Wall Crickets

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

The crickets chirp at all hours of the day. They were born in between the walls. Trapped. They live inside the walls until their death. Unable to get out. Unable to tell what time it is because of the perpetual darkness, so they chirp at all hours of the day and night and day. The outdoor crickets wait until sundown to sing and communicate. The wall crickets are trapped for their eternity, singing the blues at sunrise and sunset, and all hours in between. Sometimes it's as bad and disjointed as a Scritti Politti record, other nights it has the anger yet potent complexity of a Charlie Mingus symphony.

What would happen if there was infinite darkness? Eventually humans would evolve to see in the dark. Like cats and other nocturnal hunters that adapted for millions of years.

The promotional machine is a hungry creature. Constantly starving yet purposely drowning us in sensory overload. The vanity empowers those on the fringe of the culture. The undercurrent is a toxic stream of desire and uncloaked greed masking as ambition.

What is the cultural function of the media again? Wasn't it supposed to be the watchers watching the watchers kinda of thing?

It used to be the watchdog that protected the people from any nefarious doings by the powers that be. These days, the bulk of the media is owned by the powers that be, which is why the majority of what passes as "news" is thinly veiled celebrity gossip and very little concrete information that keeps the public informed about what's really going on.

The who, what, when, and how no longer apply to the deeds of politicians, rather, it's to fill in answers to vapid questions like who is fucking who. What drugs is the starlet du jour taking. When is the next hyped film coming out. And how much longer do we have to wait to get devoured by yet another celebrity scandal.

The primary objective is something out of Sun Tzu or Machiavelli. Most of what I see coming out of the media pipe is nothing but noise to confuse and intimidate us by overloading on fearful things or sentimental things. Sometimes they press the proper buttons -- fear of losing something sentimental.

Some day the masses won't be shy anymore and finally wake up. At least, that's my sincere hope that these doldrums finally pass. And like the crickets banished to life in between the walls, our only choice is to sing anyway in the perpetual darkness. Some day, we'll come together as a unified and animated front and unmask out true emotions. That will be the day when the entire culture breaks down what seemed to be impenetrable barriers that the charlatans constructed to keep us as far away from them as possible.

All and all, we're just another cricket stuck in the wall.