MANCH-VEGAS: AFTER THE FALL OF DUSK


I'm not going to complain about the Manch-Vegas nightlife. I won't. It's hillarious. And there is so little to laugh about in this world of stressed day-trader sociopaths and preteen warfare.

I was on the other side of the river the other night and out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of this kid waiting impatiantly outside of the Pyramid. He was draped in dog chains, glitter makeup, a mesh pullover, and he was wearing his game on his sneakers. I laughed so hard that I lost control of the car and plowed an old lady into the side of a drug store.

And yet, after I stifled my hysterics, that being a few weeks after the preliminary litigation, I couldn't help but contemplate that mesh pullover. That poor child had become so bored and trendy that the Pyramid had become his culture. I'm a sensitive guy, sometimes I worry about the lemmings. Hell, somebody has to do something, I think Britney Spears was nominated for a grammy and that's not the world I want to be living in.

Back to the problem at hand, let's break this down. If you're under eighteen, or a complete loser, or a high school dropout, or basically your average Manch-Vegian teenager, what are your Friday night activity options? For the sake of argument, let's rule out the possibility of the average teenager sitting at home and reading a book.

What's left? The options seem sad indeed: If it's not the Pyramid, it's smoking up in Livingston Park, it's cruising Elm in the primitive aggression mobile, it's taunting Victory Park vagrants, it's useless vandalism, it's sexual frustration and expirementation, and it's pushing the limits for effect. Yeah, I'm shocked too, apparently stamp-collecting doesn't hold the audience that it once did.

There really isn't much offered for the youth and burnouts of Manch-Vegas. I don't have any answers, and most of the time I don't understand the questions. But what I do know is that we should give these morons something to do, or pay that damn pied piper to drown all the trendies in the Merrimack. Hmm, maybe we can trick the piper into killing the kids and then not pay him... then maybe he'll kill the rats out of spitefull revenge and we'll never hear from the Mayor or the Board of Aldermen ever again.


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