Bread and Circuses

It's time to celebrate, to come out and play â" we've been counting down the days. This weekend we've got a band holiday! We're as sick with expectation as we are with what we're escaping. Lock up the house, load up the car, we've twenty-four hours to spend in a goddamn theme park. We are so grateful for our new state-funded stately pleasure dome. Shock and awe and an over-priced gift-shop â" you didn't have fun if you didn't buy the t-shirt. Paying through the nose so you can prick-tease your animal instincts. Art starts to imitate life in the factory; the factory's a prison, so art is seen to atrophy â" all our days off in front of the TV instead of a stock screen. We just commute from one end of the conveyor belt to the other. Oh, the kids who would've led the unions in the past now grow up staying silent in darkened cinemas. If every hour that I have spent stuck in a circus was spent learning a language, I'd have so much more to say. And if every penny that I have spent on processed bread was spent on growing my own food, my skin wouldn't look so grey. Work and rest and play safe in the knowledge that this is the only way. The hand that feeds chooses the menu, but I'm a fussy eater. Work rest and decay. One commodity a day will keep subversive daydreams away.