The Naked King

At last, my two-and-a-half month reign over the home I was house sitting, an abode of luxury and class, has ended. I am saddened to report that I have been stripped of riches and liberties I came to cherish. No longer a king in my castle, I'm instead a peasant banished to a land of filth and inbred miscreants. No more do I have the spoils of royalty, things like a washer and dryer, a driveway, a sink that doesn’t clog every time you brush your teeth. I will no longer be able to blast my music, sing at the top of my lungs, play my drum set at all hours of the night, or even enjoy a dip in the hot tub, sipping a beer, while naked. And I certainly won’t be able to walk around naked, drum naked, write naked, dance and sing at the top of my lungs naked, or simply stand naked, looking out the window, sipping a cup of tea, while secretly hoping the neighbors are peeping so they tell the elderly owners of my naked adventures.

Nooo, now I have a roommate again so clothes are required if I want to continue receiving a monthly rent check. I’m back in my apartment, a paper-thin-walled building with a manager that thought it a good idea to give me a violation for singing "too loud," when I voiced joy for 15 minutes, at 7:45, on a Friday night. I'm back in this box, unable sing, or jack my music, or  scream obscenities at the top of my lungs when I feel like it. I have to be quiet, an impossible task, a quest, really, to a fabled city that I will never find. My siblings fought hard for their right to use outside voices inside. My parents instilled in me a rich tradition of turning heads and drawing dirty looks while conversing in public. My grandparents tilled an unforgiving, Midwestern landscape so they could come home and top out the volume on The Ed Sullivan Show. And my great grandparents sacrificed so much, coming to a strange land, working for scraps to feed their families, so that their great grandson could one day blast Atmosphere through a house-wide stereo system while smoking a joint and wearing only socks.

This is not the America my ancestors envisioned. If my kin waterskied onto today’s shores of this once-great nation, as they did over a hundred years ago, they would not recognize it. This land has been tainted with the graves of so many freedoms, liberties like singing in your apartment, playing your music just loud enough so you can hear it from another room, scream yoga; freedoms that made this country the best in the world. It’s an America now run by a militant wing of Freedom Haters, who hate freedom and all its gloriously delicious freedomy nuggets. It’s an America ruled by fascists of the Totalitarian variety, living directly above me that work “odd hours” so I’ll never again be able to masturbate without headphones.

This America, blows.

So yeah, anyway. I’m back in my apartment, so if you want to have a beer, please let me know. Please.