|
"Without individuals we see only numbers: a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, "casualties may rise to a million." With individual stories, the statistics become people- but even that is a lie, for the people come to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless. Look, see the child's swollen, swolen belly, and the flies that crawl at the corners of his eyes, his skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for you to know his name, his age, his dreams, his fears? To see him from inside? And if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in searing dust beside him, a distorted, distended caricature of a human child? And there, if we feel for them, are they now more important to us than a thousand other children touched by te same famine, a thousand other young lives who soon will be food for the flies' own myriad squirming children?
that is an exerpt from American Gods by Mr. Neil Gaiman, so what exactly is my point in that?
well it's like this: I am now going to hell and it is all aalyiah's fault. i blame her for my damnnation.
seriously.
she died, and i work at a corporate c.d. store.
Her death means nothing to me personally. while yes, it is sad a young girl died in a plain crash i wont say it isn't a shame. but it still means absolutly nothing to me.
i did not know her, i was not close to her, her music has not touched me, i don't like her music. her death does not cause waves in my happy little pond. yet, there are people who for some reason have horrible musical taste and are sad she is gone. i want to repeat the trade off that she will never again make an album i will have to suffer through is no real trade for the loss of a young life, but when the middle aged african american man comes into my store and buys her latest album and says it's a shame and a tragic loss what am i supposed to do?
i'm not going to say "well sir it's ok she sucked, why don't you go buy the new better than ezra." i would get fired if i did something like that, seeing as my manager was a fan.
my point- i have get a sympathetic smile and say "yes sir, it sure is."
i am going to hell for lying, and corprate america has set it up that if i kept my soul i would not prosper. however if the girl would just have used a tour bus, she would be alive and i would not be forced to lie to keep my job.
maybe i just need to get a job at a record store like john cusack had in high fidelity where i wont have to lie and when the guy comes in saying what a shame it is and what a loss, i can look up at him from my worn out copy of Johhny the Homicidal Maniac and say "sir, it's a shame i have a boil on my left ass cheek, it's tragic 2pak is still releasing albums from beyond the grave, i'm sorry you have no musical taste, but as far as i'm concered about aalyiah i am going to go home after my shift and sleep just fine without giving her a single thought."
i want a job where i can get away wiht saying stuff like that to the customers.
that would kick ass.
in retrospect of all the great musicians who have died and been a loss me and my assistant manager where speaking. what has aalyiah doen to infuence the musical community, who has she insired? you want to talk about loss talk about kurt and jimmy and john. and if you want to talk about aircrashes talk Buddy Holly.
but come on, don't give me this aalyiah crap, i mean come on, she was no rick nelson.
|
