Hydrogen Bomb

I was just reading a review in "The New Yorker" regarding Robert Bechtle's "'61 Pontiac" (1968-69). For reference, Bechtle is a painter, and his "'61 Pontiac" is a photo-realistic painting. The writer, Peter Schjeldahl, states: "I sense the droning, sheer duration of days in suburban neighborhoods in mild climates, an immensity laced with a familiar terror: boredom, our foretaste of being dead. Nothing can happen there. Or something can - a family of four pauses beside a station wagon, whose predictability makes matters worse."

This might as well be a description of my own childhood - growing up in a "safe" and "mild" climate, boredom stretching all around your body, engulfing the tumbleweeds, lizards, scorpions, and tornadoes. Parents are vapidly gleeful that their middle class has bought them a "nice place for the kids to grow up in," unaware that their children are restless -- some will seek Jesus, some will seek booze, some will seek sex, some will seek popularity. We will grow up, we will move away, clawing our eyes out in frustration at what this "safe" place has done to our opportunity. Some will stay - furthering the belief of that goddamn vacuum - getting married and imprisoning their children in the same quietly hostile, conservative shit town. Where Baptist socialites dance with hips grinding and the homecoming queen vomits in the back of a pickup truck, tipping cows and riding pumpjacks. Blow-pop stink in the gym, butcher paper wrapping Christmas doors. Do as I say, not as I do.

There are 37,000 homeless people in New York City that regularly visit shelters. In the year 2000, Hobbs, New Mexico clocked in a total population of 28,657. May that place rot. in. hell.

2005-05-03 | 5:35 p.m.

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