"are you not entertained?"

i think about this clip all the time. i used to quietly think of it when it had become obvious i had rubbed somebody the wrong way with the blog or on facebook.

"are you not entertained?! are you NOT entertained?!!! is this not why you are here?!"

because, honestly, of course it is.

sweet baby jesus, kevin. why would you say such mean things and use such foul language to make such a blunt point?

i would think to myself and, to some degree, still do, "what ship have you been sailing on, lady? don't you know who i am? this isn't shtick, bro. this is me. you came here. you typed in the address. you saved this place on your favorites bar. i didn't invite you to this party. the internet gave you a choice. and you chose here."

that was kind of then.

this is now.

my feelings on the issue have softened a bit, because, nowadays, i do invite you here. i'll post something and shoot a link out to facebook. again, i don't have any mind control powers over you. so, if you are worried about being offended, you can still scroll on down that happy facebook trail. in the end, though, i'd rather you click and read and join in the conversation that i am having with myself from time to time.

for almost eight years now, i've been creating this place "for all the world to see", but, more specifically, to create a very vague and abstract outline to my girls to what made their daddy tick when all they worried about was who was controlling the remote and their hardest daily decision was "disney hd, or pbs?". i suppose, at some point, i'll start feeling comfortable talking to them about this kind of stuff at the dinner table, but we are still several years away from that.

i digress.

no, i used to think about this clip all the time as it concerned me and my personal opinions i put on HACAJAM. now, i think about it differently.

i think about it when i drive down parkway east in eastlake, huffman, and center point. when i drive by the empty storefronts and the check cashing joints and the title loan places and the fast food and the guy dancing out in front of the little caesar's pizza place. when i see folks on camera petty thieving from me and the store. when i look a homeless guy in the face and then turn the other way.

"are you not entertained? are you NOT entertained?! is this not why you are here?!"

this is what some people want, do they not?

god help me. is this what i want?

those that aren't living paycheck to paycheck want the poor on that wall. they need to poor on that wall. the helpless. the broken. the "takers".

those poor, in a very wicked and perverted sense of the word, are entertainers. faceless and nameless masses that make some of you us feel better about themselves. make them feel okay about their lot in life. to celebrate the deluded idea that they have worked harder than others. to celebrate having gotten past hard times while the faceless, poor black people masses didn't have the work ethic to make it to the better side of the tracks. to perpetuate the issues of our community by white flight-ing our asses out of the city.

"this is america, goddammit. if you want to make it in this country, all you have to do is try!"

such bullshit. such fiction. such entertainment.

how many times have we jumped on facebook and read some lazy ass e-card that shitted on another human but also reinforced our self-righteous worldview? we think about sharing it, condoning the lazy ass sentiment and hoping to get some passive aggressive likes. and then, what's worse? we do it. we share that shit. even worse? we get some some passive-aggressive likes, and then we stare slack-jawed or get offended if someone comes along and pushes back at us.

"are you not entertained? is this not why you are here?!"

of course it is.

in the scene from gladiator, maximus has just slayed a bunch of humans, blood and guts and limbs lay before a now somewhat conflicted crowd. they were not prepared for the underdog to win. they were there to cheer maximus being torn from limb to limb. to celebrate the violence they were already desensitized to. but then the community maximus pushed back. and we the onlookers were confused.


don't we do the same thing? we are totally fine with there being poor people, just so long as we aren't one of them. we are totally fine with war, so long as we aren't the ones fighting it. we are fine with kids on the corners of east lake dealing drugs, just so long as they aren't our kids.

but we get offended when one of those underdogs pushes back? really? robs us? puts a gun to our head, figuratively reciprocating the suffocating feeling they've always known???

"are you not entertained?"

you should be, man. because this is what you are asking for. each and every time you prop up your worldview on someone less fortunate than you's back, you're asking for it. every time you share that fucking ignorant e-card about people on welfare not being allowed iphones, you're asking for it. because you consider yourself to be more committed or more valuable than another human being without knowing shit about another person's life and circumstances.

i wonder, "why?"

why on earth would you think that was okay? what happened to you to make you think that poverty isn't every bit your fault as it is mine? why won't you we do something more about it?

can we at least start giving some thought to other humans instead of our stupid-ass rights? please???

can we stop pretending like doing one unselfish thing every once and again builds up some imaginary credit in our imaginary head banks to be assholes or, worse, ignorant the rest of the week?

can we stop whining about how early we have to get up to go to work? can we stop bitching about how bad we feel if we aren't willing to get up off our couches, stop smoking, start exercising, and start making efforts to help our bodies function without the literal and figurative shit we thrust upon it? how about we only share the stupid e-cards that poke fun at our human experience, and we stop forwarding anything that makes us sound any more high and mighty than our neighbor? deal?

a love deal? a hippie commune kind of deal? that we are all in this together, fighting for the greater good and we won't stop building our hippie commune 'til there are more of us than there are of them kind of deal?

it's your choice, of course. i don't own the guns to force you to do anything.

but if you opt out, if you keep bullying your "friends" because you've arrived at an arbitrary endpoint to your existence that will no longer allow you to adapt to other people's perspectives, don't be surprised when the underdog eventually pushes back.

"are you not entertained?!"