The Fly Over States

Driving the car across America is a good way to find all the places you never want to inhabit in the future and a good place to thank your lucky stars that you never had to live there at any time in your past. I could take a humble approach and wax philosophic about the complexities and diversities of Man, but that's a higher road and I'm too tired and a little bit too drunk to make and effort to undertake that journey.

The basic breakdown:

NEVADA - There's very little more depressing than watching a mom play quarter slots in the Ralph's supermarket while her children play, unwatched and unnoticed, on the dirty floor. I tried to find the beauty in the desert and take solace on the vast expanses of emptiness but it's no good. It ain't pretty and their air is ripe with the smell of sweat and false hope and genuine desperation.

UTAH - A true Christian state. You start with empty, stinking saltflats and work your way through God's Country until you reach the eastern mountains which are solely inhabited by the wealthy and the beautiful. You look at these girls and think that they're beautiful and they look at you and only see a sinner.

WYOMING -

I think this sums the state up pretty well. Take note of the absence of anything but trucks in the lot. Everyone in Laramie walks around with the words "Go Pokes!" emblazoned across their shirts and carbumpers. For such rough and tumble states, Utah and Wyoming have more than their share of delightful homo-erotic innuendo that cannot be accidental...

MISSOURI - I had a hard time believing that the shit I was seeing was for real. I've always carried a mental picture of Missouri and I was blown away to see that, for once, I had guessed conservatively when I thought about it as just a backwater, anachronistic shithole. It is, in reality, more backwater, more out of touch with the times and shittier than I imagined. One expects to find Godbabble on the radio as one travels. Where one doesn't expect it is on the stereotypical morning commute hardrock station. It's surreal to hear a DJ follow up ACDC's "Hell's Bells" with a long, involved a serious diatribe about how "no one that ever followed the 10 Commandments really ever did wrong". It's apparently compleatly acceptable, however, in such a God-fearing state for men to "go commando" while wearing overalls (which, by no means, were over it all). I heard far too many toothless (and I mention this because of the bizarre percentage of toothless people I came across) rants in which people of color were described in off color ways. The kicker for me about this is the culture of acceptance and how it's taught to the children who sit in the passenger seat of the car and laugh along, too young to even know what they're laughing about. But the seeds of shittiness have been planted and took root in infancy. I also loved how (seriously) the only billboards I saw on the freeway were either "Don't Kill Your Baby" anti-abortion adds or "Full Dentures! $99! Cash Only!". It's nice to see someone other than me noticed the whole teeth (or lack of) thing.

NEBRASKA - I'm pretty tired of my inordinate share of experiences where my entire vehicle is searched for drugs by some bored cop who sees my tattoos and thinks "prison". Nebraska, I was taken in by your pretty cornfields and quaint pie stands but I want my 5 hours of wasted time and my faith that a good man doing the right things is going to have good things happen to him back.

The rest of the states have their little crappy nuances but I am through giving time and energy to them and I spit on them and damn them and shake my skinny heiny in their direction.

The Fly Over States Are Dead To Me.

Indie Rock and Indie Rockers

Anytime any "fringe" movement comes along, "the man" (or mainstream corporate America for those of you not hip to the lingo) comes along and waters down said "fringe" movement with an oversaturation of exposure. The threatening movement, whether it takes the guise of the beatnik of the 50's or the hippie of the 60's or the punkrocker of the 70's/80's or the "indie rocker" of the oughts, becomes commonplace and mainstream and is rendered "safe".

The beats were parodied by Maynerd G. Krebs on Dobey Gillis and shown as a generation of lazy, do-nothings who run at the mention of the word "work" instead of a generation bitter from years of depression and war. The hippies are portrayed as dirty, freelovin' dope smokers which takes all the steam out of their anti-war, anti-establishment message. Punk is commercialized and the message is lost. As far as Indie rock, Adidas and the thrift stores just made a financial killing...

It seems ludicrous to me that anything with the word Indie in it's descriptive label would become such a subculture of rigid mass conformity. Where's the independent that the "indie" stands for? Across the nation (and across Western parts of the globe), hordes of identically clad people identify themselves to the most distant viewers as someone who participates in a certain lifestyle choice predominated by musical taste and adherence. Mop/shag haircuts for boys. Bobs/pigtails for girls. Unisex outfits of tight polyester pants, sportsocks, ringer t-shirts and high end athletic tennis shoes (preferably vintage 70's era or remakes or the ever-popular Adidas "samba"). Kids: you've allowed "the man" to pull the wool over your eyes and the cash out of your trustfund - THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "INDIE" ANYTHING ANYMORE!

Take your hornrimmed glasses and your black hooded sweatshirt and all of its badges that you bought on ebay and go home and wait for the next "subversive" trend to come along and jump aboard and watch it derail before it builds any speed or momentum. Money conquers all. It wins. Accept it. Go hide somewhere. Become forgotten. Become dust.

Indie rock and Indie rockers are dead to me.

Costa Rica

Do you remember the television show "Fantasy Island"? Of course you do. On the show, this beautiful, exotic, tropical locale was decended upon weekly by wealthy Americans who either were searching for something or who had screwed up lives that they were hoping to escape/change. As the plane approached, Mr Rourke, played by the lush voiced Ricardo Montalban, would gather up the semi-naked and always beautiful locals with their drums and songs and heady scented flower wreaths and he and his freakish thick lipped bumbling midget sidekick would welcome these guests and as soon as the guest were out of sight, he'd clap his hands and the locals disappeared too.

Costa Rica should be the 51st state for all of the Americans who spend time there. You can't throw a rock anywhere in the U.S. without hitting someone who's been, going or wants to go to Costa Rica. Costa Rica has been so hyped by the American tourist industry.

When I go somewhere "exotic", the last thing I want to see is a naked man from Des Moines drinking a rum drink on the beach. Where are the natives? Most of the people I've spoken to talk about how "beautiful the locals are". It doesn't work like that, sister! You go anywhere in the world and take a truly random sampling of the population, you'll find that most people are drab to outright ugly. You ever heard of anyone ugly in Costa Rica? I say, where are these people being forced to hide. I know they're out there! But don't worry about how your Yankee dollars are permanantly changing another country's economy, culture and environment. Just party it up, and hang out. Consider the possibility of dreading your hair. Get into hemp and blown glass pipes. Tear through that jungle and break the silence of the night with your stereotypically overloud American voice and scream, "Costa Rica Rules!!!" Remember that Paradise is also full of mosquitos carrying malaria and Dengue fever a.k.a "Bonebreak fever". But never mind that, your dollar sure goes a long, long way...

Costa Rica is Dead To Me.

Kombucha

Today, I overheard a fit, well-fed woman in her low-20's say, "Oh, I'm soooo hungover. I wish I had some Kombucha tea..."

Hey young, fit well-fed america, you know what? Enough of the goddamned Kombucha Tea already!

I first took notice of this new fad drink about a year ago when I started noticing everyone I knew buying these $4.00 bottled drinks. "What's that?" I asked and they all said "Oh, it's Kombucha. It's soooo good for you."

Why's it good for you. The average drinker doesn't know or think to ask.

I think Kombucha's got two things going for it:
1) It's price. People will always be sucker for anything that costs a seemingly ridiculous amount of money. "If it's expensive, it must be worth it....somehow."
2) Kombucha is fun to say. Kom-boo-cha!

A couple of weeks ago, I found a weird jar of liquid in the communal refridgerator at work. It was full of yellow liquid in which was suspended what looked like an orange cow tongue. "What the fuck is that?!?" "Ah...don't you know? It's Kombucha."

It seems this trendy swill is derived from fermented fungus floating in water.

I missed the boat on this disgusting Get Rich Quick scheme that someone is undoubtedly bellylaughing about.

Maybe I should start my own drink with fermenting roadkill and give it a fun-to-say name and I'll be sitting with all the other fat cats on the beach in Costa Rica...

Kombucha is Dead To Me

Poker

Nice cards! The chips and the way they sound make me queasy. Ooh, good poker face! Turn on the television and see no less than three different tournements competing for my interest. HA Ha ha... those celebrities are so glib on Bravo as they play. Hey David Navarro, nice Poker tattoo! Too bad that backgammon's the new poker. Get on aboard or you'll miss the train...

Too late, it's gone.


Poker is Dead To Me.

Stephen Hawking

Is the Hype and Mythos surrounding Stephen Hawking valid? I question this and have my doubts.

First, for years we've only heard his ideas and theories expressed through his pre-typed voice program, played through his computer and giving us "ideas of genius" in its flat, almost Scandinavian accent. Who's to say that the ideas expressed by this playback are his? Does the World need its heroes and Cinderella stories of success and triumph through hardship?

In fact, if Stephen Hawking passed away 20 or 30 years ago, would it not be possible to simply create an animated dummy, of sorts, and put it up on a stage and play back these tapes for the graduating class at MIT to sit through, hanging onto every word and then explode into applause when the "stop" button was remotely pushed? Would these fledgling physicists and burgeoning workerbees not hesitate to work 80-100 weeks at their low-wage paying government defense contractor jobs and not utter a peep of complaint because, "well, just look at Stephen Hawking..."

I say that the Hawking story has been groomed and developed by The Man to keep the masses humble and feeling small. We, the Western Culture, love to watch and hear about the woes of others. It inspires us to "Get on with our day" and takes the bite out of our own lives' missteps because there's always someone out there with a worse situation. What could be a better storyline for a good tearjerker than a brilliant mind trapped inside a wordless, broken body?

The cup of coffee I paid $2.65 for, this morning, was cold, had grounds floating on its top surface and it tasted awful. My rent's too high. New beds cost alot of money and the bed I sleep on sucks. I still get the occasional pimple at age 35. I feel no kinship to my father. I'm uninspired when I pick up a pen and want to write a new poem with a new voice for a new generation. Stephen Hawking does nothing to make me feel better about my life.

The hoopla over Stephen Hawking is Dead To Me.

Scarlett Johannson

No more will I buy into the farce that is being pushed upon us by Hollywood that Scarlett Johannson is an actress who should be admired and respected. In fact, calling her an "actress" shows just how wide the definition "talented" goes when used as a descriptive adjective.

I have seen nothing from her except that she portrays a mopey, mumbly semi-pretty girl well enough to get roles as mopey, mumbly girls in film after film. One can always spot a lack of talent when the need to show ever-increasing amounts of cleavage, at screenings or public appearances, starts to occur. Scarlett is no longer the little girl next door... Perhaps she hopes to wow the media with her womanly charms to make up for someting real or witty to say that isn't pre-scripted by a talented writer.

How did she get to be in her posistion? How is she "connected"? Who does her daddy know?

Scarlett Johannson is Dead To Me.

Burritos

Having supped on, at least. 2 burritos a week for the last decade, I have reached the inevitable point of burrito burn out. I am done eating burritos.

I look forward to finding a new staple food of exotic ethnic origin. Perhaps Udon or Falafel.

It used to be that you could buy a huge burrito for a song. They were cheap and filling and available everywhere. Now, every other store front seems to be a burrito shack and they've figured out that they can jack up their prices and shrink the serving size and dramatically reduce the quality and we will still lap up this spicy delicacy of the southwest.

Well, I'm done. My belly has had its fill.

Burritos are Dead To Me.