Obituary

On Mayday, a day of pagan symbolism and working class solidarity, Usama Bin Laden, the greatest trickster, the Loki of the planet, the closest reality ever got to having a real super villain, died. 

He died eerily, in the most absurd of hiding places.  As they've been saying, it were as if he'd been hiding in West Point, NY.  How absurd!  How embarrassing for Pakistan, and how embarrassing for him.  Burning his own trash?  What kind of comedy is this?  This bearded idiot out there at night with his henchmen, fanning the flames of a huge junk pile?  In a walled luxury McMansion in a Pakistani suburb?  

I want to know what it was like, to sit shoulder to shoulder with other suicide bombers, kneeling and listening with awe, looking up at his white robes, brilliant like an angel against the blue desert sky.  How did he sound?  What the fuck did he say?  He must have said the kinds of things that uplift the lost from their despair.  I hear he had a very gentle and soothing voice. 

He orchestrated mass murder for television.  He was a reality show host who charged us trillions of dollars to watch and participate as a contestant.  He charged us what little economic equality we had left.  He provided the consternation to distract us while our economic system became what Rachel Maddow tonight called "feudalism with cable."  He knew how weak our leadership would be, how the Bush administration would respond like a blustering ineffectual man o' war about to lose its empire.  For a man who hated music so much, Usama bin Laden's timing was perfect.

He knew us better than we knew ourselves.