Hell settled over the land. Commerce, idleness, beating "a coercive utopian" with a bone. When the hierarchy of employee/management relations did more to push along the gray crud "of unpleasant jobs" and the cops talked into their radio as they went down to investigate "drunk & disorderly conduct" in the parking lot of Walmart. Such a mega-store of wholesale goods was like a beacon for "your tired, your hungry, your homesick". . . . . like the plaque on the bottom of The Statue of Liberty with democracy's promise. "A bone" thrown to the grunts, like a Nike basketball court at corporate headquarters made out of recycled shoe soles and token charitable giving.

Employees had a smoke outside of the complex with cynical, greasy expressions-- adding "a circus energy" to the concession stand through the automatic doors with the cheerfully "cookie-cutter" image of blown-up cheesedogs and soft pretzels as the hangdog, black help flashed dim-eyed, toothy grins and filled a Styrofoam cup full of this cola-war-of-the-month's flavor. The major players, Coke & Pepsi, were trying to corner the market like rival drug gangs all but bludgeoning each other with distribution contracts and celebrity endorsements before their prize race horses in fame's corner dropped dead of narcotics that were definitely not found in soda cans.

I bought a watch-- as one circled around a cluster of jewel cases with chintzy cotton and far few items that were packed with the dull gleam of "1000 gross" glitter like a low man's lyric.

If this was a "working poor" area near the city, it was really no different than a shopping center out in the rural wastelands . . . . . when a country music awards show has a special guest like Jamie Foxx making the rounds, there to cross-promote his new comedy album of low-man buffoonery in a blend of corporate "synergy" that at the same time tries to erase some of the stigma of "cracker croonin'" for primetime.

Whatever. . . . . the midtown bar crowd wasn't buying it. Whatever passed beyond the "Square C" gaze of what you wanted to call those who looked about two cuts below the Brad Pitt/Kaeto Kaelin crowd of the world dabbing their hairy fingers in a plate of nachos and carrying on a conversation with a leer-faced trollop with dyed red hair and a black strap dress as they brushed back their blonde locks and looked up at "The Home Run Derby". This was theoretically "democracy in action". . . . . that everyone had an equal chance, even the guy from the gym who looked like Ted Kacyniski out jogging in sweatpants under the orange sodium-arc lights and sparkling sidewalk in some strange, random moment when "Kaeto" swivels his head around his shoulder before going back inside to entertain a trio of women who sit on his couch like emotional splotches of Exercycle-bait.

It's "Hootie & The Blow-Jobs" on "David Leno-man" with those soul-papa vocals and omnipresent golf cart and low-key threads from the local mall and the slap-bass of Jerry Seinfeld's penurious whining that hit you in the nostrils like taxi exhaust and taste like watery issues of "MAD" magazine, if not stale boxes of cereal-- dusty and sticky as this seemed to be the state of the nation, the consensus narrative that wasn't getting anymore hopeful.

Make a muckety face. . . . . and suppose this was all there was.