What do you want? World Peace. That’s my stock answer to the question – whether I’m in a cafe, a brothel or a zoo. It’s been a default – something that buys me a little time while the interrogator re-adjusts. I started to think about it today though. Do I really want world peace? It sounds pretty innocuous, but I did find myself thinking last night that two remote controlled gatling guns (fake) would be cool on the beam above my porch. Not because I want to shoot anybody (nearby), but rather because I think they’re cool.
And why do I think gatling guns are cool? Because I grew up with parents from WW2, reading hand me down comics about people shooting Germans? Because Jesse Ventura carried one around in Predator? Or because as a young boy, I would play war with my friends rather than peace?
Maybe. So I can live without people shooting each other and crashing drone planes into orphanages in the name of war, but can I live without tanks and daisy-cutters and apache helicopters? Probably, but that’s not how I was raised. I mean, I made a cover for my hymn book at school to keep it safe. It was armored and had aluminium cladding to make it quite lethal. And I drew a pretty cool representation of a Mil M24 Hind helicopter gunship. On the back was an Aermacchi MB-339.
Can I live without men on the moon (American, not little green)? Probably not as one of the many ages of man is space. Just after the age of dinosaurs and before the age of cars, in developmental terms. Can I live with World Peace? Maybe, maybe not. But if anyone foists a Beatles or John Lennon song on me, I will hunt them down and throw a grenade down their throat.
World Peace. Huh.
What is it good for?