Thursday, October 26, 2006

Hell is Other People, 72% Of The Time




I caught five minutes of Damien Omen II on Saturday night. The scene had an authority figure barking examples of human atrocities and the adolescent Crimson King instantly reeled off the dates when they happened.

Pause.

Both parties are horrified.

Damien dashes off for a moment of multi-mirrored scalp scrutiny and discovers the personal branding that obviously escaped the nit-lady.

His pudgy face then contemplates the possibility that mother was a cloven-hoofed goat and not the Avon Lady.

He then sprints out onto an abandoned jetty (the geographical plausibility baffled me but I was a bit pissed) and, while weeping over unsettled waters, looking out at ominous clouds screams “Why me??”

Why me?

I know the feeling.

I too have found myself in far too many conversations that attempt to squeeze human existence into the Dewey Decimal system, stored, labelled and easily shelved.

Whether they be top fives, balance sheets or an over stressing of travel minutiae, as the speaker carries on, and my skin senses the first swish of embalming fluid, I always find myself wishing he had been afflicted by the millennium bug.

No wonder Damien is a fan - he reduces the pleasure of human communication to conversational top trumping, stripped of wit, insight and intimacy and shapes the social arena into the 9th circle.

Next time you find yourself listening to one too many snippets of matchbox wisdom, ask if you can inspect the person’s bonce.

I bet they recoil.

It’s time to wake up and smell the sulphur.

He talks amongst us.

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