GOING VIRAL

Hands up anybody who thinks they’re here for the first time? Hands up anybody who thinks they’ve been here before? Hands up anybody who thinks they should be somewhere else? Hands up anybody who thinks they are already somewhere else? Hands up anybody who’s ever thought they were somebody else? Hands up anybody who thinks they really are somebody else? Hands up anybody who’s working undercover, CIA, MI5, MI6? Hands up anybody who’s a creep? Hands up anybody who’s a creep just doesn’t want to admit it? Hands up anybody who’s ever behaved like a creep and felt bad about it later? Hands up anybody who’s ever behaved like a creep and didn’t feel bad about it later? Just doing my job, if it wasn’t for creeps like me this world would be run by bullies! Hands up anybody who’s a bully? At least you’re not a creep, no point creeping around if you want to be a bully. A bit like trying to sell somebody a vacuum-cleaner when all you have is a suitcase full of shoes! How about wimps, hands up anybody who’s a wimp? Hands up anybody who doesn’t want to put your hands up! Hands up anybody who thinks this world is being run by creeps and bullies? And you’re too much of a wimp to do anything about it? Hands up anybody who’s ever bought a vacuum-cleaner when all they really wanted was a pair of shoes?

In the beginning was the word, and the word was “good”! It should have been “nothing”, but at the time there was nobody around to think it up, by the time there was it was too late to switch “good” for “nothing”. So who spoke the first “bad” word? Who did the first foul-mouthed stand-up? Plato, Socrates or Lenny Bruce? Who was the first one to suggest in no uncertain scatological terms that everything might be really “fucked-up”? Cracks have appeared in our golden bowl and demons have seeped into the ground-water! Unless, of course you believe everything is still perfect and we’re just interpreting it badly? In which case who was the first to suggest our cup brimmethed over with a surplus of wrong-headed misinterpretations?

That what we thought was good was really bad? What we thought was bad was even worse? What we thought was flat was really round, and what goes around seems to come back in a straight line. But all straight lines don’t lead to Rome, more likely The Vatican? We’re going in the right direction but we’re going about it in the wrong way, or vice-versa? We’ve got the wrong shoe on the right foot, and all the really historical feets are happening behind our back, while we’re too busy keeping our eyes out front we’re being hysterically fucked in the rear-end? But pain is really pleasure and pleasure is really pain and a lot of men are really women and vice is really versus, and going viral no longer makes you sick it could make you temporarily famous! Toxicity is a wonder to behold! But what’s bad for you could be good for everybody else : self-sacrifice, chronic intoxication and digital distraction may be their best assets, whoever they are, they may really be us, I may really be you and you may really be somebody else altogether?

Laughter is really tears and tears are merely spilled milk and cows are only good for slaughter, and mass slaughter is survival of the fittest at its’ finest! So be a good boy and if you do bad things don’t do them badly and always for a good reason, unless of course you’re the one being badly done to, in which case your best hope may be death by putting your own hands up? Of course by now your hands will be in the hold not on deck when the ship goes down and only the captain will be in the lifeboat! And the Christians are really the cannibals and the cannibals are not even Christians. The Muslims are praying to the wrong God, but Allah is just a translation of Jahweh, so the Jews are really Muslims, and the Buddhists are simply avoiding the issue altogether, sitting there cross-legged staring at a blank screen not seeing the big picture, and these blockbusters don’t come cheap1 Unlike chicken, who don’t seem to have much say in the matter. would you listen to a chicken? If the referee calls “foul”, would you offer him a chicken? Eggs are bad for the heart but fish is good for the brain. so if you eat a regular diet of eggs and fish you may get lucky and die of a very intelligent heart-attack!

And the rain will fall in the desert, and snow will snow in the desert, and weeds will grow in the desert, and the desert will be abandoned by all who have watched it become what it is, so it is, said the rich man, so it is, said the poor man, and the rich man nods and the poor man winks, and the rich man has a fine notion the poor man has an empty belly, “I love you!” said the rich man, “then give me some money!” said the poor man, “that’s not what love is all about!” said the rich man. “then go to Hell!” said the poor man. I quote verbatim from the good book, I quote verbatim from the best book, I quote verbatim from all the other books : “Life is a thief, a liar and a murderer"!” said the innocent man “I had nothing to do with it, your honor!”. I quote verbatim from the book of scrolls, I quote verbatim from all the other scrolls, the scroll of life, the bread-scroll, the scroll that Humpty Dumpty sought to live without, and I weep for all the tears that have to be shed, enough tears to drowned the unkindness in human eyes. I cry out for a little feasting but it’s not allowed. It was a time of great depression, starvation and intense yearning, as Johnny Depp swept through the air like a latter-day saint we danced together and set the floor on fire, and beauty descended like a white sheet falling from a dead man’s eyes, and all the grapes from all the vines from all over the world will be crushed to make womens’ blood, I never thought it would end like this, I never thought I would end up like this…

When the moon was born there was no ocean.