“Someday I’ll leave and become great.”
“You probably will one day.”
“Yeah, I’ll be a superstar.”
“Don’t forget me.”
“I won’t.”
I look at her face and imagine her in a white wedding dress walking down the aisle.
“I’m writing a screenplay about restaurant life. See, I’ve realized how our generation has deeply depended upon restaurants to make money,” Missy says.
“Yeah, I’ve thought of that. I’ve worked in at least ten restaurants and I’m only twenty-two. Our parents never worked at restaurants, they worked at the factories.”
“Yeah, the restaurant is like our factory.”
“There’s also telemarketing, and door to door sales.”
“Yeah, our generation has a completely different world of work opportunity than even people fifteen years ago.”
“Our generation doesn’t have much opportunity at all.”
“No, it doesn’t… Most of us have given up anyway. Look at this bar, these are all middle class white kids, and most of them will never finish college, they will just work shitty jobs, and get drunk.”
“I hate to say it, but that’s me too.”
“It’s me too, but I’ll have a college degree.”
“This world doesn’t want our generation.”
“No, and we don’t want this world,” Missy says.
“The world will be polluted to hell, and overpopulated when we get it.”
“And the economy will be a piece of shit.”
“I don’t think the economy will ever rise again. And the Middle East will just get more and more fucked up. And the terrorism won’t stop until we take our bases out of there, and leave them the fuck alone.”
“No, we’re fucked and that’s all there is to it.”
“And nobody even knows it.”
“And no one even cares,” Missy says.
“Hopefully we’ll figure it out before it’s too late.”
“Hopefully… Well, I have to go tend the bar in the back. I’ll see ya.”
“See ya.”
There she goes, the woman I want to marry.
I sit alone again.
Facing the universe.
I drink another BV and Coke.
Tasha sits down next to me.
Tasha is a notorious slut.
I’ve had sex with her, of course.
She has a big white ass.
That is so lovely.
She suffers from mental illness.
I had to visit her in the mental ward two weeks ago.
They should have given her shock treatments.
“How are you doing, Mark?” Tasha says.
“I’M FREAKING OUT!”
“Why, what’s wrong sweetheart?”
“THE WAR!” I scream it for everyone to hear and look at me.
“I know, it’s killing me too.”
“THAT MONGREL PRESIDENT, I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM!”
“Calm down, get a hold of yourself.”
“I WILL NOT GET A HOLD OF ANYTHING!”
I order another BV and Coke.
“Mark, it’ll be all right.”
“THERE’S A WAR ON, NOTHING IS ALL RIGHT!” I scream again.
“Mark, settle the fuck down!”
“NO, I’M FREE AND I WANT MY OPINION TO BE HEARD!”
“You won’t stop the war acting like this.”
“FUCK THE WAR AND THAT FASCIST BUSH!” I’m still screaming.
“Listen you’re drunk, I think you should stop drinking.”
“I can’t stop drinking, I have to suppress my anger somehow. I think I’m going to start a fight,” I yell at the crowd in the bar. “Is anybody Republican in here. Because if you are, I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Nobody responds, they just go on with their conversations.
“Come to the back of the bar with me and have a seat. Okay?”
She leads me to the back room of the bar where crapieoke takes place.
There are lazy boys from the seventies in the back.
She sits me down.
I fall into the chair, drunk.
I stare at the mongrels called humans.