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I shopped at Whole Foods instead of Jewel over the weekend. I hated the air of pretentiousness that surrounded the whole place and the “organic” foods that cost 3x more than their non-existant non-organic counterparts, but I think I have been converted.

The rows upon rows of fresh fish, meat, wines, fruits and vegetables are exactly what I wish Jewel was. Everything is plentiful, vibrant, and fresh like a commercial come to life. Jewel and Dominicks are pretty nice fresh stores, but the difference between them and Whole Foods stikes me every time. I’m starting to think it just might be worth the money to have my pick of Tuna steaks rather than deal with whatever is left over. What’s my price on eye candy?

Chinatown’s market on the other hand, is a place I wish I never had to go back to. I can get over the woolen blood soaked buchers gloves that every employee wears, but racks of rank meat being feasted on by flies in barley refridgerated case is fucking disgusting. White guilt is a powerful force, I’m sure anywhere else in the city that market would be shut down and the owners sued.

From Stampede Of One, I submitted my writing to http://iwl.me/ to find out which famous person I write like.  I took my post on Moving because I didn’t want all those Green Day lyrics attributed to me.

Cory Doctorow. a Canadian copyleft activist, blogger, journalist, and sci-fi writer.  He is mentioned in this xkcd comic.

Fucking nutjob.

And now a sample of his writing… OR IS IT MINE?

I just got my contributors’ copies of the Frederik Pohl tribute anthology Gateways, and I find myself in danger of losing the afternoon’s work to re-reading it. Gateways is a collection of short stories written in appreciation of Pohl, one of science fiction’s masters and living legends. It includes fiction by Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Ben Bova, David Brin, Neil Gaiman, Joe Haldeman, Harry Harrison (A new Stainless Steel Rat story in Pohl style, no less!), Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge, Gene Wolfe — and me.

I suppose our mutual love of commas and parenthesis bring us together.

My last post was part of a thing that Stamps and J$ and I are trying to do. We’re picking a topic each week and writing about it, and as you can tell by my post frequency, I’m starting to show that I’m pretty unreliable. That’s about to change! Starting next week…

For now, here’s a post a day late on “homecoming”.

Homecoming is a song from Green Day, whom I just saw in concert. It’s off their landmark 2004 American Idiot album, itself a revival of the Rock Opera genre started by The Who (so it’s no wonder I love it). The song is a massive 9:18 and continues the story of American Idiot.

I particularly like this song because it is about the the depressing reality that there is no more American Dream.

Some background: there’s three main characters in American Idiot, the protagonist Jesus of Suburbia is an ignored soda pop and Ritalin fed youth who left for the city. St. Jimmy is a punk rock fighter whom Jesus meets whlie there. Whatshername is a counter-culture rebel and Jesus’ love interest.

Homecoming opens up with Jesus wasting away in the city. Inter-spliced are calls for him to come home from his parents.

Please call me only if you are coming home
Waste another year flies by
Waste a night or two
You taught me how to live
In the streets of shame
Where you’ve lost your dreams in the rain

In his home town Jesus has lost his hope and dreams, and his apathy has carried forward to the city. Jesus’ only escape is St. Jimmy, someone who understands him but cannot really comfort or change him. Even though earlier they marched and protested against the government, they’re not idealists. They have no cause.

All of the youth Jimmy meets suffer from lack of a life direction. But Jesus likes St. Jimmy because he’s wise and understands that they have nothing and are nothing.

There’s a glow of light
The St. Jimmy is the spark in the night

In the crowd of pain. St. Jimmy comes without any shame
He says “we’re fucked up”

Here I can’t help but picture St. Jimmy as a Tyler Durden-esque character. The graphic on the jumbotrons at the concert reinforced this. He was a shirtless thinly ripped guy with wings and a white censor bar covering his eyes.

St. Jimmy then kills himself.

Jimmy died today
He blew his brains out into the bay
In the state of mind it’s my own private suicide

With his one outlet gone, Jesus of Suburbia doesn’ even grieve. He settles into a boring, pointless life.

Jesus filling out paperwork now
At the facility on east 12th st.
He’s not listening to a word now
He’s in his own world
And he’s daydreaming

Unimportant and a cog in the machine, you can probably see why I’ve chosen to write about this song.   Jimmy isn’t daydreaming of a glamorous and rich life though, he’s dreaming of “cigarettes and coffee with the underbelly”.   (Note:  some research shows that songwriter Billy Joe Armstrong drew from a memory he has of filling out paperwork at a police station in Oakland on East 12th street, but I’m not going with that interpretation)  Jesus of Suburbia’s only hope is to return to those who share his gritty reality.

He wants drugs, caffiene and nicotine, but even those aren’t that intense. It should be noted that he specifically does not yern for Novacaine, which Jimmy introduced him to earlier in the album. What’s the point of numbing an already numb life?

Jesus continues to lead a life even devoid of rage until he gets a message from a friend who brags about how he’s made it:

I got a rock and roll band
I got a rock and roll life
I got a rock and roll girlfriend
And another ex-wife
I got a rock and roll house
I got a rock and roll car
I play the shit out the drums
And I can play the guitar
I got a kid in New York
I got a kid in the bay
I haven’t drank or smoked nothin’
In over 22 days

Finding nothing in the city, Jesus of Suburbia decides to go home. And it sucks. There’s a terrible familiarity that grips Jesus as he realizes he knows he’s back to where he started. It’s so overwhelming that the world is spinning out of control. He considers sending his love a letter to tell Whatshername to come visit him in hell.

The world is spinning
Around and around
Out of control again
From the 7-11 to the fear of breaking down
To send my love a letterbomb
And visit me in hell

Even at home, Jesus is still tormented with his dull life. The ending, taunting chant which is echoed throughout the song is truly Jesus’ inner monologue.

Nobody likes you
Everyone left you
They’re all out without you havin’ fun

The twist is that Wikipedia says that St. Jimmy may not actually be real, just the part of Jesus of Suburbia that is the rocking, dirty, whatever personality. If “state of mind” and “private suicide” are referring to parts of Jesus’ psyche, then the Tyler Durden parallel is very strong. However Tyler Durden was very much about nothing is everything, while St. Jimmy is more that nothing is rage. So unlike Fight Club, when the rebellious alter-ego dies, Jesus of Suburbia doesn’t find peace and a new world.

Rather, the only feeling in Jesus dies with St. Jimmy. America is America and Jesus can’t escape his life. Retuning home he can’t pick up his shattered American dream, nor can he start over. There is nothing for him.