Writers Harbor

Him? Don’t mind him… He wants to be a chopper pilot!

Graffiti Art: Is this really a good career choice?

For what it’s worth, probably not-a-lot, I have dropped comments and blobs and the odd bomb all over the Internet. Luckily, the Internet being the size it is (although a tiny insignificant fraction of a pixel), it is still able to sweep my mind blobs away in the tsunami of other blobs. So I can’t do too much damage. That’s a relief. If only we could fix our political system that way. Wash away the politicians. Swamp these noisy, vote obsessed, hypocritical, corrupt liars clean out of Power. Usher in a Libertarian State, Small Government, with local communities taking care of their own? Not going to happen any time soon, but it’s a cozy thought.
Now the nature of my blobs varies. But mostly, they are off-the-cuff remarks, much as a graffiti artist spray cans an immaculate white wall. It’s a nice, white wall. Somebody purposefully went to a lot of trouble to make it so, and, guess what, here I come along, a depraved hooligan, in the middle of the night, and indulge in the primordial urge to re-arrange. To fix. To change. To fuk’n well DO SOMETHING.

I think the world would be much quieter, and much more peaceful, if men like me would curb that urge, and sit on their hands more. But no, we like to spray gaudy, colorful, outrageous, opinionated “Art” all over pristine white walls. Mostly, it’s kitzy. Kind of trashy. Once in a while however, some unknown, aerosol carrying urban savant actually reveals a tiny piece of him or herself that piques my mischievous curiosity:
“Art is the only salvation from the horror of existence”
“You’re beautiful – it’s society that’s fucked”
“Out of the ash I rise with my red hair and I eat men like air”
“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes trutheeeee POLITICS”
But below is my favorite one:

Beat that! So I feel justified in continuing my subversive, unconstrained assault on white washed walls. And this anti-authoritarian streak in me, that has gotten me in so much trouble, (that I would never have wanted to not get into), one day led me to an opinion poll on just another trashy website, populated by derelicts and undesirables. This one is called “Horizontal Attitude.Org”. I suppose, with a name like that, they want you to think about flying along, all nice and smooth, straight-and-level. But some us cynics like to whisper that it’s called that, because when drunks fall over, they speedily attain that “horizontal attitude “. So that right there, will give you a good idea of the vagabonds and societal outcasts that roam those halls and portals. Anyway, if you go there, you’ll find an opinion poll in the “General Helicopter Forum”, entitled “Is this really a good career choice?” It is to this poll, that has been voted on by the tens of thousands of participants) (38 the last time I checked), that I humbly wish to direct your attention. Have a read through there. See what you pick up on…
When I read through there, my tiny, diseased mind calls up past visions of outcasts I have flown with, or mixed with in dimly lit, back street establishments. I see their reflections, and their attitudes, reflected in some of these posts. I see their soul, or the withering lack of it.
All types:
1) There’s Captain Horace Henry, the Third.
Gawd. I hated flying with him. Humorless. As dry and comfortless as Porta-potty toilet tissue on a hot summer’s day. I reflect on the stiff upper lip, starched white shirt, polished gold bars, pressed trousers, and the projected image of professional infallibility and even virginity. He… was so damn perfect, that he was: A) absolutely entitled (by virtue of his supremacy) to sit in haughty, condescending judgment of YOU. ( You SIC Worm…) and B) he must have been a virgin, because it is hard to imagine such a Supreme, Lofty Being lowering himself to engage in the slightly messy operation of ejaculation. Right? I see his judgments, his admonitions, his sage “advice” in a number of posts. Get a life, Horace. Go away. Get laid. Something. Un-bend, for goodness’ sake.

2) There’s Captain Money-Penny.
Tight as a Bantam Duck’s arse. It’s all about the money. And the status. Count the pennies. That’s all it’s about. Bigger car. Bigger house. Bigger ego. Never ending.
3) There’s Captain Desmond Dolorous.
Miserable as a beached Walrus. I gotta move? Really? I gotta go fly? I was com-for-table here! It’s not fair! Don’t want to be here! Nobody loves me! Wish I wasn’t a Walrus. I should never have been a Walrus! If I had the choice again, I’d be…. I’d be…. I don’t know, but I don’t want to be a Walrus! Ever again!
4) But, SAVED! Just when the day looked hopeless, all dreary and predictably overcast, here comes Captain OFF-HIS-TROLLEY! The hopeless sociopath. The outcast, the mongrel. The scruffy, ragged type, penniless but happy, with a toothless grin (he can’t afford a dentist) from one floppy ear to the other. This misfit, hopelessly deluded had this to say, and I copy his ramblings here, for no other reason than to show the Darwin-esque intellectual lows to which these chopper jockeys often sink. The Louisiana Helicopter Operator of yesteryear, who once famously remarked that he would never, ever, be short of helicopter pilots (“All I have to do is look in the gutters of New Orleans”) would have recognized this type, and probably hired the boob on the spot. Sad. But here is that quote, direct from the lips of the sociopath, as voluntarily contributed to the web site “Horizontal Attitude.Org”. Previously explained, as pertaining to the lack of vertical attitude maintained by afore mentioned New Orleans gutter dwelling unemployed chopper jockeys. He writes, in answer to the question “Is this a good career choice?”, as follows:

(Quote) “For me, it’s not a career choice. No choice about it. It’s an obsession.
Love to fly. Pathetic creature.
After a week of flying, maybe 35 flight hours, a ba-zillion take-offs and hopefully an equal amount of landings, I get home. I hear a choppy coming over, and I’m stumbling over the cat on the way out the door to see. Frantic haste. Wifey gets mad. “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? You fly all week! This is your first day home! You knocked over the chair! You stomped on the cat!…. ” Etc, etc.
How do you explain? But… but…. I want to see the make. Model. Height. Speed. Company… Wanna SEE him!
And then I get back to work. First load of passengers. Walking out. Butterflies! BUTTERFLIES! Caution, Excitement. Impatience. Just like an alkie. FIRST swig of the jug. FIRST smell of burned Jet A. First upward nudge on the collective…. AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaahhhhhh……! Yummy.
1) A chopper-holic and an alco-holic have much in common. Right down to the tremblies, when you see that “first fix ” coming your way.
2) Do you like to ride? Motorbike? I do. Gimme a steady V-twin, good road, and I’m away in a world of my own. Still can’t get tired of biking. Very similar steady beat and dream land to your choppy.
3) Do you fly single pilot or two pilot IFR? I have flown both. Much happier being a single pilot. Two crew interrupts my reverie. Too much like hard work. Forever checklists. And if he’s a freak who is obsessed with talking about his Crysanthemums… (I had a Captain like that)… or if he’s a hair-trigger, irrational, psychotic screamer (yep, had several like that)… it’s zero fun. Are single pilots more contented? More relaxed, anyway. Yes? No?
4) Do you see the fundamental Absurdity of Man? Pompous, vain, noisy, incredibly short-lived little creature, who thinks he kens it all, when in fact he knows bugger all? Obsessed with piling up Gold and useless shite that he can’t take with him anyway? Sure, you need money, but it’s just a tool, for goodness sake. You gotta eat. But when filthy lucre and position and status and career become your be-all and end-all God, you are in serious need of watching the YouBoob video called “The Pale Blue Dot ” (Carl Sagan). You see that distant, tiny, insignificant pale blue dot? Somewhere, some tiny little fraction of a pixel, that’s you, you dumb schmuck, fretting and worrying, nose to the grindstone, piling up bangles. Dude… are you gonna stick yourself voluntarily in a tiny cell? A little cubicle? Why don’t you stick a cardboard box over your head, while you are it, with two peep holes, and declare yourself the Master of your Cardboard Universe?
To me, it’s all about “getting your ticket’s worth. ” Ride, brother, Ride. Cast your tiny mind all around the Universe, and make sure you don’t mire yourself in the mud. Star in your own play. Be the hero in your own movie. And keep your middle digit well exercised…” (unquote)

This moron then signs his name with a ridiculous smiley, thus: ” “, and makes it overwhelmingly clear that some mothers do have ’em. Darwin would have cringed.
Retro-gressive evolution is full swing.

I must close with one of my own serious observations, made in the afore mentioned streets of New Orleans. I happened to be walking down the sidewalk, when I observed an unemployed Helicopter Jockey lying, passed out, in the gutter. Dead drunk, with his faded gold bars and ridiculous wings barely discernible. A sympathetic pig lay beside him. Two gentlemen were coming the other way, and they observed the pair in the gutter. The one said to the other:
“You can always tell a gentleman, by the company he keeps.”
The other man nodded wisely.

And, upon my word, I swear this is the solemn truth:

The Pig got up, and slowly walked away…

Francis Meyrick

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on March 2, 2014, 10:55 am