The Culture of Looting

“The walls on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams…”

–IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING

People in high levels of government and business know it is certain. People on the streets sense it. The remainder plods to the next mark and are no more aware of it than a turtle is aware of its shell. And what is it? The party’s over.

The “host” liquidated his assets and took his jet to Bermuda before the invitations went out. The butler passed out trying to pork the maid upstairs, and the maid booked with the silverware. And the “guests” are madly trying to snort the rest of the dope.

Meanwhile, an angry mob is advancing from the ghetto; intent on stripping the place… maybe catching some stoned-out cash-carrying porkies and helping themselves to a free BMW and a coked-out trophy wife. The party’s over. Not everyone knows it yet.

Not everyone was invited. Not everyone even heard about it. Not everyone knows the massive drywall box by the golf course is wide open and there are free doorknobs for the taking. Guests pissing in the potted plants are unaware of the advancing mob.

Maybe somebody will call 9-11 and the cops will come and shoot the looters until their shift ends. The cops will go home and wait for their paychecks that will be tied up in litigation. The burning drywall boxes will light up the golf course for a few nights.

Nobody told the mob where to go. Evicted and armed, they were all just looking for a warm place to shit. They shit in the plastic cups on the manicured greens and plant the flags in the mouths of crispy blackened trophy-wife corpses.

It has happened before… like when the Black Death took out half of Europe. It will happen again, but there might not be anybody who can write it down. Nobody could read it anyway. And what was it? The party’s over. That’s what it was.

There was never any party to begin with. It was just a gaggle of fat overpaid looters converging on the carrion before the lean unpaid looters took them. A Financial Advisor was cheering for the Bulls when his head was rammed through the plasma screen.

They came to see a show. They came to network and tinkle and chat about images and icons something academics called culture. That was the party that never existed. But the culture exists as the fires flicker and the dead are brought on. Culture is a verb: looting… like “cultured” pearls.

Soon it will be time to make more things to steal.

The party’s over.