Box of Nothing

by Ian Grey

This vampire I know keeps getting fired. For drinking blood. Among her recent ex-employers was a tony resort hotel owned by Disneyworld.

Okay, so a vampire drinking blood, even one in the employ of the Mouse, is redundant. The "vampire" in question—we'll call her Sarah—isn't really a vampire at all. She's a pagan witch who, in the course of her rituals, drinks human blood. These rituals usually involve or lead to sexual activity of some kind. We should all be so lucky.

All this is quite consensual, as Sarah is a young, alabaster-skinned, stunningly beautiful woman—not unlike Jennifer Tilly but with several operative brain cells—and has no problems finding donors. Her drinking is limited to about a shot-glass a week. The Kennedys could learn from her moderation.

But drinking isn't what keeps getting her dumped from jobs.

As a devout non-Christian, her real gaffe is the writing and editing of a paper- and web-based 'zine devoted to her singular views and activities. It's a gaffe that has literally nearly destroyed her life.

'One Enormous Audience' and the Demon Pazzuzu

No matter what you hear, racism, homophobia, misogyny or whatever other evil you might name are promoted only if that evil creates a larger market, or enhances a pre-existing one. Assorted communities are, by design—we'll get into whose design in a moment—splintered into the mainstream and then re-assimilated into a homogenous "us." As former Nation editor Mark Crispen Miller notes in this author's book, Sex, Stupidity and Greed: Inside the American Movie Industry, we are all potentially "One Enormous Audience." And the only people who are not part of this Audience are those who actively critique it.

The aim of corporate culture is to devour and/or subsidize into for-hire neutrality all generators of cultural information (read: artists.) It is the entire raison d'être of a Viacom or Disney to utterly control both the content and distribution of media. Rapid digital technology aids immeasurably in making this a reality.

Once information is controlled, concerns about "marketing" or, for that matter, "public opinion" dissolve. When a clutch of corporations control the rights to the content, the means of distributing it, and all major avenues of reportage regarding that content, those who betray unsympathetic views are cut out of the loop, and denied access to corporate-owned platforms of discourse. For the consumer, alternatives literally disappear. The phrase "captive audience" takes on a truly frightening new meaning. "Outsiders," whether gays, Lubovich Jews, or blood-drinkers, are all viable consumers, and corporate America embraces them with open arms, as long as demographics don't indicate that their presence will screw up the ability to "service" another market segment. And even then, there's niche-marketing. In the movies, this manifests as Message in a Bottle for the great unwashed, and The Craft for troubled teens with black accessory issues. As we'll see, the above is not an X-File flight of paranoia, but simply an account of current events. There is no "political" aspect here in the old use of the word, simply a product motive with growth hormones.

In order to create "one enormous audience," an on-going ad campaign is crafted which addresses "issues" such as "censorship." As with any ad campaign, this functions as a theater of cognitive dissonance. Or in simpler terms, a con job. As Miller notes, "...the real threats to free expression don't come from Bible-thumpers—they don't even come from schoolboards, prudes and prigs. They come from very hip, well-paid media executives and the whole system which is geared away from certain kinds of content."

With this in mind, Sarah, and a lot of less "unusual" folks are, in a word, fucked. Yet in many ways, Sarah is downright normal. She pays taxes, works—between firings—to feed the rent and her two kids.

Oh: the kids.

They're black.

Sarah—whose ex was black, hence the kids—lives in The South. In Orlando, Florida, to be specific. Which, for all practical purposes, is a suburban annex of Disneyworld. Last year, a mundane domestic squabble caught the attention of someone who was a friend of the local police. I am unwilling to tell the details of this squabble, as any media reports of her situation most probably will be used against her. I'll simply say that Sarah's "domestic squabble" was of a remarkably tame variety, and would have been unworthy of even a drunk beat cop's semi-attention if the person involved in it had not been a female, non-Christian blood-imbiber with non-white children who lives down the street from Disneyworld. In the corporate hierarchy, such multiple-anti-isms are similar to the work of disgruntled and drunk janitors in an older world order. I sincerely doubt Edgar Bronfman, Jr., the president of the Seagrams booze and entertainment empire, could care less if you sacrifice three children and one dog to the Demon Pazzuzu, as long as long as www.pazzuzu.com stayed packed with banner ads and the hits kept coming.

Anyway, a cop visited Sarah's apartment, took in some of the books she was reading, and filed a report (but not before tossing off a mean-spirited—and inaccurate—bon mot or three about Sarah being a "Satanist" and all that implies).

Sarah reports that the rest of the report was even nastier than his remarks. After taking detailed notice of her choice in reading matter, and viewing a few decorative pentagrams—one atop a Christmas tree!—the officer then speculated that she "may be drinking her children's' blood". Not long after the cop composed this fanciful document, the court had Sarah's children taken away from her.

Which really sucks. And is also a violation of the Bill of Rights. At least in places where Disneyworld has no outposts. Which are getting to be few in number.

The Entertainment State: "One of us!" ?