Neon Truth I guess I’m what you would call a neon philosophizer. I’m in search of an inclusive philosophy which suits all occasions, a one size fits all truth, and I’m looking for it in all the wrong places, according to my Mama. “Nobody ever found the truth in a bar,” she says. Truth is where you find it, I tell her back, and I look for it behind the neon bar lights. I took up this search before I can remember. That is to say, I understand myself to have been searching for the years that I dwelled behind the neon, lifting glass after glass, erasing my discoveries even as I discovered them, disassembling structures precariously fabricated. It is difficult to assemble a truth under any circumstances. So I had not much luck in the early days of my search, being impaired in my analytical perception. These days my perception is more acute and I take a notebook to remind me why I am there, behind the neon not as a pickled specimen but as a student. I drink coffee and I talk to the bartender and the tendees, just like I did before. But I don’t dive into the coffee at the end of the night. The bartender never has to throw me out. The police, when they come, are not there to put on the rubber gloves and sarcasm for me. If I go home with anybody, I know about it. No morning surprises. For I have a purpose. I am there to take field notes. The subject of my study is Neon Lights and how the species of barfly found within correlates to the neon design. Think about it. The Redneck Density in any bar is in direct proportion to the number of neon beer signs scattered about. You know those white cocktail glass signs? Go into one of those places. If you don’t slip and fall on a salesman, I’ll kiss your ass. I’ve been doing this research, sober, for three years now. And here is the beginning of my philosophy. Everybody knows the truth, or at least has a nodding acquaintance with it. If pressed, they will attempt to deliver it to you. Each group has its own truth. Redneck Truth, Salesman Truth (yes, they do), Recovering Addict Truth, etc. When you distill each truth, assemble it with the others, stand off to the side and view them from an angle, THEY ARE ALL THE SAME. I swear, it’s the truth. I have gone into a bar with dancing pink neon pigs on the front porch and into a roadhouse where neon hogs surmounted by leather clad skeletons blinked in static flight across the roof. I learned the same, identical wisdom from each group, the square dancers and the bikers. Get it while you can. That’s what they said. After I had distilled each conversation to its essence and lined them all up, I got in my viewing stance and what did they all say? They said, Get it while you can. So that is one of the tenets of my philosophy, still evolving. Get it while you can. So, you see my methodology. I am a hunter gatherer in the neon jungle. I search for universal truth behind the lights and where I find agreement among the species, I record that agreement. I hope to have the traditional neon grouping completed by my 50th year. Then I will be able to concentrate on the exotic lights, created to advertise a purveyor of experience I have not met before. Beyond Truth, possibly.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 15:44:50 +0000
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