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Reality TV before/after Reality TV (ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous...'Reality TV'...nothing real about it, unless the world is populated by aspiring actors and actresses...and who knows, maybe there are more than I see, acting...acting...acting.) I visited Rome. I stood in the shadow of the Coliseum. It was a hot day. (of course it was a hot day...Rome...Italy...hot...the smell of ancient death) And the shadow of the Coliseum was cold. (cold death, deaths touch fading, roar of the crowd, blood from the jugular shoots fifteen feet into the sand making a pretty crimson pattern for the children. Like a Pollack, a Jackson Pollack, generations before he was born.) Our guide, a history professor, explained the entertainment as 'brutal' for 'brutal, unenlightend people...ah? Not like us, ah? Not evolved.' I abhor.
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I love. I am a modern day gladiator. I strap on my armor, and sling my weapons for the crowd. The crowd. Of mullets. Of ripped shirts and missing teeth. And bankers. And lawers. And all your friends. I am popular, they say. (the crowd, the mob, the crowd loves you yestheydoyestheydoyestheydo!) And I enter the arena, king, the president, the blue-blooded bastard, with the red blood on his hands, is there, reclining in his regal robes, blue blood flowing through his veins, a laurel on his head, he feasts on turkey leg, and the wine spills from his maw. He knows. His regal rule shall not be threatened by a slave at the head of the mob. As I enter, for the delight of the crowd, crows? The crowd then the crows delight. Full service, me. He signals to his man, and it is said, my fate is sealed, for the crowds delight, for the crowds delight, "NO EXIT! NO EXIT MATCH!" My heart is heavy, yet light. For I am lucky, lucky to die. And not see this abomination to fruition, the basest impulses employed, degenerate wretch of man, of mankind, making an animal of himself, denying the spark and hope that may be, that we can be, should be, more than that, if anything at all.
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