“All Men Are Rapists And That’s All They Are”: Or : How I Became a Eunuch In a Sea of Breasts and Tail

“To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he is a machine, a walking dildo.”
- Valerie Solanas

(You can believe that if you want.  I tend to lean in a direction of that sort.)

You’d think that I would be in heaven right now.  In the middle of a major university campus, with almost every imaginable possibility of freedom floating in my atmosphere, and a whole community – no, a whole smorgasbord – of attractive women from across the state of Missouri and beyond.  It’s a college dream.  But like my dreams of radioactive antelope, it’s growing tiresome and weak. 

For one reason or another, I would like to take a gigantic step back from the “holla” establishment.  That is, the section of college society that walk down the street and “holla” at girls in short skirts, and of course, the girls in short skirts that wear them for the lone purpose of attracting a “holla.”  And then pretending like they don’t.  And then pretending like they are above everyone else, (and not just literally on account of their 6 inch heels.)  And then having sex with the aforementioned hollerer.  And this is all before classes have ceased for the day.

And I used to have little fantasies about being able to snag a barstool at five for a beer – the cheers to another accomplished day.  This, of course, is still over a year away from being possible.  But any day of the week I can lounge around the Heidelberg or the Fugue and catch little blondes in see-through blouses taking shots at 3:15.  In the afternoon.  On a Tuesday.  Amongst themselves.  And naturally, I can watch the fellas trickle in behind them, scooping up the tabs and waiting for the fireworks.  It’s enough to make someone a stay-at-home alcoholic. 

It could be because I’ve been facedown in a biblical analysis for several weeks, (a book just over 300 pages that I was teased about for not finishing yet,) but I’ve lost a lot of pure lust-drive.  I don’t ogle at the girls in miniskirts anymore.  They’re a dime a dozen and easier to find than a Starbucks in a college town.  Furthermore, it’s exactly what they’d like me to do, and then turn their noses when it happens.  Mama didn’t raise no fool.  She raised a red-blooded American cynic, an occasional hypocrite, and a feminist with hair on his chest. 

The problem is, as I’ve said before, that feminism is no longer dying at the hands of disgusting men.  We may buy the goods, fool around, muddy the waters and then skip town, but we aren’t creating these products from our own bare hands.  I can’t make a girl wear a thong hiked well past her waistline.  I can’t make a girl pose for Girls Gone Wild.  And as much as some other men would like to believe that they can do these things, cause these sexy phenomenon, they can’t.  Women’s choice is alive and well – and the bullet in the head of feminist America.

Because I guess I had some misconceptions: that feminism was more than the right to fuck.  That feminism was more than defeating the sexual double standard.  While important, I’m fairly sure that becoming walking advertisements for easy sex with no strings attached falls far from the traditional boundaries of the feminist agenda.  Or am I – a lowly male – the only one still rooting for you? 

And that last sentence alone is sillier than anything else I could say, because it points a finger at someone that will never notice.  The same girls that clog my facebook feed with photo album after photo album of themselves in bikinis in hotel bathrooms and drunken riverbeds.  The same girls that leave their tits hanging out of their tops and then complain that the profs are gawking at them.  The same girls that will want to be professionals some day and will instead be mute and subordinate housewives.  Because they have never stood for anything.

It’s sad that I have to be one of the crotchety old men of this Generation Y.  I’m an awful example of decency or restraint, class or sound judgment.  But I would like nothing more than to see the female gender succeed in my lifetime, perhaps even past the male, but certainly to his equal.  75 cents to every dollar remains a relevant statistic, but majoring in psychology and then becoming a housewife seems like a waste of time to me. 

Maybe I’m wrong again.  I’d like to hear what you think about the status of the feminist dream.   

“[Now that I'm in college] boys seem to be more interested in friending hot girls than me.” – Friend.

Welcome to the machine — the walking dildo.

(8.25.09)

Welfare Zombies

Welfare Zombies

Here’s a few quick real life Q and A’s to begin:

Q: What is the problem with affirmative action?
A: “Affirmative action is to give the minorities power and push white people back in line.  And it doesn’t help that these people come from welfare families that have never worked a day in their lives.”

Q. What is the problem with the Cash for Clunkers program?
A. “Cash for Clunkers is a failure.  All of the cars sold are going to end up being repossessed anyway, because the only people turning in these quality used cars are people on welfare who can’t afford the monthly payments for a new one.  So they get these new cars for 2 months, and then put the burden back on the car dealerships.”

Q: What is the problem with socialized medicine?
A: “I work hard for a living, and doctors do, too.  There’s no reason why my tax dollars should go to providing health care for people who are too lazy to get out and get a job.  So you can’t get health insurance?  Get a job.  Your job doesn’t provide health insurance?  Get a better job.  Health insurance isn’t necessary, anyway.  This is America, and anyone that needs treatment gets it. “

Now, for a quick dissection of the previous dialogues:

1.  If you employ minorities, wouldn’t that be helping to keep them from welfare?  Or is it preferable to have minorities collecting welfare as opposed to “decent and hardworking” white people?  While blacks and women still make a quarter less per dollar than white men, maybe they should all just give up and collect the “free” welfare, huh?

2. During this economic recession, a recession partially caused by easy credit and auto-loans, it has become increasingly difficult for people to grab affordable loans, and especially car loans.  A person with perfect credit has a hard enough time getting a loan for a new vehicle, let alone a person with limited or horrible credit.  And considering that these Clunker offenders are “all on welfare,” we can make the assumption that their credit is absolutely awful.  So either, A.  These are not the people taking advantage of Cash for Clunkers, or B. The banks and dealerships have not learned their lesson. 

3. 46 million Americans are uninsured.  7.2 million Americans collect welfare.  5.1 million of the people who collect welfare are CHILDREN.  And along with the unfortunate circumstance of welfare, these 7.2 million people and 5.1 million children are just a small sliver of the overall amount of uninsured Americans.  That’s merely 1/6 of the uninsured.  Furthermore, you can’t expect people to get jobs that aren’t available, or upgrade at the drop of a hat.  Even more, you can’t expect people to NOT GET SICK so they won’t lose their coverage, (catastrophic coverage, my ass.)  And if you believe that people in America will always be treated, no matter what, you are perhaps even more naïve than just ignorant. 

I want to know where this primal fear of the welfare class comes from.  It seems like most conservatives I know are deathly afraid of these “freeloaders”.  Little do they know about individual state requirements for welfare eligibility, and the ongoing struggle involved with keeping a welfare status – even in the most dire of circumstances.  And if I do my profiling correctly, (which I usually do,) I’d venture to say that most of them don’t know a single person on welfare.  Where are these welfare zombies looking to suck our skulls (and bank accounts) dry?  Because with 5/7 of welfare recipients being children, it’s hard for me to join the fear-based cavalcade.  After all, child zombies are much easier to kill than adults.

Is Your God An Advertisement?

As of this very moment of writing, there have been 4,318 American casualties in Iraq since the initial occupation of the country.  There have been an estimated 1,320,110 Iraqi deaths.  There have been 712 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan since the invasion.  There are 138 international journalists dead from participation in military reporting.  And perhaps most shockingly, 1,306 contractor employee deaths in Iraq – almost a third of the military death total – and rising.  They are all still rising.   Why?

“God.”

This is, of course, the usual response from our last president, George W. Bush.  This was a selling point for all the action, pushed daily through Christianity-based fliers distributed by Donald Rumsfeld himself.  Whenever a tough military decision was made, or more lives were put at risk, the justification was always that God had made some kind of declaration, and since the 2004 election was a mandate for President Bush’s power, there would be no reason to second guess not only God, but our very own citizens.  And it’s not to say that God is a poor thing to die for, or an ultimately ridiculous guiding force.  But when we look at the concept of God, (or for some, the absolute power of God,) we have to realize that your God isn’t my God.  Or at least not right now.

A recent study has shown that 15% of Americans consider themselves atheists, and some even suggest that the rates for teenage atheists could be double or triple that amount.  This comes dangerously close to toping the number of people who actually approved of Bush’s job as President.  However, this group receives almost no consideration when it comes to public policy, and has only one representative in the United States Senate: Barry Sanders from Vermont, (who perhaps by no coincidence, is also a socialist.) But is our concern really an atheist stronghold in American politics, or rather the unreasonable focus on Christianity in America?

Four names should appear familiar from recent encounters with the media: David Vitter, Larry Craig, John Ensign, and Mark Sanford.  All are successful Republican politicians.  All have been considered leaders in their religious communities.  And all have been involved in extramarital affairs.  Furthermore, they were instrumental in the outcry against Bill Clinton and his off-color dalliances, scandals, and lies.  Obviously, Clinton’s actions are inexcusable, but his position of power was not achieved on the basis of “family values,” “morality voting,” or “the power of Christ.”  Again, it is God who is found to be a uniting force of evil – a gigantic trust of misused emotion. 

God is being denounced by his very own followers, not atheists.  The same people that claim him as their guiding force, their all powerful light of truth, are using Him for their own well being.  To win elections. To avoid prosecution.  To justify actions that by all means are unjustifiable.   Are all Christians abusing their faith?  Not at all.  But shouldn’t we, as an oft-described “Christian Nation,” be more upset with those who are using God as a means for criminality?  As a means for destruction?  As a means for deplorable behavior?  The anger should never be directed toward atheists.  They have their beliefs, (and far better records when it comes to criminal behavior,) and you have yours.  But if you want a worthy fight,  abandoning party lines or partisan action, why not fight against those who are cheapening the word of God?  Is your God an advertisement?

(Written 6.19.09)

Harry Potter Sucks, And You Might, Too.

As far as I know, the latest Harry Potter movie opened last night to roaring crowds and sidewalks filled with pimply-faced do-gooders dressed like broomstick riding bums.  I am not a fan.  Here’s 4 simple reasons why. 

1.  Wizardry is For Kids, Not Aspiring Doctors

If you are anywhere between the ages of 7 and 14 and have not read any of the Harry Potter books, I would be glad to give you the 3 that I own: The Sorcerer’s Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, and The Prisoner of Azkaban.  At this fragile age where poop jokes are still fresh and pubic hair is still a dream, I see no harm in Potter and his stories of witchcraft.  As a matter of fact, I encourage it.  But when you get past that high school plateau, or even worse yet, well into your 20’s or 30’s, it’s time to realize what you are reading about: Teens and pre-teens fighting beasts and warlocks.  Beasts and warlocks. Past a certain age limit, I might even consider the fascination with Harry Potter pornographic.  In any other circumstance, if a man in his mid-twenties were to follow the every day happenings of a fourteen year old British boy, we would be hearing about it on Nancy Grace.  It’s strange.  It’s not kosher.  And it’s certainly not encouraging for your future as a heterosexual male.  There comes a time when your dreams should evolve past the simple concepts of childish magic and into the proper fantasies of the mature American mind: breasts and hard liquor.

2. It Is Not A Good Enough Series To Consider Your Entire Literary Canon

If Facebook is any indication, (and to be honest, Facebook is EVERY indication,) the majority of young Americans haven’t ventured very far into literature.  With the exception of required readings, I’d be willing to say that most people between the ages of 14 and 25 have not read more than 1 book for pleasure in their life.   Page after page showcase a very similar collection when it comes to ‘Favorite Books’: “I don’t read.”  And although this is obviously a shameful admission, I almost find it equally disgusting when the only books listed are Harry Potter or the Bible.  It’s like a straight-faced confession that you haven’t even tried to look for something with some literary depth – nothing with the bite that could create some mental stimulation.  No.  It’s Harry Potter, the Bible, or nothing.  And it’s a damn shame, because there are so many books that young adults would find so much more interesting: hard-boiled drug anecdotes, middle-class tear jerkers, and plenty of worthwhile tales of dramatic excellence.  You all seem to love Fight Club, but how many of you have read it?  The Wizard of Oz?  Oh – I apologize.  I forgot that we are the same generation that has fallen in love with Donnie Darko, a movie so hollow that Keanu Reeves could have crawled inside of it and died, and so blindly appealing to the ADHD culture of Generation Y that it makes Johnny Knoxville puke.  But you can sit through 700 pages of a kid fighting puberty with a magic wand.  It’s incredible. 

 

The Harry Potter craze is the closest thing to a virginity spell that the world will ever see.

3. Do You Know What An Archetype Is?  You Would If You Read More Than Harry Potter

An archetype is very simple: a prototype has been created, only to be copied, patterned, and furthered through more works.  You know them by heart.  Good vs. Evil.  Dark vs. light.  The tragic fall.  The mentor figure.  The geeky hero.  Every piece of literature uses them.  Every 80s movie was drowning in them.  But my problem with Harry Potter is that it uses ALL of them.  For a lot of the reasons that I find Star Wars to be an overrated franchise, I find Harry Potter to be a mere continuation of the same plotline simplicity.  How much character depth does Harry Potter really have?  I’d say he is about as deep as the puddle of drool I leave after falling asleep from the first 4 pages of The Goblet of Fire.  He is a shiny glaze over the same prototypical hero that we have seen for years.  There are no real twists to his character.  You’re never forced to fret over whether Harry will do the right thing.  Of course he will!  Because you are supposed to be 10 when you are reading these damn things, and the encouragement of honesty and integrity should be pivotal in your development as a human being!  But by the time you’re 34, a lonely woman in a studio apartment eating Fig Newtons by the sleeve and hoping Prince Charming will storm right through the door and into your Hello Kitty bedspread, it should be strikingly apparent that the traits of honesty and integrity have passed you over: You’ve been lying to yourself for years.  It’s not that you are too smart for every one else, it’s that every one else realizes you can’t bathe yourself with a magic wand, stinky.  Now THIS kind of character would be a break from archetypal sludge!  Perhaps I’ve underestimated your true motives!…  Naw.  You disgust me.

4. Harry Potter is a Cult, and Not Even the Good Kind Where All of the Morons End Up Killing Themselves

It’s as simple as that.  For some reason, every Harry Potter fan thinks they are special for understanding the complex and uplifting tale of this teenage wizard, but if 30 million people are rushing out to grab this piece of melodramatic slime every time a new one is published, you can’t be that special.  Part of the allure of a cult phenomenon , (Rocky Horror Picture Show or The Residents, for instance,) is that you share this treasure with a very small group of people who truly understand how amazing the feature is.   Not every one gets it, man, and that is what is cool.  It’s an exclusive club of people that figured it out.  But Harry Potter is all inclusive, and therefore, a braindead flock of sheep that couldn’t dare stray away from the rest of the world, but somehow convince themselves that they have broken away from the hustle and bustle of reality.  When Jim Jones led nearly 1,000 of his followers into the jungle of Guyana, they followed because they thought Jones was offering them a secret paradise that everyone else had failed to grasp.  And as the government filed in to take control of the situation, the followers were forced to kill themselves.  As devastating as this was, the loss of nearly a thousand brainwashed UFO Christians, I find it even more devastating to know that there’s no way the same feat can be accomplished with the Harry Potter maniacs.  There’s just far too many of them to huddle into an isolated South American country.  And as a true humanitarian, I can’t encourage you to hurt or kill the Harry Potter elitists, but I can insist that you refuse any medical assistance they should need in times of emergency.  It’s the least you can do for your country and the betterment of mankind.  And if they know so much about magic, they can save themselves.

Enjoy your movies.  I can honestly say I enjoy those.  And I can’t wait until Daniel Radcliffe winds up a drug-addled Hollywood mess and Emma Watson becomes a softcore porn actress.

61 Points of Loathing – (Small Scale for the Ladies)

61 Points of Loathing

Why 61?  It’s the number of home runs Roger Maris hit in the magical upside-down year 1961 to break the single season record, only to be ridiculed by fans and neglected by the Hall of Fame.  But dammit, he looked like a ballplayer.

1.  The worse your haircut is, the more attractive you seem to become.  I don’t know if it takes away from the God-awful pucker faces these emo kids have, but their swish-top haircuts are always the rave. 

2. There is no such thing as an athletic role model anymore.  Even if you aren’t on the juice, cheating on your spouse, yelling at officials, or fathering illegitimate children…you might tomorrow.

3. “Politics is Hollywood for ugly people.”  (Truth.)

4.  I have a 2004 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar on my wall.  Not only have I outgrown the need to plaster my surroundings with half naked women, but I can’t even keep up with a normal schedule.  Obsolete. 

5.  Men: Is it possible to watch a female eat a banana without thinking something dirty?

6. Women: With that being said, there are other sources of potassium, you know…

7. Women again: …and protein…

8. Women for the third time: I’m sorry.

9.  In 1970, Dock Ellis pitched a complete game no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. 

10. In 2008, Alex Denison had a near-death experience after 2 energy drinks and a flight of stairs. 

11.  I was asked at dinner last night whether men would be needed at all if women could asexually reproduce.  After years of training as a red-blooded chauvinistic pig, I still couldn’t come up with one reason we would ever be kept around…

12.  The lead singer of Slayer is a practicing Catholic.  I weep for all the braindead metalheads who think that they are hearing the words of Satan’s henchmen. 

13.  Before there was Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch”, there was Leonard Cohen’s 1974 ballad “Chelsea Hotel #2”.  “I remember you well at the Chelsea Hotel.  You were talking so brave and so sweet.  Giving me head on the unmade bed, while limousines wait in the street.”

14.  The preceding was the first time Buckcherry and Leonard Cohen have ever been used in the same area code, let alone sentence.

15.  A friend tried to tell me that all of the 9/11 hijackers are still alive.  I don’t have a punchline.  I think this speaks for itself.

16.  BABA-BOOEY.  Do people still do that?

17. Text message sent to friend: “Yeah, we’re going to see Bruno tonight at the theaters.”

18.  Text message received in reply: “Oh yeah – You going to get a BJ from a 16 year old?”

19.  The same friend once said he would have sex with an Arby’s roast beef sandwich.  I think he may still be my friend because he makes me feel better about myself.

20.  I don’t believe most of the items on Post Secret.  If you give people the opportunity to send you an anonymous confession on a postcard, you had better expect them to be dramatic and hyperbolic.  This may come back to haunt me, but I don’t think this many people genuinely despise their immediate family.

21.  Thank goodness for a text clarification from previous friend: “You know.  In the theater.”

22.  61 is an extremely ambitious number for something only I will ever read.

23.  I knew a girl that used to write about me in her diary, and with each passing day, I more deeply consider breaking into her home and stealing it.  And then lighting her home on fire.  The two incidents are not related.

24.  Too much concentration is put into erectile dysfunction medication.  I understand that it is awful to be old and impotent, but for the love of God, there must be a reason why it doesn’t work anymore.  Take a hint, raisin-sack.

25.  I never want to have daughters.  I would never let them leave the house and consequently would go insane from the menstruation typhoon that would drown me in middle-age.

26.  The top three songs of the past decade: 3. “Grace Kelly” by Mika.  2. “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. 1. “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse.  Reason being?  None of them sound like they were made anytime in the last decade.

27.  I want to hate John Mayer but I can’t.

28.  Will.I.Am wants to be relevant, but isn’t.  (Does anyone remember on election night when they beamed him in on CNN via Star Wars hologram?  Moments like this lead me to believe that the Dark Ages couldn’t have been this bad.)

29.  The number one fear of all Americans is public speaking. 

30.  The number one reason we don’t have more doctors is a college pre-calculus requirement.

31.  (I’m fine with that.  I’m not sure I want a doctor who isn’t confident with his pre-calculus abilities.  Trigonometry and anatomy are eerily similar.)

32.  Whoever it was that sat down and figured out all of the theorems, formulas, and statistical boundaries of mathematics is simply an asshole.  An asshole.

33.  Whatever happened to Spain?  Not to sound ignorant, but are they even a country anymore?

34.  The further you go in advanced education, the more likely you are to be a liberal.  Liberal response: “The enlightenment of the mind.”  The right-wing response: “Liberal brainwashing!”

35.  No one likes the Beatles as much as they say they do.

36.  The current rate of American drug consumption has fueled gang-related terrorism near our southern border, resulting in numerous innocent deaths and a continuing threat of violence, which leads me back to what I’ve been saying this entire time: Down with whitey.

37.  It is impossible to lead a cow upstairs, but not downstairs.  So never build your slaughter house in the attic.

38.   More than half of American families  with teenagers use internet filters to limit access to adult material.  The rest have fathers looking for the perfect bonding opportunity. 

39.  Who the hell is Kim Kardashian?

40.  There is virtually no use for bird-baths.  Unless you fill them with sulfuric acid. 

41.  Why do the mentally handicapped make such great dishwashers?

42.  50 Bibles are sold every minute in the world. The Bible is also the world’s most shoplifted book.  In unrelated news, I hate Republicans. 

43.  The most recent lyric to come through my stereo system: “All the fluids of your mother, I can barely stand in your lake of juices.  And the doctor asked me, where do all your parts go?”  (Art: An excuse to say anything.)

44.  “Go.”  That is an entire sentence.  And it is aesthetically disgusting. 

45.  I wish there really were monsters under children’s beds.  Monsters that threatened bodily harm if kids didn’t put down their video games and study.  Monsters: the perfect cure for ADHD. 

46.  It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open, but it is too easy to shit your pants while sneezing. 

47.  A fetus develops fingerprints at just 17 weeks in the womb.  THIS IS WHY WE HAVE TO ACT FAST, LIBERAL BABY-KILLERS.

48.  Previously mentioned friend text update: “Whatever, nigga.”

49.  I’ve been having awful dreams about John McCain’s daughter Meghan.  To make a long story short, yes she is naked, and no, I don’t get to enjoy any of the alcohol from the bottle that is smashed over my head.

50.  My mom has a thing for broken noses and mustaches.  I’ve been trying to hook her up with Rollie Fingers for years. ( http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss226/picturesforworknothingelse/250_rollie_fingers.jpg )

51.  In 1899, someone told President McKinley that, “everything that can be invented has already been invented.”  If only that were true.  Without the fleshlight, we would be a much more productive society. 

52.  The Fleshlight, if you were unaware, is the best selling adult item in the world.  If you don’t know what it is, think about it for a second, and you’ll probably be right.

53.  Surprisingly, inflatable sheep do not make the top 10. 

54.  I know more attractive Sara(h)’s than any other name.  This could be because it is a popular name, or because I assume all attractive strangers are named Sarah.

55. The ocean is scarier than space.  There might be aliens in space, but there are definitely icky fish things with lights on their heads in the ocean.
http://oddplaza.blogspot.com/2008/02/1.html – Find me anything like that in space, and I’ll gladly pitch a tent in the desert forever.

56.  My friend David Conway writes about sports.  He writes well.  And unlike myself, he doesn’t have to talk about tranny hookers for anyone’s attention.  What the hell, I’ll plug him up as well:   http://www.chicagosportssuck.wordpress.com

57. If you’re small and headed to prison, you should lube yourself in advance.  I mean, what’s it going to hurt?  (No pun intended.)

58. TRANNY HOOKERS.  Are they real?  Find out at 10.

59.  It’s only 8:13, and one google search assured me that yes, indeed, tranny hookers are not only real, but incredibly available.  Anyone want to split one?  (Again, no pun intended.)

60.  I have a Rafael Palmeiro bobble-head doll with eyes that follow me everywhere I go.  And I like it.

61.  The song that just rolled across my iTunes shuffle is about a sad transsexual.  And his/her partner “swallowed the evidence.”  (Art.)

Despite his miraculous 1961 season, Maris truly did not deserve to be a Hall of Famer.  He didn’t drink enough booze or harass enough women to ever be a legend.

Alex Denison.

Winning is Sinning: Or : How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Despise The Entire Jive

Could it all be a dream?  A silly, demented, self-important dream that could never possibly be reality?  A hidden little corner of the human mind that has somehow clawed it’s way to consciousness, like a badger from back of the cerebellum, piercing through all the mundane transactions of give and take and straight through the forehead.  Yes – straight through my forehead hangs the zombified fist of the Republican Party, taking it’s last breaths before wilting away like a forgotten rose: a truly beautiful piece of earth that bloomed many years ago and has been deteriorating ever since.  With Nixon came a blustery winter.  And with Reagan a rejuvenated spring.  Bush II was the faded lifeless fall.  And where do we go from here?

“And where do we go from here?  And which is the way that’s clear?  Still looking for that blue jean, baby queen.  Prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.  See her shake on the movie screen …Jimmy Dean…” 

And it is this blue jean, baby queen that comes as the final nail in a proverbial coffin this evening, the coffin of an entire party filled with vampires and street preachers, degenerates and crusaders – all going down in a fireball of pompous certainty, untamed bigotry, and the most hypocritical positioning imaginable.  Pure apocalyptic beauty, a Shakespearean tragedy, all rolled into the guise of a value-oriented organization.  The gorgeous siren of backwoods intolerance has left her post, and with her goes the last bit of elected confidence left on the right wing scale.

If Palin is indeed the paradoxical baby queen, then Mark Sanford can be none other than Jimmy Dean – the rebel without a cause.  The romantic bad-boy with a bigger picture than the restraints of his career and the scorn of his community.  His press conferences are like watching a mid-life crisis in action, filled with long-faced absences of thought – pure delusion at times – before awakening to find the dumbfounded mob of reporters and supporters alike, sharing the same thoughts of confusion.  His Argentine princess, a news reporter herself, and a beautiful specimen of adultery if one has ever been created, seems to be his true desire.  Not the sympathy of a nation, nor the forgiveness of his constituency.  No – just the love of his self-described “soul mate,” the women of his garbled dreams, and wispy little cloud that he tends to stare at through misty lenses. 

Yes, where do we go from here?  Do I dance on the graves of the fallen?  Do I drag John Ensign back into the picture for reference, or David Vitter for good measure, and create a Christmas card mugshot for the liberal friends and family?  Can I even relish in the fact that these elected men and women have all gutted their own chances of political fortune, or do I sweat at the reality that they have already been a considerable success?  With every scandal that seeps it’s way through the wire, I question my own political desires and regret all my off-the-cuff remarks.  If only life were like an internet history file – another subject worthy of fret – which could be deleted after abuse.  Have I really won at all?  Or have I been contributing to the larger target of sin!  And have my efforts been in vain, and have my dreams already been extinguished by the reality of behavior?  Is my party next?  Are my heroes soon to be destroyed? 

But I rest easy for now, with the zombie fist dangling from my mind.  The entire party drooling all over themselves, trying to come up with a solution for their demise.  There aren’t enough sandbags in the Sahara to keep the water from flooding the sadistic visions of the GOP, and the people know it all!  Drippy little grins have turned into horrified slobbering confessions and the world can see it all!  Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave, a bone-dry skeleton with a perfect haircut still meticulously preserved.  (I often wonder, merely wonder, how Russia can display the body of Lenin as a hero to a nation, and how the Republicans have allowed Reagan’s body to rot underground.  The savior to our country!  The messiah of the spoken word!  A Christ-like figure for all the praise, the greatest leader of all time!  Underground.  In a modest hole.  No Rushmore.  No mummified presentation.  Just a pile of radioactive perfection with the flag wrapped round and round.)

And here we are – the Democrats (dirty words) with all the glory of piety behind us, and almost nothing to show for it.  The hopeful 60 member Senate has been achieved, and will be squandered without thought.  Health care will be tarnished, the gay agenda left to drown, and all of the hopes that floated us through the finish line will fall to the ground like an ominous fog over Washington – the last reminder of a dream deferred.  The last reminder of the slugs that truly run our country on both sides of the aisle, slowly sucking the optimism from the atmosphere and leaving nothing but a slimy trail of waste.  Literal waste.  From the Senate floor to your front door, with no end in sight.  The promises left unfulfilled from years of apathy and greed – and these are the good guys.  The ones to appreciate.  Because they’re merely wasting our time, but taking advantage for themselves.

It’s the ones that lose both – our trust and their own kingdoms – that are really the ones to revile.  The ones to look at with upturned noses and simply thoughts: You wasted everything we gave you.  An entire nation of people that accept the lizards of civil service and never think twice of reelection.  As long as we aren’t too burdened with the tremendous price of fuel, or the loss of cable television, or the bacon on our tables, we will vote again and again for the same disgusting tyrants of brain-washed, filthy bloodlust.  Nixon, if nothing else, was a winner.  But Jimmy Carter was a shame.

And the shames are who we should be looking for to drive this country away from public policy, and instead into the fields of self-reliance, peace, and contribution.  Outer-Washington leadership that doesn’t have to answer to the angry taxpayer, the ambitious lobbyist, or the pile of dogshit in a suit.  Where are the dreamers that don’t need the power?  Where are the ones satisfied with pure change – for the better – for the people – for the elegant romance of life? 

Dead.  All dead.  And mostly forgotten.  The ones that got away.

We can never win – Democrats, Republicans, non-partisan babes of middle-ground.  We are all in this together.  And the dying party gives the chance for the thriving party to ruin all the gleaming ideas they once held.  The element of power will take over, the wasteful shake of power-rabies finally tearing through the world.  And we, again, are losers.  The same ones that fought so hard for liberties and life will be the casualties of victory.  The casualties of our own fight.  The same fight that we “won.”

“The buck stops here,” Truman said.  But the muck keeps rolling on.

The Beauty of the Conservative Fox

If asked to punish the opposition to my political dreams, the very soul that wishes to crush me and leave me for dead inside a trash compactor outside of Louisville, there are truly only two considerable options that rush blindly through my mind.  The first, of course, is to hate them with every fiber of my being and to spend the rest of my life committing a whole overflowing cornucopia of sins in order to extinguish their flame.  Or I could date them – considering the female gender specifically – and put them through all of the lukewarm Applebee’s dinners they can swallow before sucking them dry through the torment of marriage.

Ah, sweet sadistic fantasies – will you ever leave my mind?

God forbid they ever crawl from my ears like tarantulas of virtue.  A tarantula of virtue that keeps reminding me (in the sacred language of the arachnids, very tricky – very tricky!) that I find the conservative breed the most alluring.  And after years of dating soppy liberals with sloughs of social problems and an overwhelming lack of foresight, I am ready to admit that the liberal end of the political spectrum is the weakest of possible options.  Feminists eating feminists and spike-haired teetotalers are damn attractive – damn attractive! – but lack the little twist that I so much enjoy.  It’s amazing how conventional and expected the life of a drug addict is.  Waking up and going to “work”, at different times of course, but always maintaining a similar routine that seems mundane for the subject at hand.

If you’re going to lead a life of hard drugs, abuse, or simple excess… you better stand out every once in a while.  You’ll be forgotten – (And the corpse will rot without notice.)

And the beauty of the conservative female is as follows: Passionate structure.  It no longer matters that your views are incorrect, (or misguided, or ignorant, or perhaps just obsolete,) but instead that you believe in something at all.  You believe that the lives of coulda-beens and shoulda-beens are more important than our society of ares – maybe you’re right!  Perhaps my eyes have been blinded by the stinging sweat of nervous do-gooders.  And damn! I’ve invested so much!  But that’s why I have my soft spot for you, righty foxes, and even your mothers, as well.

Two champagne glasses filled with gorgeous certainty and unrivaled confidence create the legs of the ideal conservative woman.  Perfectly tanned – spoiled even – by a sun that has shone just for them.  And in turn, they shine for me.  For you.  For everyone, some would insist.  It was Winston Churchill who once said, “The perfect set of legs could make me a Nazi in seconds.”  Don’t look that up, it’s speculative at best, but a valid point all the same.  (Churchill thought it, I’m sure, and isn’t that good enough?)  And I say in complete seriousness, with a hastily mixed concoction of shame and pleasure smeared across my face, that a sincere Republican woman is more attractive than her counterpart.

But Christ! Have I gone soft?  Have I lost all sense of convictions?  Have I been snagged by the evil glue that seeped from the pores of Richard Nixon?  The same disgusting paste that some life-long Republicans can’t seem to pry themselves away from?  Have I lost my mind to the extent that I would chance my entire life in the hands of a right-wing nutjob in high heels?

Yes – and it’s a beautiful downfall that tastes sweeter with each passing day.

And I’d fill an entire newspaper with personal ads suggesting the very same treacherous thought that I’ve been hinting at for so long: The young Republican woman, (much like the ideal young Republican male,) has class.  A shine.  A dare I say blissful quality that has no competition, and unsurpassed brilliance in moments of defense.  When they argue, they make me smile.  And when they win, in those rare and bittersweet moments, I get butterflies as though I were performing “Stairway to Heaven” on an ivory kazoo at Wembley Stadium.  A certain wonderfully nervous moment I can’t suppress with distain for neo-con rhetoric.  Five spoonfuls of liberal sugar get all lumped up in my throat.  It’s a tremendous, awful experience I always treasure behind closed doors.

Doors I have used to hide shrines of Republican idols, both named Mike.  Wallace and Ditka, respectively, make me grit my teeth with anxious frustration.  And doors that hide file cabinets of complaints about immigration, and concessions to faith-based ideologies, and certain sympathies for Nixon.  He thought he was right!  Go figure.  And I’ve come to accept such pitiful excuses from lizards of California politics. 

And the hope – the subtle dream – is that behind a closed door lies a beautiful right-wing fanatic who can agree to disagree.  Or at least is willing to fight dirty – the only way to fight – with chairs, or lamps, or the overturned urn of my Libertarian father smashed across both our skulls, leaving us in a swirling pile of blood and filth and rhetoric.  And love.  Perhaps not the same dream that Dr. King shared with the masses, but a vision of perfection nonetheless.

And a wonderful realization of insanity.

The Hidden Torso of Kingston

For over three years, I worked in what would come to be known enthusiastically in the Clinton 90s as the “service industry.”  It’s what America has become: a nation that is completely based in service oriented careers, from fast food to telemarketing, as opposed to the years we spent as a leading industrialized nation.  Name me the big wig industrial tycoons of the 21st Century – the modern day equivalents to Ford, Carnegie, or Rockefellar – and the answers are far less clear.  Our modern captains of financial gain are computer wizards – Gates and Jobs – and reliability from the blue-collar backbone of America no longer means what it used to. 

This has nothing to do with any of that mumbo jumbo.

This summer I picked up a job with the Des Moines County Roads Department, and before I get into the spellbinding story I have saved for the most sincere readers, allow me to fill you in on my usual job duties: I wake up at 6 in the morning, roll into the shop around 7, and until a noon lunch, my partner and I usually drive around doing 15 minute odd jobs at our leisure.  You know – for the sake of the county.  Your tax dollars keep our gas tank filled in order to promote what the boss calls “windshield time.”  Maybe we mow a lawn or two, weed-eat a bridge area, or paint some railroad crosses.  Maybe we don’t.  Maybe our mission is to “scout” the county for problems – a wonderful code that simply means “we’ve run out of things for you to do at the moment, so feel free to drive around.”  And we do. 

But occasionally, as part of our lackey duties, we have to participate in roadkill pickup.  With the rest of the crew working on their designated projects, (road fills, culvert work, or sign detail,) my partner John and I are the designated roadkill bitches, expected to drop whatever we are doing to retrieve nature’s corpses.  Understandably, our only calls come for deer.  John is a farm boy and has no squeamish tendencies when it comes to dead animals.  I am a city slicker, but also a part-time nut-job, so picking up decapitated deer doesn’t send me into a frenzy either.  I shared a quick story with John late last afternoon about my elementary days at the bus stop picking up dead possums and swinging them at my riding companions.  I miss the good old days.

Anyway, we had a call yesterday afternoon about a deer on Highway 99 – “real fresh” our boss assured us, promising that the smell would be only minimally offensive.  Without a second thought, John and I headed down 99 toward Kingston without shovels or tarps or anything but our God given strength and beautiful hands.  John claims to be a model.  I claim he’s full of shit.  Either way, within 20 minutes we stumbled across the body of our interest. 

Both of the antlers had been knocked from its crown, and one of its eyeballs had rolled down the white line of the steamy highway.  The neck had been unquestionably broken, twisted nearly all the way around.  The back legs had been run over repeatedly it seemed, both on the verge of falling off, but somehow managing to keep in a whole trail of bowels and internal organs that were beginning to spew from the backside.  And in the mess of it all, there were lots of random pieces of meat scattered across the road, none of which I could place as distinct body parts, but all surrounded by swarms of horse flies.  We put on our gloves and gave it a go.  The plan was to pick her up by the legs and swing her into the back of our truck.  From there, we would drop by Strawberry Point and leave her in a backwoods ditch.  This was all easier said than done. 

It should be noted that we have done this before, and although we are not trained professionals, we weren’t novices either.  Most of the time an intact deer is fairly manageable, or at least manageable enough to load into a truck and discard like the reeking corpse that it is.  But we had never dealt with a specimen that looked as though it had been hit by a tank, run over by a motorcycle gang, and then bombed from the sky.  It proved to be more difficult than anticipated.

John wanted to avoid the backdoor mix-up that was starting to drip down the hind legs, so he took the front two legs by the head, and I grabbed the back two.  Immediately, a stiff wind of death swept past us, but being the footsoldiers of county decency, we pressed forward.  The first attempt to lift her into the bed was a failure, and we sat her down to collect our thoughts for a moment.  The back end was starting to dismantle, and my face was beginning to twist with disgust at the purplish trail of intestines that were winding into the road.  I wanted it all to be done with.

We counted to three and lifted once more to swing the beast into the truck.  As we struggled to raise the head, we could hear the sound of tearing.  Being a lardass of 20 years running, I assumed it was the crotch of my jeans, and for the first time in my life, I was sorry that it wasn’t.  The back legs stretched to their limits, and without notice, snapped off, dropping my end to the asphalt.  The sudden jolt not only dismantled what fragile support there was for the bowel system, spilling the innards across the highway, (and my boots,) but apparently shocked the entire inner workings.  A shot of blood came out of the mouth and left a healthy slathering on the front of John’s shirt.  He squealed and dropped his end with frustration. 

So here we are: John and I standing in the middle of Highway 99 around a mutilated deer corpse.  He’s got blood dripping off his gloves and t-shirt, and I’m holding two legs in the air like drum sticks with yesterday’s berries oozed across my boots.  If I had been a passerby to a similar situation, I would have called local authorities. 

“That’s it!” John screamed, wiping his gloves on the grass.  “I’ll take care of this myself.”  He told me to watch down the road and tell me if anyone was coming.  Not a car in sight.  He grabbed the front two legs and shuffled himself backwards across the highway toward the opposite side ditch.  Pulling the carcass over the edge, he disappeared into the trench with a grunt.  I leaned up against the truck and couldn’t help but laugh, realizing how disastrous the whole process had gone.  Sensing a need to help, I collected all the scattered body parts on the road, leaving a tremendous pool of blood on the east side. With an arm full of parts, I chucked them into the ditch, hitting John with a sliver of belly meat and a renegade antler.  He was not amused.

Peeking over the edge, I tried to see what his plan was.  He had smashed the deer into the ground as well as he could, and was proceeding to cover it up with cornhusks and tall grass.  I almost spit up my lunch with laughter.  A car passed by and I gave him the head’s up.  He quickly put his hands behind his back as if there were no particular reason as to why he had descended into the ditch.  I doubled over with another heave of comedy.

Climbing out of the ditch, John and I stood next to each other and admired the work.  A great brown mound in the middle of a bright green patch of field ditch.  Lying to ourselves, we said it was completely inconspicuous and impossible to see from the road, wiping our hands of wrong doing and committing fully to the idea of practicality.  “There was no other way,” I said looking down at the hump.  “It had to be done.”

We drove off that afternoon with smiles across our faces, knowing that if our boss or the neighbors had seen our display, we probably would be explaining ourselves for the next few days.  We told ourselves that the dismembered limb teetering on the top of the pile could have come from anywhere.  And sadly, we were completely satisfied with our solution.

Driving by this morning, the heavy rain last night had moved most of the grass pile, leaving the sorrowful deer exposed to the elements and more tragic looking than ever.  We had one thing going for us: It looked as though only a rabid animal could have torn it apart like that.  It couldn’t possibly be the product of a couple college kids from the Midwest.  Never.

Silly teenage girl exclamation of the day: I love my job.

Dig Your Graves Now, Liberal Nation! We Are Swine That Cannot Be Harvested For Meat!

Do you remember all the left wing blowhards that came out after September 11^th and claimed it was all an intricate plot by the U.S. government to gain sympathy for a full-scale attack on the Middle East?  The hullabaloo over films like Loose Change and Zeitgeist?  Sometimes I’d like to forget.  Did you know there are people out there who think that Pearl Harbor was a similar situation, allowed to happen for the sake of solidifying support for U.S. involvement in World War II?   For years I’ve had liberal nutjobs breathing down my neck about everything from the JFK assassination to the idea that America actually caused the great Asian Tsunami a few years back.  Most would agree that these proposals are filled with holes and faulty logic, and I’ve never attached myself to anything of the sort.  But after a while, you have to rock the boat.

Speaking of conspiracy theorists, it was just last week that James Von Braun shot up the Holocaust Museum in D.C., voicing a significant stance of defiance against the well-documented tragedy of the Holocaust.  Von Braun is well into his late eighties, prompting lefty commentator Bill Maher to remark, “New Rule: You can’t call someone a neo-Nazi if they are older than the Nazi-Nazis.”  And indeed, it seems a bit more than strange to think that this elderly bigot was planning to target not only the Holocaust Museum, but a number of other Washington D.C. locations, as well as Fox News headquarters.  And to be honest, after years of scrutiny, I imagine Fox News would have been the most well prepared for the situation. 

But even more bizarre about his quest, including his apparent disgust for Roger Ailes’s Fox News, is the fact that Von Braun is about as far right as you can get on the political compass.  He blogged about his hate for civil rights and the equality of the races, and a number of other more mundane topics that would make my blog look like Disney World in print.   But the Nazis are a fundamentally right wing group, full of absurd claims that rival every bit of insanity that Socialism would dare to bring about.  Yes, it might seem far-fetched to some, but the Nazi ideology would be a threat to President Obama and his radical policies of uber-nationalization. 

Let’s look back further, to just around two weeks ago when abortion provider George Tiller was gunned down in front of his church.  The motive was very clear: pro-life advocates were fed up with the idea of the most extreme of Bible-based sins, late term abortions, and they were going to put a stop to it.  At this point, there are only a handful of professionals willing to perform the procedure, making it one of the most dangerous professions in the country.  Regardless of your beliefs about abortion or the like, most would agree that the actions carried out were beyond extreme, and dripping with irrationality.  Death on top of “death,” (the quotations placed in respect for my own beliefs on the topic,) brings a familiar quotation to mind: An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind.

But to provide a more intimate and realistic quotation, straight from my facebook feed directly after the murder, “I’m sorry George Tiller, but you had it coming.”

To branch off into a tangent for just a moment, I want to say something directly from the heart, (a place that has been neglected in most of my writing, and one I promise to avoid for the rest of this piece.)  No one should ever protest a funeral.  In the name of your God, in the name of your country even, no one should ever physically protest a funeral.  Even surrounding the topic of murder or rape, my position remains the same.  A human being has died, for better or worse, and can we as a people not respect their dismissal from earth?  They are not here to witness your upset, nor is your protest seen as a shining beacon of truth.  Those who desecrate the grave sites of both saints and sinners deserve nothing less than shame themselves.  Mother Theresa nor Hitler should ever be lowered into the ground in front of a crowd seething with anger.  They have left this world.  Why would you dare to elongate the process?

Having realized the increasing length of this spiel, allow me to quickly cut to the chase: There was a shooter in New York just a couple months ago who picked off 13 victims in a matter of minutes.  The shooter killed himself, so his intentions were never fully realized, but several columnists and bloggers came out with a similar theory: the man was so upset by the idea that gay marriage had been legalized in Iowa that he went on self-destructive rampage of bigotry.  And to go even further, several suggested that the election of Barack Obama as President had triggered some kind of gun scare.  Basically, the election of a liberal president frightened gun owners, believing he would attempt to revoke their right to bare arms, and caused a frenzy of trigger-happy Constitutionalists.  To preserve their 2^nd Amendment Rights, people would be using their guns more often than ever – even to commit heinous acts.  Now what point these right-wing writers were trying to present had initially been lost in a dizzying fog, but I’m beginning to connect some comically conspiratorial dots.  It was all a warning.

Holocaust Museum Shooter: Neo-Nazi against Civil Rights, as well as belief in the Holocaust, (a liberal Jewish myth.)
Abortion Doctor Shooter: Far-right religious fanatic taking a vigilante stance against the sin of abortion.
New York Shooter Justification: Anti-gay marriage and protection of 2^nd Amendment principles. 

Is anyone else seeing a pattern of far-right hate? 

The Conspiracy Theory: The American far-right is planning an ultimatum – dispose of this liberal government or people are going to die. 

Is that crazy enough for you?  To suggest that a party that can’t even decide what positions they are for or against could be involved in the organization of a national conspiracy?  May I remind you that none of us have given Bush enough credit as a political mastermind.  But all the setup is there, if not structured at all by conventional party doctrine.  To begin the Republican Revolution would be very simple, and would most likely begin with a speech from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, (a slimy amphibian of a name for a slimy amphibian of a politician):

“My friends – we are all proud Americans.  Proud to serve our country in times of need and proud to protect our country in the wake of a threat to our freedoms.  And for far too long now, our nation has been under attack from the liberal agenda and the Socialist ideology that has plagued our recent misfortunes.  America has spoken out, in a sincere moment of revolution, and lives have been lost in response to the tyranny of a Democratic government.  Can we as a nation cast our political differences aside and embrace a simple truth: only one party can keep this country safe.  Only one party can protect our people with certainty and unrivaled power.  This is the time for a Republican movement – a movement created for the safety of our citizens – to end this uprising of violence.  It is plain to see that a Democratic government promotes nothing but unfortunate death, and in order for these tragedies to stop, we must bring back our Republican house.  We must bring back our Republican Senate.  And we must bring back a God-fearing President, a conservative of moral fiber, who will lead us back into the shining light of God, and away from the disgusting reign of liberal insanity that will forever be seen as an oil slick in the annals of time.  God bless America, and God bless our troops.”

Because in order for any speech to be credible, you have to bless the troops – God forbid you not do so, you are a commie, a killer, a swine.  And the chants of “Heil Gingrich” will be heard across the land, and Sarah Palin will rise again as the charismatic leader of the Republican nation, accompanied by any number of well-dressed zombies, from Eric Cantor to Bobby Jindal.  Mitt Romney’s a Mormon, such an unfortunate thing to be in the middle of a Christian theocracy, and will immediately be trampled in the great Revolution Riots of 2012, perhaps by Mike Huckabee himself, who very well might become the next chief of this great land, under the close and personal guidance of Jesus Christ.  Yes, I can see it all now. 

And the liberals will be herded up like cattle and sent to the Gulags of Colorado and Montana.  They must be exterminated to prevent further travesties!  The ghost of Hubert Humphrey will try and comfort the weary prisoners, but it is no use, because the liberal species has always been a spineless one, and Humphrey’s hulking frame casts nothing but a dismal shadow on the entire lot.  The only benefit to being spineless is that the opposition realizes you are no good for physical labor, so you will be put out of your misery immediately.  A whole colony of starving Socialist dogs. 

Have I made it far-fetched enough?

Obviously, the idea of a neo-con takeover shouldn’t scare any one quite yet, but as usual, my actual point is hidden somewhere in a mess of sarcasm and self-important rhetoric.  There IS a rush of conservative violence, and there IS a need to bring this idea to the forefront before it gets out of hand.  It truly isn’t a partisan issue, but rather a humanitarian one, and perhaps even a practical suggestion.  Violence in this arena is not justified, especially considering the usual presentation of a tolerant God.  People cannot take things into their own hands for the “sake of humanity.”  The same goes for the liberal eco-terrorists, destroying people’s livelihoods for the salvation of the environment.  The side is not important.  As my government teacher Mr. Remmers once perfectly commented, Al Queda are extremists of Islam – a religion that has been vilified in recent years by the Western world.  The Ku Klux Klan are religious extremists as well – of Christianity. 

One more little (ha) article about tolerance.  One more reaching grasp for a better world, or at least a better circle of readership.  And if last week’s stinging comment means anything, (“Dear Alex Denison.  You are a faggot,”) it promises that I won’t be shutting up any time soon.  Just one more thing Joe Biden and I share, (besides a loving relationship) – we can never manage to keep our mouths shut.

Alex Denison, Ph.D.

Des Moines County, Iowa

“Ch-ch-check this fucker out,” Martin the county sign worker said to me, sliding his greasy fingers across a hand-held roller ball mouse.  He squinted at a tiny computer screen in the middle of the cab, and I leaned over to take a closer look.  It was a satellite map of Des Moines County, from Burlington to Yarmouth, and every dusty dirt road in between.  “Find your huh-house,” Martin spit out with a smile, handing me the mouse and leaning back in his shock resistant chair.  And I did. 
           

I zoomed all the way in, close enough to see the tear in the passenger side fabric of my Jeep’s old soft top, suggesting that the photos were taken sometime recently.  I was admittedly impressed, and Martin could see it on my face, so he told me to “dick around” with it some more as we made our way down the back roads of the county.  I pretended to, but I didn’t know what I was looking for.  I just kept zooming in on silos and crop patterns that looked like UFO creations until eventually I stopped and started gazing out the window.  The green hills seemed to go on forever, but I knew that they did not.  I’ve always known that they did not.  Martin told me he had only left Iowa once, last summer for California, and I wonder if he ever thought they just went on forever, never ending, like a perpetual galaxy of crops.  I’m sure he, like myself, sometimes wishes they did.  I’ve always wished they did.
           

And in between the staggered stutters of Martin’s explanations, (an unfortunate thing to witness, although he keeps such a good humor about it,) I lolled in and out of conscious thought.  I saw the upturned silos from last summer’s gruesome flood, and they reminded me of beautifully tragic works of art.  The leaning silo of Yarmouth, I thought, but didn’t dare share it with Martin.  He was in the middle of a lengthy tirade over affirmative action that I had accidentally provoked, and I wouldn’t dream of trying to explain why I thought these shattered dreams were gorgeous.  It just wouldn’t make sense, and doesn’t make sense, in any and all forms.  Once after creating a lopsided barricade, I tried to tell him about “wabi-sabi,” the Japanese belief in beauty through the imperfect.  He told me to stop spouting off that Swahili shit.  And I did. 
           
I think back about that satellite imagery from Martin’s sign truck and all the things that fill up just our tiny nook of the world.  There are 99 counties in Iowa alone, well over 3,000 in the rest of the country, and God forbid I sit down and do the research through the world’s commonwealths and territories, boroughs or “parishes”.  That’s what Louisiana calls them, parishes, which I learned from an old black and white movie whose name escapes me as I babble.  Too many nights watching those old films. But focusing back on just our little patch of earth, it’s hard to fathom all the life stories that are being played out day by day, as I type, and as you sleep, and as we all pass each other through routine.  40,600 people, give or take a few well-fed farmers who die from high cholesterol, or a handful of drunk teenagers that navigated their way through a few bottles of Smirnoff and then end over end into a ditch.  And then a couple babies are popped out from time to time, little “Jacobs” or “Catherines” and a few cutesy names like “Willow” that will never make it in the real world with such a whimsical signature.  And what a shame.

CEO’s are not named Willow, Toby, or Hope.  Believe what you want to believe, from the creation of the universe to the meaning of life, but CEO’s are not named Willow, Toby, or Hope.

And just from our little cranny of the globe, a place that seems so boring and non-complex, we all know people that would put big city stories to shame.  Cheating husbands living in basements with barely legal girls, drunken public officials found in fast-food parking lots, and a number of shameless deviants whose names tend to slip our minds, so conveniently, just as we want to tell their tale to an outsider, a foreigner to this former boomtown, this well dug hole.  Someone is cheating on their partner at this moment.  Hell, maybe two or three.  Some high school kid is taking a swig of lightning in a barn down a worn out road.  And someone else, a lot of people, are plotting their way out.  There’s a number of options, really.  Some will choose finality. 

I drove through the Burger King drive-thru this evening and saw an old friend of mine in the rear view mirror.  I say friend out of pure folksy hospitality, when in reality, we merely shared space a time or two, and shot the breeze a few times more.  He was in a neck brace, sporting his trademark aviators, and his wife was slouched against the passenger side mirror.  He used to tell some of the craziest stories; his wife giving birth to a three foot tall man, or how he knifed his way out of a hospital room in the ‘80s.  Us kids never took him too seriously, but I think he believed what he was saying.  And for all I know, it may be true.  I’m sure every county in Iowa has a “Greasy Steve,” or a “Vince” that becomes the stuff of legend – pure mythology at times – but yet we think of them as our own.  Only our own.  And yet their stories rarely leave the boundaries of our chunk.

Sometimes I lie outside at night and just think about all the people I have met over the past few years.  Faces I’d like to greet, but realize quickly they don’t remember me at all.  Faces I’d like to meet, but realize quickly I’ll never see them again.  Some of those are the most haunting of all.  And at times it almost feels as though the moon is mocking our little county, coming round when it likes and leaving without so much as a goodbye, creating the sultry black sky I’ve driven under for many years now, with friends and strangers alike.  I think about what Martin does after work, and whether he really does try and pork his wife at the dinner table after every meal, or whether I’d just really like to believe that.  I tell myself I don’t, but for some reason it seems charming. 

And I think about all of us trying so hard to get out – future doctors and lawyers, writers and engineers – all with the simple goal of leaving this town, this county behind.  I, of course, am one of them.  It could be that mocking moon, but I strive to just get out, get free, and look around somewhere else for a while.  And I used to think we all felt that way, that deep longing to get out at whatever cost, but I’ve learned more over the past couple weeks than just how to disintegrate a deer.  Some people really love it here, and wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.  “We were like the Beverly Hillbillies,” Martin told me of his trip to California.  “It’s just too different for me.”  And in Martin’s case, I can’t blame him.  Corn-fed, corn-bred, and proud to say so – as though he shouldn’t be.  I’ve lost a bit of smarm and gained a bit of respect for those with simple ambitions.  Pure ambitions – to live, to love, and to just get by, without the flash of higher ideals.  I honestly can’t blame them, and at times I envy the thought.  What are we truly living for: the pursuit of happiness or the pursuit of power, wealth, and greed?  It’s a larger topic than suitable for this county, which is why we’ll leave it alone.

So why do I want out?  I’ve got a lot between my ears that doesn’t sit well in this place.  I’ve lost a lot of my angst, and I’ve started leaning toward practicality.  My dreams just don’t fit inside this box.  Hell, it might just be a needed change of scenery. And yes, industry is down, and sometimes it seems the entire economic morale may sink into the depths of the muddy Mississippi, but there’s always something to be done.  If you like it here, don’t be ashamed.  You’re in good company, I’ve seen.  And most situations, like riverboat paddles, work in steady cycles.

Yes, Des Moines Country is truly a beautiful place if you’re looking for the right things.  A bit simple for some, but isn’t it always?  The 3^rd biggest harvest, next to corn or soy, is nearly always complaint.  But maybe you have a head full of notions that can’t be reached from these old roads.  A head full of notions that have been screaming for too long, and you’re afraid they’ll echo through the valleys.  I understand, I do.  I’m with you.

Or maybe the moon’s mocking you, too.