Purple Moesha

Jeff and Laura, two early thirties well-educated stoners, are sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan on Montrose Beach in Chicago. The noise of Lakeshore Drive traffic is drown out by the sound of the wind and waves beating against the shore.

"Jeff, do you know what a purple moesha is?"

Yeah, it's a magic jellyfish that exudes confusion."

"Is it purple?"

"Yeah."

"Hmmm. Yeah, I guess it would be."

They sit in silence for several minutes simply looking out at the lake.

"Jeff, how come you never called Kirsch?"

Jeff, agitated, says, "You know, I knew … I knew you would bring that up. Fuck!"

"It’s not a big deal. Why are you all," Laura gesticulates wildly, “I’m a little bitch, waaa waaa waaa?”

Jeff casually says, "Fuck you."

"No, Fuck you."

Jeff scoffs and exaggerates his speech: Fuuuuuuu-uuuuuuck youuuuuuuu ..."

Laura laughs and then says very softly and sweetly, "Fuck you."

Jeff becomes visibly more romantic and says much more passionately,"Fuck you, baby."

Laura is swept up in the moment, "Let’s fuck."

Jeff and Laura fuck.

 ...

I imagine exploding stars are galactic synaptic interactions and the boundless universe is a type of brain. Are we, as humans, but a type of bacteria on a tiny mineral deposit floating about like so much flotsam until we are metabolized by galactic cellular digestive processes? What is our role as this bacteria? Are we supposed to strip the earth of its finite resources, burn them, convert them to energy, release the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, melt the glaciers, raise the sea levels, flood the coasts, storm the deserts, dry up the rain forests, overgraze, overdevelop, over-over-over-? Are we part of the metabolizing process? Are we “friendly” bacteria playing its part in breaking down a planet-molecule to be divided into nutrients and waste? What happens to the waste? Released back into galactic space as cellular fluid? Is our atmosphere a type of cell membrane? Are there structural similarities between atoms, cells, individual organisms, the earth as an ecosystem, solar systems, and galaxies?

My thoughts just keep coming around. Wave after wave. Thought after thought. Never ending. Waves of thought. I love it. I do. I really, really do. I cherish it. I revel in it. I devour thoughts, put them under a magnifying glass, angle the lens in the sunlight to burn right through them, get them all crispy, then I pop them into my mouth by the handful, chew on them, draw out all the flavors, let them mix and mingle together, form a tasty revolutionary assembly fomenting an oral rebellion, cease control of all bodily functions, override all systems, allow a hostile takeover of thinking by invading marketers, public relations pirates, spurious spokespersons, formulaic romantic comedies, and pernicious pundits. Dread, woe, evil or terror, the terror, Orange Alert, economic crisis, escalating gas prices, impending doom. Then come flowers, birds, bunnies, sprites, gnomes, hobbits, fresh breezes, aromatic tinglings, effervescent wondering, jubilant ebullience, exuberant gratuitousness, repetitive inconsistencies, erratic lovey, divine radicals, French conspicuousness, jocular dynamos, orgasmic wastefulness, Quixotic toxicity, prolific weirdness, unusual idiocy, wicked whispering, hushing blushing touching, crushing driving arching … all-encompassing life.

...

I met these artists in Portland a couple years ago, an amazing group of women. I was out with them one night and I was talking with one woman who worked as a Web designer, asking her if it would be possible to create a Web site that goes on endlessly, without clues as to how to make decisions about which link to follow, to create a maze that makes it all but impossible to find the desired destination. She didn't know, but she was intrigued. I also said that the site should create amazing trees of links that lead to surprisingly fascinating pages that are, in the scheme of things, superior in every way to the originally desired destination. In fact, what would be most disappointing, once enmeshed in the maze, would be finding the original link. It would be anticlimactic. If all other possibilities exist then being limited to discovering only one’s original desires could seem like a sort of hell, a damnation, an unfair punishment in the sense that one shouldn’t be given what one wants!

Reads like a Biblical condemnation, an Old Testament rant against the excesses of possessive expectation. Hey, we’re life! What we do is devour resources beyond each of our respective bodies, we devour air of one sort and exhale a new molecular compound into the space around us. Crazy shit like that. We’re crazy! We’re transformers of matter into different forms of matter! We do it all the time! But we’re not getting paid for it! Unpaid labor! This is fucking unfair! I demand compensation for my efforts, for the transformations I have created!

I have consumed water and food and excreted sweat, urine, and feces. I mean, come on, that’s a net gain for civilization right there, huh? Yeah, that’s right, I am entirely ordinary, just like every other human being. I consume things and leave the world in a state that is worse for the wear I’ve caused it. It’s by design, though. Evolutionary design.

Even when I’m in love or generously giving I am consuming valuable nutrients and exuding toxic waste. There is no time in which I am creating a better world through my presence. Well, unless I’m considered to be a valuable part of the world in my own right. In that case, then all is in balance as I am receiving the proper resources from the planet. But at the moment the planet fails me I will rail and wail and scream bloody hell. I already have and so have millions upon millions of others with much louder voices than mine ... to little or no avail.

And so it goes, the cycle of life.

...

Bob and Gary are walking down a street in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago.

Bob asks, "Did you?"

Gary says, "Yeah."

"How could you?"

"I just did."

"Well, why?"

"I don't know, Bob."

"Hmmm."

"What?"

"Fuck." Bob looks exasperated.

"Sorry if it upsets you."

Bob sighs. "It’s okay. Well, not really, but how could you have known that was going to happen?"

"Oh, I knew."

"You knew?"

"Yeah."

"What the fuck, Gary? How could you?!"

"It was easy. I just did it."

"You’re a prick!"

"Maybe. Depends."

"On what, Gary?"

"On who you ask."

"Well, I’m asking me and my answer is yes, you are a prick!"

"That’s fair. Now what?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, does that change anything for you, Bob?"

"Hmmm. A little. I thought you were a prick before, but I guess I didn’t think you were this bad."

"I don’t think what I did was bad."

"How could you not?"

"Well, if I thought it was bad I wouldn’t have done it."

"But you did it, Gary!"

"I know I did it. I just don’t think what I did was bad."

"You’re insane. Or a psychopath."

"How do you figure?"

"You stabbed a guy in the neck with a ballpoint pen!"