You're not lookin' in a mirror, trust me

Last night's events didn't take a lot of convincing, but they took a lot of explanation. This was directed to Elvira, my spaced out but incredibly polite waitress at Nicky's Pizza in Silver Lake.

"This is a game show convention of producers, talent, and fans. This band will supposedly be playing famous songs."

She stared at me for a moment, which could have meant anything, really. "Wow, I wanna be in a band that plays at game shows." (Don't correct her, just go with flow.) "If they have openings, come back and let me know." (OK, you got it.)

An old friend arrived first to the Burbank Airport Hilton's Convention Room #4 just before I did. "This place smells like eggs." I figured it was because of a million buffets in the mornings. He agreed. Then I looked around. My friend, THESE are the true game show fans. They don't live out here. They don't work in or around TV. And yet, they've come to Burbank to play tons of games and listen to producers and meet Peter Marshall (Hollywood Squares, among others) and Wink Martindale (Tic Tac Dough, among others). It was giant guts. Constant smiles. Tucked in T-Shirts into Jean Shorts. Videotaping everything. Silence. Minimal social skills.

The first tune, a medley of Price is Right prize songs, made everyone cheer. Suddenly, a wave of guilt washed over me. Yes, I recognized every god damn song. We moved on to Tic Tac Dough, Super Password, and others...and this band played them all. Finally, I had to turned to another old friend, a rare girl in this oasis, and tell the classic Triumph joke:

"How does it feel to be surrounded by a room full of people who have no idea how to please you?"

Eventually, after a self-enforced two drink minimum, I had to hit the road. This was a bit too much. And frankly, no one likes to be shoved into one interest. Sure, I enjoy game shows, but I enjoy punk, I enjoy reading, I enjoy Columbian imports. I enjoy having lunch with Dr. Naguchi. Thankfully, the interests are spread. For those that are there this afternoon, send that giant tray of fried everything to them. They all came out here to just sit and be with each other, eat fatty foods, and make jokes that only a handful would get. This one's for you.

AK The State, Not The Assault Rifle...

Part I: Daylight, Forever

It’s Wednesday night. It’s 11:47 and the sun is shining like it’s five in the God damn morning. What the fuck!? Did I slip off into an alternate reality? Sort of. I’ve traveled off to the world of the Midnight Sun, the last frontier; Fairbanks, Alaska.

Having spent the past 8 hours in various modes of transportation, I’m pretty fucking out of it. My watch says quarter of midnight, my body says it’s three hours later than that, but my mind is screaming at me to stay awake. Wake up you asshole! It’s still light out! It’s an incredibly disorienting feeling. It feels like 3 a.m. but look like 4:30 in the afternoon – like that feeling you get when you’ve tied on more than a few cocktails before noon and have just stepped out of the bar into the bask of the mid-day sun. Give a stretch, catch myself from falling over, and make my way to dreamland.

It’s now Thursday morning, 7:30 a.m., and they’re redoing the roof on the neighbors’ house, RIGHT OUTSIDE THE BEDROOM WINDOW! Great. Good morning Dave, hope you didn’t sleep at all. Gee, thanks, hey can I get a cup of coffee? No, we just have steamed piss, will that do ya? Fuuuuuck.

Never mind, time to hit the links.

As I made my way over to the golf course – yeah, I played golf in Alaska – I started noticing things that I hadn’t seen through the haze of travel the day before. Almost every building I saw was a tin box with windows. There were four strip malls on the 10 minute drive, none of which had any stores that I recognized save the Radio Shack. Almost every car I saw was either fifteen years old or banged up. This town is fucking poor. Fairbanks is 30,000 people but feels like 5,000 spread out of two hundred miles of white trash shit hole. Or as the Lady Luck put it, “it’s like a third-world country with fast food joints.” Clearly I had crossed the tracks somewhere. Hey, you wanna grab some Arby’s? What, they only have Cheb’s? What the fuck? We’ll get back to this later.

Part II: America’s Pastime

There’s something to be said about watching baseball about as far north as possible. Or when it’s still light out in the 13th inning of a game that started at 7:30 p.m. “What” you say? “What the fuck are you talking about Dave, have you gone and double dipped in the bag of reds again?” No sir, I have not.

In the middle of the northern-most state that is united, in the middle of a city that looks a poor El Paso, Texas, there is one day that Fairbanks, Alaska is famous for. Unfortunately due to some untimely events, I missed it. But I did get a partial experience for my trouble, so I guess I can move on. The Midnight Sun Game is held at Goldpanner Field every year on the Summer solstice – this year being the 100th anniversary. But I don’t have enough facial hair to schedule myself correctly. Too much hair of the dog is more likely. Either way, it was an experience. For those unfamiliar, the Alaska Baseball League is a training ground for college kids looking to make their way to the Big Leagues. When the losers come home from the College World Series, they make their way to various teams, in various leagues, in various states, around the country. Southern California, Hawaii, Florida, and various East Coast states have leagues.

Why the fuck would they come to Alaska then?

The ABL is one of the tougher leagues to play in and the Goldpanners are one of the better teams. Bob Boone, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, and Dave Winfield are among the players who have graced these fields in the barren wasteland that is Fairbanks. The turf infield, with yellow base paths, is not glamorous but it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. The players who aren’t playing are keeping the book and manning the radar gun from the stands and the dugouts would be almost embarrassing for most high-schoolers. And yet, it was a great experience. There were probably sixty people there and most of them had clearly spent a fair amount of time watching these teams – the eighty year-old chewing on the ump the entire game was especially entertaining. “Hey Blue! That was a foul ball, incase you wanted to know!” Is that me? Am I a clone of that asshole? They even have season ticket packages.

Part III: Depressing Impressions

Back to being a poor city - that’s not all that’s wrong with Fairbanks, Alaska. It’s right in the middle of the largest state in the union, and also the most desolate. There’s twenty hours of daylight during the summer which you would think would be uplifting, but you’d be wrong. It’s one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been. It’s sunny and warm, yet it’s dark and dreary at the same time. There’s mountains and trees and blue skies, but there’s a feeling of dread just beneath all of that beauty.

“It’s like when you’re sifting through the last of your bottles under the sink a week before payday just looking for a taste and you stumble upon what you believe is Jameson, but ends up being cleaning solution you stored in the empty bottle.” – Johnny San Gria

When he’s right he’s right. I’d rather likened it to the bottle of cough syrup that you had to refill with water to keep your wife from finding out you’re thirteenth step, but we’re just splitting hairs here. It’s a horrible place to go, to be, and imaginably, to live. I don’t know how they do it. I suppose that if it’s all you’ve ever known it’s not that bad, but it just has a suffocating depressiveness about it.

I’m glad I went because it was definitely an experience. We did spend a day in Denali National Park which, unlike Fairbanks, was beautiful. I’m glad I got to see where the Lady Luck grew up because I now have a better understanding of her mental state when she speaks of that place. It’s a tough, ugly place, full of tough, ugly people, and one place that, if I can help it, I will never venture to again.

Oh, and I lied earlier. I was double dipping in the bag of reds, but it was all I could do not to slit my own throat.

The Swine Wear Letters On Their Uniforms Now

These bastards focus our energies. They invade our behavior. They take from us and from everyone. The price is high, a moral theoretical price that they can never repay, nor would they want to. The Pigs run the sty, and our power lies just beyond our ability, our senses weakened and our brains at an impasse. So hell, Jesus, I suppose none of that matters. The reaction is the thing, the brutal comeback or the cowardly shrinking. You do as you do, and not much changes that. If you can figure a way in or out of this goddamned mess, then you've got a leg up, you're doing ok, have yourself a grape soda. If not, join in line, because it's going to take one king hell bastard of a change to get this thing right.

The Swine that sit at border patrol lurk like dormant yellowjackets. The sweet nectar of fear is what perks them to attention, and nothing short of pollenation in all its forms will quench the thirst. It is necessary to examine this transaction in animal terms, and divorce it from the Human Experience, because it's not human, nobody's human in this deal. And it IS a deal, in as much as exchanging currency for goods, services or the fantastic possibility of More Money is, this is too. The fucking Filth are trading a piece of our Time and Psychic Energy for a bit of their power, their piggish grab on the infinite supply of misery, the word game that they control, and we lack the tools for.

Rules? Are you fucking kidding? Christ, rules would be completely out of place here. It's a transaction, a deal, and nobody's telling any of us any information. There are no rules, and there is bound to be stretching of any sort of order that is in place. Nobody reports to anything, the swine rub their noses in the Hypocrisy of it all, and nobody can do anything. The hopelessness is, quite frankly, the last sort of emotion we can hang on to, that golden noose that we can still hang ourselves with when it all tumbles down. Jesus, if that's the way it's going to happen, then there must be something else, some Wizard behind the booth, casting spells and pulling away. But no, it's not. Dick Cheney doesn't live here. These rats work without a net. Nothing holds up a ropewalker when he walks on a rope 40 feet thick. There's no sense in it.

The reaction though, that's the thing. And that's what we're left with. The assault complete, the deal done, the reaction haunts, but it gives meaning. It tells us we're still human. We're still capable of feeling, of working this thing out from the Other Side. Just like all else, the money might tell the story. But not, no, maybe not. Maybe the cruel hand of fate that this country has dealt to itself - because even an idiot can see that fate has nothing to do with the United States of America - is disinegrating of itself, it's falling to the ground and under the table. The cards don't match anymore, the suits don't hold. The Fucks take over, but they don't; they just take it all down. What in fuck's name would a Scumbag like that do if he had any REAL power? I would venture to guess that the end result would be quite a bit of Blood, and blame longer than any horizon. We're not there yet, but shit like this only turns the engine over, and slides us into gear. But back to the point, is that it, are we doing this to ourselves? Hell, if anyone deserves this, it's us. It just makes sense, I guess, to have this feeling, to wonder why it all had to go down, but yet, the question answers itself. IT WENT DOWN BECAUSE WE LET IT GO DOWN. We didn't stand in the way, we didn't make any demands, and now the Filth make decisions, and we can do nothing but examine it. But examination doesn't lend human feeling to the Filth.

The Scumbags are back. And their bullish behavior now builds upon itself. The machine grows, and nobody has the keys. Jesus, we built this fucker. But the brains, they have been reprogrammed. Hope is out there, but it can be killed very easy, it's very fragile. No, the way out of this is with brute force. That's the only thing that resonates with the Pigs. Reinforcement doesn't work on a farm animal. You beat its brains in with concepts, and hope to holy hell you don't have to kill it before it learns. Will they ever learn? I've seen a pigeon peck a red circle to keep from getting shocked, so I suppose anything is possible. But it doesn't matter. Because as I head down to sleep tonight, the beast feeds, and I am only one small pellet coming out of the shoot. I can't change the behavior. The shock isn't enough. The world cannot conjure the energy, let alone our pitiful band. The work we must do is too daunting, we will accept our positions, and deal with our small tragedies.

And the Swine will feast, as they always do. I only hope the REST of the US hasn't turned into Vegetarians yet.