Listening To Nothing

I missed it. I fucking slept through the final song on the shuffle of my iPod. There has to be some dreadful irony there.
I went to my friend Lori's Luau birthday party last night. Apparently some huge drama unfolded minutes before I arrived. Lori use to be a part owner of a dive bar where I still work. In January she finally got bought out by the remaining partners, a husband and wife that are also close friends of mine. Well ... last night, apparently after some confrontation at the bar between the husband and wife due to marital strife, the husband went on a rampage. He showed up at the Luau which was located at another bar - kind of direct competition - and the other bar was packed with a lot of his bars' regulars. He approached Lori, berated her, kicked several people who were there off of his bar's softball team, fired the bartender working at the second bar (sorry this is getting confusing a little bit I know) who worked at his bar as well, and basically alienated the majority of his bar folk.
He had departed after I arrived. So, in the midst of this turmoil, I came in with some other friends and wished my friend Lori a happy birthday. And then was bombarded by rumors spinning wildly out of control. Rumors of the bar (Lori's old bar - not the Luau one) being closed down, regulars being 86'ed (banned from the bar) several people being fired, and I had to sort of scratch my chin and look around at the devastation. There was a definite spark of glee in a lot of people's eyes at the bar. There had been a little bit of a desire for the gradual degradation of this man by most of the people there. And I would not be surprised if this whole thing ended up blowing up in his face, resulting in his losing the majority of his bar going audience. And all these other rumors - about the bar being sold, or let go ... It's amazing. I don't know how to begin to address any of it. If it's plausible or even a likelihood. And I almost had to laugh. Because I remember times in my life when I thought it would be great to be in the middle of something like that, where I would have been sad that I missed it, even if it did cost me my job. But not last night. I was happy just to be surrounded by friends and people I hadn't seen in a long time and let the turmoil swirl around me. And it occurred to me, that before reality television people would thrive on the everyday gossip of their neighborhoods. And that maybe, that type of gossip, was really a necessary means by which communities get built. The minute political conflagrations that go on between neighbors create a sense of solidarity and knowledge which people now see with nostalgia through falsified means on television programs such as "Desperate Housewives" and "America's Next Top Model." We transplant our need for community onto a program that has nothing to do with our lives, the people who live next door, or even ( dare I say it) the people sitting right next to us. And then, by proxy, we vampirically attach ourselves to these people's lives outside of these television shows. We want to know who they are and what they wear and who they gossip about etc etc. We look at their sex tapes, ogle their children's wardrobes, and criticize their political affiliations emptily from our easy chairs.
This is not me rattling the cage, attacking television, saying read a book (although we could all read some more books for God's Sakes!). I am just saying that maybe it is better to take a critical look at what the function of gossip is in a community, and how does it serve us when we remove it from the community and apply it to something that wholeheartedly has nothing to do with who we are in a broader sense. Maybe this is all a bunch of empty bullshit, but maybe there is something to it. Like buying your Frosted Flakes at Wal-Mart versus that Ma and Pop place down the street. I mean US weekly? Please!