I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by The Grimace.

Starving, hysterical, purple, it dragged itself down into the town from Mcdonaldland like a thief who'd come to steal the dawn

Looking like a bloated Zorro in the hat and mask he had begged borrowed stolen from the Hamburglar, he crept into our town gurgling rhapsodic jazz, making noises like a biker being violated under the streetlights in the great field of stars

And all of the homemakers shareholders and sidewalk sliders crept out of their Little Boxes and came out into the morning, drawn like lemmings into the old Rockwellian town square.

Eyes ablaze like sparkling diamonds, crushing the flowers that had been planted by the Ladies' Auxillary last year, its mouth a mass of glowing gelatin framed by an evil grin.

Was this the face that had launched a thousand happy-meals? That burned the topless towers of Illyium on a sesame seed bun? The smiling visage that had poured off of every television set for thirty numb humdrum years?

"Bring me a Shamrock Shake!" he boomed, in a basso voice that belonged to the thunder, as he laughed like the river below the Brooklyn Bridge and wickedly demanded that we "supersize it."

But April had already sprung forth with all of it's false hopes, March had withered like a rose at the gates of hell, and where were the snows of last year?

....et ou sont les neiges...et ou sont les neiges...ou sont....

They were gone, gone into the sweet grandfather goodnight, and with them the last of the seasonal Shamrock Shakes.

Our mayor stepped bravely forth to tell the beast that they were gone, and the Grimace grabbed his velvet lapels and thrust him forth toward the volcano of his red mouth screaming.

And his head vanished between the great teeth, and then his arms and torso, and all at once his screams were extinguished like the weeping flame of a candle in the sweet December rain until all that was left was a purple bourgeous blur dripping red

And in a sudden blinding flash we all knew the answer to a question we hadn't even thought to ask. We knew why we hadn't seen Mayor McCheese in years.

And the Grimace wasn't finished yet, it moved forward and grabbed Mrs Carlson the kindegarten teacher in her nightgown and devoured
her, too.

And he then devoured the old lamplighter of long long ago, laughing as the blood poured from his mouth like ketchup from a stomped-on neglected foil packet. And then the minister, and Mr. Stiches and Mr. Thomas crying holy, holy to the Burger King for help.

And somewhere in the back the angel-headed hipster pinkos cried "we told you this would happen! We told you so! We told you!" and the streets flowed red with their blood, too, and now the revolution wouldn't be coming after all or maybe this was it.

And the vegetarians laughed too, laughed even as they were thrust into the purple jaws, laughed even though there was no meat in the Grimace, at least as far as any of the screaming victims could tell. They bled, they bled, they bled.

II

Howl! Howl! Howl howl howl robble robble robble. It ate up their brains and imagination for want of a Shamrock Shake!

Mcdonalds! where he graced the face of a thousand cookie boxes.

Mcdonalds! Solitude! Capitalism! Extra-Value Meals! Mcdonalds the Cheap! Mcdonalds the plentiful! Mcdonalds the clean, oh what can it mean that Mcdonalds is clean?

Mcdonalds! where the mourners gathered in the wake of the Grimace, trying to call mayday mayday to Ronald, who had packed off and gone to India!

Mcdonalds! where the $5.15 an hour nonunion heros dug in the back for the last surviving package of Shamrock Shake mix!

Mcdonalds! whose stock fell several points as the shareholders were gobbled!

Mcdonalds! where Grimace was arrested at high noon, broke the handcuffs, and slithered off laughing on his way to your town!

Mcdonalds! where the plaque on the statue in the playland read
"My name is Ronald Mcdonal, King of Kings
See my food, ye hungry, and despair!"
And despair
and despair
we
did!

III

Mayor McCheese, I'm with you in Mcdonaldland
where you counted the money you made off of the Muppet Babies Happy Meal

I'm with you in Mcdonaldland
where the battered corpse of Captain Crook lies tangeld in the arms of the corpse of the Professor, and the Early Bird flies vulgar vulture circles above

I'm with you in Mcdonaldland
where the hamburgers are sliced to the thickness and glimmer of a Roosevelt dime.

I'm with you in Mcdonaldland
Where Mcdonalds Pizza is more than just something I was once tried when I was in Minneapolis or was it Cedar Rapids?

I'm with you in Mcdonaldland
Where Officer Big Mack and the Hamburglar finally sit together for Lox and Bagels on Sunday morning, and the Fry Guys also sit.

I'm with you in Mcdonaldland
where still you forge the yellow signs, the glowing Capital M's, the beacons that signify the presence of the Quarter Pounder with some Cheese,
the glowing idols that light the highways of the Plutonian
American
western
night!


24 March 2001