Melancholy 2

2nd attempt - IE crashed. Fuck you Micro$oft.
I don't know why but I've got the blues today. I was just reading vice - highly disappointing. A old issue was left at our house a while back and it was mildly amusing and I thought I'd take a look online. You know your dealing with a poor effort when the first thought that emerges from the depths of your mind while you are absorbing the initial paragraph is "I am really wasting my time here".

Anyway, I need an epiphany in the very near future or I feel my life will (and has) become dull. I did have another one of those "ideas" we all get from time to time on the slow-motion commute home today. Perhaps this was an initial ray of light (string) with a sunshine (yo-yo) to follow. Who knows. I tend not to act on these things (except for perhaps the songwriting department, in which I must say I am becoming quite accomplished.) This one happened to be a story idea, still too vague to define as a movie script, short story or book, but an idea none the less. SO, in an attempt to thwart my normal procrastination and hence loss of the idea, I think I will enter it here. (If anyone actually reads this - don't steal the idea. I would then be forced to hunt you down and kill you. The idea sucks anyway :)

It's the story of a man in his mid thirties who has come to worship the almighty dollar. He has an O.K. paying job that eats away at his inner being bit by bit each day. He has a amicable wife that he thinks he may have loved at one point, but is positive he doesn't anymore. He has a kid that is in their early and teens with whom he can't relate and who abuses our character on a regular basis. He drives a used North American car that keeps breaking down and smells like sour milk no matter how many times he tries to clean it. After some character introduction, the man has an epiphany. He finally recognizes the fact that he puts money, possessions, and the pursuit of the american dream above all else. He somehow knows this isn't right, but believes that if he can aquire these things that happiness will follow anyway. He does some quick self-education on religion and learns there is one common factor accross all faiths - that those who are worshipped reward those who are faithful to and worship them unabashedly.

So he says fuck it.

If this is what his deity requires, This, then, is what he will do. Time to go balls-to-the wall with it. No more fucking around.
He withdraws all his life's savings from his moderate portfolio, leaves his shitty job, Nice wife and kid and heads for (atlantic city or vegas?)
Here's the cool part - he actually wins. He wins pretty big - in the millions.
The remainder of the story takes place in the casino. He is there alone, and nobody knows who he is. At first he is treated like royalty by the staff, but this doesn't satisfy him. He spends a few days/nights in his room. He ponders what he can do - buy the fancy car, get the hot girl, get a boat, the mansion. But he quicky realizes that he can't really get all that. The money he won really isn't that much. He must worship harder.

So he returns to the casino floor for the remainder of the night gambling away all his winnings. by 4 pm the next evening he's lost it all. Several sub plots occur in the casino during the night - the good-hearted girl who can see the good in him and is attracted to that. The war veteran he talks to for several hours with at the slots who is now a gambling addict. The billionaire oil tycoon who he sits with at blackjack who tells him the new rules he will live by.
The character has no doubt gone through a major transformation - he has changed. However, into what remains to be seen and is left up to the audience. There is no moral to this story, no happy ending, nothing saying what he did was wrong. Just that he is human in it's purest form. To be elaborated....

"It's not going to stop til you wise up" - aimee mann