Volume X: The Industry of Chemical Artistry - or - The Age of Rockism

2. Just a Game

Another day. Another night. Another failure. 

Wake up, look around, get your bearings. Where are you tonight? Who’s that next to you this time? Have I been here before?

Blink a few times, shake the darkness away, give way to the new day, the early morning. Light the first smoke of the day, inhale, exhale. Look at the person next to me. What’s his name? What does this do for me? How do I benefit from being here? 

If I benefit at all. Not all situations work out that way. You can’t win them all, right?

It’s kind of funny when you think about it, the losing and the winning. That it’s a game, that it doesn’t really matter either way how things turn out. Just as long as you play, right? It doesn’t matter. With life, it doesn’t matter, as long as you live it, right? Fuck that. Into the ground, and then some. Everything matters one way or another. Everything’s relevant somehow. We just don’t put the time or effort into thinking about it. That’s the problem. That’s it.

This is my life falling apart all at once. This is stability shattering. Do you see it? Did you hear the shards hit the pavement? No. Of course you didn’t. Of course you can’t see this. I can barely believe it. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to try or fight or die for this. But I will. As we all will. This is life. This is how it goes. That’s just it. No debate. Nothing else. You get up and you deal with it because the alternative is just too shady. It’s worse than this. Can you imagine, something worse than this? No, it’s not worse. But it could be. And Jesus Christ, it’s that goddamn “could be” that gets us every time. Every goddamn time.

Get up, get dressed. Still smoking. Always smoking. Kill me faster, because things aren’t collapsing quick enough for me. Make the dust settle sooner, just let go. Let it all fucking come undone. I don’t care anymore. There’s no use trying to catch it midair anymore. It’s gone. Just let go. That’s the point, that’s the moral, that’s what I’m trying to tell you to do with your life. You don’t have to keep going to get it. It’s right here, in black and white, up front, for all to see. Don’t miss it. Did you miss it? Here it is again, one more time, for the slackers -

Let. Go.

No.

That’s not a good start. That’s a terrible start. No. Let’s try again, let’s go back and do it over. One more time, with feeling, you know? Then again, I could keep going from where I was. I could make it work. I’m talented every so often. When I put my mind to it. When I want to be talented. When I need to be exceptional.

Let’s see, the person next to me today. He might be important. I mean socially, of course. He’s nothing to me. He doesn’t care about me any more than I care about him. But there’s always a greater good, a common purpose, something to cause this happening. I wouldn’t be here, in his bed, this morning, otherwise. So, what concerns both of us?

Music.

I work with bands. So does he. Where he books gigs in his little pocket computer, I deal with rowdy bartenders, police chaperones, law restrictions and idiot groupies. I deal with the nitty-gritty. And when I can find time and effort away from my duties as ambassador to the rockers, I take pictures of them. So they can remember the gigs, where they’ve been. So they’ve got them. Otherwise, between drinking and drugs, they’d play the same places three times a week and blur it into one instance in their mind.

So the routine commences. I get up, smoke, look around, get my bearings. I take a quick shower, leave a name and number, and slip out the door. He’s still there, sleeping like a baby. Like it never happened. Like I was never even here. The further I get from here, the more I think about it, the more I begin to wonder if I ever was here. Or maybe it was just an elaborate dream. Maybe. I keep trying to rid myself of the obvious. I try to rub my eyes clear, I try to see beyond the street. I want to see more than this. But no. You know what I can see?