Highball on the Edge of the Wasteland

My chair is poised on a balcony above the main floor of Waterloo station; I’m between trains, and on the brink of the afternoon 5years 11 months and exactly 12hrs into the third millennia, jacked into the network. Between juggling text messages on my mobile, emails on my computer and filtering the miscelaneous conductor messages of the loudspeaker, all while sipping a Texas sized espresso, I sit here watching the crowd surge and pulse from place to place, oblivious to the fact that they are no longer in charge of their own destiny, if indeed they ever were.

Modernity critics often liken the experience to a high speed train that will never slow down and only get faster or like Thompson who contends that it “not a train, but a plane, and in the past we all wondered who was flying it, but now we know, no one.” Little did that poor bastard who pushed the starter button and then mashed the throttle into floor realize or care that what he started will eventually spell our doom. You see sports fans, quantum physics demands that as a body increases in velocity towards the speed of light, its mass follows suite but at higher rate, so once velocity terminal, mass equals infinity; now picture what happens if that body suddenly slams to a stop. Einstein wrote this out as

E = mc2

And when Robert Oppenheimer tested this theory, he was reduced into reciting ancient Hindu poetry about becoming death, shatterer of worlds. And if I were to gamble (and I have 50 quid on the Mayans in 2012—any takers?), I’d call long odds of this ending in a mass of twisted burning steel writhing at the bottom of the abyss.

London is a culture of speed. I don’t mean in the metaphorical sense that we are always on our cellies and crackberries (we are) moving quickly through a highly urban, sophisticated environment; we’re on the chop that shit up on the dinner table and snort it through a slurpy straw kind…and this is okay for a culture unless you push it too hard for too long, until the neurons start popping like frogs on a hot plate. Then all that’s left is a meaningless wasteland of signs pointing to signs or in the Baudrillardian sense, simulacra of simulacra and jello for a brain and conscious. It’s already bad for us junkies who get our fix not by plugging, but free-jacking into a better faster day; adrenaline sluts whose heart palipitates each time jump the gate into the network. Slowing down is not an option, only faster, harder until the images fly by leaving sparks in their con-trails. But dear readers this anti-socialist escape is really the vanguard. Raise your hand if you used your i-pod today—

Some call this post-modern, others hyper-modern, me, pre-apocalypse, and if you want to know what its like to get off, pull the breaks in the middle of the morning rush try it. You get stomped, and I’ll be the first in line to step on your throat. And neither your neighbors nor modernity itself cares enough to not help. I was talking to a bloke in the bar yester morning while waiting for the trains and asked him how he coped: “Easy, take two aspirins with your coffee each morning” and handed me a vile of Bayer. He knew the score.

Last night was Halloween, making today the days of the dead, which is about right, but instead of celebrating our ancestors, lets mourn our-selves; culture wars are never good; the lower denominators won’t be that way for long, and they’re getting ready to swing an epic meat bat, and just like the bond traders of the 80’s the goal is to be the BSD. Gotta love the game of chic cultural cool.

The pace of the station is now a frenetic buzz, and I’ve switched from coffee to a can of Stella that handed to me by someone else who smuggled a case into the bar; I don’t think management is going to say a word though, I feared declining this beer from this townie, but am thankful, it’s helping me compensate for the motion below.

I fear I’ve gone off course here, so let me return to normalcy. My position in all of this is purely a subjective view of reality, for no other reason than its funny, and I will go to great lengths to ensure participating in something funny. We have no choice in matter anyway so we might as well ride this one to the bitter bloody end and then pull up chair and have a cocktail to watch them sort through the wreckage of the 21 century—any takers on this bet?

And as final note, if any of you can sort through this jibberish then I’ll give you 5 to 1—Mayans 2012—(though I’ll double down and bet spread with enough points) this ought to keep “Bored in Athens” busy for at least an hour

Thanks for reading
Ben.