Friday, March 20, 2015

Flashback Friday

The trip of 1000 miles begins in the martini monkey bar, at least at San Jose International airport. And I didn’t take my anti-psychotic drugs so my stomach should be in a fine acid-fueled frenzy by the time I hit Houston, much less land 4 hours later in Harlingen (completely non) International airport.

I went and found my gate.. passed the security check without a hitch.. and discovered that there was no bar once you passed security. So I had to pass back out of the secured area in search of a drink. No doubt this will ensure that I will have to undergo a complete cavity search on the way back in. While I will enjoy this to the fullest, I think it is also proof that the terrorists have already won.

The martini monkey (monkey martini?  I’m too lazy to stagger outside and check) bar features an odd combination of reggae tunes and truly bizarre retro covers of classic rock – think The Doors covered by a cocktail lounge band and you’re getting close. “Come on baby light my fire” just doesn’t sound as convincing coming out over the desultory tinkling of a melody-murderess playing a thin piano.

Or perhaps I have expectations that can’t be met. And maybe that is what this particular trip is about. Escape from work as it just seems completely wrong to give a flying fuck if the incompetent can teach the ineducable the idiotic. Why should I care if more morons flock to De Anza to sooth their fever dreams of success through education? It’s all the same system, and I suppose it keeps a few people out of jail.. god knows it is much cheaper than our jail system.. anyway, this kind of existential navel-gazing can, I know, be destroyed by alcohol, so I think I will have me another beer.

Gack! Now we have a reggae-based cover of a classic tune. I can recognize the tune but can’t even begin to name it. Sounds like a drum-beat ripped from “Little Drummer Boy”..
Aah.. “All I need is the air that I breathe.”  A terrible enough song when it was performed the first time (I have a hard time giving it the credit that saying it was “written” would confer).

To add to the unreality, there’s a tv in the corner with the sound turned off and a dyslexic in charge of the captioning…  they just referred to someone’s bout with cancer as “a testicular Kansaser.”  Glad now that I’m not traveling to Kansas.

And a news flash from the war on people.. Minnesota reports that corporate profits have hit an all-time high while corporate tax receipts are declining. Bush’s work is done, I suppose… Minnesotans in positions of authority are “confused” by this news, since to understand it would be to admit that they have sold their constituents down the dirty river with a combination of tax-cuts, relaxations of protective regulations, and the slow gutting of unions… 

Anyway, that’s merely a diversion from the “what the heck am I doing?” question. Closely related to the “what’s wrong with drinking and reading your life away?” question.  And the “why work?” question which flows naturally from the previous two questions.

And then… then.. while in the bathroom I hear the redoubtable bass line to “Watching the Detectives” and it’s also coated in a nasty piano and string treatments.  My world has ended.

And even almost 3 hours of napping on the flight to Houston could not bring it back. This may be because I woke up in the land of the processed hair and twang. Maybe, maybe not. It could just be me.  I sit here in the margarita bar at Chili’s trying not to drink another damned beer, but probably certain to do it.

And now the flight to Harlingen. Did get to observe a bunch of angry people, pissed off about previous flights and taking it out on current airline employees, or heating up on big old plates of nachos and bitching about their close personal friends and relatives…

Ya gotta love people, as some 1970s song once posited. Or negatived.


I can’t be certain.

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