Welcome to my Aquarium

 

(Shawn is dressed as a homeless guy. Jerry walks by and throws some change in a cup next to him)

Hey man, I don’t need any change. If you want to help me out, why don’t you give me your credit card! Moron. All these people are morons, with their pretty dresses and high heels and red lips. It’s like a giant game of dress up in here!!! And this corner is my aquarium, for me to sit here and stare at. (to audience) I’m staring at you. You’re a part of it, not me, I’m on the outside. I’m out of the loop. You won’t see me dancing around for forty hours a week waiting for food to fall from the sky, praying that God won’t forget to feed us today, cause I know, I know that sometimes God forgets, cause I’m the smart one. That’s why I’m not trapped inside that bowl like you.

You amuse me. You’re trapped inside my aquarium and you don’t even know what you’re doing in there. You should just take a look at yourself. You know why I’m not in there? No? Can you guess? I can’t wait in line. No. I can’t do it. Long, short, fast, slow, single file, it doesn’t matter, I can’t do it. Have you ever watched yourselves waiting in line? It’s pathetic. Eyes trained forward to some inoffensive spot. Not talking. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t look at anyone. Just take a short step up every now and then, holding on to your milk til your hand gets too damn cold, so you can drop your money so you can go on and go sit in traffic or go sit on the elevator, still not talking, too afraid to speak. There’s people all around and you won’t talk to any of them. Why? You afraid they gonna think you some evil person? Afraid they gonna think you some evil person for talking in line? They gonna come up.. breathing behind you and scream Lynch um!! Lynch um!!! Not me. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I talk all the time in line. Damnit, I only got so many breaths and I’m not going to waste one if I don’t have to!!!!

You know there’s a lot of people like me, and we may not have fancy cars, but we laugh a lot. You amuse us. But you created us. You put this piece of glass between us because you were scared of us. And you tell us we have Attention Deficit Disorder in school, and call us stupid to make us think that we can’t keep up with your world, when the truth is, is that we are really too creative to go as slow as you go. Our minds are moving too fast to be quiet in single file lines, and to sit in school and learn about whatever bullshit got mandated this year. We’re too busy dreaming about how much better things could be. We’re not listening to you on purpose, we’ve got better things to do baby, and we will not be told what to do.

We understand the games, maybe not at first, but we catch on fast. You go around telling everyone, “don’t pop your zits… it’s bad for you and it will leave your face all marked up and nasty”, cause they want you to walk around with ugly pimple faces and think you’re no better than anyone else, and if you listen to them, you cower in public all insecure about your face, but not me man. I’ve popped every pimple I’ve ever had, and still do. And it doesn’t leave a scar, never did, but if that’s what they want you to believe, believe it.

Have you ever watched a bunch of people watching television, It’s so sad. Lifeless lounging flesh, just sitting there, not moving, except you know, to get a beer… a little more popcorn, or even worse, to get up and actually look for that damn remote control so they can sit still for even more and more hours, letting the TV control their brains and fill them up with blinking images of what they should be doing if they ever got off the damn couch long enough to go buy something. I can’t sit still that long. It’s all moving, set in motion. Sitting still in a world of motion is a waste of time. And I won’t have any of that in my house you fucking suit wearing douche bag!

Just spend a day here with me and you’ll see. Come look at my aquarium. It only takes a day, and it’ll change you, if you’re smart enough… smart enough to really see what's going on all around.

Go to the Burger King, or any of those nasty places, it doesn’t matter, and you watch a really fat woman… I mean so huge you can’t imagine how she ever let herself get that way. But you don’t laugh at her, cause you know the same thing could happen to you, with all the nasty food you eat, double burgers and biggie fires and shakes, over and over again cause the menu doesn’t change out there, this is what they feed us! And you watch that fat lady walk up and order her double burger with everything but pickles and some fries out of a machine that no good parent would ever allow anywhere near their house. And you watch her take her little to-go bag and as soon as she turns her back, those damn people behind the counter start laughing at her, when they’re the ones that just fed her all of that shit! And then it all turns full circle when she gets to the door, and she starts to push it open and she lets out a little chuckle at them cause their makin’ minimum wages, and that’s what all our life’s training comes to. Learning how to laugh at everybody?

I can’t believe that everybody is so busy laughing at everyday that we’re too afraid to talk in line, we’re too afraid to pop our zits, and we’re too damn afraid too turn the damn TV off and go out and deal with the world, because we want to be able to go to our comfy little jobs and talk about what the funny people did on the TV last night.

Well, I’m glad there’s a big piece of glass here (pointing to glass) cause I don’t want to be in there with you. (Pause.. thinking) You know the sun is going to explode someday. I’m not going to be here. You’re not going to be here.. but it will take my aquarium and everything with it when it goes, and all the bullshit you lived through along the way won’t really have mattered.

It’s good to be a little crazy, cause you all take yourselves way too seriously.