Suburban Wondersick Blues

It is truly a strange place out in the suburbs of middle America. Out on the fringes of what is ignorantly considered city, once a loose collection of small, proudly small, towns. Recently, at least in many minds, ghastly forms of plastic and concrete have continued to eerily spread across every highway, street, and back-road, filling in the gaps between once distinct communities with cheap and unsupportive, mass retail chains. Plus, everyone agrees traffic is getting to be a real bitch.

There are many reasons Indianapolis is failing as a city, not simply the nasty car cramping. They’re raising taxes again. Schools are still worthless. Higher education costs are soaring like space falcons. The roads absolutely suck. Crime has been dangerously rising. Foreclose rates are alarming. Don’t think Indiana is the only city performing miserably. The government halls in the Breadbasket are just as inept as those in D.C.

Perhaps the reason Indianapolis is failing is because it’s unable to assimilate the growing population of people unlike, and yes, some poorer than, what this city had blissfully dreamed would be moving into the neighborhood. Big city problems, tiny minded ideas for solutions. There are some of us who mock the folk who settled down in these regions too harshly. Do we really believe they’ve bought into more of the lies and commercialist , pointless bullshit than the rest of us? Seems like we’re telling ourselves equally hypocritical lies because we’re unable to understand this massive fabric of the American Quilt.

The stillness is unsettling. Suburban quiet is unlike any quiet in the world. The murmur of inner city pavement is comforting. Somehow the whisperless air of the suburbs is darker than even the honest, untamed wilderness. The presence of thousands of souls, ready to rise, commute and purchase at sunrise, creates an atmosphere of teetering insanity. Each oddly familiar home is a building block for the American dream, inside are smaller blocks eager to create smaller blocks and build more, more, more.

And this is life. This is what each and everyday is like for millions of hardworking Americans trying to grind out a meager existence in a corrupt country they so desperately need to believe in, clutching a savior they so desperately need to protect them, blindly following leaders they so desperately need to lead them.

But don’t forget that old story so many people around here could tell you: Don’t go casting stones unless you’re without sin. And if you’re not working to progress the world towards respectable unity, then maybe you should go wash the blood from your hands before pointing fingers brother. As your brain catalogs the horrible acts you’re potentially involved in by simply living and consuming in this nation and planet, stop, and realize Feist is selling Verizon Wireless cellphones on your T.V. Okay, now cry.