“Spartacus”: “Rome” on steroids, Viagra and crack

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:01:00 +0000

What's wrong with modern life? When did our spontaneity and imagination and appetite for glory leave us, replaced by bloodshot eyes and a hard knot in the stomach, failure wrapped in neuroticism dripped with anxiety covered with dissatisfaction? When did we trade in our vibrant, lusty, devil-may-care recklessness and red wine-glazed dreams for the carpal tunnel and coffee breath of the professionally compromised? When did we go from carefree iconoclasts to distracted, sallow lumps who've wasted the better half of a decade rewriting inter-office e-mails so that they're less of a reflection of our bitter, dying souls?

Sure, when we're not impaired by the relentless drumbeat of empty tweets and Googled tragedies and breathless press releases about the latest jackhole to sign up for "Dancing With the Stars," we do try to reach out to each other, tenuously, through Facebook and Twitter and sometimes even by picking up our telephones, which haven't held a solid charge since Monica Lewinsky was running around the White House in capri pants.

But it's not the same. One decade into the new millennium, one too many irresistible up-to-date blurbs and blogs and snippets and tweets have smeared our once-lively spirits across the dirty windshield of life.

Salon.com > Spartacus: Blood and Sand

“Spartacus”: “Rome” on steroids, Viagra and crack