lower east side.
"lotus bar". they are piping in reggae, indie, and wireless internet. guys with messy hair and old shirts are typing on glowing macs. everyone has interesting hair.

girls are reading thomas wolfe, girls are flaunting their tattoos, girls are talking about sonic youth and jeff buckley. a girl's cell ring is "iron man".

a fat old academic hippy sits with a read and frayed village voice in front of him presses a guitar into his stomach, perching it on his rolls. he rocks to the side, leaning towards a lesbian with a black bandana who owns the guitar, he strums out a beatles riff as if to harden the cliche to a rock.

fat old hippy mumbles about noam chomsky, wants some guy to burn the digital version of "dude, wheres my country" for him.
a gen Xer, pale and growing fat around the sides, balding with a bright yellow teeshirt and ambitious sideburns, talked about MPEG encoding with a young actor, then talked about korean technology.
"..they actually have computers in their couches, its just that much a part of everyday life.. "

i watched a man's head come off this morning. it was slow, painful, they sawwed his neck.
i remember most the men chanting "allahu akbar".
the guy was from philadelphia, right.

i was 17 and just on the internet, when i stumbled onto a video of an afghan beheading a russian soldier. the head rolled away, the body collapsed flat.

the fat hippy and several hipsters and a girl with a tiny toy dog are crowding around a laptop staring like children at the screen.
an mpeg of the guy from philadelphia's beheading is on the screen.
"holy shit"
"ive never seen a beheading"
"whooaah"
"ohhh huh dude"
the girl with the toy dog squeals

in minutes they are back to talking about MPEG software.
the fat hippy is bitching about "This Administration"

ill need a drink now, thankyou