The American Dying Grounds

Florida is the American dying grounds. Dress it up how you will but this is where our people go to finish out their lives. The modern corporate state needs lots of workers and once the workers are finished they go down into the boot of the country to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune and wait to die. Of course American retirement is not painted this way. It is painted as the Golden years or the time to do what we want. But Florida belies the lie. Here is where people are parked under a tropical sun among the alligators and swamps.

It is our modern Casa Blanc with no flight out except for one. The final flight to the great unknown. And so there is no culture. There is only what people bring to the dying grounds and  while away their time trying not to become senilitic. Because America is for the young. On this we can agree and our country has a funny way of disposing of old people. Forget the Death Panels of Obamacare. The Death Panels were here long before in the form of a people without purpose in a land without soul under a scorching sun.

We are a funny country. We have decided in the American Dream our lives should begin at the end. In truth our lives are what we live during the working years. This is the real retirement in all its connotations. This is the best years of our lives. Banished to Walt Disney's Swampland with nothing to do for years on end is the hell capitalism has created and sold to people looking for the golden watch at the end.

And so we will play Bachi ball and smoke our cigars and drink our wine and watch the sunset. Take our meds and get our operations and trundle down to the Southern most tip of America. The great boot full of the last gasp of our collective effort; the American dying grounds.

Rocket Man...the American Dream upside down

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

Disney has changed

Some would call it a horror. Some would call it a Mecca. Some would call it a hell of a good time. But lurking under that vision of Mickey Mouse child-dom is an amusement park. And every amusement park has a bit of the carney lurking in the corners. The guy with no teeth running the rides or the trucks blasting diesel smoke from a generator in the back. And Disney is no exception except everyone does have teeth and there are no diesel generators. What there is is thousands of people and millions upon million in infrastructure to keep the illusion in place

And it is all about buying ultimately. You buy to get in there and once inside you continue buying everything. It is the Mecca of American consumerism...the manna of all the pitches you heard as a kid now attached to every product under the sun. And the middle class is buried somewhere under all this branding as they trudge from one ride to another eating pretty bad overpriced food and buying Mickey Mouse ears for themselves, their kids, grandmothers. And yet this is what everyone came for.

And Disney world is for kids and there is magic. Maybe not in the over run cafeteria style foodaramas where things get a little disgusting or in the hip hop music where kids are doing the Harlem Slide or singing lyrics that are really all about sex. But Disney has had to morph to popular culture because Disney's blood is popular culture and so the thump thump thump of gangsta rap rewritten into something more palatable for families chases you as you run from one mile long line to another and wait for hours for ten minutes of pleasure.

And as the fireworks break over Magic Kingdom you think maybe it was always this way. Maybe Disney World has not changed at all.
Maybe we have.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
Rocket Man...the American dream upside down