THE FEAR OF ROYALTY

Lots of people have irrational fears, and lots more have specific fears of all sorta illogical crapola, from people to animals to inanimate objects. Some peeps cower at the sight of clowns, some duck and run when any sort of bird (parrot, seagull or pigeon) zooms in close, there are even some fine upstanding heterosexual he-men who are more scared of mice than they are of yer friendly neighborhood transvestite. Irrational? Yup. Understandable? Kinda.

 

I myself have had mucho experience with both fear and horror: I’ve been married thrice, divorced twice, seen 2001: A Space Odyssey under the influence of early-70’s LSD, actually listened to Dark Side of the Moon straight as an arrow, I’ve seen a live mime show, an actual Poco show, and an old and puffy Frank Sinatra sing the songs that he virtually lived with the sad help of a teleprompter, I’ve even been behind bars on three separate occasions, and once, dare I say it, I donned sandals.

 

Yet, in recent months I’ve developed a brand new deeply personal fear, a fear that sends shivers down my spine, a deep-seated, almost unholy type of fear, a fear that freezes me so strongly that I can only sit on my couch clutching my testicles with the steeliest of grips and intensely puffing on my cigar so hard it looks like I’m trying to steam a railroad engine, shakily pouring tequila into my lukewarm coffee. I’m just all shook up, all turned around, totally freaked out by the horrifying vision of that Burger King Guy running around football fields, staring into skyscraper windows, and (oh the horror) squirting shaving cream on sleeping collegiate types.

 

Has anyone dared gaze into his waxen features, been brazen enough to penetrate his corpse-like eyes, bold enough to peek beneath his Bette Davis hairdo? Was he consciously created to tickle the spine of a host of popcult-fattened baby boomers as resonating cross of Krusty the Clown, a badly colorized Danny Kaye, and the ghost of Liberace? Why would that particular visage induce me or anyone else to scarf down a fat-filled grease burger topped with multi-colored unknown condiments?

 

I’m just a simple guy, with simple desires and admittedly misspent dreams, just bent on watching whatever sports event I’ve fixated on, then, WHAM, he’s there, running through the commercials, disturbing my psyche, burrowing his terrifying image deep inside my brain pan, making sure my sleep will be needlessly restless later that night.

 

Like the rest of you regular guys and gals I go to the great-warm-well-of-television for some real life Soma, to be bathed in the warm glow of familiar, even predictable imagery and pop culture situations—not to be rocked by the nerve-tingling sight of the Burger King Guy, that toxic creature borne of mass advertising gone both wrong and weird.

 

Out-of-control consumerism, I can handle it. Crass and idiotic advertising, I can handle it. Fast food nation, I can handle it. But lord, oh lord, not the Burger King Guy.