Burger Kingdom

originally published August 23, 2006

I just turned off the TV so I could begin writing this, and just seconds later, I can already feel it pulling me back in. When I look up, I can see bits of my soul dripping on the carpet between me and the tentacles retreating into the screen. My mind is blank for a minute, and then I’m slowly able to fall back into a pattern of watching myself think. Finally, a question falls out of my head. Could it be that televisions, as devices, create some type of inter-dimensional black hole that feeds on the human spirit, or do they just make you paranoid of that? I’m certain now that one of those two things is happening to me, and I find the thought of either to be equally upsetting. In both scenarios, something weird as shit is happening to my brain, and I blame them both on that damn TV. Even if I was being paranoid, I still think that would be the television’s fault. People can’t be held responsible for being susceptible to natural selection in the face of a force as powerful as television. For all I know, our souls are meant to be forfeited to the machine’s abyss. Life might have intended for that to be the natural order of things. It could even be necessary so that some other part of our lives can move on, but then again, what do I know? It’s hard to process it all, because every time my brain comes up against a challenging thought, my hand reaches for the remote control and I forget all about it.

On The Tube

The more I lose track of what makes sense in my mind, the more of what I see on television is beginning to make sense. Burger King sandwiches have certainly never seemed like such logical sources of sustenance. As I just witnessed on the tube, they are assembled by midgets moving the beef patties around by cranes and dropping them into place on the buns. (This is an actual commercial.) Sometimes they’ll drop the beef on one of the midget workers, and, likewise, sometimes I feel like dying. It falls into place in such a perfect way, it really makes me wonder how the Burger King advertising department has figured out so much about my frail human psyche. For instance, how did they know that I’ve always considered the people that make fast food miniature humans because of their lowly station in life, and how did they know that when I think about their misfortunes it assuages my fear of dying? Since they’re so hip at making fun of themselves, I wonder when they’ll start poking fun at how little fast-food workers get paid. I always try to keep that hilarious fact in mind when I order a hamburger from the drive-thru, and it makes the warmed-up death-on-a-bun I receive taste like a million bucks.

With a million dollars stuffed between my teeth, my mouth is too full to tell the TV not to turn itself back on. As the screen flicks back to life, my sofa lifts up and takes me along for a ride through the Burger Kingdom. My hunger for knowledge weighs my stomach down to the sofa, and although I can’t stand up, I can arrive at any destination on the Burger King’s menu by just pressing a button. After spending a brief time in the alleyways of commercials, I remember that the reason I’m here is to get my fill of whatever there is to see, and so I head towards the familiar push and pull of the big city. The city is made up of tall grey news buildings, the tallest being programs dedicated to politics. There are zoos and museums and churches mixed in with the news buildings, but you don’t ever get a chance to see the sky unless you look up towards the taller buildings. Eventually the sun will end up blinding me though, and I’ll be prevented from taking in all of the city’s more grandiose framework.

On The Street

When I get dizzy from looking up and twisting my neck to view the crowning achievements of the great human city, it’s nice to be able to let my shoulders lean back down and look at the more colorful streets for a while. Whatever force it is that builds itself upwards into structures can be seen actively disassembling itself on the streets of the city. People dance with their feet growing out of the asphalt and crumble paper cities in their hands. Whole worlds are rolled up into joints, and as the smoke rises up, the buildings begin to look more like burning towers of babble. The rhythm of traffic pushes lifeless bodies along in one direction, while underground sewers pump blood back out into the country. At some point, I find myself on my sofa floating out of the city on a dark river of some kind, all the while the city light becoming more distant. By the time the light shrinks down to a static glow, the current has emptied me out in a neighborhood pool out in suburbia somewhere. When I get out of the pool, I try to step inside my cookie-cutter home, but I am stopped by an eerily familiar reflection in the sliding glass door: giant plastic smile, wide blue eyes, and a jeweled crown. Knowing that it can't be true that I am in fact the Burger King, I fling open the sliding door to find myself asleep on the couch in front of the flickering TV. As I lie back down in my body, I feel my hand press the power button and I awake to find myself writing again, though I can’t remember what.

On The Menu

I know that TV is robbing me of my soul or making me paranoid or something, but what I do get from watching it really makes it seem like it’s worth it, especially when what I want is nice and concentrated when I get it. These days when I watch television, I try my best to stick to either politics or rap videos so that I can make sure that I get the most social relevance for my viewing time. I like to tell myself that if I’m getting something that will help my everyday life out in the world, then I’m not wasting my time and soul by watching television. Politics and rap encapsulate quite nicely the serious and fun sides of my interaction with society, and I keep myself feeling socially responsible by staying aware on these two fronts. There are other things on the menu, like comedy or drama, but the more I think about the lesser options, the more I’m reminded that I didn’t even really want fast food to begin with. I was just in a hurry.

Being in a rush makes even the things you want to eat taste a little bit worse than they really are. Watching politics, I’ve convinced myself that the more I pay attention to it, the worse it gets. On the flip side, if I’m fed up with politics, chances are that I’ll turn on the TV and find something to be optimistic about. Then I’ll get sucked in for a while until I forget where I am. When I wake up and turn the TV on the next day, some unexpected problem with the world’s growth will once again be placing our country in danger. Whereas politics form a cycle where danger is perpetually culminating, rap videos seem to form a cycle where danger is constantly disseminating back into itself. Instead of the way the news searches for the latest budding of violence across the globe, rap videos are always searching for the root of violence in individual characters. How characters deals with their personal pain determines their song and consequently their reward from it.

For me, my lack of a song to call my own keeps my soul from sailing towards anything but the white-washed beaches of faceless suburbs. I am part of a people only united by the collective willingness to laugh at and paint absurd depictions of the face that rules us. You can see it in our homes, in what we watch on television, and in our king. At least the Burger King can say he feeds his people, but along with whatever nutrition we receive comes an addiction to sarcasm that only serves to supplement our deteriorating will to live in a plastic universe.

Thomas Valadez

Thomas Valadez