Defending the Locusts

I remember when I was living up Gower Street in a house near the Hollywood sign. My downstairs neighbors were this couple from North Carolina. The husband was a handsome guy who’d come out here to pursue an acting career. Of course, in LA he was just another pretty face. His wife worked two jobs so he could go on auditions—which never lead to anything—and they ended up getting addicted to cocaine and pretty much losing everything.

That’s fucking LA, right?

Makes me wanna scream so loud just to wake everybody the fuck up.

But, I’ll tell you what, the truth is that every where’s the same. That’s the big fucking secret. When I was living in Savannah, there was the same fucking drive in people for status and acceptance. The stakes are different, of course. In Savannah maybe it’s trucks, or jobs working at a bank, or studying law. It’s sundresses and pearls and Polo shirts and golf and country clubs. Sure, the industry isn’t there, so, instead, they’re jockeying for the best tailgating spot at the University of South Carolina football games.

I went to one of those games, you know, when I was down in Columbia with my girlfriend’s family. Before the game there was a tailgate party with thousands of people drinking and grilling or just getting take out from Lizard’s Thicket or someplace. Chicken fingers, honey mustard sauce, pig’s in a blanket, five layer dip, gin and diet Mountain Dew.

There was one guy with a flat screen TV rigged up to the back of his truck.

And people were dressed up.

They were dressed up for the game in dresses and neckties and dangling earrings.

We took our seats in the overcrowded stadium up in one of the executive boxes.

Things were alright at first.

The South Carolina Game Cocks (a reference to cock fighting, I think) were losing pretty bad and I guess it was just kinda boring.

The thing that bothered me most was this guy sitting maybe three seats down. He was white and balding, with a big belly and a Game Cock’s burgundy polo shirt. He was sitting next to a woman who I assume was his wife. She was very overweight and bored looking, but smiling, smiling, smiling like her face was gonna break apart.

Anyway, every couple minutes or so the man would yell really loud and startling, “LET’S GO COCKS!”

There was like this anger in his voice. I mean, I can’t explain it. But I just looked at his wife and this sadness burrowed into me.

And then there was halftime.

Christ, halftime.

Halftime was, well, I guess one giant commercial aimed at recruiting kids to join the army.

First three fighter jets soared powerfully, and triumphantly across the stadium. Then strong, confident looking soldiers marched out onto the field carrying big ass rifles and there were these cheer leaders dancing all around them in little skirts and everybody took off their hats and started singing, “God Bless America,” and started crying and shit.

That was when I had to leave. My girlfriend was pissed off at me, but I couldn’t take one more goddamn second of it. The sadness was so deep in me—gnawing away at my insides.

So, tell me, is it LA that’s evil and destructive, or is it just fucking human nature?

There was a scene in last years “There Will Be Blood” where Daniel Day-Lewis’s character, basically a monstrous sociopath, has a conversation where he admits that when he looks at people, he sees nothing there worth liking. It’s an eerie and disturbing turning point in the film where you almost shudder at his cold-heartedness.

But, then again, for me, you know, when I look at people, I see very little there worth liking.

Now, that’s not totally true.

I mean, I have empathy for people’s struggles in a way that Day-Lewis’s character did not.

I feel pained about those soldiers marching on the football field.

I feel pained at some kid in the middle of the country walking into his classroom with an arsenal of automatic weapons.

But is LA the monster?

Ha.

We are the fucking monsters.

And maybe that’s the hardest thing to face of all.

‘Cause there are no solutions.

Awareness is as good as it gets.