The Creeps

"After closing time
At the Guernsey Fair
I detect the El Supremo
From the room at the top of the stairs
Now I've been around the world
And I have been in the Washington Zoo
And in all my travels
As the facts unravel
I've found this to be true

While the poor people sleepin'
With the shade on the light
While the poor people sleepin'
All the stars come out at night

Show biz kids making movies
Of themselves you know they
Don't give a fuck about anybody else"

(Steely Dan -- "Show Biz Kids", 1973)

Warren Meyer and John Venlet both hit on the "weird mass self-hypnosis" of the times. Then comes Balko with the link to that video of self-presumptuous boneheads showing their asses right out in public. What it really needs is Harpo Marx throwing spaghetti all over the joint, and W.C. Fields pledging to give them all a hot-foot if they don't knock it off and mind their own goddamned business.

In any case, they could all be as ridiculous as they want to be in their own lives, which are no doubt ridiculous. It's ghastly for them to be importuning the plebes the way that they are in that maudlin affair, but it's downright sick; that "serve the President" bit.

Americans don't "serve". They produce, and they overthrew the impulse to bended knee over two centuries ago. These jell-o blobs enjoy getting together and preening themselves with mutually-resonant buzz-tones (where language once stood) in order to see themselves reflected in their preferred reified shards: this is pathological self-infatuation laid at the feet of regime.

They might sometimes actually hope that you're like them, and will lay open your throat, too, but that's not really why they do it. You're just the mirror.