The Faux Pas Press #21: The Split

The Faux Pas Press #21

08 January 2010

The Split

By Jason Fresh

Around each corner is a choice; around each choice is a split between a vibrant life filled with potential and a life filled with a lot that simply presents itself - there is always lingering of fate to deal with. This is what I mean to address. You can always ride home on flat tires instead of changing them, wear a dirty shirt instead of cleaning it, or eat a chicken bucket from the KFC down the street instead of going home to cook something vegan.

The Well-Mannered Man holds to good form. He renews what classical artifacts he can dig out of the annals of history and will perhaps become a witness to their resurrection in the policies he supports. He hails the chief that society needs; he needs him also because no one decision he makes is his own. This man accepts each and every invitation to dinner. Perhaps, he knows that the manners he clings to allow him to have someone in his control – always someone in the control of good form, even the abusive form.

There is a space in the Post-American havoc for the Wild Man also. He can follow the flowing current trends and ignore them if he chooses. He shows the bureaucrats that he is most interesting in the survival of his own mission – not theirs. He can do what he wants when he wants to.

The Wild Man looks at the society that rejects him, asking nothing and taking nothing as they send him away, alone in a Starbucks, alone in a room full of people, making eye contact with only those who have something to give. Words are a comfort, especially to the silent and misunderstood. They can speak powerful visions of a solid destiny even when the mouth doesn’t move for others.

The Wild Man can say, “I am impatient guy. I don’t care about ordering my caffeinated beverage the right way - Double espresso Frapuccino with no whip – large!! Do I look like I need whip, motherfucker? Tall? Yah, that’s right. Yah, I like I said I want a large. Venti? Yah, do it up. I don’t need your etiquette. I want a large. Yes, as long as it is caffeinated. I am a wild man. I am extreme. I sing karaoke, bitch. I’m not a part of your bourgeois affectations, you rights of passage, your holiday gatherings with Gingerbread lattes. I am an angler for the reality you are too afraid to notice. I’m not the Well-Mannered Man. I am a blood-pumping organ muscle who does not respect you. I am pain and I have seen your death. I’m mad as a hornet - a wild hornet - that is.”

A Starbucks becomes the amphitheater, the battle between form and raw expression. A group of Hawaiian teenagers watches the show where chaos and nothingness fight for table at which to sip coffee. A disc playing classical music, Vivaldi spins in a disc player or whatever other track has been wrangled by the hipsters at Apple. (The Wild Man wouldn’t know that detail. He found the flux capacitor that can show timeless principles, principles that know no God or government, principles that breathe energy and radiate through space, radiate through all eternity.)

“What do you think about that underpaid worker over there, Well-Mannered Man? I am a worker too but I don’t give a damn like you.”

“So, you’re a meth head like all the locals here.”

“What? Didn’t you hear what I said? No, I guess you wouldn’t have. I’ve been talking through this mood ring that I wear since I walked into this place.”

“You’ve been talking through your mood ring? God in Heaven, that is wild. I really had no idea.”

“Yah, that’s right, bitch – talking through my mood ring and singing karaoke.”

Around every corner there is a choice, a split amongst the chaos, the expanding universe throwing chemicals around. The material world is a playground. The Starbucks is a playground. Once this has been established no man can claim superiority over another.

The Well-Mannered Man moves closer, approaching the blood-pumping organ muscle as if about to act out an episode of Spy vs. Spy, never a victor declared, an ever-playing record of good and evil echoing out into the stars.

“Tell me, Mr. Wild Man. What do you call those shoes you are wearing?”

“Are you asking me a question, friend? Because I really don’t take too kindly to your 21st century rhetoric. Your conventions are so appropriate, a cute and chubby man tit. You are like a purple-hearted amphetamine with purple-hearted wit.”

“This is funny. This is a crack head calling me out? Listen, I’ve got a job, friend. I don’t know how to make sweet little rhymes like you, buddy, but at least I’ve got a job. Are those sandals you are wearing?”

“No, no sir, these are not sandals. These are form-fitting, webbed shoes made by a Nepalese Sherpa, friend. But not that I would have to explain myself to you. You see, I took back all the time stolen from me by the monsters of form.”

“Monsters of form? What are you talking about? The only monster I see in here is you.”

“I’m talking about families, my family. I’m talking about protestant work ethic, the vengeance of American demi-gods, Mormon fables with pioneer life-blood, the State, the fad makers, the municipal authorities and government officials that conspired to kill the American president. I’m talking about all of it. I have had my fill. I have drunken from the well.”

Now, amidst the marketer’s dream, the faux wood finish masking building materials observe, the tile imported by a contractor locked tight in the grind of the capital gear laugh, and 27 bulbs installed in the ceiling 5 and ½ feet apart provide lighting. Yes, now, the showdown begins.

“I’ve spent my life observing wild people. They live, they breathe - they die just like you have already. Are you so far above customs that you will avoid the funeral as well? I am the Well-Mannered Man who keeps all of his ties, the man who says his good-byes, and I am the man who cries when he sees a love one die. You depend on the same grain as I.”

“Well, you despot, the short response to the ideas you pose is: go fuck yourself. The long response, sir is: I pay not attention to your form.”

“Wait. Which one of those was the long response?”

“They’re both longer than you’ll ever know. God, why can’t you see?”

“So, you’re above it all, then? You’ve transcended the world as you cry yourself to sleep.”

“Or laugh myself awake.”

“Well, then what good is your life, anyway. You toil and spin to create a life, a vibrant one. I, on the other hand, choose to accept all that my life has presented. I cry myself to sleep too. Just like you and all the other poets.”

“I told you. I sing karaoke, sir.”

“Well, are you an American?”

“I was once an American.”

“I am also what was once almost American too.”

Both the Wild Man and the Well-Mannered Man hang their heads to the South and prostrate towards the ruins of Washington, D.C. They dream on their own and then look at one another.

“Sir, what is your name?”

“Parley Angerbliss.”

“Mine too.”

Around every corner is a choice; around each corner is a split between a vibrant life filled with potential and a bland showdown with a life that God or the State offer. The choice doesn’t matter – not in the slightest. Of course, there is always fate to deal with. I’ve become a destiny. How about you?

Green Lights,

Jason Fresh

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