The veterans blend into the walls….amongst Vietnam war memorabilia, POW MIA adhesive statements, and the medals which canvass everything. The Old Miami is dense with information. It is horribly crowded, and awkwardly unmanageable. Sitting on one of the many worn couches in the corner, one is provided the opportunity to survey the information which blankets the walls. Volumes of history books condense immediately. It becomes the veritable stomach of Ares. All of the controversy of stance and position is there, yet, it is entirely unintelligible. It is hard to find a place in which the monotony of fervor is broken. It consumes everything, including those that it claims to embody and represent. With a filtered eye, one deciphers the occasional veteran. At a back table. Drunk. Muttering incoherently to himself. Disheveled. Head in hands, staring at the floor. All of the stereotypes are embodied. Entirely consistent, and yet, consumed. The veteran is meaningless here. The veteran is as disposable as the cheap postcards people send to friends, family, and acquaintances. The war they fought has already been sold. Vietnam is just an adhesive statement here.
That which once sparked so much controversy has become comfortable. As comfortable, arguably, as the couch one slouches in. The veteran has become part of the aesthetic. What does it mean when a bar is decorated with conflict? When conflict becomes comfortable and incoherent? When rather than speaking or encouraging comprehension, it serves as nothing more than an optic collage? For it functions as a sort of wallpaper to blanket banal walls.
The owner is undoubtably proud, adamant, staunch even, in the necessity for the previous wars. Yet, he allows this position to evaporate. The stance is everywhere, and yet, nowhere is it intelligible. It is the overwhelming nature of this mass production, this over-the-top ensemble that dilutes everything. It is not hard to imagine how controversial this bar’s crowd truly is. Those that frequent are inevitably those that would have protested the war during the sixties and seventies. Some did. Do they realize the contradiction that their beer purchase, and tip money provoke? Perhaps it is the subdued nature of that which surrounds which allows this occurrence. Perhaps, it has become acceptable. Perhaps, as the veteran, the past represents itself as part of the collage, and nothing else. Perhaps, it is not represented at all. It is as though the Old Miami is self-defeating.
The experience is similar to looking a map of Vietnam. All one perceives is the black ink which outlines various segments of the country. One sees Vietnam without ever really seeing it at all. Similarly, one sees the various objects which commemorate the war, without understanding the position that they signify. “The surface conceals the interior.”
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