All posts by rexmerritt

Observed

Dreadful People

It’s a displeasure crossing paths with certain kinds of ex-Metropolitans in Las Vegas. Not those who’ve self-exiled themselves to Nevada rather than Florida from the Bronx or Brooklyn after careers in the trades, lifelong housewives in tow, both of whom lovingly lament forsaking “their New York City,” yet on a dime can recite chapter and verse complaints about how the modern boroughs now resemble strange worlds populated by aliens.

No.

That group has earned its loud plaid pants, white shoes and belts, as well as teased-to-giggling blue rinse coifs. The vast majority of them are to be revered. Their generation raised mine.

Pampered as we growing Boomers were, especially compared to parents who endured the Depression then won World War II, they also gave birth to the consumer society by indulging us their children. Nonetheless what gift can replace any nurturing parent? Continue reading Dreadful People →

Pop Culture

Starpower

What to make of Bill Cosby’s recent aggrieved actresses/dilapidated models eruptions? Yeah, against him they’ve certainly stacked the preponderance of remarkable similarities. Nonetheless thanks to presumption of innocence, the accusations alone are insufficient proof of guilt. Otherwise it would be a Salem redux regarding one of America’s former “dads.”

Which is why in the United States one’s proven guilty instead of simply condemned of witchcraft after being spied upon dancing in forest clearings. Continue reading Starpower →

Observed, Quarropas

Less Thanks

Thanksgiving is the perfect American holiday. It involves no organized religion and doesn’t commemorate any national event. Pretty much a civil feast day, Thanksgiving allows Americans to enjoy our one singular unifying trait – mindless gorging.

Strange how diet gurus quit hibernating and emerge en masse to inform and warn Americans about the perils of overeating on this single day. Really. Setting aside one day of the year for sanctioned mouth-stuffing won’t lard on that much tonnage, will it? A month? Yeah. One day? Please. Continue reading Less Thanks →

Agitprop/Propaganda, Observed

Clearer Accounting

Is the just concluded 2014 election a mid-term referendum on President Barack Obama’s policies? Or can it be seen as a misdiagnosed post-mortem which resulted in skewed totals from an aging, last-gasp, old and misinformed yet motivated right-leaning electorate further abetted by an otherwise apathetic populace?

Hearing and reading the unsupported scorn against the president, a casual observer might believe he’s led the nation into dire straits rather than from them. By all tangible measures the United States sits in a far superior position than upon his ascension at 12:01 p.m., on January 21st, 2009. Period. Continue reading Clearer Accounting →

Observed, Pop Culture

Ooh! Scary! Ooh!

Congregants whose services demand sacrificial rites just might look for pointers at how cinema has steeped modern Halloween in blood and gore.

Until fairly recently wasn’t Halloween a simple holiday? One, which for the vast majority of us had lost its pagan purposes. Hadn’t it become candy mania for children and tomfoolery for adults? At best, an occasion for bingeing on movies that scared using moody atmosphere, lucid dialogue and vivid supporting characters?

When did trick or treat entertainments become so ominous? How did The Uninvited become the rebooted version of, what else, Nightmare on Elm Street?

For that matter, how has any producer neglected inserting Ministry’s Everyday Is Halloween into his or her movie?
What happened to the witches and ghosts? The improbable monsters? How did single-minded mass murders and asocial autonomes crowd out our familiar bump-in-the-night terrors? Haven’t these new manifestations of our subconscious, now news cycle regulars, coarsened more than the society they’re intended to reflect? Continue reading Ooh! Scary! Ooh! →

Tales Out of School

Phantom

The previous post, Sweet Spot, reveled in life before responsibility. Not to be read as a continuance or sequel, Phantom serves as aftermath.

Sixteen years after that hi-ho halcyon night, three of us bent elbows in Amsterdam. Kewpie, Warren and I converged in the Lowlands. On a late autumn evening, we treacherous three tippled somewhere near the Leidseplein.

Earlier in the shortened day, angry North Sea gusts twisted clouds deserving van Ruisdael’s brushstrokes. Although conditions failed compelling Amsterdam burghers to tighten their scarves or fully button coats, it certainly quickened our paces … right into a warm Brazilian themed bar. Continue reading Phantom →

Tales Out of School

Sweet Spot

Over the last week of September 2014 I instigated an email roundelay. The thread concerned Elmira’s Ass. Oh, I came so close to awarding that title to this post. But if – when – readers got offended, I wanted them spewing umbrage somewhere about the content, not before the first paragraph.

A giveaway title like “Elmira’s Ass” and right there the jig is up!

Now a little backstory to the big backside in question.

Idleness fomented the conversation about Elmira’s ass. Much must happen before I’m confirmed into my new gig. Ambivalence and apprehension vie with anxiety because until the proper authorities sign off, I’m in administrative limbo. However, once I get the job I hope to be in Schaeffer City pdq.

Given the hours on my hands, and given the devil uses such idle implements, my musings ran aground on Elmira. Particularly her ample rump. Continue reading Sweet Spot →

Dim Neon, Poky Town

Reentry

After a year of aimlessness, nearly two of mourning, and seething daily for three because of gross negligence and utter imbecility, the restoration of lucrative, less emotionally burdened life may have begun. Exam results bring on this optimism.

Between crazy events beyond my control and life’s inescapable occurrences, I left my hollowed out Quarropas, New York, home for Las Vegas. Nevada, not New Mexico. I don’t gamble, but I’ve always been willing to take a chance.

Whys and wherefores are threaded throughout Green Venom. Read them. They’re terrific.

About two months ago I finally shook off the lethargy weighing me and started aggressively pushing my resume. Naturally most positions which fit me never gave in to at least cursory responses. On those rare few that did and interviewed, the HR knob seemed intimidated that I possessed a work record longer than he or she had been alive.

The decline of American labor in a nutshell. Dumb young managers who settle for hiring inexperienced employees. What better example of the stupid leading the blind? Continue reading Reentry →

Dim Neon, Green Venom, Poky Town

Shoulder to the Wheel

Three Augusts ago I resided at ease in suburban splendor. So much so I took several vacation days to visit Kewpie in Miami. She’d been laboring on film shoot. Warren joined us.

When she wasn’t eye-rolling on-set shenanigans or prima dona outbursts, we treacherous three gamboled along South Beach. Had I known my carefree days were short, I would’ve behaved way more carelessly.

Hmmm. Just might suggest that as my epitaph.

Two years ago, Quarropas, the old hometown, remained somewhat recognizable. That was if a long-time resident squinted. By this time last year, it was less splendiferous since every soul making that loaded word “home” a desirable refuge had died away.

August 2014 marks my first year in Las Vegas. Continue reading Shoulder to the Wheel →

Dim Neon, Poky Town

Saturated Flesh

Both women must’ve been epiphanies. There are no mirages in Las Vegas unless one is homeless or high.

At the bank to pay bills and withdraw cash, two uncommon sights filled my view. Uncommon for Las Vegas.

These visions were tall, slender, dressed in pleasant near peasant summer wear. Billowy dresses. Sandals only remarkable for their utility rather than bizarre design. Shades. Long and free hair bounced along the smooth shoulders of each.

Amazing. No wild-style coif that defied convention. No tinted tresses which burned retinas. Nor any sour couture that assailed good taste.

Neither had disfigured herself through ink, piercing, nor had succumbed to the apparent Southern Nevada female extremes – hypertrophy or obesity. These were normal women, no? Femmes I might’ve lent cursory views before relocating to Las Vegas. Now, though, they became revelations.

Each was a plain beauty. And I was grateful. Continue reading Saturated Flesh →