I just imporoved the beginning, mostly. I wanted to make the American Idol scene more dramatic. Hopefully you like it.

Like every other hob-goblin fearing American on the land mass, I can't get enough of American Idol.

"But I'm unique!" screams a girl after being rejected, "I could be the only American Idol ever who doesn't know how to sing!"

The judge leans in close to the untalanted singer. A smile on his face that could slice through anybody's hopes or dreams. "That's not how it works, sweetheart. My ears aren't nihilists. I'm afraid you couldn't find a friendly ear amongst the Dada or the Deaf."

She thinks her inability, weather by choice or design, to conform to any standards makes her unique; that subtleties amounting to badness are just as acceptable as well-placed, well-timed, soulful, polished, resonant and practiced notes in their prescribed order. Three thousand years of science and thousands more of primal energy are cast aside in a bold, unrealistic, swipe at stardom. The judge tells her this and laughs at the horror in her eyes.

She thinks that the judges are rude and pulls out a .45 millimeter and grabs a beer. Trying to keep entertainers away from alcohol is like trying to entertain a sober audience with an inferior mediocrity. "You're rude, and I'm going to fix that." She's rude for not even thinking that she might be the rude one. Melt into ubiquity, uncommonly deranged girl.

There is a reason as to why I don't have any rocks in my car; I threw them all. There are a lot of bad drivers around here. That was an only an enthymeme.

I visited my family in the summer. I don't understand my older cousins, nor do they understand me. The younger ones love me (or at least I would like to think so) because I'm an adult who will listen and respond. Some time, some attention, is all they want. And I entertain.

I prefer other people's children to thoughts of raising my own: give them back to the adults they belong to if they get out of hand.

Grandpa is the only adult I particularly like more than the others. He entertains me and my questions. This wise old hermit tells thrice the history of his house, their block, his life, and half of my genesis as we sit alone, before a house full of children. He speaks poorly of some of his own children and they speak poorly of him. Family forms prejudice and now he sits by as they treat him like an old man. Some of them have experienced selflessness, others selfishness, few balance. So this baby booming, hyperprogenizing, formerly farming, son of a man who died while picking up a horse for fun, Naval Boxer might have a great offspring average if he was a batter instead. He has no more or less right to complain than they do.

We find solace and solidarity in conversing, yet. Our bond is only a matter of timing and circumstance. He asks if I'm an alcoholic and I tell him it's only because I'm on vacation. He likes one beer. I like a handful. I decide to let myself get crazy.

And still, I watch myself as I give preference to the child with the clearest speech or the youngest age or the funniest demeanor. I know better than to make fun of the spoiled child who only consumes processed garbage, but I don't refuse to pick him up and carry him to be mean. I know better than to strike the demon I've secretly diagnosed as autistic, but I want to strangle him when he strikes my kin. Next time, I will.

The fisher men idle, drink, talk and smoke as they wait for something that isn't dinner. They aren't catching anything, and they aren't all sitting together. They aren’t anti-social, they're just individuals. There is a poker game they're missing out on.

The homeless drummer beats on his jagged, dirty buckets and I watch in amazement for some time. He looks up, thinks nothing of the fuzzy-headed rascal before him, and returns his eyes to the flailing.

The lovers sit tangled in each other. They don't remind me of loneliness, but still of nouns that I'd generally like to forget.

And so I reach the pier's end and look out at the gently glowing atmosphere, which hides the rest of existence from sight.--- -