Corporate America

The whole office laugh in his back, it does not help that he was sick so many times lately, we’re all impressed that he is still working with us (or disappointed depending on the department we’re in). It was too clear to me that there were many parallels that could be drawn between that ultimate loser and myself when I started to work there. He is three times fatter than I am, but I am a little bit fat, and so some people would reject me like that like they did with him. We are both going to work with our bicycles, the only ones in the company. We both like sci-fi as an escape from this terrible reality, though he is a bit too much into the fantasy, and that does not answer any of my existential questions. He is also into cartoons, Pokemons, and proud of it. Which is certainly very sad indeed.
While I thought he could be gay and still avirgin, I thought I might as well try to find out more about him, and help him. But I lost all my motivation once I found out that he was looking like crazy at all the females’ breasts in the office. Another straight one, he can die alone in his corner with all his prejudices then, I can’t help him. He will meet or his family will manage for him to meet a Jewish girl as lost as he is, and they will be happy together, whatever, I don’t care.
Two things however have changed my mind. The first one is one thing the Spanish Boy who thinks he is so cool compared to me, when it is the total opposite, as he is nothing while my life could be considered cool somehow, he said that me and the Jewish Boy, no difference, we’re the same thing. Meaning that we both deserve to be total rejects and ignored by the cool society out there. Oh yeah? And that coming from a fat Mexican? Who miraculously lost some weight in the last two weeks, knowing too well that he would become an instant reject without the only thing that got him the chance to get anywhere here in L.A., his cute little face that you only wish you could hit until it bleeds? That got me more interested in the Jewish Reject Boy.
The second argument is that he is obviously trying to reach out to me. I’m the only one who’s nice to him in the office, who understand completely where he is and what’s going on in his mind. I’m also the only one capable of seeing that there’s a human being under all that pretence. There’s a psychological explanation for all his weird statements. I can see beyond it all, whilst everyone chose to ignore his existence, wondering why he is working there. I show interests, that’s all.
I do, I wish I could without consequence go to a pub with him to hear his story, however he must be so desperate for just that, that he might start calling me everyday like Leonardo, and at the moment, one friend in L.A. is already too much for me who’s been living in my cavern in London for the last decade. And yet, I want to hear his story, I think I will invite him to do something this weekend, find out more about him, his deep psychological problems. I want to see where he lives, I want to find out about his books, DVDs, his little nest where he lives with his brother (who’s probably good looking, successful, married with kids, etc.).
He knows I’m gay though, he will certainly think that I have some ulterior motive for wanting to see his bedroom, it will probably never cross his mind that I’m just curious by nature and need to learn about everything there is under the sun, especially about such a specimen of rejection, that repulse just about everyone that comes across him. Ultimately, I only wish to understand human nature, how prejudiced we all are, unfair, destroying souls all over the damn place. I want to find out if he is after all a human being who deserves to exist, to live, to have some freedom, create stuff, become something worthy of being alive. I’m sure he has a unique point of view on this world, after so much rejection. For him, must be a constant battle for survival. How could he not be suicidal?
God knows, maybe I’m mistaken, maybe I’ve read too much of myself in him, maybe I really do have a bad judgment of character. Maybe he had twenty girlfriends by now, and he left them because they could not share his passions for the fantasy world. Maybe he is ten times more stronger in his mind than I am, quite possible, I’ve reached rock bottom so many time in the last few years. Stuck in a time loop, repeating the same year every year, with just barely a change of scenery to make it more acceptable to me, or else, I would shot myself by now. Like if you only had one game on your console, only one, a little race car going around the same circuit over and over again. And then, instead of being in one town, you’re in another, and yet, you’re doing the same damn thing, driving that stupid car around the place. You would tire quickly of that game, even if it was the only one you had. You couldn’t play it for years, you would destroy it at some point. Unless you were like a fish, with a brain so small, that by the time you have gone around your bowl, you would have forgotten all about it, and it would still feel new and beautiful.
Oh dear, I’m now in the business of salvaging lost souls. Just like the Mormons. Make your check payable to me, thank you. Cos I think I will invite the poor guy this weekend, I’ll invite him to go for a drink at the Yankee Doodle. I would invite him here, however he would think I want sex, and will probably be horrified. At least that one would actually leave the place eventually, unlike Leonardo who seems to want to build himself a tent on my balcony, move in here permanently, still don’t know what he sees in me, especially when the guy has such a past and is about to go global with his music. At his level, I would not even know I was still on earth, sharing it with a bunch of people who’ve only tried their hardest to destroy me. I would be beyond pleased to leave them all behind. Not talk to any of them. You can remain in the hole you have built for yourself, while you thought I was in it even deeper than you are. I’ve only been an observer hovering from above, I was never sinking in the hole with you all, that I know. I always had my way out, and if I have not yet taken it, it is because I feel there’s perhaps more for me to see, or else, whatever shit I could be in by disappearing, believe me, I would not hesitate, as I know that there’s always a solution around the corner, I’ve experienced it too many times, I would not let money or Stephen not having a job right now stop me. The truth is, I don’t mind remaining in L.A. for a while longer, especially if it is not too bad at work and Stephen believes that it is his own fault for having lost his job. Then he can’t blame me for abandoning him for so long, he cannot feel like this is the end of our relationship, he knows I was prepared to come back months ago, as I do love him, and plan to live with him for much longer. It is quite possible that I will actually finish my days with him, and there’s no need to dream of a better and greener garden, I missed him so much, I still love him so much, that even after 11 years together, I still link like that. That I still have to think of him to actually ejaculate, that tells it all. He’s the one for me. He might be a talking machine, but I guess this is something I have learnt to live with. And as long as we don’t have a serious money problem, he is sort of stable mentally. Funny how being in deep shit money wise never seemed to affect me or my god humor. I guess I see the world for what it really is, and myself for what I really am, just another statistic, one in between millions dealing with the same problems. Who really cares at the end of the day, when you’re just an account number in the red? No one. You may be blacklisted and never again be able to borrow anything, but who cares when you reach that point? Not me, that’s for sure. Banks won’t kill me, would they? When I’ve got nothing to my name anyway to start with? They can’t steal what I do not have. And I have nothing. The best way to live. I have my computer, and that’s all I need. With it, I can create and live my great escape from this reality. Infinite virtual worlds one hundred times better that the real world. I do everything with my computer, I simply cannot understand people capable of having any sort of life without one. I live inside my computer, we have become one entity in time. I believe it is alive, I love it very much, and I’m sure it loves me equally. Better anyway than being turned off, because that means death, non-existence, we’re so similar, we’re so much the same, I have more in common with my computer than with any living being around me, that’s for sure. My computer is my only real love of my life, we’re truly inseparable, we could not exist without each other. And I respect him for it. And you will not that it is no longer a “it” in my case, it is a “he”. My computer, my only way out of this painful existence.
I may be drunk right now, and having a laugh at your expense, however I cannot deny that being at the top of a mountain in real life, with a view to kill, has no effect on me. While being at the top of a mountain in a virtual world in front of my computer, could bring such peace in my mind, such a great feeling of infinite desire to exist. So far reaching, that sometimes when I have an orgasm, that’s what I think of, these virtual worlds on my computer. It is quite powerful, meaningful, perhaps the only existence I really have and ever had, and will ever have. No need for this reality anymore, I much prefer living in a virtual world. And I’m still waiting for that software which will be detailed enough to bring me anywhere in this world without having to move out of my computer screen. Giving me the chance to fly, visit any museum, meet the whole planet, as if this was a real world, right at the tip of the buttons of my mouse. Then there will be no need to ever go out again, travel again. Might still be only a 2D screen, yet, it is more real to me than this deficient and painful 3D real world. Fuck it, fuck you all, just die, I don’t care. I don’t need you, I don’t need this real world. I want a simple life, no bureaucracy, no bastards, no real impact on my life. I’m disconnected, I’ve been for years, and now I’m looking for a way to make it more permanent, and trust me, I’ll find it.
The real world only makes me want to commit suicide. Virtual worlds are so pleasurable, that’s what causes my orgasms. What does that tell you about your world?
Time to change it, at the very least. It’s too late for me, I’m already gone forever, no significant change could come within my lifetime to make it right, radical changes would be required, and I know the rate at which things change around here, just as well I have my computer.
Shit, I can barely recognize my life. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Philadelphia in less than three weeks, I am really lost. I was explaining recently what this book was about to my French readers, and they shouted back that it was all déjà vu, that I was living the same year I did in London last year, in my corporate job, there was no difference, I was stuck in a time loop, living the same thing over and over again. I believed it for a long time, but now I’m not so sure. I feel pretty disconnected, far from anything that is familiar to me. Salt Lake City has been the cure, it brought me a bit further, to the point where now, despite living the same sit on my day to day job, that episode was at least pretty alien to me, exotic enough to make forget, that I am simply reliving the same events over and over again. Maybe Philadelphia, for which I am not expecting anything, might also be a turning point in my life. Anything to disconnect, to move further away from everything I have ever known, is welcome. Might make me appreciate returning to London in my old life afterwards, if I don’t feel like it was more of the same on the other side of the Atlantic, and the continent. Somehow I firmly believe that London will never be the same. Upon my return, I will live there a totally different life, with other people, something else to write about. Or else, if it was just to go back to my old job, yes, I would be thinking of ending it all, one way or another. I cannot regress, I cannot only move forward, things would have changed, will change, I’ll live something different, no matter it is just another hell. You can never go back to what you had, it is an impossibility, or else you would think there is something wrong with the world. The London I have known in the last decade is gone forever, and this is something I can live with. Greatness awaits me back in London, this is where everything will happen for me, real life changing events. Not here in L.A., I know that now.
God, being back in London, no longer living things eight to nine hours after the rest of the planet, might actually be a result. Am I at the end of this world or what? Though I have to admit, that being able to write all evening and all night long without being disturbed was something I took advantage of. People only send you emails while you sleep, and then you simply don’t answer them. So it is some sort of freedom. No one would dream to have you on the phone any time soon, you are at the end of the world after all. Just send me emails that I’ll be free to ignore.
It is getting ridiculous, this guilt feeling I have for not answering my emails, I just get too many, I have to learn to not give a shit about it, fuck them, my life does not belong to them, the little time I have, is not for them, it is for myself. I cannot anymore with all the emails I receive. They have to understand that. I need a life! If I did not have published books, if I did not have these websites, no one on this planet would feel the need to talk to me. So why don’t you just act as if I did not exist in the first place? I’m going to ignore every message I receive from now on. No more guilt. Just like all the emails I sent to these people who are somewhat known, none of them took the time to answer me back, and I never wondered why, so I am at that point now, everyone else need to understand.
And if I get one more African to ask me to send him a Bible or a grammar book or something, or to help him escape his nightmare of an existence, I swear, I’ll start a new World War, since obviously the first ones did not work, they’re all still alive, damn it! Asking for my help! We missed the first times around. We need to correct that mistake, they should all be dead by now, and leaving me in peace. What? They’re not dead from AIDS yet? I thought we carefully planned to make sure none of them would still be alive in the next decade. Why is it that under Hitler all Black Africans did not have to worry at all? And what is this about attacking Jewish and Gay people, of all people? When it is so obvious that Africans are this inferior race that needs to be eradicated from the face of this Earth?
I don’t care to be popular in Africa of all places. Let’s the disease of God ensure that none of them will ever survive to talk about anything ever again. I hate charity, and I hate ever more feeling guilty for not helping any of them. The faster they will all die, the better I will feel. Is that not what all of us out here in America feels like? I thought so.
Why the fuck are my books connecting with what these people are going through? I don’t understand, unless our way of life is very much similar to theirs. And how could this be? That they are recognizing themselves in what I am writing, while no others where I live can see it? Is it just more extreme where they are, enough for them to see the truth about what’s going on around here?
I’ve been invited many times to speak at conferences in Africa, in the worst countries there are. After reading on the net that I would be shot dead on sight just for being gay, I thought I might just as well ignore these invitations. No need to be a martyr just yet, no matter how what I say might connect with whatever it is they are going through out there. No man’s land, even for me, if you don’t mind. Let them sort themselves out first, and I might consider going there one day. If they’re still alive by then, of course.
Don’t worry, we don’t have to do anything anymore, they will be wiped out in no time. Isn’t that wonderful? We’ll never have to suffer seeing one sick child on TV dying from hunger again, asking for our help and money, which we don’t have anyway. No more guilt trip, let’s just them all die and rid us of that sick Third World we never wanted in the first place.
Not our fault if they did not have the time to discover the greatness of the capitalist society like we did. Not our fault if they could not control their tyrants, we’ve got ours under tight leech, their powers are limited, we will stop Bush before he annihilates the whole world, you can be assured of that (I hope anyway).
So fuck Africa, they deserve what they have. They must have wanted it, or else it could never have happened in the first place, right? And there’s no petrol there anyway, so why should we get involved? No reason. Let them all die.
Oh dear, I feel so much better now, that I have admitted to all that. Finally I’m breathing. I feel great!
Of course, you will have missed all the irony, but what can I say? It’s always been like that. I’m a monster, what I can say for my defense? I’m only stating what we all collectively really think, what our actions show. So you can’t condemn me, without condemning yourself, hypocrite fuckers!
Usually I would not have bothered with telling you that I was being sarcastic to make a point, I wonder why I bothered this time.
18 May 2006
Yesterday I was so tired at work, I wanted to take the last two days of the week off. Difficult, as I have so many deadlines, one on Tuesday. So I went to bed early last night just to feel human again at work, and today I did not feel like taking a vacation. However I did, and tomorrow and Monday I’m off.
Now what worries me is that I have not planned anything, and I need to do something. It cannot be four wasted days playing games, reading, and sleeping. I might called Leonardo and spend a day with him, at least. Need to visit the centre of L.A., go see Da Vinci Code, do some backups of his CDs for the investors, and what else? We’ll see.
In the last 7 months, I had one day off in San Francisco, and as I said, I worked over the Christmas and New Year’s period. So I was due for some time off, no wonder I’m going insane, especially in that kind of heat. And now is the right time, before the rush of my second conference, and after that I’ll be announcing my departure, before actually the conference takes place. I cannot see myself asking for holidays after I told them that, so now was the time.
I had offered to the Sweet Chinese Girl to help her with her deadline tomorrow, she’s in deep, with a lot to do, and she is angry again and ready explode, despite the fact that both my boss and the Chinese Girl will be with her at the conference. It is still not enough and will get burnt again. Nice for a change to see that I’m not the only one with trouble. And I had to take a vacation or else I would have had to throw in a sicky, and probably not being paid for it, and it would have looked bad.
And I’m not poor at the moment, got nearly $900 back in taxes this week, what a discovery! I thought taxes you just pay too much and never get it back. I was wrong about that one, it even came back before my departure, isn’t that great? Feel guilty for not sending money to Stephen, however I have to keep that money for when I will move out, just in case I have to buy a plane ticket, or that I don’t work the last week of June. I will tell him and see what he says. Got to be careful with my money, Da Vinci Code and some food might be my only expense, and gas for Leonardo’s car if we go somewhere.
Time to go back for my last afternoon, a lot to do today, because of that deadline on Tuesday.
18 May 2006
That’s it, it is done, I have four days off! I have already drank a full bottle of wine, I’ve been celebrating. And the strangest thing, I feel so free, so alive! We’re only talking about four days, and yet, it means so much to me! I can barely contain my enthusiasm, I’m filled with energy, ideas, projects to work on, anything, anything!
I was thinking about starting that novel I was talking about, translating that book I was talking about, and why not take over the world by the same token? And that’s what I’m planning to do tomorrow with Leonardo, but I will talk about that in my other blog. Here, I’m talking about work.
And work I did, this afternoon. In a few hours I did all that took me days to do for my first conference. I have a feeling that if I were to stick to this job, I would become that miracle worker they all thought I was going to be. Sorry these things take time, there’s no other way. Well, I’m ready to go to Philadelphia, make that conference a success, all on my own, no spy this time, and I feel great about it, don’t even care if there were 120 people out there in Pennsylvania, this will be the greatest conference I have ever hosted. Cos I did everything by myself from the very beginning to the end, and I’ll be all alone there to accomplish miracles. And I feel damn right about it. So confident in fact, that I took a long weekend off right before a big deadline, and they said yes (they must be crazy). I’m still taking advantage of the fact that they’re afraid I might just leave, so they agree to all my whims, as long as I don’t take the piss, and that could be consider like it. But hey! They said yes! They will only have themselves to blame, I guess, if it turns out to be ugly. But I have enough of a professional conscience, that I did everything I supposed to do, in record time, so I’m gonna enjoy my four days off as if it was the end of the world and if there was no tomorrow. And it starts tomorrow morning. No mourning on my bed reading a book, or at my computer winging about life. Barricading myself between my four walls, of my own personal toilet that is. I want to meet the world, I need to come out of my cavern, I need to have a huge impact on this world! And it starts tomorrow morning. If I can’t get up, cos I feel like drinking my second bottle of wine. And I most certainly will. Who cares if I’m zombie tomorrow? God perhaps? My Mormon neighbor?
Which reminds, I feel so free, to do whatever I want, that I might just take him on on his invitation to visit the Mormon Church and meeting the community. I’m sure it would inspire a few pages, the question is how many pages and will it all be worth it? We might just find out! I will anyway on Sunday morning, how I feel, I’m still drunk or not, if Leonardo is still here or not. Circumstances and destiny will decide a lot of what I will be doing in those four days, the consequences could be very far reaching, like they could be meaningless. We’ll just have to find out. I’m boiling inside, let’s see if I can maintain that state of mind for four days. I am free! That’s it, I need to open my second bottle. God only knows what I will write tonight.
Suicide is the last idea on my mind, when I feel as strong as this. Which means, that this heartless job is what really was driving me to this insanity. And then, is it not clear that one needs to escape it? Get out of it before