to feel the pleasure of designer-led nothingness. to ease the pressure of your own unattractiveness. a pleasant enough illusion if it gets you there. please remain silent and take a chair. you know you’re guilty but you think it unfair. the fault lies elsewhere. with tight laced neurotics harboring despair. dark smart and dangerous. charismatic corruptor of the mellow and the mediocre. magic will deceive you. beauty will relieve you. no rational reason given. snake bites and road rage. what has this to do with me and my civilized life. black magic and scented skin. you call it sorcery. but i call it healing. it now seems so improbable that we could be so gullible. that we could be so cull-able. yet we still are today. begin your book now. write it down. it might be art. though it only means something when you pull it apart. or make that half squint-sneer. and you look so ugly. but feel so smart. write fast and loud to cover the noise of self interest and the flat-bellied promise of fame. refuse applause. especially your own. you’re willingly weak. hopelessly meek. imperfections prove your humanity. cleverly you develop this notion of smart but damaged. a timely distraction. carefully managed. adjusted a fraction. a small lie to disguise the onset of the ordinary. and while our hero. unglamorously drunk and implicitly evil. strives for redemption from a floundering life. he is insisted and often short-listed as simperingly worthwhile. it’s a common condition. confusing fact and fiction. and a slurred diction. and lets his redemption slip by. it’s just so much delusion. but it makes you happy. an understandable confusion. money is the god i’m told. culture can be bought and sold. art is too elite and cold. and love is a million dollars. all the riches you can hold. all the paths on which you’ve strolled. have all been rolled. in silver and gold. and you’ve been told. that love is a million dollars. and everything can be bought and sold. and god is in your hand. don’t fold.