Eternal Shoeshine

Nowadays we seem to take shoeshine for granted. Take out all your tools, the shoe brush, the shoe polish (different bottles for every different shade of shoe you have) and your trusty miraculous shoe shine sponge. Apply the polish, wait till it penetrates, brush off the shoe then finish off with the cloth.

But does it really have to be like that?

Way back in oh five, under the influence of a movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and 19-2000 an amazing track by the Gorillaz which urged people to ‘get the cool shoeshine’. I came up with a concept, ‘eternal shoeshine’.

My first work on Eternal Shoeshine was during my graduation. We were each given one wish. So while I stood amidst the rest of my batch, the Class of ’05, wearing my black suit and my black shoes (that I’d shined earlier that day), holding my helium balloon with the words ‘Eternal Shoeshine’ on it, I let go of the balloon and admired my selflessness. (I could have just as easily written ‘Bentleys’)

One week passed, shoes still shiny, two weeks still shiny, but alas a month after graduation my shoes were no longer shiny.

There’s a lot of crazy people in this world. By crazy I don’t mean the good naturedly interesting crazy people but the dangerous psychotic ones. From extremist Zionists to Hitler and his crew, Stalin, Polpot, there’s lots of peoples who’ve convinced thousands of peoples to kill millions.

This piece of history deeply saddens me. Not because of the dead people, I’m not one to give, but because it makes the unremarkable, silent and unnoticed failure of the World Chocolate Movement pathetic. If Bush can make people believe that his 'War on Terror' makes sense, how come the World Chocolate Movement is still just an abstract notion in a blog lying somewhere alone on the internet.

So… to those who think the World Chocolate Movement takes too much effort, are mad at my parents for not doing something about my retardation etc. I try again, give you something else.

Here’s to eternal shoeshine.