Submerged

Passed through the neighborhood bar this afternoon where the one of my favorite bartendars has decided to go sober. One can never be sure of the reasons, but she has lost a bunch of weight and looks ten years younger, granted not very many people could over indulge in the alcohol like this woman. She claimed it made everyone looks prettier after ten shots of tequila, which might be true but does not change the overall theme of working in five shifts a week in blue collar video poker bar. The place is slow as the sun starts fade in the sky, a veil over the sun reflecting the larger nature of Las Vegas, the erosion, the demise, the final act, whittling people away one at a time, seeking to break them into weakend desperate souls who have nothing left to do but retreat to such places as this particular establishment to drink one dollar or two dollar bills. The sports books are crowded still, especially during football season, any sort of information betters can pick up through the many conversations floating around during the hours before game times may make the difference between paying the rent on the weekly room or just giving up, heading down to Sands Ave to score to cheap street drugs.

Desperation flows like the floodwaters of a river past its natural flood zone. Every winning bet a small victory of stemming the inevitable tide of self mutilation or suicide as the small time gamblers file past me like workers from an assembly line shift. They appear transparent, faceless, and emotionless, robots seeking a temporary solution to a mortal problem. Success has escape us all, turned everyone here today into manic pellet seeking mice pushing the feeder button that no longer respsones to our requests, doling out nothing but puffs of stale cattle fodder filled air. Begin the funeral services why delay our true calling as conveyor belts for cheap beer, video poker, and the ocassional sexual encounter, for most that would be considered quite an existence in this town, a small time champion with the ability to hurdle the most dynamic troubles that grind up the majority of part time laborers in this town. I have watched them kill themselves one day at a time, then dissapear in a vague fog of anonimity where for a brief moment their time on this rock will be recollected then forgotten with a good night sleep, so don't be fooled into kindness for the reason of survival because it is an empty game with no rewards those whom you offer such things will only see them as belated gifts on birthdays long since celebrated where the trash can embraces discarded loyality. If you are going to care, just care and think nothing of it more.

I tipped the bartender then thought about writing something more than a daily blurb, luckily sleep can delay such tasks one more night and that is just about all I need, one more night with no distractions, thoughts of failure, or delusions of distilling my brain into pop culture trivia. This world needs impact, raw emotional truth, and understanding of a larger idea than people in American society seem capable of embracing, so as the our society moves along into the night of the 21st century cutting the ties to the self indulgent nature of the 20th century remains the only thing left to move on to recapture the world, not with guns, but with our imagination.