JAZZ HANDS

I’m impressed at how silent the world is these days. In spite of the traffic, the sirens, the bombs, guns and the screams it’s become comfortingly quiet… because nobody is listening. We have become talking Mimes. Our mouth’s move, but nobody hears us. They’re blocking out our words as they attempt to talk over us… or through us. It becomes a battle of expressions. Jazz Hands moving in a pathetic game of “charades” as we strive to show our level of intelligence and righteousness while showing how unimportant everyone else is to us. We search for our mark under the spotlight and hold tightly to that space. A social filibuster until we run out of words and ideas. We walk down once noble streets that were then only defaced by the occasional dog marking its territory. The brick and concrete edifices that line the street are now marked by spray paint as young punks dressed like clowns with needles in their arms and guns in their belts lay claim to it as THEIR territory as they stand nearby and flash their Jazz Hands at people who show interest in claiming what belongs to NEITHER of them. People have turned their homes into fortresses to protect themselves, their families and their belongings from the violent vampires of the night who want everything you have… and more. They chant their vile poetry of false poverty while taking needles and putting more drugs and ink into their bodies before heading back into the night in expensive vehicles for more blood from all of us and blend in with the hipsters searching for their next victims. The disenfranchised, delusional or completely discarded will cower in the shadows of the doorways sometimes wondering why they’re still there and who forgot them. They hope only to be remembered and cared about like not so long ago. Once again the Jazz Hands will come out and lull us into submission. We will dance, we will sing… badly and if it happens to be a karaoke bar… sing even worse, because nobody is still listening really and being drunk is actually the important part anyways. It’s so much easier to forget we’re not human anymore when we’re that drunk. We will, eventually, find our way home to where we pretend to live normal lives. We don’t travel as much as we used to because, regardless of what country you’re from or live in, everyone HATES you. We pretend not to notice or hear, but we’re reluctant to venture out too far anymore. Instead we’ll stay in and watch how dysfunctional we’ve really become on TV. Life has become both a circus and a zoo; it all just depends on which side of the cage you stand on. We’ll reduce ourselves to becoming armchair critics and quarterbacks and stand in judgment of everyone and everything without hearing, seeing or researching a fucking thing before offering our opinion… but the Jazz Hands will still keep moving… even though no one is listening. We will continue to hate people not like us, justify our existence, maintain and armory of weaponry for our own personal use and belligerently explain why we shouldn’t compromise in the slightest, but those Jazz Hands keep dancing and our ego’s will continue to grow. We’ll pay exorbitant amounts of money for artwork the quality of a third grader and call it a “bargain”. We’ll also pay more for “VIP” treatment at parties and events while trying desperately to forget that if you really were a VIP they’d be giving it to you for free. We stress about being “Green” but only when it’s convenient to do so and have assumed that food can only be good if it costs three times what it should. Everyone has become a “gourmet cook” because someone showed them how to cook a recipe on TV but, as usual, WE know better than THEY do so it’s OK to over spice the dish. A restaurant can’t be great unless it’s owned by a celebrity chef and/or shown on TV. The hospitals, sanitariums and “rehab” centers will continue to be overflowing with people so over medicated, self-medicated, undiagnosed or misdiagnosed that half of the population cannot function and fall through the cracks and into the shadows. All the while the politicians of every stripe break out the Jazz Hands as they tap dance around the issue and do nothing… again. We didn’t have to stand up and recite “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening” or “Two roads diverge in a yellow wood” at our graduation. Partly because we don’t have snow or woods where I live, but mostly because Robert Frost wasn’t our guest speaker nor did we have to recite “Buffalo Bill’s defunct” because e.e.cummings wasn’t there either. It’s unlikely that students today will have to sit and listen to the poetic resonance of Russell Simmons, ‘Lil Wayne” or “Snoop Dogg/Lion” for much the same reasons along with the fact they can’t read anything. What they will probably hear is some “suit” tells them they’re under-educated, the most indebted generation ever and have no chance of getting a job in their chosen field but should “go forth and be happy”. …And the Jazz Hands will, once again, wave along even though they didn’t hear a word that was said.