"Allen Steele - A King of Infinite Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

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 Steele, Allen - [Near-Space 05] - A King of Infinite Space


paid to do, man: clean up after people like me. If you don't like it, then go to college and become a
rocket scientist.

Cypress Hill comes on at seven o'clock with loud, aggressive rap about fucking and smoking pot. I'm all
for both, but Erin isn't into this stuff; she drags me over to the second stage near the front gate, where we
catch Beck doing a solo acoustic show. Once again we see Shemp; completely zooed by now, he's
standing near the stage, screaming "Loser!" every time the guy takes a break. This may be a request for
Beck's big radio hit or an opinion of Beck himself; either way, Beck ignores him, and when Shemp spots
us from across the crowd, we turn and hurry away before anyone sees us with him.

We check out the other side of the amphitheater. More hucksters selling clothes and bumper stickers and
shit, but there're also tables set up by groups like Greenpeace, NOW, Missouri Public Interest Research
Group, and so forth. All these guys trying to save the world; what's the point? I sign a NORML petition
so I can get a bumper sticker with a pot leaf on it. There's a large silkscreen tapestry set up on a scaffold:
a mushroom cloud exploding behind screaming children and mounds of skulls, titled "August 1945."
History, man; it happened a long time ago. Let it go, let it go.

Back in our seats, we blow another joint as we wait for Hole's road crew to finish setting up. It's a little
after eight now, and the sun is finally beginning to go down; the heat is off, and the crowd is beginning
to awaken from its collective stupor. Time to do some serious partying.

Yet, as I turn around to look back over the countless bodies crammed together beneath the shed and up
on the hill, something occurs to me. In this instant, I see my generation: torn apart by divorce when we
were five years old, then told that monogamy or abstinence is the only way to stop AIDS; suckled on a
tube filled with bad sitcoms, idiot cop shows, and Saturday morning cartoons with not-so-subtle
messages about Peace, Love, Understanding, along with ads for a Barbie's Dream House that looks like
nothing we'll ever afford; despised by hippies-turned-yuppies who try to sell us compilations of twenty-
five-year-old rock music and reproductions of Peter Max paintings, but won't give us a decent job so we
can pay for this shit; numbed by whippits, lousy pot, and gassy beer; dumbed out on Nintendo, the failed
politics of both Democrats and Republicans, and Beverly Hills 90210. No respect, no hope, no clue, no
cigarettes . . .

No future.

It's something like an epiphany.

Realizing this, I say:

(and this part I remember very clearly)

"Y'know, this is the best day of my life."


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 Steele, Allen - [Near-Space 05] - A King of Infinite Space