A FREQUENT FLYER

I found this little tidbit at The Beast today:

What hath Sully wrought? Every single goose--including the babies--was rounded up, put in crates, and gassed to death in Brooklyn's Prospect Park last week. The geese--about 400 of them--were a signature of the park, and residents began to notice their conspicuous absence a few days ago. The mystery of their disappearance was solved Monday, when city officials, working with the federal Agriculture Department, admitted the birds were killed because they threatened human frequent fliers. The aim was to extinguish all goose populations within seven miles of major airports. Prospect Park is 6.5 miles from the La Guardia and JFK. Officials waited till the geese's molting season--when the birds could not fly--to pounce. The birds were crated and then gassed with C02 at a nearby facility. Visitors, mourning the lifeless surface of the park's lake, found zip-tie restraints among a scattering of gosling feathers. Read it at The New York Times

Louis C. K. is a NYC comic and stars in his own series on FX.

When you are 60 and see someone bitching about being a mite over 40, it is unlikely that you are going to empathize that much with his maladies.

But Louie is delightful, for me anyway. He tells stories that break my heart and yet, make me laugh at the same time.

He accompanies his buddy to some RR station to pick up a farm girl cousin who is visiting an urban setting for the first time in her bloody life.  She was raised on a farm and never left the farm until her parents died.

After taking some time to disparage the pick-up point, Louie describes one the trio's first encounters with urbania.

"So she sees this bum lying in his own vomit on the sidewalk. I mean she really sees the guy. We of course see these guys all the time, they are always there. But I mean this farm girl REALLY SEES THE GUY."

Then Louie goes on to describe he and his buddy's horror at seeing this rural waif bend down to take a closer look at destitution and they both let out a shriek when she reaches down to touch him and speak with him.

"Are you Okay? Is there something I could do?"

 SOMETHING I COULD DO. WHAT IN THE HELL COULD THIS SWEET COUNTRY GIRL DO FOR THIS GUY?

The dynamic duo manage to separate the sweet young thing from this biological mass and  they attempt to draw her attention to other things in the Big City.

But the trio ambulates further down the boulevard of despair and the sweet wisp of rural purity turns to the two and demands:

How can something like this happen? I mean what happened to this poor, poor chap anyway.....

Following the girl's plea for some semblance of an explanation regarding all of this urban blight, all of this injustice and all of this despair; Louie turns to his audience and says, matter-of-factly:

What happened...what happened to this fellow? America! America is what happened to him.

To my mind, Louie wishes to be a total fuck but he is raising two children. And as much as he would like to sink into total despair, as much as he complains about his life and life in general; Louie has responsibilities. So the best Louis C. K. can do, is complain.

And he complains so so artfully. Ha

So what in the hell happened to all the Geese of Prospect Park?

America! America is what happened to these silly geese.