Cabin Pressure

The thing is, I'm like -- I wonder if there isn't truism to that thing they say. Not that there's the Devil in some music (all music), but that there's something the soul imbibes when it partakes of some kind of cultural production. I feel high, and although it is a body that's been up since 5 and has had oceans of coffee and whiskeys sour, it feels like a different high, the Tom Wolfe, the ragged Merry Prankster high.

Does Tom stand with the Pranksters or against them? On the bus, off the bus. Do I stand with them, or against them? There are sense impressions attached to texts like Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, ideas that weren't in Wolfe's head and likely aren't in any others. A grizzly man in his mother's basement, emerged only for his nephew's funeral; so much pain to move. Another man, black musician hopes dashed-prevailed-triumphant, alone in his apartment for so long (how long?) before he was discovered.

The thing is, there's this fit girl sitting next to me, feet up on the exit row, dolling herself up before the eventual (eternal) return. Tan skin, brown eyes, brown hair streaked blonde, popping against white tank top, black bra, Uggs.

The thing is, this suit comes out of the bathroom and snags a bag of Southwest airplane crackers. Shifty-eyed glance after the stewardess's back. He takes another. And it's like - man, here's the state of modern America. One guy engages in masturbatory intellectualistic trips; the girl hides how intelligent or genius she is by playing a different game; the guy who could buy a BJ warehouse stock of animal crackers with out noticing the cut in his bank account, the guy who'd be the first to spout about business ethics and MORAL ECONOMY and TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY, revealing himself for the cheating stealing terrible very bad no good heart of the great tree of American capitalism he is, the fountainhead, the fish rots from the head--

My ears start popping and my head explodes.