I awaken to a pounding on my hotel room door. Angry pounding. Authoritative pounding. When you hear it, you know it. I’m in no shape to deal with it. Head is fuzzy. Sweating. Sprawled out on a floor, eyeing a vicious red wine stain on what looks like a very expensive carpet. Why do I drink red wine, knowing as I do how volatile a substance it is, coupled with my propensity to slosh the stuff around while pontificating? I pause to consider for the first time what brand of misanthrope would put a white carpet in a hotel room, knowing full well that irresponsible ‘guests’ like me would be staying here. I’ve always been powerless but to get pissed when staying in hotel rooms. All responsibilities seem suspended when you have a maid coming. Like they’d touch this mess. Torch it more likely.
Definitely a very weird night last night. A howling at the moon kind of night, you know? Makes for a grim scene in the morning. The television is missing. Missing? I remember something about the television. Definitely. But what? I’m not certain I want to know, but a memory lurks just on the edge of consciousness of running up a set of stairs with it in my hands, also carrying a half-full bottle of wine and nearly killing myself on the power cord. Up a set of stairs, laughing like a pirate. To what end? Certainly nothing good.
It had something to do with the latest Bush Admin echo-chamber that I was watching in the midst of it all. Dubya this time, aping Condi’s words about a cease-fire in a couple days. A totally rookie maneuver. No way this thing is cycling down in a couple days, are they nuts? Leave the off-the-wall predictions to me, will ya? No way it’s gonna happen. I’ve only been following the expanding Global War on Peace situation for a few years but I’ll tell you one of the things I learned from Iraq Deux: talk about diplomacy, talk about whatever you want but when a lot of troops are getting cycled up and moved into position, their comin’ back with something, okay? It’s just straight economics.
Cease-fire in a couple ‘a days. A rooky position to take. Dr. Condi has no idea what’s gonna happen. Neither does the Bush administration. They’re just stalling. Obvious to the world. Ugliness all around.
The hammering on the door has subsided but I’m not so optimistic to believe they’ve gone away for good. People who can hammer at a door like that have access to keys and things, of that much I’m certain. They’ll be back. The thing to do is get my head straight and figure out how I’m gonna play this and what, precisely, it is that I have to play. Coffee, as always, is the linchpin to this process, tunes as well and a sturdy barricade. Take their keys out of the situation. This is my movie, not theirs.
Feel better about it instantly. That’s right, my movie. That’s how I’m getting out of it. It’s a little something I picked up from the Immortal Ken Kesey. Take vexatious, noisy or authoritative people right out of their individual movies and throw them right into your more interesting ongoing epic. Fuck ‘em. Control the situation to your benefit. Get them out of their modes and into yours, if only for a precious minute or two. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Take the phone off the hook. These jackals will be calling any minute. It’s their next step. Throw on some Dylan. Loud. Let ‘em get their minds around that. Put on heavy metal or rap music right now and the cops are coming. Period. I have no illusions about that. But Dylan will buy me some precious time. Couch wedged against the door. Noone gets in unless I wish it, freeing me to make a decent pot of coffee. I’m no rookie to this scene, I recall, as my mind starts flipping on switches, comes awake. All the little brain dudes start showing up to work, lunchboxes in hand.
Grab my coffee and laptop and hit the balcony, get some sunshine and a breeze into me. No television means no CNN, suicide for a blogger on the MidEast War beat and stops the MetaNewsAnalysis cold. It’s probably a good thing. Making me a little crazy. Obsessive. Waiting for the next level, where the next big domino in this thing falls, where Syria gets openly involved. Israel responds, Iran throws down and America flattens ‘em. Make no mistakes folks, that’s the next level of this thing and all the ingredients are there for it to go. Cooler heads don’t always prevail. But enough on that.
They start hammering on the door again but I just pump up Dylan. Not ready yet. Thinking about the MidEast when I need to figure out how to get out of here unscathed. Can’t do it til I figure out what happened to the television. It feels like the linchpin of the thing. I remember firing up those stairs and OneForce, that bastard, running along ahead of me, getting the doors and stuff, also laughing his fool head off. Where the hell is he now? He’s just as much to blame for this mess as I am, moreso if anything.
I remember what it was. It’s all CNN’s fault. They were replaying that Hezbollah feature and they flipped to that scene of Bush talking about ‘root causes’. What a horrid joke. OneForce won’t make political bets with me after that one. He was like “hey Sense! Dubya’s gonna talk about root causes! Check it out!” I told him Dubya doesn’t know a thing about root causes and bet him fifty bucks and a case of fine German beer that he won’t even mention the Israeli – Palestine situation, that, by all accounts, is the actual root cause of all MidEast problems, of AntiAmericanism, 911 and so much else. OneForce asks me what on earth he’s gonna talk about then. I tell him that judging by what I’ve seen lately, he’s gonna talk about what he had for lunch.
“The general parameters of a long-term, two-state agreement are well known. There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians. Except for mutually agreeable negotiated modifications, Israel's official pre-1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations since the founding of Israel, U.S. government leaders must be in the forefront of achieving this long-delayed goal.”
Those, the words of the American President, unfortunately, the wrong President. Jimmy Carter’s take on the root causes and he’s got it, dead-on balls (August 1st, 2K6). Dubya’s root cause was Hezbollah kidnapping those all-important two soldiers. “That’s what started this conflict and Hezbollah must be held to account for it.” Or words to that effect. Way to go Dubya. Didn’t even scratch the surface, let alone get to the root of the thing. Somehow he still pisses me off even when I know precisely what to expect from him.
I went off on a long, booze-fuelled rant that the partiers in my hotel room found kinda funny. And shortly after that the television went missing. CNN and George Dubya Bush are to blame, for this and so much else. It’s true. But what did I do?
The hammering has begun anew and I can see some movement of the door in its frame, meaning they’ve utilized their key but not overcome my barricade. I haven’t got any closer to resolving this thing and am tired of the scene. Just gonna deal with it, I decide, play it by ear. Might be the ticket. With fresh coffee in me it’s worth a shot.
I call up a Rachel, a friend of mine in Vancouver that runs a magazine and give her the number of my hotel, tell her to call ‘em up and say I’m to be interviewing Paris Hilton in my room later that day and would like to make mention of the place if that’s alright with them. Having established that I bolt over to the door, throw the barricade out of the way and fling the door open with reckless abandon.
“Just what the HELL is going on out here?!?” I rage at them. They’re not expecting this. They’re the one’s that’re supposed to be pissed, not me. I decide right then and there that I’m hardlining it, right across the board. Screw it. Seems to be working just fine for Israel. “Who are you people and WHAT is with this racket! Christ’s sake!” They’re taken aback. Frightened like children. Perfect. “Well?!? Fuck off then!” Slam the door right in their faces. I put my ear to the door and can hear a hushed discussion about what’s to take place and it’s a full 45 seconds before they knock again. Quieter this time. I fling the door open again.
“WHAT?!?”
“Pardon me sir,” one of them says, “hate to disturb you.”
“And yet, here we are,” I respond peevishly.
“Might we check on the status of your television?” the other fellow chimes in, not entirely cowed by me. Yet. But to a lesser man this would be a mortal wound. I haven’t a clue what I’ve done with the thing, only that it was bad.
“Actually, I meant to ask about that,” I responded. “Are we not supposed to have televisions in these places?”
“Certainly, each room is equipped with one.”
“So were the fuck is mine then?”
I place a hand on the doorframe, blocking potential ingress. They survey the very obvious damage we’ve inflicted on the place and I’m done for. They explain to me that my television is scattered about a forty foot radius in the parking lot below me and it all comes back to me with perfect clarity, total recall. OneForce lecturing me about his spin on the world of physics, saying "gravity as it stands, is all effect, no cause," as I heave the thing as I hard as I can from the rooftop, slugging back the remainder of the vino and firing the empty off as well.
My mind remembers even as my mouth spouts a massive lie about it being all Tommy Lee’s fault and that any major hotel is gonna have to deal with rock stars, and rock stars are prone to firing televisions off rooftops. Certainly not my fault. I give him Rachel’s number in Vancouver and tell them she’s my publicist and that she’ll fire off my credentials by the end of the business day, that Tommy’s people will have to pay for everything and that I’m quite busy and not to be disturbed again. With that I shut the door and head back to the balcony to finish my coffee. They’ll not knock again, of that much I’m certain.
I look down at the parking lot and sure enough, there she be, the shattered and fragmented remains of my television. Probably for the best. Maybe just read the major trades for the remainder of the War, old school style. Yeah. No more CNN. Kinda liberating, actually.
Excellent. I regret nothing.
That is all.
-iSenseChange
NonRandomMP3age: “The Times They Are A-Changin'” by Bob Dylan
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment