A Voyage of the Damned: Noise Pop 2014

Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines” was blasting from the speakers and the guy that designed the Obama posters, Shepard Fairey, was spinning records. The dance floor at NWBLK in San Francisco had the ambiance of a frenzied day at a stock exchange. I saw my old friend Jello Biafra chatting it up eccentrically with an old guy that resembled an acid-casualty version of Jerry Tarkanian. There were horn-rimmed beauties grinding up on me, gyrating wildly, and for once with my bizarre, disheveled appearance I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. I felt like Attila the Hun.

This was Noise Pop 2014.

Noise Pop has been going on in San Francisco since the long ago time of 1993. It was a different world then; grunge was at its peak, the world was not yet infested with cell-phone zombies, the Cowboys were “America’s Team” and “Beavis and Butt-head” had just hit the airwaves. It was a more innocent time.  

Since its inception, Noise Pop has evolved from a small platform to showcase local indie rock talent to become not only one of the biggest stages of indie rock in the world, but also a place where film and art are heavily featured.

Having secured access to many of the festival’s most sought after events with some savvy haggling, I ventured into the dark heart of this playground of poetry and broken dreams.

“I came to see the Hindu Pirates,” said an exotic Persian temptress named Darya. “They’re wild. But it’s all wild. I’ve been here [in San Francisco] for a decade and I’ve gone every year. It gets crazier each time.”

There was certainly all sorts of craziness to be had. It might be the best festival you haven’t heard of. The acts ranged from indie rock to hip hop and rockabilly.

I managed to make my way into the sold-out Independent on Wednesday night to see San Francisco’s own Papercuts take the stage. There was an earlier card too, though I don’t remember much of it because I was completely occupied talking to some strange girl from Marin County who was wearing a tattered and ripped Ramones shirt, a pleated miniskirt, and go-go boots. She resembled a demented belly dancer.

“I love the music and the people here,” the minx calling herself Ocean Starrsky said in a monotonous tone with a Pittsburgh accent. “I haven’t left Marin since two jagoffs abandoned me on Market Street after a Stone Foxes show about a year ago.”

“I was traumatized,” she wistfully opined, “but this music got me out of San Rafael. I want to dance.”

The Papercuts, once described as “a marching band on Quaaludes” took the stage and Arcata-legend Robert Quever launched into a set that sounded like a bizarre cross between The Byrds and The Flaming Lips, with a little Velvet Underground thrown in for good measure.

It was an infinitely refreshing thing to hear in these times of talentless lip-synchers.

And while the music was worth the trip alone, the other constituents of the festival were equally compelling. The film portion had a host of interesting titles, including the premiere of “Mistaken for Strangers”, directed by up-and-coming horror maestro Tom Berninger, which follows his brother’s band, The National, around. The film was shown to a sold-out audience.

The aforementioned Darya, whom I ran into at one of the festival’s many happy hours, managed to sneak us into the Roxie for the show. The crowd was filled with typical music-film fest attendees: faux-intellectual types who all swear “Portlandia” was based off their own lives. The film, though, was well done; Berninger is emerging as a master of his craft.  

Afterward, we left and found ourselves on a non-descript rooftop terrace of a Financial District high rise, drinking Gin and tonics poured from Darya’s boss’ own private bar, because as she put it, “He’s an asshole and I deserve it”.

The next evening was more of the same. Darya had gotten us passes to the Bob Mould show later on. I mingled with the strange crowd beforehand at Bender’s where a rockabilly happy hour was going on, and some band called Dude York was owning the stage.

I’m not the biggest rockabilly fan, and I don’t know any dudes named York, but the set was pretty wild. It was especially fitting background music for that glorious pit of a bar.

“This year’s festival has been really good,” said famed Bay Area music journalist Pierre L’Hommedieu who was sitting next to me guzzling Singapore Slings. “It would be tough to beat the last couple years, but this year can hold its own against the best of them. And besides, it’s better than a lot of other options for local entertainment, like that Miley Cyrus shitshow going on over in Oakland.”

Following a strange rampage that found me wandering aimlessly in North Beach, I ran into Darya on a second floor window at Vesuvio’s. After a few Jack Kerouacs, we made our way to see Bob Mould, who was previously the guitarist for Husker Du, at the Great American Music Hall, one of the finest music venues in all of America. I’ve always been a fan of that band, and it was a treat to see him play in such an intimate atmosphere. He bedazzled the crowd with a set that caused rich waves of nostalgia to roll into my head.

Afterward we stumbled out onto O’Farrell Street, wandering past the Mitchell Brother’s Theater and into the heart of the Tenderloin to catch the Muni to the end of Judah Street, where I would ride out the night for another day of festival madness. Along the way, a toothless junkie propositioned me for my coat, which I had to respectfully decline.

It was a fitting end to a night of craziness and intrigue in the City by the Bay.

The newest epidemic: Youthful Seniors

The youth has become a generation of senior citizens in training, all lying in wait for their AARP card and social security stipend. Perhaps I sound a bit alarmist but the whole scene reeks of a nightmare combination of stale piss and Aqua Velva.

When I was younger I had my fair share of run-ins with the elderly. Usually these consisted of either being chased off some fist-shaker’s lawn, or sitting on a couch with them watching either re-runs of old shows or listening to them talk about the same things over and over while a looping news program played in the background. I used to think, “How do these people do this? Are they senile?”

Looking back on it, they probably were, but they were old. Old people are allowed to get forgetful, crusty and boring; they earned it, after all. I just hoped that I never became that way.

The future hit sooner than I had ever dreamed. I was recently visiting an acquaintance and the day’s program consisted of watching a marathon of some hideous new television show’s episodes on a Netflix stream.

As I sat there wondering if I had anything better to do (sadly, I didn’t), I looked around and noticed the humble abode was chock full of people glued to the television set with stares not unlike one has while watching the dryer spin around and around at a Laundromat. At each episode’s conclusion, the watchers would whoop it up and talk about how enthralled they were, how “crazy” the episode was, before popping on the next one, rinse and repeat.

What has the world come to? Has the American youth always been this hideously boring?

Maybe, but I guess I never noticed it. In other places, the show goes on. I lived for a time in Beirut where much of the nightly goings-on would make Caligula blush. A good time amongst people my age surely didn’t consist of obsessing over the latest cultish television show.

I’m lost. A man without a country. I don’t fit into the senior citizen youth culture that has come to dominate. Conversations are increasingly dull.  People of my generation can drone on incessantly about whatever happened on the latest episode of a cable show, but ask them their opinion on something important like what’s going on in Afghanistan, or if they think Vladimir Putin is angling for a new Cold War, and all that comes out of that fruitless attempt at discussion is a blank stare followed by a quick return to raving about how bad ass Hal from Malcolm in the Middle is.

Maybe I’m too critical and should just resign myself to embracing the whole thing. Maybe I’m the curmudgeon. Maybe I’m out of touch.

Probably. I suppose it’s high time I strap on some Depends, lull myself into a state of Benzodiazepine warmth with a stiff Valium/Oxycodone cocktail while settling in on the couch to watch twenty-three episodes of “Game of Thrones” in a row. The high life if there ever were such a thing.

I believe Patrick Henry once said something like, “Give me Convenience, or Give me Death.”

If he didn’t, he should have. It’s a fitting motto for the Millenial generation.

You Only Die Once

The Kigali Airport was bathed in an aura of desperation. The decrepit facility was dimly lit and raucous with the squawks of foreign tongues. I pushed my way out the door through the sweaty hordes into the refreshingly humid and cool African night, where I was immediately was accosted by an emaciated, disheveled version of Arsenio Hall.

“Moto, my friend! You must take moto!” He shouted at me and motioned toward a dirt bike that resembled something from my youth on a Montana farm.

“How much?” I looked through the gratuitous pile of funny money that had just been acquired in the customs hall.

“Where do you need to go?”

“Kimihurura.”

“5,000” He said.

That totaled up to about a US Dollar.

You only die once. I threw on my Sheepherder’s jacket and hopped aboard. I was supposed to be back in the Central Valley at this very moment, doing whatever it is one does in the Central Valley, most definitely not riding on the back of a dirtbike through the slums and high-rises to a place with a bizarre name. This was living.

Arsenio kick-started the aged machine and we rocketed off. My head jerked back with a violent jolt; I held on for dear life, white knuckled, as we sped down the highway at a hideously irresponsible clip of speed. I reminisced about a time flying in a rusty Soviet jet just above the tree line in Guatemala. If that hadn’t killed me, this certainly wouldn’t.

My life had always been a bit bizarre but this was bordering on batshit crazy, even by my own depraved standards. Forty-eight hours ago I was on a couch in a wood-paneled living room listening to The Doors’ “LA Woman” album, and over a bowl of Leb Blonde and a glass of Japanese scotch, bemoaning the current boring state of my life. A bizarre, rambling phone call changed all of that. It was adamant that I come to Kigali, immediately. So I finagled a ticket from a shady back-alley travel agent in a North Beach Thai restaurant and flew Neglected Class to Rwanda.

After a harrowing moto trip that saw me nearly killed at least six times, I was dropped off at a rundown bar to meet my contact. The place looked like Esther’s Orbit Room; noisy, smoky, and crowded with throngs of people. I pushed my way to the bar and ordered a beer, my ass grabbed and my balls pawed by no less than five wild-eyed Nubian maidens along the way.

The Bartender who resembled Alfonso Ribeiro brought me a beer and gave me a strange look.

“White man,” the Carlton doppelganger said in a thick accent, “this is also for you.”

He forked over an envelope.

How did this guy know who I was? And why was he calling me “white man”? I snatched the envelope, looked around and realized I was the only Caucasian in this entire place. That answered that.

I ripped the letter open. Inside was a key and a note that gave me the address of a house I’d be staying at during my time here.

Something was rubbing my back. I turned to find a beautiful but crazy looking woman in her late twenties behind me that looked like Angela Davis, complete with a giant Afro. Her eyes said she was friendly but at the same time could kill me and think nothing of it.

“Do you want to take me home?” She asked matter-of-factly.

Strange. What could possibly go wrong with that?

“Sure,” I said, slurping down the remnants of my beer.

I grabbed her by the hand, got a taxi (no more of that moto shit) and gave the driver the address from the letter. My new lady friend started making out with me in the back seat.

We were soon dropped off in front of a walled compound. I pushed the gate open and started us toward the Mediterranean-style villa illuminated by the moonlight. She was all over me at this point, sucking and biting as I tried to open the door. Her affection made any action difficult. Once inside, I turned on the lights and told her to have a seat on the couch as I went to throw my stuff in a back room.

Upon returning, something was different. Angela glared at me from the sofa, her carefree spunk replaced by a face pained with paranoia. She leaped to her feet, let out an unholy howl that sounded like something from “The Exorcist”, and bit me hard as she sprinted out of the house, stealing my keys along the way. I ran after her. The possessed vixen burst across the yard; the screams got louder.

She leaped in a catlike fashion up onto the outer wall, and dangled my keys high in the air while continuing her conniption. Two guards from a neighboring compound trotted over.

“She stole my god damn keys!” I shouted, pointing at the insane minx perched above us.

They pulled out wooden sticks and slapped at her roost. After tap dancing to avoid the blows, she chucked the keys at my head and took off running and screaming down the street. The two guards gave chase after her.

As I watched the marauding shitshow disappear into the night, I wished I was still sitting in my wood-paneled living room listening to Doors albums.

Skinny Dipping

My raven-haired muse and I sauntered down a shadowy and largely abandoned Sands Beach.

She looked at me slyly and soulfully with her deep brown eyes. “Don’t you just want to do something crazy?”

“Of course, love,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “What do you have in mind?”

She looked longingly to the seas.

“You know what we really ought to do,” she said flashing a sinister grin. “We really ought to go skinny-dipping. It’s too nice a night not to.”

I looked at her not sure if she was serious or joking. She sure looked serious.

“I wholeheartedly agree,” I said.

She let out a laugh of approval. “All right! Let’s go put our stuff by the fire pit and do this.”

“And you can’t chicken out,” she said, giving me a terse look.

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

Arriving at the fire pits, we found the spot next to ours was now home to a multitude of unkempt beach people and sea hags who were embroiled in some sort of alcohol-fueled, fire-worshipping Bacchanalia. We emigrated toward the unfolding chaos.

“Let’s throw a tree on!” a voice rang out.

With that, one miscreant produced a dried Christmas tree he’d apparently been saving for just this very occasion and tossed it onto the waning combustion. It reignited in a fury. Flames shot high into the blackened starry sky, and embers cascaded from a fiery fountain that peaked somewhere above the moon.

“Look at that,” my love marveled.

Enticed by the spectacular spectacle of one tree being engulfed in flames, the drunks proceeded to toss on another. And another. The inferno greatly intensified and shot seemingly within inches of our faces as we sat drawn to it like a couple of stoned moths.

As the blaze waned, Love turned to me.

“It’s time,” she said, as the reflection of the flames danced in her eyes. “Are you ready?”

I nodded, and we started our trek down the beach. I looked nervously at her, then the waves, then her, then the waves, then the stars, then her again. She seemed to do something of the same. I was exhilarated but somewhat terrified at the same time.

“Well,” she said. “Start stripping.”

I obliged. I started taking my clothes off. Soon I just had my underwear on. Love had gone commando.

“Everything means everything,” she instructed. “Take it off.”

“It’s cold.”

“Like you have much to hide anyway,” she teased.

I cackled and removed the last remnant of my clothing, flinging it onto the darkened sand.

“Let’s do this!” she yelled.

We charged into the icy waters. Or at least I did. I got up to chest high as a swell came in. I looked over, and Love was just standing up to her ankles in water, the surf lapping innocently against her. Did she chicken out?

“I chickened out,” she said.

“Ah well, next time,” I said.

We put our clothing back on and headed toward the fires. We took a seat next to some flames and tried to warm ourselves up. The cold waters of the Northern Pacific chilled the evening. We sat cuddled next to the flames.

“I have to do it,” she said.

“Do what?” I asked.

“I have to go all-in in the water. I can’t just chicken out.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You did come all the way here.”

“Will you do it too?” she asked.

“Of course, love,” I said.

Wild and nude, we charged headfirst into the icy waters like rabid bison off a buffalo jump. I dove into a rising swell and was washed over with a cold, salty brine.

I recomposed just in time to see Love emerge from the surf, a striking figure rising from the chaotic moonlit sea foam like Aphrodite herself, the waves dripping from her supple body. She shook the water from herself, gazed ahead with a lustful eye and giggled. We leapt into an embrace.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

We trekked back to the fire pits, which were now abandoned. We sat next to the fire for a little while, warming up from our icy bath.

“Want to head down the beach?” she queried.

“Absolutely,” I said.

We walked down to the shoreline and then found a seat up on the loose sand above the wave break. I laid down next to Love and gazed up at the dark, starry tapestry above. Off to the side the lights of the city danced in the surf, and above, constellations glided effortlessly.

“Look,” I said, pointing. “It’s Orion.”

The celestial warrior lorded over us like the sentinel of not only this beach community, but time itself. The sound of the waves formed a crashing metronome, a sedative backdrop. Lulled into a state of euphoria by the elements, I turned on my side and cuddled up next to my habibti.

“I feel infinite,” she mused.

“Me too.”

We passed out under the stars, blissful and triumphant.

I was startled awake by a steady beating on my door. I felt like death, sicker than the proverbial dog, and hating life. I ached. I was congested. I rolled back over and shut my eyes. The beating continued. I staggered to my feet, and answered the knocking, my own self resembling a sort of homeless and disheveled owl. It was my landlord, apparently here for some sort of “random inspection.”

I sighed. I’d rather be skinny-dipping.

A Fish out of Water

I wandered into the Mission-style terminal at Santa Barbara International and took a seat, waiting for an old associate to appear from the crowd of disembarking passengers. He stood out like a sore thumb. Looking nothing like the almost-uniform mass of fahionistas and faux-jetsetters, Clyde emerged from the scrum wearing a grease-stained Ditch Witch trucker’s hat and a faded green shirt with “Rapelje Rockets” emblazoned across it.

Clyde was quite possibly the walking antithesis of Santa Barbara. A six-foot-five walking, talking beanpole, he was a rough-around-the-edges-Jesus Freak-gun-nut-type, raised in a rural hovel on the outskirts of nowhere in Eastern Montana, and this was his first trip anywhere west of Spokane.

He walked up to me looking paranoid, and without so much as a hand-shake, he started rambling. “Got-damn, it’s good to see a familiar face. Let’s go get something to drink.”

We wandered out to my vehicle while he filled me in on his trip. This marked the first time he’d been on a plane before. He was of a man of means now. Clyde had recently taken up work in the Bakken formation of North Dakota and made “assloads of money,” as he so eloquently put it. It was a definite step-up from the previous position he’d held with the Stillwater County Sheriff’s Office. When he worked there he had told me he was “in the posse”, but I think he was really mopping bathrooms.

Now that he had “assloads of money”, he was getting serious about his bowling game. “I’m gonna make it big in Reno this year,” he said. In fact, the whole point of this trip was so he could come to Santa Barbara and test his mettle against the best Zodo Lanes had to offer.

“I’m gonna show ‘em howwits done in Big Sky Country!” He enthusiastically told me prior to his visit.

I drove us out of airport parking. Clyde rolled his window down and hung his arm out the side. He lit up a Camel and took in the scenery. This peace didn’t last long, as he soon grew agitated by the traffic.

“Where in the hell are all these cars from? Where do they all come from!?”

Before I could explain to him that we were on the edge of one of the world’s great metropolitan areas, he became near-psychotic.  He looked like an out-of-water Garibaldi flopping about the sand. He began screaming wildly while he hid his head under the glove box, cupping his ears.  

“I can’t take all these cars! They’re everywhere, EV-REE-WARE!” He rambled on, becoming despondent and increasingly incoherent.

Why was he acting like this? I guess he probably hadn’t been in a city that had more than one stoplight in a long time, but man-alive, he was going stark-raving mad. It must be the lack of alcohol, I figured. He had mentioned that “they wouldn’t take my good money” when he tried to buy a cocktail en-route from Denver.

I turned off into the lot at Calle Real and swung into a remote parking spot. Inside, the place was a total zoo. It looked like the frenzied floor of a stock exchange. We stood in line waiting to see about getting a lane. 

Clyde looked like a bitter refugee.

“I’m not good around people,” he said, clearly agitated. “I don’t like ‘em.”

Before he could totally snap, we made our way to the front of the line.

“What’s it gonna be?” A starry-eyed brunette behind the counter asked us.

“We need a lane,” I said.

“Yeah,” Clyde added. “I’m gonna whup some ass! Woo Boy!” No longer feeble from traffic apparently, he let out a little yelp and strutted around as if he were the proudest man at the nudist colony.

“Um, ok,” the cashier said. “Well, you’re going to have to wait.”

“How long?” I asked.

“About 90 minutes. There’s some kind of Jr. High party going on tonight.”

I looked around. The place did have a certain awkward teenage bend to it.

“Well shit,” Clyde said. “Let’s go get somethin’ to drink. I’m gonna lose it soon with all these bastard kids runnin’ around.”

I obliged. We went over to The Nugget. If there’s one thing that can make a homesick Montanan lost in the wilds of the American Riviera feel comforted, it’s mounted animal heads.

We headed in and took a seat. Clyde eased up for a change. The killer tension he’d been holding in finally seemed to subside. While I maintained an even pace, he began guzzling drinks like a madman. He started flashing his “oil money” and ranting about Class C Basketball, and before I knew it, he was totally smoked.

“Clyde,” I told him, “you’re going to be too drunk to roll.”

“Nonsense,” he said, taking a drag off yet-another Whiskey Sour. “I’m just gettin’ where I wanna be. You’ll see.”

We paid the tab and left, staggering back into the bowling lanes, still thronged with adolescents. Our lane was ready.

Clyde swaggered over to the juke box in the bar and put on the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider”. His juices flowing from “his jam”, he taunted the incandescent adolescents savagely. After each strike, he’d let out a war cry and dance a little jig. The kids surrounding us looked at him as if he were Attila the Hun reincarnated.

He levied a savage crusade on the lanes that night, the likes of which I’d previously not thought possible in the game of bowling.

Not a day after that, he had me drive him back to the airport, and he rebooked himself on the first flight back to Montana. He didn’t even want to partake in Nisei Open League Night, or College Wednesday. As we sat on Sands Beach, he, in an unusually rattled tone told me “it was all too much” for him, and that if I wanted to kick it again, I was going to have to go to a real city, like Billings. 

Christmas Ain't What it Used to Be

I’ve never liked the holidays at all but I loathe them now more than ever. And it’s not as if I’m some militant Volcano worshipper angry at the fact that Jesus’ birthday is a public holiday either. I’ve just never been a fan because the holidays usually have meant for me at least, trips to awkward family gatherings. Most years my family would make a pilgrimage to a soiree produced by a pretentious and condescending red buffalo in an abode off Canon Perdido,

This meant encountering a cavalcade of obscure non-relatives who also happened to be celebrating at the same locale. Running into these characters was as traditional as the CBS “Frosty the Snowman” special.

There was Jiminy who would always put on a slideshow about his recurring trips to Nauru.

And Rodger, a stocky aloof type who would annually enthrall the crowd with tales of gambling trips to Elko. His demeanor suggested he’d been permastoned on Quaaludes since the Johnson Administration, his face looked as if it were composed of White Castle hamburger patties, his pompadour caked by mountainous gobs of grease; all cobbled together to resemble a sun-dried version of Lenin’s corpse.

And Maggie, she of the strong, silent androgynous type, the offspring of a cackling hyena and a Canadian janitor.

There was also always what resembled a revolving door Model United Nations of hipsters, wannabe jocks, failed record executives, roid-ragin’ MMA washouts, and rowdy, Black Country leprechauns. Too numerous, too fleeting to name.

One year, I broke tradition and went to a relative’s house in a far corner of rural Montana where I encountered a mob of Rummy-playing troglodytes who had consumed too much Animal beer. My lasting memory of that particular solstice was a drunken yahoo starting an impromptu firework show, the other sauced revelers whooping it up, cheering him on. In the midst of this drunken sky-show, he managed to knock the tube over that was firing the blazing bulbs into the sky, sending a bright mortar exploding mere inches from my head.

The best Christmas I ever had was barhopping around Santa Cruz with a couple of miscreant pals of mine one year when I was nearly broke; I ended up sleeping overnight in a gas station parking lot. It was the essence of the “Holiday Spirit”; quality experiences with close friends.

I feel the meaning of the Holidays has been adulterated in recent years. In fact, I think Santa set up shop in La Cumbre Plaza this year the day after the Back-to-School sale ended.

This time of the year no longer comes to mean a time of togetherness and of too much eggnog. No, anymore it’s all about buying, with no iota of care given to seeing loved ones or even having depraved reunions with obscure souls.

Just the other day I saw a vivacious, intensely wild-eyed girl of about ten ranting to her youthful and attractive, but increasingly disinterested mother her thoughts on the Christmas holiday. I didn’t get the entire gist of her views, but they sounded a bit like “Money! Buy! Buy! Presents? Presents! Buy! Buy! Buy!” And it’s not just this Jr. Wall Streeter; I’ve seen countless others maintaining a similar view, from twenty-something airheads mindlessly rambling in vain at their permatanned, plastic-looking, phone-stoned mothers, to middle-aged balding men leaning on their leased Porsches, bragging to their broods of batchildren about the new Titleist their old lady is getting them.

Stores are now opening on Thanksgiving Day. And it’s getting crazy out there. A near-stampede occurred at the Paseo Victoria’s Secret, perpetrated by patrons that resembled greedy, bucket-trapped crustaceans clawing over and suffocating one another in a violent lust for cheap panties.

Will stores in coming years start offering to host holiday gatherings at their outlets, promising priority access to all the sales?

Probably. But I won’t be there. I’ll still be driving around trying to find someone with a slideshow about their sojourn to the Peshawar Smuggler’s Bazaar. 

"Duck Dynasty": Serious Business

The other day I was at the Shark Bar assuaging a gut full of fish tacos with a Bloody Mary. Though the establishment seemed a bit dead, there was a strange buzz about the dark atmosphere. People were livid.

“Did you see that Phil from Duck Dynasty got kicked off the show?” An unkempt, bearded, and garrulous drunk shouted incredulously while smacking his fist on the bar’s smooth surface. “It ain’t right I tell ya! Used to be something called Freedom of Speech in this country!”

“He had it coming!” A half-buzzed, horn-rimmed haranguer interrupted from a table away, looking around, smiling smugly at his clique of friends who were undoubtedly hanging out here before it was cool to do so. “You can’t trash a whole community and expect to keep your job!”

This was all in reference to reality TV “star” Phil Robertson getting fired from his show, “Duck Dynasty” for making some decidedly un-PC remarks in a recent GQ interview.

“You insolent little douchebag!” The drunk shouted. “This is America, go back to Cuba or wherever you’re from if you don’t like it.” He threw a cup of ice in protest.

 His bespectacled adversary let out a high-pitched yelp of some kind and lunged at him, clawing at his face. The drunk retaliated by unleashing a few guttural shrieks of his own and running wildly into battle as if he were some kind of peyote-mad Aztec shaman. Before things could get too out of hand, though, the two reality TV critics were separated.

“Phil’s a hero you son-of-a-bitch!” The drunk thrashed wildly about, struggling to be restrained. He resembled an orangutan who’d just mainlined a speedball.

The two combatants were excommunicated after little struggle and a smattering of profanities. Things went back to normal in a pretty quick-like fashion. I ordered another cocktail and pondered the weirdness.

There were two actual people, outraged to the point of a physical altercation, over the goings-on of a low-end Reality TV show.

I’m not sure what’s worse, the fact that such a show exists, or the fact that someone would actually watch it. But it is a smash hit, and this wasn’t even the first example of outrage over this I’d experienced. Earlier in the day I had visited Facebook, where I found my entire newsfeed ablaze with anger. I counted at least two dozen “Boycott A&E” posts, and a dozen or so more indicating a person’s desire to “#standwithphil”.

People came across as if they were personally affected by this turn of events. Like they were haunted by this monstrous move. It’s as if one’s father just got laid off at the steel mill, his job outsourced to Turkmenistan. The lasting image of your old man becomes a fist shaking and a voice quaking, “Goddamn you Niyazov!”

I didn’t quite understand it. Shouldn’t I be pissed too, at least a little bit, if these blustering blowhards were on the verge of killing each other over the whole thing? Maybe, but I wasn’t. I must’ve had it all wrong, I figured. Here, I’d been outraged over the wrong things, like the NSA spying on us like a latter-day KGB, or the fact that the streets of this seaside hamlet rivaled Bogota, rife with hit and runs. I was missing the big picture, I was missing the big issue that haunted everything. The fact that Phil got fired. A move so huge that it had potential to become a modern day JFK moment. “Where were you when you found out Phil got fired?”

I finished my beverage and stepped outside, walking past a straw-haired beach hag wrapped in a rug as I headed down State Street nowhere in particular that clear and mild night. A bluehair nearly ran me over as I crossed the street, grazing my leg and speeding away. I found a cop to voice my complaint to, but he told me there was more important business at hand than erratic seniors, like Phil getting fired from Duck Dynasty, before telling me to “move along,” for there was “nothing to see here.”