I made it, and I'm not sure that's good or bad. Florida is terrific, if you avoid, ya know, John McCain Florida. The trip was incredibly long -- one of those, "holy shit, I woke up in Maryland today...that seems like three days ago" kind of days. The best I could do with pictures (since it gets dark at like 4:30 on the Eastern seaboard) was this mess of a motel in Southern Virginia when we stopped for gas:
That's it -- no name, just "Motel." It made Earl and Randy's motel on "My Name is Earl" look like the Beverly Hills Hilton. And this was their lure to get ya in (they were next door to a Subway):
I wouldn't pay $60 to stay there if they gave me a lifetime supply of those awful 3-ounces of meat filled subs.
The South is really another world, especially when for 29 years you are a straight up Northerner, and an educated one at that. South Carolina, ardently Republican, ardently conservative right? So, what's so conservative about "Live Nude Girls.......EXIT ___" billboards every 3 miles? Across the highway from the billboard solicitations of prostitution you ask? This beauty on a billboard, word for word -- "Abortion -- 10 minutes and it's over. A lifetime of regret." Awesome.
Evangelical leaders having gay affairs with male prostitutes, yet, the Bible-thumpers down here are still allowed to tell you the right way and wrong way to live your life. Do these people know the history of our country? Sure, they'll jump all over their revisionist history, telling you proudly that the country was founded on blood and battle (they're definition of slaughtering Native Americans apparently). That's why they carry guns and fight for theirs now.....stop it. Our ancestors came here because they wanted the freedom to live their lives the way they chose -- without governmental interference or someone else telling them how to be. Break down the word Protestants for Christ's sake.
It's enough to spiral any "normal" person into depression, much less me. I can't run the depression away. It's not going to happen. It's the huge elephant in the room wherever I go. I know that Buffalo is home, and I'm coming back...and that's the test. Other complications are making my being here a necessity, for now, but, what am I doing here really...ultimately?
There isn't a right decision I guess, and any decision to be here is obviously better than the way out that I've had in mind way too many fucking times in 2008. But I still do have that in mind -- daily. I rationalize other ways that would be deemed OK to die, because suicide is supposedly selfish, or whatever hardened rhetoric you hear from people who just don't get it.
It's not where it was with me...not even close, but it's nowhere near where I want it to be and where I know, more or less, that it can be and has been. Life sucks, and the more you see, the more you learn that ignorance truly is bliss. Ignorance is a blessing.
Maybe that's why so many people down here in the Bible-belt feel blessed? They deify a man in President Bush, who has headed up the slaughter of MILLIONS of Iraqi civilians based on fabricated intelligence. They deify McCain and Palin...McCain cheated on and eventually abandoned his wife once she was disfigured in a car accident. Palin doesn't know the countries that comprise the NORTH AMERICAN Free Trade Agreement --- and she governs a state that borders Canada (and apparently Russia). And why do these ignorant hicks do this? They're Christians, "just like me" (with an unmarried, pregnant teenage daughter). They're White, "just like me." They want us to have our guns, and that's all I give a shit 'bout.
They love Ronald Reagan, whose trickle-down economic theory and emphasis on governmental de-regulation puts the money in the hands of greedy CEOs, with the idea that if the guys up top have a lot, it naturally will trickle down to everyone. They trust them enough, that, shit, we should keep our oversight off of them...they'll definitely do the right thing.
Yep, that has worked really well...those CEOs take helicopters to work so they can beat the New York City traffic, they walk out with multi-million dollar bonuses that would leave A-Rod staggering, all the while the average household income has GONE DOWN. But fuck it, "I'd love to have a beer with that Bush fella, he seems like one of us." Running the country takes a tad bit more work than deciding which Dale Earnhart t-shirt you're going to wear today. Let's let the Columbia and Harvard educated guy have a crack at it and see how this goes.
FUCK THE SOUTH, FUCK TED STEVENS, FUCK ALASKA, and FUCK WOMEN OVER 40 WHO HAVE RETARDED BABIES (when the odds were that they would) AND THEN PEDDLE THEM OUT THERE ON STAGE FOR POLITICAL BONUS POINTS. Go close your daughter's legs, get ready to do a few lines with George W. on January 21st and leave us the fuck alone.
