Revulsions and Delights

PART I: Things I'd Like to Machine Gun

1. Hardee's Commercials

Some Marlboro-smoking, iced tea-drinking jack-off recalls the harrowing tale of his lunch hour. "I figured I'd get some fries and a drink...nobody can mess that up." Then he eats the Thickburger and discovers, "It's actually pretty good". Hardee's message to the customers, cut and dry: "We used to suck. Now we don't suck as bad."

Who comes up with this self-conscious pussy advertising? Did they consult a bunch of emo kids? No, Hardee’s. If you want me to eat there, first, stop employing lazy crack heads who won't clean the week old BBQ sauce off the counter and take longer to wrap up my Frisco burger than it takes to eat, piss and pay at any Waffle House. Next, get yourself some confidence. I'm not going to eat ground beef from a place that isn't so sure about how great they are. I've read Fast Food Nation. When you make a goddamn commercial, you are the greatest goddamn restaurant on the face of this goddamn planet. Not only that, you are the most mind-blowing goddamn phenomenon that has ever happened to mankind. One bite of your slime sandwich will send us fat fuckers sailing into hamburger heaven. Your curly fries give women multiple orgasms, and your dinky little potato stars cure the shit out of some cancer. Next time you do a commercial, have the guy say "I was on my lunch break, and there was a Hardee's. I was like, Fuck yeah! So I went in and ordered like 4 Thickburgers because they get you higher than an opium joint rolled in acid paper. The hot chicks with their big boobies hanging out you have working behind the counter were a nice touch, if ya know what I mean. You guys kick ass!!" And the slogan: Hardee’s, We Are Your Overlords.

2. Extreme Makeover

This show fills me with the sick horror of the Faces of Death movies. The one I saw, an average looking woman gets all kinds of silicone surgically implanted in her face, LA approved clothes, LA approved hair, and at the end her husband proposes to her. I have an idea: Why don't we just surrender to the Machine and turn ourselves all into robots? Why not just invent the perfect fucking machine and lets end the human race by discontinuing reproduction? Half the people act like robots already anyway. I might be weird, but I prefer natural women. I like imperfection. I like Russ Meyer women. Perfection is a myth. Nature is imperfect.

3. The Michael Jackson Thing We're Going to Hear About Every Goddamned Day For the Next Five Years

Speaking of that Faces of Death feeling, old “Jacko” looked better in his “Thriller” make-up. What would you do if you were sitting in a jury for a pedophilia trial, and in walks the defendant, a 5'11" 120 pound guy wearing fake eyebrows and lipstick and his nose falling off? Liz Taylor can shut her hole. She told everybody to “eat crow”. Is there anyone over the age of 80 out there who can explain to me what the hell that means? This kind of spectacular media event and how much money is made from it speaks a lot about the culture we live in. You want to know what’s on the minds of Americans? Follow the money.

4. Deion Sanders’s Wardrobe

Deion Sanders is a stupid dickhead and always has been. When he played in the NFL, he ran like a dickhead, held the ball like a dickhead, and played for the most dickheaded team in sports history, the Dallas Cowboys. He’s ugly, he’s not funny, he makes Dan Marino look like a Rhodes Scholar, and he dresses like a stupid little kid on Halloween. He goes into his dressing room at NFL Today and says, “Gimmie something flashy to wear. I dig flashy. I don’t want to look like a normal person and wear normal suits like all the other sportscasters. I’s prime time up in here. Hit me up with somethin that makes me look like I’m goin to a roarin 20s costume party. Hit me up with some shark skin. You know, somethin flashy.” Somebody fire him.

5. Toby Keith

I had no idea who this dipshit was until this football season. He was just the jackass country dork with the Ford acoustic guitar. I can't watch a goddamn NFL game without seeing that stupid truck commercial 157 times. Apparently he's one of these faux patriots too. I'm sorry, but the fart noise that passes as “country music” these days doesn't have anything to do with what's good about this country. Quite the contrary. It represents the mocking of the culture rather than creating something new out of the culture. It's called "country" music simply because some goateed prick can mock Southerners and country people by wearing a cowboy hat, shouting "Y'all" a couple times, singing about his daddy and tapping his feet arhythmically in the dumb looking boots he got at Western Wear. Johnny Cash in his biography (the newer one from the 90s) expressed displeasure with these kinds of bimbos for their stereotypical representations of the kind of life Cash actually led. Toby Keith calling himself a patriot is like pissing on the flag. Same with any of those fake ass gay ass patriotic "I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free to write gay ass songs" songs that tried to capitalize on 9/11.

6. children with last names for first names and the yuppie parents who wont yell at them

Just about every day I hang out at the local cafe/market in Carrboro. You're allowed to drink beer on the lawn. But I also enjoy the atmosphere, for the most part. University people often hang out there. I can eavesdrop on interesting conversations about quantum physics and geology and everything else. I find that comforting for some reason. But there's another element there which I don't find particularly pleasing: Wimpy, honky-dorky parents who insist on giving their ugly brats names like Watson and Neilson and Davis. Once I was trying to enjoy my beer in peace and this little booger was running all over the place kicking dirt everywhere. So what does the father do? Does he so much as raise his voice, let along open a can of whoop ass? Of course not. In a timid, fearful voice hardly above a whisper he says, "No no. Please don't kick dirt Wilson."

Once we were walking and this little tan-haired Disneyite was kicking a can back and forth, getting in our way, and the whole time I’m wondering what his last-name-for-a-first-name was. Then, lo and behold, the dad says, in a low, pleading voice, "Smith, watch where you're kicking that, oo-kay?" Not "Stop kicking that can before I beat your ass!" or simply “Stop it!” but “Watch where you are kicking that, please.” We all know who wears the pants in the family – the little bastard.

And all of these people, no matter what part of the country they are from, speak like they are from Minnesota. "Smith, please DOOn't DOO thut, OO-kay?" These stupid yuppie parents don't yell at their kids in public because they don't want the other yuppies to think they are "aggressive" parents. Fuck that. I should be seeing some serious smack down going on.

The other night some shit heads were letting their little girl PISS on the PUBLIC LAWN while people were trying to eat and I was trying to drink. Oh it was so funny and she's in nature man, so we should just all accept it. Well if she was my kid I'd power bomb her into the lawn. Then I'd call the cops and have her locked up for public urination and lewdness. That should potty train the little bitch.

Some of my first supermarket memories involve hefty mamas from Broadhead smacking the living shit out of their children. Why? Various reasons: the child wouldn't sit still, he spoke out of turn, he looked at the mom wrong, etc. Thank God for those women. They had the common courtesy to pummel the living hell out of their little ones so the rest of us could shop in peace. Well, in peace when the beatings were over. Hell yeah. Those are hardcore American values. Beat the crap out of your kid. And name it Bob or Steve or Joe. None of these pretentious goddamn last names for first names. I hate you people and your fanny packs.

PART II: What I’m Thankful For

1. My Trailer

In August we moved into a trailer park on the outskirts of town. We did it because we want to be real life rednecks like the Dude Where's My Car guy. We like to wear our cute foam trucker hats and listen to real country music like Toby Keith. Actually we're here because a trailer is much cheaper than any apartment in this little college town, and we can rent by the month instead of by yearly lease.

I love this place. It's dirty. I love grime. I remember, man, that I am dust and to dust I shall return. Not call-the-sanitation-department dusty, no. Most of the rooms in my “mobile” home (that hasn’t been mobile since the early 70s) usually have a neutral to mildly pleasant aroma. I do the dishes a few times a week. I keep my garbage can lined and the floor is vacuumed once every couple of months. We don't smoke, so that helps. Dead roaches are disposed of as soon as I notice them.

My cozy little dirt pile is a '71 chocolate custard colored single wide 14x70. Green shag carpeting and wood paneling, some funky tiles on the kitchen floor, an old Coca Cola bottle opener mounted on the wall right next to the fridge, plastic flower shaped washers on all the screws holding up the ceiling, a shower massager, some imitation copper Turkish bathhouse soap holders and a plastic chain to hold up the towel in one of the two bathrooms, three window unit ACs, an old rusty tank on the back for the propane, which is empty because we don't have the cash to fill it, an olde tyme Flintstones-era TV antenna on the roof which works like a charm (we get 14 channels clear, 3 fuzzy), a nice storage unit, a flimsy, rusty, staircase leading up to our door that bounces when you step on it so you feel like your walking on the moon, or maybe the Stairway to Heaven, deer running through our yard and roaches the size of mice. It’s a paradise.

I'm used to the roaches by now. I admire them, their legs, shells, and antennae, then I crush them to death. They're a nice looking specimen, like brown praying manti. It's illegal to kill praying manti because they are bright green and you hardly ever see them. It's legal to kill roaches because they're brown and plentiful. I was sitting on my couch tonight and one crawled right up on my hand. It was a touching moment. Then I flushed him down the toilet.

The park we live in is kept well. It's run by an ex-Marine who probably fought in Korea. I don't know for certain that my landlord is an ex-Marine who fought in Korea but military men have a certain look exclusive to each branch. This park has been around since 1953, three years after the start of the police action over there, and the folks have been running it since then with strict rules that you are expected to follow if you want to live around here. I respect that because it's not easy to keep a low-rent neighborhood from turning into "the hood" for half a century. We can't drink beer outside, we have to keep reasonably quiet after ten, we can't go above 5 miles per hour on the driveway. I don't mind it one bit, because I expect all humans to be silent in my presence.

Most of our neighbors are regular folks who work at the supermarket or the drug store. We got a metalhead and a couple of mohawked punks. Everyone waves to each other when you go by. It's a standard thing. It might be the best neighborhood I ever lived in.

2. My kick ass bike

I got a bike at the local thrift shop for ten bucks in perfect working order. It's a blue old time looking Schwin "Collegiate" with some rims and big thin tires. I never owned any other kind of bike besides the bmx style in my life. I ride to and from work which is about two and a half miles each way. Chapel Hill has a lot of bike paths all over the place. I also take it up to the middle school near my park sometimes on a nice night. It's a good place to ride - lots of curves and paths going in and out of the woods and around the school. Me and Joann took our bikes up there one warm night when a great yellow moon hung low in the sky and the clouds hung around it. Free fun baby. Free fun.

I have a license plate that says Crafton, PA, USA '76, American Revolution Bicentennial. That's me all the way baby. I'm going to rig the plate on the rim of my back wheel with a coat hanger. There must be some way to attach a flag on there. Because I'm a true patriot, motherfucker. I don't use that fundamentalist Saudi monarchy-supporting petroleum to get to work. I use my own 100% American fat. We should figure out how to run this country on our own body fat. We’d be out of the Middle East in no time.

Another thing about my bike, it's a "girls'" bike because the upper bar slants down instead of going straight across. Why the boys' bike has a bar going straight across I have no idea. If you fall off your seat you can really hurt your balls on a boy's bike. With my bike, your balls are safe. And I don't mind at all that I ride a girls' bike, because, of course, I am a total pansy.

3. Seeing Your Turkey Walk Around, Eating it Later

The farm Joann works at raised turkeys this year. The night before they were slaughtered I went out to the farm to do some work and see the turkeys. Some of them were big bastards, up around 30 pounds. The one we got ended up being six pounds, a little heritage breed hen, but since it's just us two for Thanksgiving that's just right for us. Joann and her boss took them out last Thursday to be slaughtered. She had to tag the heritage breeds coming out of the truck by sticking a knife in their wings and putting the tag up in there. She watched the turkeys hung upside down and electrocuted and their throats cut, then feathered, and gutted and whatever else they had to do to get those birds in my belly. The birds had the best life a bird could hope for, if animals with brains the size of walnuts had the ability to hope at all, and Joann watched firsthand the brutal reality that life feeds on death. But the Dead become the Devourer, and the movement of Life is Ouroboros, the coiled snake eating its own tail. Everything I've ever eaten was dead, and one day I'll be food for worms. Happy Thanksgiving. Feel free to use that for grace at the table this Thursday.

4. Thomas Wolfe

I just finished reading Thomas Wolfe's last book, You Can't Go Home Again. Wolfe was born and raised in Asheville, NC, attended UNC Chapel Hill at 17, moved to New York City and went on to become the greatest American novelist in the 20th century. No one but book nerds like me knows or cares about him, because nobody but book nerds like me can appreciate the man enough to read his long ass books. The 1941 edition of You Can't Go Home Again that I borrowed from the UNC Chapel Hill Davis Library contained 749 pages. The current President of the United States of America, a graduate of Yale and Harvard Business School, once stated that he was not good at reading 500-page books. I must be a goddamned genius.

I always pick the oldest edition on the shelf. There's a certain magical quality in the old fonts and in the smell and the wear that only Time produces. Plus you get to see what a 50 year old booger looks like.

Wolfe hunts the mammoth beasts of Reality and Time, struggled to hell and back with them. He had a tremendous work ethic, depriving himself of sleep to create these massive manuscripts which were, at times quite literally, a weight on his back. In You Can't Go Home Again we follow Wolfe's biographical protagonist George Webber from Manhattan, back home to Asheville (dubbed Libya Hill here), to Great Depression era Brooklyn where Wolfe lived in a small and narrow basement apartment, to England, and pre Nazi Germany, around the time of the 1936 Olympics, just as the Germans were losing their culture to the evils of Hitlerism (By the way I'm now reading a history book called the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which is 1500 pages. That must blow the current President of the United States of America's mind. I'll have a book report sometime next season. It's actually funny reading a book covered in swastikas in very liberal cafes in Carrboro, NC, even though the book is not in any sense Nazi propaganda. My late sister once attempted to get out of jury duty by dressing in black and reading this very swastika-covered book in court. It worked. "They skipped right over me," she said.).

Wolfe reaffirms in Webber that to live you have no choice but to change. "Home" can be literally the place you grew up, or old ideals, as the snake sheds it's old skin, the molds of life formed around each man must be shed in order to grow with the rhythm of ever-changing Time. Wolfe leaves nothing behind in his brutally frank biographical style, even after Look Homeward, Angel cost him the respect of the people of his hometown, as Jesus of Nazareth in Luke 4:24 "No prophet is accepted in his own country."

Thomas Wolfe lived in essentially the same America we live in today – corruption, falseness, and greed existed then as they do now. He wrestled with every life experience and saw each moment as a drop in the rushing river of Time, and finally derived from it all an optimistic vision for America and the whole of Humanity, and in his writings sang out that hope, and was thankful.