Who gives a fuck? I must say this 20 times each day, easily. It’s become something of a mantra.
I start up the old radio around 3 am, hoping the soothing voices will lure me back to sleep. They’re not as soothing as they used to be. It’s gotten to be a brassier, perkier world out there. Still, I’m usually lured into a few hours more shuteye. On a good day, it’s shortly after 7 when the voices start breaking through to me. Eventually a story will drag me out of bed to turn up the volume. I’m engaged. But, by the time I crawl to the kitchen and begin my caffeination rituals, I’ve lost that diamond and the refrain begins. Who gives a fuck?
Who gives a fuck that we’ve broken open some nest of lies in the justice department? Who’s still surprised by that? Whose people did they think these were?
The war in Iraq serves it’s own peculiar “Who gives a fuck” special. Monsieur—our special tonight swims in a sauce of hot-blooded shame at the wasted deaths and wounds. Madmoiselle, our special tonight is topped by a heaping pile of cold blooded disgust at the cynical drivers of the manipulation machine. Oh no madmoiselle? No Monsieur? (sniff) c’est dommage… Who gives a fuck?
It’s convenient to blame politicians. I think we should be grateful that some basically good folks stand for office. And then I suppose I have to tolerate their indiscretions and self-aggrandizement. These qualities go along with the personality that craves this forum. But… it requires a certain je ne sais…who gives a fuck, to clear the slime from my throat.
Oh, excuse me. I have mail: newsletters from organizations with no news— Who gives a fuck? mortgages I don’t want, Who gives a fuck? Insurance I don’t need; bills-I guess I’ve got to give a fuck; fundraising from organizations I believe in wasting my last contribution in repetitive annoyance; even the magazines I subscribe to: WHO GIVES A FUCK?
What’s this all about? Do I have a bad attitude? Does this happen to you?
Maybe it’s the 24/7 world. I’m already behind before I get up. What’s the point? I’m exhausted. Who gives a fuck?
Or is it déjà vu all over again, again? The same political fight over and over, third-world invasions based on lies, it’s all too familier—and I’m tired-er.
And where’s the white knight? Mr. Clean, maybe? or even Mr. Tid-y-Bowl? No one looks too good. On the one side we’ve got mostly zombies–no fingerprints, no plans and no positions—and on the other side we’ve got fingerprints everywhere, especially all over our bedroom walls and bathroom stalls.
I tend to feel out-monied, out power pointed, out Goded. The problems are too complex and the answers are too simple. So who gives a fuck?
And then when I turn on the radio and tv for a little distraction I hit the rotation of the self-important monotones and their scripted spontaneity hawking books exposing the perfectly obvious. Who gives a fuck…
Maybe, if I could reign in the things I don’t give a fuck about, I could care more about the things that matter to me.