The Chicken Dance

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t" (Charles Bukowski)

You can go to bed in one world and wake up in another.  That's just the way of things.  We are like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand.  There are reasons, though, and I may get to them before I'm done.  

A visitor kept me up Thursday past midnight.  I don't do well with late nights.  Never really have.  So I was dragging on Friday.  There was the threat of a night out with Tennessee, but he had been out late with the group of loonies I am coming to find he surrounds himself with, so, I thought, maybe I would dodge it.  I had made up my mind I just wanted to see my mother, come home and sit on the deck with a Campari, make a simple dinner, read, and cash out early.  

Leaving my mother's house, I saw I had a missed call.  Tennessee.  I called back.  

"What're you doing, homey?"

I told him I was kind of dragging, was heading home, wasn't in for a night out. . . but. . . if you want to stop by for a quick cocktail. . . . 

And then we needed dinner.  

And then his black sheep son of a very wealthy family called and Tennessee told him where we were.  He brought along a friend.  And then. . . we needed to go down to where they'd blocked off the street for a festival. . . and. . . and. . . . 

At eleven Tennessee was in my living room drinking the last of the tequila.  

I woke up this morning with a stomach full of pork tacos and quesadillas and liquor.  Oh. . . and for lunch earlier I had eaten a sub.  

"I need to. . . ."  Fill in the ellipses with whatever healthy things you can think of.  

I got up to coffee and pumpkin fritters.  

"This isn't really what I had in mind. . . ."

I opened the "papers."  Israel declared war.  That isn't good.  The Belarussian puppet government is serving as Putin's mouthpiece proclaiming that Russia might be pushed to use nukes in the Ukrainian war. 

Unrelated, everyone is going on strike, auto workers, drug makers, pharmacists.  A combination of corporate greed and the kush jobs of stay at home workers.   

"My brother is a college professor.  He teaches all his classes online.  He can be anywhere.  WTF?"

Not so many people want to live the hard life of a cowboy any longer.  

If you read those headlines the right way, you'll realize that your bourgeois lifestyle is far beyond your control.  Your money could dry up.  Your food, your medicines.  You have absolutely no control.  So what can one do?  

"Oh my god. . . when are they going to release the next season of Emily in Paris?"

That's our hole in the sand.  Or football or women's soccer/basketball/gymnastics.  And of course, there is always Taylor. 

As the world gets more technologically complex, of course, dirt worshippers around the world have no way of controlling their lives other than to submit.  In the main, we are largely an undereducated species living in a world we understand less than did people living in medieval times.  The gap between those who know and those who don't is wider now.  There is more of a wealth gap, too, which is difficult to comprehend.  Trump is crying because he is out of the Forbes 400 (link).  I just looked.  I have a friend who is no longer there, either.  I don't think he is crying, though.  Look through the list and see if any of them made their money in your trade.  Even if I win the $1.5 billion dollar MegaMillions or PowerBall tonight, I won't crack the bottom of the 400.  But I won't be crying, either.  

I think I just want to stay home and read.  Running with this young Billionaire Boys Club is depressing me.  I think I need a Drum Circle.  

But I will get no reprieve, at least not today.  It is Oktoberfest at the German Club, and EVERYONE is going.  It could get a little weird or a lot weird.  But I have a plan.  I'm going early and leaving early.  I'll drink a couple good German beers, eat some sausage and kraut, and do the Chicken Dance.  

Then. . . I'll slip away into the first darkness and beat a path to my door.  

Do I really like the Chicken Dance?  Oh, boy. . . indeed I do.  I'm as corny as they come, my friends.  It is my German heritage.  

But we'll all be dancing as more and more people are being bombed all over the globe.  And worse.  I don't want to be a Doomsdayer, but it is all out of my control.  When I get home, maybe I'll do the Ostrich Dance and hide my head in the sand.