FUCK Fucking Brunch!

Welcome!.    Are you ready for it?    Can you feel your potential fizzle? 
Could you even say for certain the moment things careened off the road? After-all that effort at collecting bad habits and lots of stuff -- Alas, you are drinking light beer, and the occasional obscure hazy IPA, so make no mistake that you are an adult now.  Being one of those, comes with some obligations. But to thrive inside one's Docker's, and Lululemon sweat-pants just like everybody else, means sacrifice. To wear those 'ON's', and 'Hoka's' whilst doing this forward crawl the same way as everyone, with the same shit,  the same dog, and the same ticky-tacky as both  "Neighbor A", and "Neighbor X", may require ambivalence.  How can you tell when you are actually doing this thing right? When you have given-up? When you are blending in, of course, I'd suppose... When you've become indistinct & indiscernible from anyone else... THAT's when you have nailed it! 
​When the sum of your individuality is merely a clever 'Concert-T' you'll wear to some art fair, or music fest... it may be time. It's tough to steer clear of the loathing denial that you have alas peaked.  Within the "voluntary donation" of your soul is a corral,  where you sip from a plastic cup on boxed Pinot Grigio within a fenced-in public throughfare, and today you've ascended to feel as smug as a matte-black Tesla Model X with a baby seat.  You feel so liberated to have been let loose this Saturday within a pen of your own beige peers. And here balanced upon Birkenstocks, you'll tap your card tonguing bits of bagel free from your canines -- The server flips the iPad in your direction to, "...Answer a few questions...?"
(a question?)

Up until this very moment you'd perhaps believed that this dome over your head  guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of keen stuff being delivered in cardboard boxes, for forever.  Your best party debate, besides some clever sports drivel & the weather, is taboo political banter, and "whether this is IN FACT a bubble" under which we thrive.  Beneath it's heavy lid you will top-up your sixteen dollar beverage once more, mill about the sea of covid dogs, "High Art", and kids, just before queueing in line for brunch some place. And, my friend,  "Brunch" is where cool people go to die.
"If the bus-boy would kindly clean-up the crayons, and muffin apocalypse which preceded 'your turn at the booth  -- And please to do it a bit quicker... You could soon move up a level to the sovereignty of a Twenty-Dollar omelet", You recite this in your head. Somewhere here, within middle-earth where everyone grinds beneath the same spongy gravity, you believe that you have Made it.      and ...Perhaps you have.
Can there be any question, you are not merely a figment of this construct you call your perfect mid-life.  Welcome to the Boom Town.
Queue the music:

Ms. Cristina drives a nine four four
Satisfaction oozes from her pores
She keeps rings on her fingers
Marble on her floor
Cocaine in her dresser
Bars on her doors
She keeps her back against the wall
She keeps her back against the wall

Bubbles steaming and angry, crack like popcorn against the lid, while we nervous humans pause to reflect  upon the last time that everything seemed so absolutely perfectly artificial as Brunch -- That a BANG! may be coming for that bubble feels imminent.

Sure!, Mid 80's was all pop, and bubble-gum, and Molly Ringwald grinding beneath an Echo poster. Whilst larger complaints lurked beneath (Naked) Raygun-omics, luscious green lawns were sprinkled with ashes, from the certainty that nukes would wipe-clean everyone's score-card. Soon, (perhaps) we'd all come to regret not fucking a bit more, drinking a lot more, even smoking more, and rolling Ten-dollar-bills to snort cocaine, just before burning them on a Trans-Am trip to Disney.  Remember 10 dollar-bills, stuffed in the hands of Caddies, Cabbies, Cab-fare for Crabby One-nighters, and even the less fortunate..., roll "Flamingo Kid" would you?

So I say
I say welcome, welcome to the boomtown
Pick a habit
We got plenty to go around
Welcome, welcome to the boomtown
All that money makes such a succulent sound
Welcome to the boomtown

I saw an old friend who'd disappeared into obscurity (like so many others) during COVID, and what could have been a coincidental meet-n-greet on the way home from the office became a game of clandestine avoidance.  Behind the veneer of the usual pretense and pleasantries, reside those "friends" who you'd sadly said "so long" to a few years back.  They, (and perhaps you as well) had used pandemic austerity to re-align a "Self-Care" regimen under the new world order of Bull-shit, Saunas, & Hazy IPA's, pulse pumping with tik-tok prime-time video of shamelessness, and our cardboard consumption.  ...Anyway the other curious back-drop to a lovely early summer dog-walk, is a fuck-ton of freshly hatched spring bodies yearning to slough-off some winter weight, and share their important tattoos with the world. Behind the veneers of all those happy joggers, and cyclists is a common enough schism.  This knife edge deeply divides fractured public pledges to the  either the "Fuck-it" side, or the "Fake-it Fantasy" crowd.  'Civics' is no longer taught, and at the cross-roads of your modern conscience lies a dialectic.  Those who've said, "Fuck-it!" are generally fuzzy bears burrowing into a subculture of beards, bourbon, & bellies,  fully invested in shameless exploitation of America's worst health habits eating cereal from a casserole dish... and grooming with hibiclens, and the grimy needle -- And Those who still strive toward something sustainably 'Paleo-Vegan', (free-ganism) appears completely bull-shit through our veneer doorway of cyberspace. 

Anyways, this former friend is walking home from work (ostensibly)... And they appeared to now lounge about on both, the other side of the street & that "health-food" paradigm overtaken by junk. It is kindergarten-dinner-time..., (shall we say), 5:15 pm, and walking home through our fictional wonderland at "happy hour" is my dog and I. We are watching both the healthy crowd, and the schlubs like Kevin, who now appear to be fully invested in a Churchill gauge cigar as he saunters home under a cloud of smoke. The shadow of his mid-section looming over his knees, and a beard with sufficient wind drag, seemingly prevents him from any future exercise pursuits.  The last time we met, he'd smoked me in a basketball game, and today he smokes a maduro...?  I needn't say it, but the resting side of the working class, are typically those who have lost their way one Sunday morning at Brunch -- And the cigar is now merely window-dressing for slouchy indulgence.

Handsome Kevin got a little off track
Took a year off of college
And he never went back
Now he smokes too much
He's got a permanent hack
Deals dope out of Denny's
Keeps a table in the back
He always listens to the ground
Always listens to the ground

You may love an Omelet, even Bacon, or you may be the type who is (gasp), still eating Pancakes..., But you could also make these things at home? Perhaps you are finding it hard to cook, even after two years in lock-down with a few thousand meal prep kits? But an Egg is quite simple, right?  Brunch, in fact, is the broader branch grafted onto a tree which birthed a trillion bedazzled white and green paper cups carrying bespoke coffee-drinks around the planet as "status symbols".  Our Psychological paradox of braggart brand shaming is where this fantasy all got wings. Now we need braces from sucking green straws. Without Bottle Service to flaunt your absurd one-up-man-ship, in the game of status drinking, we clutch the cup; perhaps sporting a pressed pair of Jordache Jeans to eek out a few more 'likes'. Our culture is frankly not impressed.   So immersed in "self-care", and status today, we fail to recognize the faceless half who are marginalized without the proper uniform. Those who hold their paper cup, or their du jour Stanley/Yeti/Corksicle cup, to express civic standing. The Cup, and Brunch for that matter express what we do when we hand a bum under the viaduct some cash.  The transaction is a social construct -- intent to Ameliorate one's unabashed smug-fuck shame, scraping the ceiling of our bubble, for change -- A warm fuzzy, and permission to carry-on being a douche. The Bum of course gets remuneration for not shaking 'the right cup' in hand; And you get to feel "helpful".  So please enjoy your pancakes, and your smug-fuck company standing whilst glaring at someone who has yet to pay.  Because you are now, (again) standing in line to order eggs, and we, 'the marginalized' will make do without brunch.
It is true that tattoos are for people without real scars, and perhaps brunch, and branded paper cups are for people with sensitive skin, who's daily adventure is limited to foraging for their debit card at the Starbucks.  It is also true that Starbucks even invented an exclusionary lexicon for ordering, in order to keep that guy you just gave coffee-money to, from stiffing the server a mandatory 25% gratuity for a five dollar paper cup.

So I say
I say welcome, welcome to the boomtown
Pick a habit
We got plenty to go around
Welcome, welcome to the boomtown
All that money makes such a succulent sound
Welcome to the boomtown

Back to Kevin and his cigars.
I of course avoided his gaze, thinking that I didn't want to inadvertently dress-down his shameful "let himself go" mid-fifties 'pre-tirement' without meaning to do so... And he perhaps pretended to not notice me, and so we both peeled away through random runners, believing that we'd fully understood each other's constructed perspectives.  I supposed that when one no longer feels compelled to sport that T-shirt from some obscure 5k, and finally says, "fuck it!"; that their path may hand them a fat cigar for their walk home from the train. And this seems fitting.
But it is no more valid to say that we "understood" each-other's paths, than to contemplate what it must be like to have to pan-handle money for food, booze, or for coffee. Within the bubble, where we pretend to be considerate, but contribute nothing to common ground, we digress into self care or self loathing. When the server flips that iPad, and your only 'choice' begins at twenty-five percent, that coin never lands upon it's edge. 
Gratuity was intended to express our gratitude for exceptional service, and we all know how that evil tablet shakes one's pockets bare. On the walk home, you told the homeless dude you didn't carry cash, and then they shared a QR code for their Venmo account... so you said "Sorry", and patted your pockets to conceal your phone.  Today we tip more than we give to charity, unless it is for delivery food, and then most people cannot be bothered to prop up the delivery economy whatsoever.  The reason is simply because the "gig workers" aren't like you.  So back to the shameless death of our culture, seen though the sparkling window of your local "Brunch Place". 
Soul-food was invented by scraps and necessity, and may have become more popular as affluent people searched for authenticity. Just as they do at Blues Festivals.  But Brunch, loosely defined as a lazy late breakfast, or an early lunch became popular as affluence sought a way to boast the luxury of not needing to work at all,  or even to learn to cook. 
Isn't it true that this is the new penultimate social construct?, Where people are all pretending to be at leisure, with fuck-you money all the time? Perhaps it started in the 80's with MTV, or perhaps with Lifestyles of the Rich and famous, and the internet just glorified it.
First: If you are going out to brunch, you likely have a fuck-ton of spare-time. 
Second: If you are enjoying brunch for hours, you likely have enough disposable income to give to a charity, but do not for some political excuse.
Third: Because there is absolutely nothing at a brunch place that you cannot eat quickly on the run, or make at home, and save the money, the time, and the tip... you have nothing better to do. and that says a ton about you.
Finally... If you go to brunch, as a mini vacation, and use that respite to write a book, or blog, or screen-play, instead of taking a cruise, or something equally carbon insensitive... Then you are forgiven for being a brunch-goer.  If you have elderly relatives in town, and getting them out the door is a chore... Then you are okay.  If you are frequently bathing in booth-bacon like a sultan, lording over crayon place-mats, then you may want to find another hobby, or even a charity to donate your surplus free-time to.

Welcome to the Boomtown.

The well dressed, brand conscious, fashion-forward, kid who is trending well on tik-tok who is pouring your coffee, is more likely to be given absurd money as a "tip" than the charity case under the highway who is actually homeless. And brunch-goers are 75% more likely to order delivery, and 75% less likely to tip the gig worker delivering their breakfast, or coffee, because they don't respect them.
So it goes that Brunch, (much like Golfing on verdant green grass in Arizona and Vegas) have come to represent that thin stretching of America's eccentric bubble. And they said the cold war ended in '91, But history repeats itself. When a teeny-tiny pin pops this fucked up bubble, and ashes float down like feathers in some bizarre mattress ad -- You certainly will not find my melted corpse at any boring brunch spot.

Well the ambulance arrived too late
I guess she didn't want to wait

[Welcome to the Boomtown] -David & David