I can’t remember the exact circumstances why, but a while back I made a list of the most depressing places I’ve ever had the misfortune of visiting. It’s all relative, of course. I’ve never set foot inside a hospice for terminally ill children, for example, so my definition of “depressing” could very well differ from yours. I just wanted to get that out up front, lest someone think I’m a callous son of a bitch.
Some of the places on the list are self-explanatory, like the psych ward of the Bedford VA hospital or the nursing home for head trauma patients where my grandfather spent the last couple years of his life. Others require some clarification, like the reception area for my previous dentist (before I lucked onto a job with a dental plan), a man who built his practice around ruthless efficiency and affordable rates. As a result, his patients tended to be a wide cross-section of folks who had been kicked in the teeth, literally and figuratively, by the American Dream -- purple haired punk rockers (take a guess who that was), haggard looking middle aged women wearing too much makeup, non-English speaking immigrants, and impoverished senior citizens.
And then there is Keno Mart.
“Keno Mart” is the nickname the wife and I use for the convenience store a couple blocks over from our house. I don’t even know what the place’s real name is, though it gets regular mention in the police blotter of the local paper. It’s a pretty standard suburban convenience store in most respects, selling discounted cigarettes, microwaveable junk food, and overpriced household essentials to folks with neither the time nor inclination to travel to the supermarket a mile down the road. That in itself wouldn’t qualify it for my list, but as the nickname suggests, Keno Mart also happens to function as the local Commonwealth-sanctioned betting parlor.
As it’s just a stone’s throw from my house, I visit the place often enough to pick up the paper or a bottle of tonic. The parking lot is always full of cars, from immaculate black Cadillacs, to dinged up minivans, to older model European luxury jobbers whose status symbol luster has since rubbed off through a lengthy succession of owners. It’s not a gallon of milk or a pack of Camels their owners have all come for, though. They’ve come for the chance against all reason that this will be the day that their dreams come true.
I’ve spent enough time around aspiring creative-types to be familiar with the stink of desperation, but nothing could prepare me for the pure, uncut variety that permeates the atmosphere inside the store like an ionized mist. The crowd is diverse; soccer moms and chubby retirees rub shoulders with long-haired biker dudes and skinny guys wearing unlaced sneakers and sweat-stained work clothes emblazoned with the logo of a company that went under five years ago. (Yesterday, I was in line behind a gentleman in his sixties with a massive facial tumor who peeled several twenties off a decent sized roll to pay for a bundle of Daily Numbers quick picks.) They all radiate the same aura of hunger, and possess the same willingness to drop a hundred bucks on scratch tickets (the very essence of a “loser’s game”) while still managing to keep one eye on the big screen that projects the Keno results.
It’s an insatiable hunger, too. The rare winner never cashes out and leaves happy, but always chooses to let it ride, plowing their meager winnings back into the grand game. As someone with a staunch aversion to gambling (the only bit of Protestantism that has stuck with me over the years, unless you count my judgmental and elitist tendencies), I find the environment fascinating even as I feel my soul start to erode within its confines.
Keno Mart, where the American Dream, reduced to a means without end, goes to die (taking as many desperate souls as it can with it when it finally croaks). If you weren’t too lazy to drive the extra mile to the grocery store, you’d never even encounter the rotting smell.
For today’s musical bill, here are some other tales of quiet desperation:
Nick Lowe – Marie Provost (from Jesus of Cool, 1978) – Based on the sad story of this actress, this song perfectly balances pathos with black humor with sparkling pop music.
Anti-Nowhere League – Streets of London (from The Complete Singles Collection, 1999) – They look like they could be Vyvyan Basterd’s favorite band ever, but the tough exterior masks a sensitive side, honest.
Carter USM – A Prince in a Pauper’s Grave (from 30 Something, 1991) – They should have been the biggest pop band in the world, and at one point, it seemed like the could have been, yet something went wrong somewhere. (Also see this.)
Sunday, April 29, 2007
the original sinners are religiously praying
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4 comments:
In a Hegelian evolution of consciousness, the Keno Mart is a phenomenological dead spot, a spiritual black hole, which proves that the cream does not necessarily rise to the top.
Next time your there say "hi" to my mom.
Thank you for another excellent version of "Streets of London" to add to my London playlists!
I don't get betting. Especially in places of squalor. It's fun to have a flutter at a fabulous Vegas casino or a British race course, but I can't see the point in squalid little betting parlors and Keno Mart. I guess that I'm lucky I don't have that addiction.
I see plenty of suckers lined up for Lotto when the Jack-pot goes over one hundred million. It's sad.
Marie Provost!- "She was a winner/who became the doggies dinner"
brilliant!
In an angle formed by a projecting house- front three men were standing very close together, the middle one of them holding a folded-up newspaper which the other two were studying over his shoulder. Even before he was near enough to make out the expression on their faces, Winston could see absorption in every line of their bodies. It was obviously some serious piece of news that they were reading. He was a few paces away from them when suddenly the group broke up and two of the men were in violent altercation. For a moment they seemed almost on the point of blows. 'Can't you bleeding well listen to what I say? I tell you no number ending in seven ain't won for over fourteen months!' 'Yes, it 'as, then!' 'No, it 'as not! Back 'ome I got the 'ole lot of 'em for over two years wrote down on a piece of paper. I takes 'em down reg'lar as the clock. An' I tell you, no number ending in seven-' 'Yes, a seven 'as won! I could pretty near tell you the bleeding number. Four oh seven, it ended in. It were in February -- second week in February.' 'February your grandmother! I got it all down in black and white. An' I tell you, no number-' 'Oh, pack it in!' said the third man. They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had gone thirty metres. They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces. The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange. But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that. When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith. -1984 by George Orwell
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