Bad Room

[mnaz]

The return. Enter peace and light, then prepare for re-entry. Back to tunnel-vision. Back to plastic flags. Back to the next holy heist. If I get past the initial shock, I might stand a chance. I don't have control over these matters. Control is false anyway, like a campaign to reach the far side of a desert as thirst sets in.

A strong breeze pushes through the room, a rare Nevada squall, through both open windows for over two hours, yet the fetor of tobacco is not dislodged. The night manager pushed this room as non-smoking, perhaps desecrated by the odd outlaw cigarette, but I've been duped. The floor is sloped, the turquoise carpet threadbare, and the walls faintly stained. Not that it matters. I seek only a place to be unconscious for eleven hours. I pour myself a whiskey-rocks. Soon I won't notice the reek of stale sin. And the fan works.

The return. I remember when I lived in a target, on the 17th floor of the Flamingo, when everything was a target, weeks after "nine-eleven", when the other side most assuredly wanted to annihilate us because they hated our freedom. The casinos fumbled in those days. The Flamingo lot was nearly vacant, and a couple of jet-skis made chop out on the Colorado River. The main message board occasionally slipped in, "America, our prayers are with you"; a message hard to take seriously when quickly followed by, "Check out our new slots". In sunlight, I often fought darkness.

In those days, while I searched for a desert home, I would get a room and lock myself inside. But every television was preset to FOX, or CNN, and its brave new ticker, scrolling collective soul prices across the screen. No doubt there were plenty of takers. Once I was fooled when they dropped the scroll, and the picture tube awoke to a magnificent assembly of ridges in early morning splendor. Two seconds later, the camera pulled back to a line of troops on their way to exterminate the enemy. The ticker soon followed.... stock and gas prices. I could watch prices go up or down with the war. It was useful information; about enough to choke on. In those days, I tended to move in a detached, mechanical suspension. Other times, I was pretty damn angry.

The return. With a button click, the world's electronic spew invades this quiet corner of the sagebrush kingdom, spilling from a beat-up television, hooked to a cable box. Tales of free-will murder ooze from the screen, until it is clogged with Information Age poverty. I watch square-jaw pundits tell us to "hit them before they hit us". I hear barking heads declare any expression of grief as a sign of weakness. I hear beautiful, willful people who should check the expiration on their humanity. On my second whiskey-rocks, I catch the CNN blues. I am strung out on its clipped cadence, and I lack any spark of my own. I keep watching because it has to get better.

At 11:02 PM, the President pitches another war on a Middle Eastern oil field. Then someone wants to boycott an oil company, or perhaps I imagined that one. How about we all boycott sobriety for a day? Let's all booze for a day and compare notes. Hell, even if we got only twenty-percent, that damned CNN ticker might lose some of its punch, and assorted Neo-Armageddon Parties might forget who they were trying to exterminate for a day. Might be worth a hangover or two. I keep watching because it has to get better.

At 12:16 AM, the President plays a religion of Jesus Christ. He plays the hits. He claims that the truth must be repeated over and over until it sinks in. He has done well in the polls, far better than Jesus ever did. I suspect the Prince of Peace should have dubbed himself a War President and kicked a little more Pharisee ass, instead of his weak-kneed, longhair routine.... click.... more barking heads.... There it is again, "the evildoers", the ultimate blank check. Declare a fight against evil and you're home free; free to substitute a new version of it for the last, if necessary. I keep watching because it has to get better.

Granted, more education might be useful. But I am educated in real time, with my eyes, when God-stickers fly loosely and the Almighty is put up for sale to the highest bidder. Information is a commodity. The mind, or a place just beneath it, converts information to power. What the mind does with information is everything. Muslim tenets alone do not prevent the murder of three-thousand innocent people. Christian precepts alone do not prevent hard cruelty toward those who see a different path.

At 1:23 AM, I realize my grievous error; namely that the television is still on and I wasted a perfectly gentle buzz on it. I make a mental note to avoid the same mistake in the future, then pass into a fitful sleep. The following morning, none of it ever happened.

[Zlatko Waterman]

This is a well-orchestrated layering of misery. Your writing is sound and lively, as always-- your vision clear and grim.

This is particularly interesting to me, since I walked the streets every Saturday in 2003 carrying signs in anti-war marches from February on when it was clear The New Model Idiot was going to invade another country, unprovoked-- and get a chance to use all those nifty weapons Ronald Reagan put in the arsenal in the great Southern California Armageddon factories of the 80's, which I was close witness to.

But it's odd that, not having a television, I didn't see one minute ( nor have I seen a minute to this very hour) of the cheerleading for the war on corporate tv.

Not permitting that plug-in to be socketed and locked in place at the base of my skull alienates me from many of my fellow citizens, which in a way I regret.

But ah-- the price, as you put it so well.

The wasting of a "perfectly good buzz . . ."


( see my weapon of choice above in my avatar--- a 1920 model A Gibson mandolin . . .)

--Z

[Arcadia]

interesting read! 2003, so close and so far away.

"Let's all booze for a day and compare notes": high cantidades of alcohol makes me want to sleep, vomitar and I always end with a headache. I don´t have problems para dormir, so I don´t need alcohol for that. To drink mate alone, with other or others is a different kind of experience.

[creativesoul]

it would not surprise me if bush made alot of his decisons with whiskey
it would seem that way
and hiding in a room in nevada is pretty interesting no matter hwat your condition
i commend you on your decriptions, setting mood, and writing skills
tahnk you for this insight into your world

[mnaz]

Thanks all...

Z....
I went without TV for a little more than a year. Now it is hooked up again. Conclusion? I didn't miss much. Well, I should say, I had no TV except for motel TV, which I soon learned to avoid, lest I write too much of what I wrote here, which is probably a little over the top.... like some of my other religious/political swipes....

Arcadia....
Yeah, the "booze for a day" concept is dubious.... just another of my rants about the insane, overwrought gravity and speed of human affairs. "Perhaps a shot or two might help".... then again, there is always the specter of the mean drunk to contend with...

creativesoul....
If Bush made his decisions up till now using whiskey, then he should stop drinking. If he made them while sober, then he should start drinking....

[Dixie]

I still don't have a TV myself, and don't miss it either.

Cool write here mnaz. I don't read prose much, more into poetry, but I like your stuff.

[hester_prynne]

"I keep watching because it has to get better".

Great read Mnaz, right down to the never-ending folly of thinking it has to get better. I mean, that just clinches it.
Thanks for posting your stuff, I always dig it.

H

[Arcadia]

well, all concepts could have a dubious side. Mate stuff also have them :it´s not recommend it if you have a previous ulcera or you suffer from gastritis or you have or you are incubating some infectocontagiosa disease. You also need a bathroom near your area.
saludos,

Arcadia

[mtmynd]

emnaz, my friend, how well you write. what more can i add..? zero is even too much.

i await your book.

[creativesoul]

i have an empty televison that i got from an ole house in portland
there are no guts inside it
it says "rca victor " under the glass empty place where tv was...
when i was a kid we used to make up our own tv shows

people have suggested i put a fish tank inside it
but i rather enjoy the emptiness
next to it
is my easel for painting
the actual televison
is on top of it

i used to have a coffee cup that said "the family before television"
in the cartoon, the family is staring at the wall
it waundered off
but my mind still watches things on tv
not as often as it used to
but lately i have learned things about the brain
that makes the buzz s i used to have, seem more like a waste of time
then television ever did
perhaps it is good to discover the origin of the things that we hold responsible for our feelings of wasted time