this is the year of the hungry man. –if that sentiment strikes you as rather broadly subjective, that’s how it struck me too. at first. i was at the bar, alone, on tuesday night, watching the couples move onto the dance floor and groove to the slow rhythms as i slurped my oly and tried to take proper stock of things. now, one does not have to be seized by genius to realize that bar + alone + tuesday = dismal + fucking + life. but i was not in a good place. though i felt a pervasive slowness -- as though i were sitting in a large pan of goo, or a gloppy substance of some kind -- i was not really aware of the depressing fundamentals [no car, no woman, no friends, no job, no prospects]. and so, when the queenie dj decided that an extended george michael set was called for, well, i didn’t object. in fact, something rather like a smile came to my face as i welcomed the old, familiar words of my prodigal idol.
but no sooner had i opened myself to the moment than i was quickly downcast. i mean, i had just been downcast a second before, and now i was again. so i was re-downcast, or cast-down-over-again-ow, or whatever the word for that is. the point is that i had just felt a welcome blink of joy at the sounds of my old friend george michael, and then the slow pulpy guilt began to sink in as george michael moaned about how “i’m never gonna dance again / guilty feet have got no rhythm / though it’s easy to pretend / i know you’re not a fool.”
and that’s when it clicked: i never really liked him. he always seemed so open, so willing to share, all those nights we spent together on my bed, talking intimately as we stared at the paula abdul poster on the ceiling. but it was always about him; always about how much he hurt, how “he should have known better than to cheat a friend” or how he’s “never gonna dance again the way (he) danced with you.” he’s almost like a monkey in the way he has one speed, the way he grinds his organ of lost love, the way he bleats his woeful monkey bleats without a care for anyone who may stop to listen. there, i said it. george michael is a monkey. i have my own problems, sure. but i also have my dreams, my hopes. my aspirations may be feeble and too often ignored, but they are all i have—they are my babies. george michael might whine in a way that makes me think he wants to be my friend and confidant. but it’s an act, it’s horseshit. i crushed my empty beer can and ordered a jaeger. shot it, slammed it down on the bar. stood up with a forgotten fire in my eyes and asked the world, Why? the bartender said she didn’t hear me. so, with thunder in my chest, i said again: WHY –
why do i have to share my baby with a monkey?
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