There's Always Helping

Commercials weird me out.  And I'm not talking purely about the socio-economic trend catch puke element.  Though--for sure--that's totally upsetting too.  Often what scares me is the journeymen actors they utilize.  You see these nameless and yet totally recognizable people in several scenarios and environments.  There's that guy who fills the "I'm a somewhat emasculated middle-class father but I'm also African-American" role.  There's the scamp white guy with usually kind of spiky dirty blond hair.  The capricious brunette with the silky if somewhat nervous voice.  I'm not talking about niche tropes--I'm talking about type-casting.  These people always play the same role with zero glamor justifying it.  Sometimes I find myself excited to see the same actor in a different commercial.  There's this anonymous dependability in it.  They have no ethos--these actors.  There's no branding and they're really just tradesmen.  I don't know if they all hang out with each other--if certain career commercial actors have complicated above ground relationships they shoulder for professionalism regardless of the outcome.  I don't know what list of celebrity they're on--if they go to award shows.  I don't know if they have bigger aspirations.  I guess I just feel like it's honest.  Let's be real here--no one reading this really respects acting as an art form on the same level as say--poetry or cello playing.  Something so purely ego-driven and predicated on falsehood is ugly to those of us who fare the ocean of abstract profundity.  And so these people are just people.  Playing the person they really aren't but embody so well.  And I guess these roles that these people play seem really hard and really contemporary and true to form.  How does that one lady play someone who's so obviously befuddled by everything and yet finally satisfied by figuring out what she wants so well.  Every time.  Regardless of whether the product is at a party or an insurance office or an artificial endless white plane.  And I recognize her and yet go into the commercial thinking "man--she never has any idea what she wants! Uggghhh."  But I recognize her because every time I see her she figures out what she wants and its a really big deal to her.  Whether that be toothpaste or Becks.  Tabula Rasa is hard to cultivate in me but these actors do it.  Albeit for a dollar.  But they get results goddammit.  Which is not to say that I brush my teeth or drink beer.  You'd have to live with me to know those things.  But I guess I respect them for doing their thing.  At least partially.  

Face

Now: the tide is out and I'm able to walk out on the rocks right up to the piles where a pier once was. The piles stick out of the water like arms and they look sinister in the faraway light of the refineries. When I got here someone had just left. They had made a fire and left the coals still burning. I threw damp cardboard from an empty thirty rack onto the coals to see if it would catch. It made a lot of disgusting smoke and the scent of scorched thirty rack filled the tiny peninsula.

Anyway, the tide is out and I'm not here alone but I'm pretending I am because I'm in love with feeling sorry for myself.  Did you know that people listen to music on their cell phones now? No headphones or anything. The cell phones have their own speakers.

Later: my kitchen table is full of people and I don't know what anyone's talking about because I keep pacing back and forth between the table and my room, staying occupied. I'm avoiding looking directly at you because your face is crazy. You have the craziest looking face and I don't think I've ever seen anyone look at me the way you're looking at me right now. And you've looked at me a hundred different ways and each one makes me feel like my organs are sweating. Like my organs are sweating? Fuck.

People my age who write music write mostly about love. And I hate that because I do too. Not music. You understand.

And then: we're eating brunch. We're eating fucking brunch in a stupid brunch place and I'm trying to tell you that I only eat cold food now which isn't true and seemed funnier before I said it. There's something really self-aware about restaurants that specialize in brunch. I don't know how to say it. It's something like:

"We know you're the type of person that gets brunch on a weekday. Even if you keep trying to tell yourself you're not, we know you are because you're here and we can see you and we're going to refill your water glass pretty soon."

This content is only relevant to the type of person I despise but don't worry, I'm one of you.

You know we have a lot to talk about right? You know we're going to have to actually talk right?