But there's this kid behind me. He's got 50 Cent--pingponged from a US internet backbone, up to a satellite than back down to Busy's radio tower--cranked so high on his headphones that everyone in a ten foot radius can hear every dimmy damn word Fitty says. And 50's not talking about helping old ladies cross the street. Meanwhile, he's absorbing pornographic images at an astounding rate. Click click, smut smut, like Missile Command.
He wraps up with a bit of Mortal Kombat--tame, I know, but True Crime or whatever new mobter fantasy isn't downloadable via broadband yet, so he has to make do with the garden variety gratuitous fatality scenes that were kewl eight years ago. He wraps up his multimedia experience in a bow with a local music video, which consists entirely of an extended shot of a women dancing, camera below and betwixt her.
Ugh. You practically wait for the kid to head out like Alex and his Droogs to raise a bit of the old ultraviolence.
Here's a conversation I had last night with a young Ghanian guy who spends his spare time volunteering with underprivelged kids:
He: "You are from New York?"
"Yeah. Good town."
"Yeah. A real chill town. Bad niggas there."
"What?"
"That's a real chill town."
"Accra's a good town too. But what did you say before? Did you say," and for a second I wonder if there wasn't some boldfaced chapter in my Rough Guide to West Africa book--still missing, thanks to Alitalia--called "Why You Should Never Ever Use That Word in Africa. Look, If You Even Need to Read This Chapter, You're Stewed." But, beatless, I continue: "bad niggas?"
"Yeah. Chill niggas in New York."
"That's a horrible word."
"Does 50 Cent live in New York?"
"Yes."
"Hard gangsta."
"Oh for the love of Christ. What the hell are you talking about?"
"That's life."
"That's not."
"That's life."
This was the second time in four hours a West African had tried to tell me what life is like in America. (The bar owner I'd been talking to earlier gave me a look of pity when I contradicted his statements that a) the unemployment in Alabama and Mississippi is over 70% b) American-born rural terrorists set off bombs across the USA every day, and c) Bush invaded Iraq to make international weapons dealers happy.)
But back to Jimmy Public Porn behind me at the cafe. I'm not terribly offended by him--I take a Dan Savage approach to the culture: whatever your bizarre hang-up is, your pursuit ofthat hang-up is just fine unless your activity or the purchase of services for your activity victimizes someone--but I'm amazed to be seeing it here.
You have to understand that parents in Accra will tell you about the absolute epidemic of teenagers holding hands. They can't believe that these kids, not even graduated from the equivalent of high school, are brazen enough to walk around hand in hand.
Take that society, and add all this pornography, all those nasty true crime video game that will probably be available over then 'net any day now, all that "Kill kill kill, murder murder murder" gangsta rap gets consumed in front of anyone. I have no idea what you get.
Plus: Not only is there no middle class to buy their own PCs and surf in private, but there's no middle class invested in fighting the culture wars in a constructive way.
All of which is roundabout way of saying: the lowest common denominator of our culture is hitting the fan out here.
...
Speaking of the culture, has anyone seen this month's Atlantic Monthly? Good pictures of Mass. Senator John Kerry's tour of duty in Vietnam. There's this one,
And this one:
(not really John Kerry. [word. Kerry wishes he'd fought the Evil Dead])
Alright. I'm done screwing around. Back to the workeddy work.
