So there I was, on vacation in Los Angeles, ready to gorge myself on the holy grail of meat: Bacon. After a long night of hearing salespeople gripe about their jobs and reminding people that we don't ride polar bears to work in Canada, I was ready to indulge in a salty fiesta known as a breakfast buffet. While preparing to approach the meat tray and carefully placing a second napkin on my table to wipe my brow clean of the meat sweats, I couldn't shake the repetitive chant of Michael Phelps that echoed through the cavernous breakfast hall.
The evening before I had spent at the hotel bar, quietly sipping my beer and listening to the collective pride in the crowd's champion, a half man, half fish, gold metal hauling athlete. I seemed to be the only one there who noticed the scrolling news ticker below the olympics advertising Bush's negative stance on the Russian invasion of Georgia. Not surprising, seeing as the oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea runs directly through Georgia. I wonder if the conflict would have even made the news if the Blackwater guarded U.S. initiative to run a pipeline through unstable countries to avoid having to buy exported Russian Oil was a real alternative.
I began to wonder if people realized what herded, pampered pawns they were in the grand scheme. Urged to quit smoking, be active and meet the media's image of the perfect human, American culture seems to push people to aspire to be great physical beings like the fish-man while the left hand is pumping their kids full of super-sized salt burgers and 3 pounds of diabetes inducing sugar. I wonder if they teach the word hypocrite in American schools. Of course I digress into sheer stereotypes, but it's hard not to in this image-centric population.
As I turned the page on USA Today, I saw a picture of Oakley wearing soldiers, standing around in Iraq. They also were well built, looked healthy, as you'd expect from the well-oiled military machine. But no-one was cheering for them in the bar, just the athletes. To me, this "Quick, look over here, it's a fish-man, ignore that war thing" looked like it was working quite well, though somewhat disconcerting. Although those soldiers may or may not be fighting for a good cause, they're fighting, and perhaps it might be worthwile to draw some attention to them and make them feel like they are appreciated. Either that or add limpet mines to the free swim event.
Surrounded by overweight sales people, super-sized children and a culture of violence and decadence, I steeled myself to push through the sweaty crowd to the bacon trough and loaded my plate up with as much of the shiny, crispy, chewey goodness as I could. As soon as I managed to maneuver myself to my four-person table for one, I plopped myself down and popped a slice into my mouth. It was horrible. I couldn't even bring myself to try another slice, something had gone very very wrong somewhere between the sty and the metal heating container. Making bacon bad was something I thought was a technical impossibility, but someone had managed. Amidst all the gorging, killing and hypocrisy, lost was a carnal pleasure second to none. A tear ran down my cheek as I stood up and took leave of this proud but misguided dining populace.
