State Religion

We want a new state religion—without the state or the religion, just an extra dose of the thoughtless passion.

When I arrive at the bottom of this page there will be thunder and earth-shuddering vibration—all the way down to hell in jackhammer headphones.

Concentrate your troops in my vitrines—the clodhopping Russians are coming and they’re unbathed—the lissome Chinese are fractionizing and there are days full of post-Colombian exchanges in cider houses. Bureaucracy comes significantly later—when you read a damned book for a change. There’s a perfunctory and nutritionless American meal to eat.

You decide to desecrate the Great American Songbook by playing piano scrolls backward through a revolving cylinder in a thrift store music box. The cylinder is missing its steel teeth and comb but we both hum loudly and out of tune. You say you want to hear some of the great stories behind the songs while playing a prepared piano.

I say I’d rather hear it with a prerecorded jazz trio accompaniment—the kind you used to hear at a Sunday brunch featuring watery eggs and cigarette butts in half-consumed mimosas. And if we’re lucky we may get a dissertation on megadroughts from the waiter who holds a PhD in Hegemonic Drip Studies.

This, we decide, is a forgettable meal. This, we decide, is a grand start to a state religion.

What I’m Listening To:

“I love my country stupid and cruel
Red, white, and blue…
All you have to do is sing in the choir
Kill yourself every once in a while…”

— Wilco / “Cruel Country”