The Mark Kingsley Show: Intermission

(House lights come on. Mark's hologram dissipates. Orchestra and Loren take a smoke break. Dick goes backstage to call and see where the hell Mark Kingsley is. The audiences stretches, makes a break for the bathroom, continues to make out or heads to the complimentary cocktail bar and hookah lounge.)

(Cue phonograph recording...*hisses and pops*)

Announcer: The following is an official message from Stingray.


(light, string music begins)

Focus! Get that stream of consciousness working. Two big mugs of coffee on a frigid Saturday morning and I think I got something to say. At least I thought I had something to say. What the hell was I going to say?

Good morning avid readers of the Defensemaster’s Blog and GBCN viewers worldwide - Oh yeah, it was along the lines of people not knowing what the fuck they are doing or why they are doing it. I am not talking about the day to day either. I am talking about what we have been doing for the past 6 years. What have I been doing for the past 13 years? Why does one day seem just like the day before and what is going to make this day so special that it will completely change the direction of my life? Thus transforming me into the person I have always dreamt of being. The answers:

• First of all, the person I used to dream of being was David Lee Roth. No shit, but I was stoned six ways to Sunday, every waking hour of the day. Then I found my own identity and though it might take off. Now I am stuck with it and looking for a little coaching and feedback. Maybe later I will consider changing a few things in my life and then just let the ear hair grow.
• Nothing. Nothing is really going to be different because if that ever happened, somebody who claimed they had feelings for me me would be disappointed that I decided to do something different. Remember, people don’t like change but when I am dead someone will raise their glasses to my memory and comment on how much I really loved life.
• Oh, there were times I really enjoyed myself but for the most part I am just fighting off boredom and reliving the minutes until I get to do the same shit I always do. Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh Shit!
• Lastly, this response to the aforementioned question or questions is going to be tough because it is a random stream of very forced consciousness that will take us to a place totally unexpected – I am pretty certain that if I was locked in a huge warehouse space with 50,000 Styrofoam blocks of various colors and sizes and some industrial strength epoxy I would create something. My first inclination was to build a house but then I thought about abstract sculpture. Then I thought why not do both? I mean I just wouldn’t sit there. Especially if I was locked in this space for any length of time. I would have to do something and there in lies my point – We all have to do something with our time and once we start we don’t stop until somebody who is “more important” (due to title or rank) gets to tell us what we have done wrong. Then we modify or behavior slightly and go right back doing what we were doing in the first place. Think about it.

To reinforce the point I haven’t made yet, consider this: I think I can tell how much I hate somebody and / or how close they may be to committing suicide just by the way they greet me. Here are a couple of examples:

• “Good morning” – If this person is looking you in the eye and smiling then they are probably over 50 and happy that their 15 year old daughter isn’t lacing her joints with crank….as far as they know. They probably pinched off another consistent but somehow mystic dookie and are fixated on the vodka, wine, or beer they are going to consume at 5:01 p.m. Life at this point is lived inside the lines but not to be discounted, today’s modern organized religion is an acceptable substitute for the good old fashioned road trip and possibly Lollapalooza.
• “How’s it going”? – Are you fucking kidding me? Do you really want me to answer that question or are you deflecting your own misery on me? If you are asking me that question, I must look like I am up to something. When I was under 40 I probably was, but not so much now. Now I am just trying to figure out if the soup had onions in it and how clean is that truck stop restroom. Now I am trying to remember the last time I didn’t have to struggle to remember things. Now I am avoiding most everybody because I really don’t have a good answer to that question. “How’s it going”? “How is what going”?
• “What’s up”? – “Not much”. I mean what else can you say to that?
• The next one is going to take a millisecond of imagination but just try to picture eye contact with a quick upward jerk of the head. Got it? That’s my favorite. What a great way to say, “I just don’t give two shits about you or want to know why you have a black eye, a limp, or that your head seems to have been recently shaved”. I don’t care. Just keep moving.

We go to school early to learn how to act in public. I mean people get tired of beating their kids so they send them to kindergarten. We nap and drink little cartons of milk and we try to become socially comfortable in our little skins. Then they teach us to about the letters and numbers because without letters and numbers nothing really makes sense. A kid has to quantify and put it all together. Then we get a little older and we learn how to play games as a group. This is when we figure out if you are a “people person” or if you just want to go sit in the corner and paint. Then you get into the two digit grades to prepare yourself for higher education. If you aren’t into that then you can always make a living snaking drains or using the best high tech weaponry to kill other kids in the name of your country. Or worse, in the name of religion! That’s okay though because how precious is human life? Aside from your own and the few people you know, not so precious.

Once you get done with the higher education part of your life then the march of the human penguins begins. Every day bleeds into the next and you get to separate them by weekends and vacations. For most poor saps, vacations these days are stretching out a holiday weekend by adding a personal day so you can stay home to jack off to internet porn. That my friend is good living.

Consider this: If you drank the poison coffee on the first day of your new job just before the building tour and the overview of the employee handbook then you may now know what it feels like to be fucked. If you are 15 years into a corporate career looking around the walls of cubicles at people with job titles the equivalent of military rank, you probably have that sick feeling deep in the pit of your stomach. Perhaps your day goes a little something like this: 10:15 – sneak a peek at the ESPN website to check your fantasy league standing. 12:00 – Lunch. 2:01 – Jim and Bob go into the bathroom together to take their daily side by side shit. Sadly, people don’t find that to be strange except you but you refuse to make jokes and comment on the act! Good for you. 3:21 – 42 seconds wasted fantasizing about a woman you would have never fucked when you were 19 but now that you have to sit by her every day for 2 years, the shit stain on her nylons actually turns you on. 4:30 – haul ass to the parking garage and proceed to stock up on Michelob Golden light so tonight you can get somewhat pissed while watching reruns of Seinfeld and then the Iowa / Michigan State game at 7:05. 8:15 – wander out to the garage and contemplate what it would sound like to start the mower, the pressure sprayer, the trimmer, the leaf blower, and the chain saw all at once. Then smoke a cigarette and go back in for the second half. Then pull your brains out of the side of your head with a corkscrew and get a little weepy thinking back on the time you were so dumb you just didn’t give a shit.

Moving forward in your life, October is time for the annual physical and they throw around cat scans like butterscotch candies at the Fourth of July parade. This year you have a new formation on your balls or your lung but the good news is that there is a miracle cure and there always has been. We just haven’t figured out how to administer it yet. Perhaps if we heated up some clean cells and shot them out of a cannon in dirty tube sock right up your ass while sucking all the air out of your lungs with a shop vac that might cure you? No, let’s dip your head in hot melted wax while ram-rodding your asshole with a pack of spearmint gum. No, let’s peel back your toe nails and implant baby kitten tongues underneath them and tape them back on your feet. No, lets just use radiation and a couple aspirin. Up next you get to wander through the quick sand vacuum of time waiting for test results and if you are lucky it will end up being someone else’s results because it is truly amazing how many times hospital staffers make those kind of mistakes. Now you are permitted to leave the doctors office, chin on chest but just for a moment, then eyes up to the sky being thankful for all the great years and hop in your big four wheel drive pickup and cry like a little bitch. Honey, I’m home. Now you tell me what just happened to the last 13 years of your life.

I am going to wrap this up now and just want to offer this one last thought – Don’t take things so seriously. In the end, it’s just the end.

Announcer: This has been an official message from Stingray, the Benevolent Dictator. That is all.

(People continue to mingle, smoke, enjoy the complimentary cocktail bar and hookah lounge, etc. Dick returns with a spaced-out, non-holographic Mark Kingsley, a bit worse for wear.)