SONG OF THE DAY: Bigfakelaugh

Waiting for the shuttle bus this morning, to go between point X and point Y at my Zzzz work, and a prison van showed up, two different guards trying to figure out where to unload the prisoner being transported. They eventually pulled right up beside where I was waiting, driving third guard got out and was fiddling with back door where wheelchair transport lift but with bars was, to take prisoner in for hospital visit of some sort. Radio was blaring Steve Harvey morning show, and Steve was on his shit, hoo-hawing it up with the crew, and I thunk to myself what a strange blessing, to be free from prison for the morning, listening to Steve Harvey in the back of the prison transport van, a little grey tree-lined scenery to mix up the cinderblock existence, even if for hospital visit. I hoped it wasn’t anything too terminal, and wondered how much of what Steve Harvey was babbling about was relevant to this offender against allegedly civilized society? How long had they been in? Do they get to make this trip every six weeks, or is this first time ever?

Then my shuttle bus came, and I got on. The driver bumps old school jams as loud as uptight white people will tolerate generally, and today was no exception. As we got closer to where I was gonna get off, War’s “The World is a Ghetto” hit the playlist, and I don’t know, maybe I’m introspective as fuck today or something, but the lyrics was hitting me hard. Always loved that song, but it struck kinda extra hard this morning. We all got the existential jails we create for ourselves, navigating the system that’s in place all around us, making wrong and right choices, smart and poor ones, boxing ourselves in far more often than opening ourselves up. I thought about just sitting on the shuttle and riding it one more loop, to hear the end of the world being a ghetto, but also just to vibe. Also thunk how the larger parallel to that is riding this earth one more time round the sun, and how we don’t often enough just sit the fuck back and enjoy the ride, always giving ourselves these deadlines and needs to be productive and arbitrary must haves and cut off notices and gotta sees and just a general over fucking load of too much shit that ultimately don’t mean as much as just kicking it, stationary, in one outdoors spot, watching the world spin slowly for a few minutes, hours, days, lifetimes might mean.

Of course, I got off the shuttle though, and went and did my job, like I’m supposed to. But also “supposed to” is some arbitrary ass shit, and completely irrelevant to how my heart feels.