Bravo, Capitan Obvious

I don’t have a bicycle. I remember when I had so wanted one and when I had one and wished it was better and when I’d stopped using it and wished I had the time to start again. I don’t have a bicycle anymore.
In cities such as this, it doesn’t matter what kind of vehicle you commandeer, you will eventually, knowingly or otherwise, willingly or otherwise, become a pestilence to the general public. Everyone tends to think that they are above average drivers, but the truth is, it doesn’t matter. Even if you did turn out to be above average, it only takes one ignorant dick to put that huge dent in your fender or his. Or hers.

One needn’t leave the city and then return to realize the awful state of our roads. Every day that you spend navigating the traffic gives you fresh instances of plain old moronicity. Pedestrians from hell… ineffective traffic police… and an unholy abundance of vehicles great and small. Tin-box buses that threaten to either explode or just come crashing down as they shake, rattle and rumble their way down the street. Auto-rickshaws that turn on a dime to reverse their direction of momentum; probably the most manoeuvrable machines in the universe, strangely beautiful and at the same time, utterly disgusting. And it’s amazing how many people can get their clunky two wheelers over foot high lane dividers just to beat a traffic signal.
On the whole, we tend to have absolutely NO traffic- (or for that matter, good-) sense at all. I don’t know if it’s something in the water, but it is something alright. After 10:00 am, one can just expect every traffic signal encountered to be completely choked for the remainder of the day. An ever increasing population coupled with a similarly rising economy leads to more and more vehicles vying for space that each believes it truly deserves. You will see construction workers on rickety bicycles with the exact carefree attitude that allows them to swerve across the street without so much as a backward glance at the traffic they are displacing behind them. At the same time, the Lords will take their chauffeured luxury cars down the narrowest of streets, incessantly blowing their horns for the lowly to make room.
Frustrating, disillusioning, blood-boiling affairs, but if one is ruffled by them, or so perturbed that one is afraid to experience it again, then one should understand that one has not the smallest right to live in this city, or indeed, country. For it is our given nature to live and grow in the midst of chaos and, by the looks of it, we are thriving.

Change topic: Celebrities. I often wonder what makes a celebrity… I supposed that you need to be ‘celebrated’ to be a celebrity. Wrong. Today says that if a whole lot of people know your name because/and if your paycheck/inheritance is made public… turns out you’re already a celebrity. Oh, and it also helps if you can entertain in some way. That comes in handy if you’re ever asked to justify why so many people should register your name in the parking lot of their mindspace.
But really, with all the people who are becoming famous overnight, I would imagine it’s sort of unnerving, even despicably unfair, for the already famous folk. They may well have had to work their way up through the layers of their respective industries by way of years of hard work/talent and agents of varying degrees and then suddenly in walks Johnny two-shoes with his unconvincing hairstyle and annoying confidence, rubbing shoulders with them after a stylist and two months of appearing on some sort of talent-search television show. From no-name to first-name basis with Jim Carrey.
And since I’m near the topic, I may as well go on a bit about TV: TV is boring. TV is a synonym for boring. TV equals reruns and reality shows, the instant success quickfix everything pill. The instant celebrity sea-monkey squad, except without the “sea” part…
Once you get used to the barrage of sub-quality offerings, even a moderately different idea seems interesting, effectively glorifying what would have otherwise been relegated to the halls of mediocrity.

Fin.


“You’ve got me...? Who’s got you?!” – Lois

New fav: Ellen Page

Donovan Leitch – Hurdy Gurdy Man
Iron Butterfly – In A Gadda Da Vida