ARTIVISM
All The Lonely People
Where do they all come from?
First of all it just makes me fucking sad that The Beatles, and so many other great bands, raised all these pertinent points about how far off course humanity was straying and, even though we loved the music, we just went ahead and fucking blew it.
So much for Artivism.
But on a more positive note, I watched a cool flick (yes, I actually am that old), on Netflix recently, about a weird happening that wiped all traces of The Beatles out. There is one young musician who knows the music and he decides to release it. I’ll leave the rest for you to watch, because it’s a cute film and the music is superb. Of course.
I’ve been on foot, in my city, for some time due to a crazy life challenge — lost everything including my car.
On foot in my city is an entirely different experience. The public transport here is shit, and you can wait some time for something resembling it to appear. The online schedules are utter rubbish. Best to just ask also on foot people, and to make notes as you go to figure out “timetables”.
ps. You meet really cool people this way as well. People on foot are far less stressed out than the people with big, expensive cars. Also, they make eye contact and say hello as you go by.
So you meet a lot of people and have many interesting, spontaneous conversations on foot in my city. Or maybe that’s just me. I’m curious and I often overshare.
If you are without wheels around here, you also get to wait a great deal. Call me crazy (you wouldn’t be the first, although you may have less malevolent intentions), but I like to wait.
For what once was a busy, over-worked mom in anxious-overdrive-always-running-and/or-treading-water… a reason to sit and do fuck-all is an absolute blessing! I can wait in queues for hours, and I’m as happy as a lark. (What does this even mean, anyway? And why are larks so godammned happy?)
While I wait, I people watch. We are fascinating.
The bus route from the nearish-by supermarket, to a random stop nearby my new living space (at the bottom of a killer hill that is going to rebuild my ass as I rebuild my life) has no signs, benches or even an indicated stop. Anywhere on the route.
Neither does the pick up point (I would say bus stop but where is it???) at the nearish-by supermarket. I have no idea how everybody knows where the bus stops even are around here. Anywhere. Although to be fair, I waited for long enough to give up on a bus ever arriving and just started walking one day, and a very nice bus driver pulled over randomly and picked me up when I stuck my hand out in between who-knows-where.
This must have been an anomaly though. You surely can’t have city buses stopping for every human anywhere, anytime. I am, usually, the only white person on the bus. I think this gets me noticed, assisted more (usually because I talk too much and ask a ton of questions), and I pique people’s curiosity. Also — I like busses. They’re fun. And I’m usually in a good mood when I’m travelling.
But no signs anywhere. Like — the first time I needed to catch a bus back to my place, I walked another roughly five miles around the parking lot outside the mall, to find said bus stop. Around and around I went, as kind humans kept pointing me back to where I had just walked from. (I wasn’t in such a good mood after an almost hour…)
Until I found a kinda sexy but far too young for me man, sitting on a pavement (on his phone of course) who confirmed that this was the correct place to wait. So down I sat, on a small wall nearby that was actually the runway into the underground parking area, and I began to wait. And watch.
While I’d met really cool, open and friendly people on foot (which seems to generally be the case in my city), only about 1% of the folks travelling in cars bothered to make eye contact or say any kind of hello. In fact, most of them looked really fucking stressed, and really fucking unhappy.
I’ve been there in my brand new car that I couldn’t really afford, and I know why.
As I sat there, swinging my legs in a “Sitting at the Dock of the Bay” kinda way, occasionally craning my neck to see a bird cruise by in the wind, and trying to make prolonged eye contact that was entirely unnoticed and/or avoided by the drivers going by, I kept hearing the refrain “All the lonely people…” in my head. So I began to try and sing it.
This has got to be one of the most complicated melodies ever written. Surely. I mean I’ve heard this song many times, but I honestly kept losing the key and landing in really weird places. “Nope, that’s not right.” I muttered to myself and tried again. And again.
I never did get it right before the bus arrived. It did, however, remind me of the scene in said movie, where the young musician is trying to remember the lyrics. He can remember every song, except for this one, perfectly. Go on. I dare you.
Anyway. We all know money can’t buy you love, but on we go… still.
I could go on another rant now about consumerism and happiness. Or Capitalism and how it divides us, and gets us hooked on shit that we don’t need to try and prove ourselves worthy of people who don’t care.
But I reckon you can just have more fun and listen to a decent track, because it has all been said before and far, far better.
Stay you and give less fucks about the expectations of other people. You will find more peace. And you will have more precious time to enjoy doing the things that matter with the people that you really do love.
pps. I have no idea what this song is meant to be about. Really… maybe I need more acid (highly unlikely after the nineties).
Kidding. It says it all. It’s like that.
Remember to look up.
Thanks for your reading time!
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