Captain’s Logos

Sagely recited by the lead singer of Everlong; or was it Everclear? Everlast? Anyways, the point of the song is that we (we being white collar, WASP, suburban, naive to the real plight of people Americans) are so quick to pass judgement upon those on 'the other side of the tracks'. Those degenerates who are doing cheap and dangerous drugs, killing one another, holding up liquor stores, and we scorn them and their ways. BUT if we were to walk a mile in their shoes, well then we would really know what it's like to have the blues (or play to lose? drink the booze? Anyways.)

Well I have lived, for the last 20 odd days (odd in every sense of the word), on the other side of the tracks. You see, due to an unfortunate cultural phenomenon that is equivalent to manifest destiny on crystal meth, everyone and their 2.34 children have moved to California, which has effectively made housing prices skyrocket out of missile range much less first-time buyers, which has created a massive urban sprawl that creeps daily into the outerlying cities, one of which where I used to live (Valencia? Anyone?), which boosts our housing to insane levels, and the upshoot is that it puts me smack dab in the middle of a trailer park, in an even further outerlying city (Los Angeles? Yeah, I think you head down about 60 miles from here. Gosh I'm not really sure. You sure you mean Los Angeles???), and paying $600 dollars a month rent (yes, $600 is inordinately expensive for a room in a trailer park) and sharing a doublewide with a 47 year old woman named Theresa, who I have determined is a real life witch, or maybe wicca, and her two cats. And everything smells like smoke and vinegar.

Now that I'm moving out, I can be a little bit more casual about the plight I was in, before it would just make me too depressed.

But the point here is not to draw attention to my calamity, although that is certainly an important thing to do, the point is to say that maybe in some way, I DID walk a mile in the shoes of others. And I didn't really learn anything. So my point, I guess, is that you can't trust the message that pop music is sending, which is sort of a given.

Nuts.