View From A View

This downtown Dallas office of mine, I don't need. I keep it mainly so I have a place to park for events as the street spots get taken. I also like the facade of an office, as if I have something important to do. The CEO idiots I run into complaining about work-from-home, it's because they fear it makes their work look less valuable - or rather, it reveals their work as less valuable.

Corporate murder is as commonplace as grass on lawns. It's not recognized as such which is why it continues unabated. But I've seen the killing drive in their eyes and the minute these guys feel threatened - especially by their own guilt - the more hard-bent they are to kill. They'll do anything to avoid revelation.

As if our Maker doesn't already know!

If you think I'm exaggerating watch the "Erin Brockovich" film. The company openly murders and mutilates people but we're so brainwashed it's OK for so-called corporations to destroy the world we think nothing of it. But if you saw these fuckers like I do behind closed doors, you'd be terrified.

These people, it's like a cult to them. They think I'm one of them because of the money I inherited (now way over a billion with pandemic price gouging on oil). Talk to them long enough and you find they're angry about something. They speak so passionately about how victimized they are! One thing I've learned, the more an executive speaks about being victimized, the more victimization they are committing.

You'd be angry too with this haircut

Their "victimhood" is derived solely from their self-knowledge and how it should never be revealed. There's no possible good outcome to that. Zero.

I've been reduced to aimless wandering in my life. My personal relationship failures have condemned me to a prison of loneliness. It's a cycle that keeps repeating itself, sometimes from what I do, sometimes from what I don't do.

But I see the cars inching below, their occupants scrambling to survive, and I feel detached from the whole of the world.

Why am I so privileged? Oh, as a monetary commodity I know why. But as a human being, there is no rationale for it.

As I drift further away into the universe, songs I've heard my entire life sound different. I can find no truth to which I can anchor myself. I'm oppressed by the flood of tears I've built up - and that if I were to let a single tear out they would never stop.

That feeling of lacking control spurs our irrational behavior. And when our attempts to control fail - as fail they must - we become even more desperate.

This nightmare world is coming to an end. But not before we make it even more of a nightmare (in the name of saving it!).

But remember this: no matter who, what, when, or where you are, you're known.

I Fought The Law!

"Harry! I hates you!"

"Must be why you're talking to me."

"Dammits! Will you lissens to me? I hate your fucking guts!"

"Coming from you that's most gratifying."

"You's a idiot!"

"No one's disputing that."

"I means a real idiot."

"Well, obviously if I were a fake idiot then in actuality I'd be a smart person."

"That kinda talk not sits well with me."

"Fascinating."

"I hopes you takes a long walk off short pier!"

"I'm proud of you memorizing that comeback but that would never work."

"Huh? Whatcha mean?"

"It wouldn't matter if I took a long walk on a short pier. I don't believe in the law of gravity."

"Ha! I gots you now! Everyone know 'bout gravity, dummy!"

"Even you??"

"Of course me!"

"Ok, then explain gravity to me."

"Shit falls. What to explain?"

"Falls why? How does gravity exist?"

"Don't matter why, just does!"

"See? You can't explain it! You're just making it up."

"You see what I making up I throw you off tall building!"

"Fine by me. Gravity only applies to you morons who believe in it."

"Stop that crazy talk!"

"OK, explain gravity to me and I'll believe you. But the reason you can't is because it does not exist!"

"I ain't gonna explains to you what you's already knows."

"You can kiss your career as a TV pundit away."

"I tired of talkin' to you!"

"Tired? Tired how? Explain it to me. If you can't explain it it must not be true!"

"I fucking hates you, Harry!"

"That's good. Next thing you know you'll be telling me money exists."

Elvis Has Left The Building

I live in a vacuum of humanity.

Sometimes, it's not the actual building that's the most confining.

After the Oscar's Slap last year I was able to finagle a neck brace working as a trustee of the medical ward. I wore it the next day to what I thought would be great effect.

The night before, lying in my prison bunk, I cracked myself up with the imagined scenarios. I still say it was a huge opportunity missed by Chris Rock not to do the same. Imagine him walking on stage the week after, wearing a neck brace, just standing there while everyone laughs. And when the laughter dies down, saying, "I don't know if you heard..."

So I figured I could lighten up the place - and my own doomed existence. And while I did get the straight lines I was hoping for, the ensuing reactions were not.

"Hey! What happened to you? Somebody jump ya?"

"No! I hosted the Oscars!"

Then:

"Who's Oscar?" (just plain ignorant and plans to die that way)

"Oh, OK." (pretending to understand joke but does not)

"I saw that! What a terrible event! We need more of the love Jesus in our hearts." (fake Christian buying stairway to heaven)

"Oh, my! You ought to be more careful!" (faux concern)

"If it'd been me I'd put you all the way in hospital." (thug agenda)

Dryly: "If you're not really hurt you should take that off." (killjoy)

"You know, I wore one of those in high school, when I was on the football team." (beaten down with injury story)

"That's not funny. Someone could have been seriously hurt. Did you know Chris Rock suffered from bullying as a child. This could affect his entire psyche for years!" (politicizing prick)

"Oh! Looks painful." Then whispers: "Hey, got a new porno pic my buddy mailed me!" (can never see beyond himself)

"You're making a judgment on Will Smith by a single act and that I refuse to do having a more enlightened attitude." (self-projection judging me)

Dismissively: "That's not funny! Not everything's a joke, you know!" (drowning in suffering - but at least admitted it was a joke!)

Of course, the goddam guards lost their sense of humor when they decided to strip us of our dignity. Poor dumb bastards.

So, yup, I went O-fer. Not a soul. By noon I had taken the brace off, bitter and defeated, sorry I even tried to lighten the mood.

Of course, once everyone saw the scowl on my face later on that's what did make them happy.

The Reprieve

There could be no worse morning than the one I woke up to: Execution Day.

The dread had been building for a hideous blur of years but the darkness of this last week has been all consuming. I cannot close my eyes without unspeakable terrors invading my mind in helpless abandon.

So I've had to stay awake and bruised these last few days. The guards are taking glee in my demise, spitting on my food before they hand it to me. I once told a guard Jesus said, "What you do unto the least of you you do unto me." The guard said, "That's why we killed him. You better shut up too."

I'd been dropped into the deepest darkest hole in the universe: the heart of Man. But in less than an hour, none of that would matter and the Killing Machine will have spoken.

Then, like a bolt of lightning, word came down from the man. "We're not going to kill you -"

My nightmares flipped into dreams! The sun streaming through the bars was for me, after all! "Thank you! Thank you! After the dishonest life I've led, you've forgiven me?"

Then I hugged the guard who'd spat on me. He too was shocked.

"After the shitty things I've done, you forgive me?"

Welling with tears, unable to speak, I nodded my head. Then he too broke down.

As news of forgiveness spread, waves of joy spread throughout the prison. Crying and cheers joined together in a symphony of exhilaration. We'd been granted a reprieve.

Even the warden who'd made cruelty his life came down to see me, dropping to his knees in relief.

"You have no idea how many years I've lived without hope. I saw no way out."

Of course, I completely understood years without hope, and we shared more healing tears.

Knowing hope for the first time changed everyone's disposition. How different it is having a future! I wanted to live forever. The smiling faces around me felt the same.

We imagined this spreading around the world in a brotherhood of Man. Weapons of war discarded into a pile of uselessness. Every starving child fed in perpetuity. Dormant dreams sprang back to life.

"It's all so obvious now! What had we been thinking? Shine on the world! Shine on me! Love is the answer!"

The past was the past, a time to be forgotten. The future is the only concern. Brilliant colors flooded my mind, filled with a desire to build a new and lasting way. I could see everyone else walking on clouds and I couldn't wait to hear the dreams they would live. Nothing's going to stop us now.

Then a man showed up, covered in grease and machine envy. "It's fixed now. We got the killing machine back to working. You can off that son-of-a-bitch!"

Looking Glass Lennon: The Money Monster

I cannot hate myself enough.

Lately, I've been wandering the streets in the evening dark, sliding between shadows, in search of the unknown. A reckoning is coming - for one and all. To speak this is forbidden, of course.

I spied some hot chicks pouring out of a car into this hidden upscale residence in the arts district. I decided to take a peek inside when I got invited in. When something bad happens to a famous person, they say, "Do you know who I am?" But when something good happens to me is when I say it.

But I did not say it out loud - this time.

Everyone was so alive at that party! I withered into nothingness and failuredom. God help me someone asks me my job. 'Car mechanic' cannot be a popular occupation in this Richie Rich crowd - hell, it's not even popular with me. I got me long hair so I planned to claim poet status were I so inquisitioned.

As I drank and got into the vibe, the sight of so many hot legs drove me insane. If only I had fame not shame! One particularly sultry girl brought me to my knees. Catching her alone, I struck up the oddest of conversation that ended with me asking her to flick her cigarette ashes in my mouth. I wanted to please her like no other had.

She obliged.

Her amusement fulfilled and my infamy cemented, I departed, returning to the empty void of the streets.

I just can't do it anymore. The Money Monster has defeated me. It seems silly to say so, but I require huge amounts of cash in order to live. It's a need like water or air. I beat myself up to keep my crap job. I beat myself up over having a crap job. Then I beat myself up when I meet hot women. But what to do?

Only here where no one can hear can I admit what I fear: there's no place for me in this world. And whatever commentary that makes on me and/or the world, so be it. I was put here for no reason. No one is in my tree because I see who people are when they're not lying. At the end of the day, all I know is I've got to be free.

I'm left to wonder and blunder who I'd be with love. Every fiber of my being believes I'd be somebody with something to say. But, of course, everyone tells themselves what they wish to hear. What possible proof can I offer? My "Walrus" poem from Alice In Wonderland?

I am utterly useless. I spent Sunday on an anonymous park bench, waiting for the sky. The plants swaying in the breeze, the birds chirping in the air, the dream of Nature oblivious to Man - none of these acknowledged my state under the warm Spring sun. "I'm dying on a beautiful day," I remember whispering to myself in the midst of circling horror.