IT'S ALL SHOW-BIZ

Entertainment is the new News. Such a relief when you know that everything’s fake. I can really tell when I’m not enjoying myself. How can I possibly be entertained by something I don’t understand? If I need someone with a little more intellectual chutzpah to explain things to me, I obviously need to change the channel.

I’ve listened to various wackos telling me we’re all being turned into robots. All manner of science-non-fictional gadgets and widgets, brain-implants, body-scanning derangements of our blood-cells and DNA, the creeping totalitarian global police-state, government-sanctioned neo-Nazis orchestrating chaos to bring in their New World genetically-modified Order, it’s no secret, it’s just what’s happening, all these spectacular bread-and-circuses and petty particular identity rivalries demanding obsessive activity to keep us distracted and dogmatically purposeful.. Right wing, left wing, gay pride, politically-incorrect shame, genderized neutrality, islamophobia, homophobia, claustrophobia, pharmaphobia, blamaphobia… Unlimited possibilities for keeping yourself entertained! And if you don’t find it entertaining, change the channel! If you find it offensive, just change the channel!

This life is short, we live, we die. But if I’m not being entertained along the way, what’s the point of trying to figure out what the point is? Who gives a damn, really? Do I want to be spending my temporality poring over every solipsistic devilishly documented detail to prove there’s some conspiracy afoot? Robotic behavior is old news. Is becoming a robot any worse than dying really? If we’ve already forgotten who or what we used to be. Is memory the key to feeling alive or is it being constantly entertained? Do you really think a corpse is lying there thinking “fuck it, I’m dead! I used to be alive, but now I’m dead! And I’m pissed! I’m heart-broken! I’m very very nostalgic…” Or thinking “what the hell am I going to do for entertainment now!?” The real nightmare, if you can no longer change the channel!

Meanwhile, I don’t need to go to war to see what war looks like, I can watch a different one every day if that’s what entertains me. To experience a nuclear meltdown and innocence only apparently winning, while being actually degraded to tearful apologies for daring to be in the same room as experience, all I have to do is replay Serena Williams losing at the US Open tennis tournament. I can re-live every significantly entertaining moment in this world’s history over and over and over again and never fret once that I wasn’t there at the time or if I was I was lost in the crowd. It’s not my business to entertain myself. People are bring paid for this. I’m paying for this, with my hard-earned dollars after tax. Star-power available on demand. Fingertip-control of my world! I don’t have to go to Africa to feel like I’ve been on safari. By the time you’ve manoevered all the official bells and whistles. orchestrated entries and exits, baggage-handlings, passport-controls, security-clearances, pat-downs, finger-printing electro-magnetical scans, uniformly attendant filings, instructions to do this and don’t do that, seat-belted no-leg-room minor asphyxiations in a metal container, walk this way walk that way, put your hands above your head, empty your pockets, remove your shoes and belt and any other foreign objects, when to declare something and when to keep your mouth shut, all those robotically trained eyes pondering your potential for criminality, then finally cleared to go home in some ragged peace, you’ll feel like you’ve been on safari in somebody else’s imagination anyway. Of course I’ve been reliably informed if you’re rich enough you can avoid all that, cause all the robot-guides and rule-enforcers are on your god-like payroll anyway, so they’ll just stand aside and let you into first-class. Otherwise, for mere mortals like me, I should consider myself lucky to be allowed access to this planet’s tourist disneyworlds. Even though I feel like I may as well have stayed home, put my feet up and watched “This World’s Got Talent” on TV. Far more entertaining!

Let’s face it, I don’t need no ticketed face-book-posted confirmations, nor any sermons on the mount or complex intellectual philosophical or scientific convolutions to convince me I’ve been exceptionally entertained. I know it when I feel it. Don’t need no funereal solemnities nor scripted sanctimoniousness to levitate my spirit and soul into a heaven I doubt very much will have either the obligatory agenda or the technological expertise to keep me entertained. So if anybody chooses to turn up at my final great never-awakening-again, be sure and bring your kindle or smart-phone with you, cause if I couldn’t entertain anybody in life I certainly won’t be able to do so in death. It obviously wasn’t my business. Meanwhile, if something bad apparently does happen to me, I’ll be well-prepped how to respond, I’ll just switch to the Disney channel and a happy ending will be a foregone conclusion! If the worst comes to the worst I could jump off a cliff without a parachute, call it “hang-diving” and enjoy the final surreal thrill of it all!!