Editor’s Note: Marlow put his fingers on something I think is profound in his response to yesterday’s fanciful piece on garden Gnomes. I went out this morning to ask Al about his thoughts as the resident house Gnome. He was phlegmatic:
Re: Gnomes

I had the same reaction to this latest in America’s unending crazytrain of violence. And today, it’s the usual wall to wall coverage of it courtesy of our media. It’s a new American cult — one of criminal celebrity.

To outsiders who watch our media, America has become a grotesque, drag queen disfigured, freakish nightclub act via its 24/7 social media. These criminal celebrity actors publicly preen away before and after their bursting onto the American media stage with their violence as the self styled “most beautiful/righteous person in the world.” They openly announce long before the event their camera call for the close up scenes of their life.

Before their violent acts, they jump up and down on social media trampolines, tear into their perceived enemies verbally as if rolling around and writhing on stage. We sit there in our small cribs and watch them as if their pre-violent outbursts are some form of harmless mental masturbation. We silently assert that they are just fondling their innermost urges. Some of the perps even post images with guns and killing poses.

Their eventual violence is foretold to their social media audiences often times via multiple platforms and mediums.

These lumpen masses take our indifference and inaction as applause. They respond, “Thank you! I love you! Thank you from the bottom of my black little heart! You come here daily to this public site for some excitement and that’s just what you’re going to get! Take a good look at ME because I’m going to be the lead of every newspaper, website and cable TV channel news program in this country real soon! You’re looking at crime personified AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT! I called the FBI about the Russians in 2015. I buy the guns that assassins use to shoot innocents. I have affairs and obsessions . . . I spy and hack for both the good guys and the bad guys since the latter pay better. And I’m so freaking good looking I can’t stand it myself! But you won’t freeze until after the shooting stops. And then only briefly. So who wants to be famous? Who wants to DIE for my art?”

Only none of their audience members leap up to shout “I do!” But, they shoot them anyways.

Those deeply scarred, glory seeking killers who survive their mass murder events consider their eventual court ordered executions as their lives’ final big events. Many see their death as their greatest accomplishment and believe it ensures that their legend will live on.

Someday, if our media has its way, these sanctioned deaths will be be filmed and streamed to web as the killer’s ersatz final curtain call and the most theatrical moments of our diversion-centered life.

These award winning performances and large “fan” witness numbers will someday see an “acceptance speech” disguised as they convicted’s final words:

“I’d like to thank all the wonderful people that made this greatest moment in my life come true. My mom Cynthia, who died at my hands in order to get my career off on its start that long ago morning. My coworkers and deceased friends A and W who for obvious reasons couldn’t be here with me today. All the other innocent bystanders who died so fashionably and gallantly at my former workplace and at the nearby coffee shop. And especially all those wonderful people who have been good enough to binge watch my multi-part series in the newspapers and on TV and the web. Without all of you passively watching, my acting out career could never have gotten this far. It is you that I burn for and it is you that I will now die for! Please remember, I love every freaking one of you!”

It was so much simpler when all we had to amuse us was garden gnomes and such. Plus gnomes last a lot longer than mere media podcasts.

Marlow
Copyright 2018 Vic Socotra and My Isle Seat
www.vicsocotra.com