I imagine that there are many, many times when individuals and groups of individuals have said to themselves, “How did I/we get here?” People standing in court; people ducking bullets and bombs, trembling under the heavy hand of a degenerate fix, standing by a coffin, waiting for midnight and the footsteps of the guards and the priest. It’s happening every day somewhere. Every day midnight approaches. Every day the storm clouds threaten and somewhere the sun breaks through. Simultaneously these events occur.
These destinies come to nations and cultures as well. Even the revisionist histories of the time record the dates and events, even if the reasons given are not the reasons why. The armies of Wall Street muster at Waterloo. A nation taps its feet in a cosmic toilet. Cartoon characters climb out of cisterns and take over the government. The band plays Amazing Grace as the ship goes down. It really is a movie. It’s a slow movie that escapes the common view but it’s a movie.
No matter what time period you find yourself in, the movie is basically the same. Different things happen to different people. Yesterday it was Tiny doing Slim. Today it’s Slim doing Tiny. Yesterday they were wearing robes, now they’re wearing suits. Yesterday they were throwing rocks, now they’re using guns. There’s always a good reason. The people upstream are urinating in the river. Downstream they are saying the same thing. The reason is never the reason; somebody done somebody wrong.
The film traps the images and the images cannot escape the film. The film plays on a projected canvas and it plays inside the mind. Everything is made out of the same thing; the film and the characters, the backdrops and the objects, the air, the light, the darkness... they are all composed of the same substance that has been particularized by vibration which sets them apart so that interaction can take place and it is all the same substance diversified for the benefit of the movie which loops through the same events with different costumes that the characters exchange with each other after every scene.
How did we get here? We went the same way we always go. We followed the beaten path and here we are. Some say it’s conditioning and some say it’s human nature. Some say it’s destiny and some say it’s fate. Some say it’s God’s will and some say there is no God. It doesn’t make any difference what they say. Surely what waits is affected by what they do but some say they have no control over that either.
Laws circumscribe behavior and then demand the proscribed behavior because the government requires it on some killing field that was drawn by architects who worked for a company funded by banks. Some will tell you that it’s a collective thing because we are all stockholders and we all have a voice and no one is to blame except for the other guys on the visitors end who took the football when we weren’t looking so now we’ve got to take it back and if we score then we’ll kick it off to them again. “Oh, is that what we did? I thought they just took it.”
It’s wrong to notice all of the exposed legs and tight asses crawling with sub dermal snakes under the flexible skin. It’s okay to jackhammer that ass if you get the certificate from the conjugal union rep but it’s not okay to just take it because it was yoke-robbing your eyes. You can’t look even though that’s the point of the design. You shouldn’t even know that it is there although it’s been engineered that way to get your attention. If the pressure builds and something happens it’s your fault because you should have shown more control. Even if the veal is in the deli case you’re not supposed to put it in your cart even if it is for sale. Everybody is somebody’s mother. Everybody is somebody’s daughter. Everybody is dreaming about everybody but they are only dreaming about themselves because everything is made out of the same thing for the purpose of the movie.
It’s okay to do everything that is forbidden if it’s your turn at the top of the wheel or if you are at war. The reason it’s okay is that it will be happening to you in the next reel when it’s your turn in the barrel.
You climb into the movie out of a hole and then spend the whole movie trying to get back into different holes made out of the same thing until they put you in a hole. Everything is designed according to the idea that industry and effort will keep you out of a hole. So you accumulate as much frozen green energy or other people’s lives as you can get in order to block the hole and then they put you into the hole anyway. The hole of life is the hole of death and the fear and fascination are equally matched except when they are not because the push at one end eventually becomes the pull of the other.
There are some several who find out how to fix the process so that it doesn’t move. They manage to make it stationary like a planet in space but the planet still moves on a course around the lamp. Some several have located the heat source and the regulator. There are secret systems but they are surrounded by howling voids. Mostly no one looks anyway and sometimes it can get so cacophonous that even the best efforts are not enough. Then there are special chemicals that you can take which burn away the heavy theater curtains but they are against the law because the presence of the minds that experience it draw attention from the workers who turn the giant wheels that operate the projectors and create the environment of the movie.
Everybody is waiting in line for their opportunity to be the leader of the band, the hero or the villain, the lover or the loved. It can be a long wait. All sorts of talents have to become automatic. An appearance has to be shaped and it has to be the prevailing appearance that draws all of the hearts and minds into the chosen presentation that validates any action taken because the rules are suspended for the star of the show. It’s just what we all wish we’d done and want to do and it is usually against the law but it turns out different for the star of the show. It’s heartbreaking to wait so it is unlikely that any star at any time is going to turn around and tell the audience that the movie isn’t real. This is their moment. And then it’s gone. “Next.”
Everybody gets to be everybody and hardly anybody gets it. It’s here and it’s what it is and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else but here so it must be real. It must be the way that it is because it is the way that it is. Woe to anyone who seeks to point it out or change it.
In the movies anything can be possible and the potential for anywhere being here is just a matter of scenery and costumes. There are many who make their way in this world while living in another until that world is more real than this world which isn’t real at all.
How to say the thing that might be said is a very good question. If it could be said then it might be said right here, right now. Unfortunately, even if it were possible to say it, it would sound different to everyone who heard it and then... well then some appetite is going to kick in anyway and off they go into the movie, dreaming about the day they get to walk out on the stage. As much as they dream... and they all dream... they only dream... they never dream about the day they walk off the stage and get back into line.
'Camouflage' is track no. 8 of 8 on Visible and The Critical List's 1987 album
'La Vierge Sperme Danceur'
About this song (pops up)
