America Makes Me Hornyy For Myyself

I support America. And apparently, America is supporting her.


"I pooted."

That's all the gigantic billboard says as I turn off Reno onto Interstate 40 in loveylovely Oklahoma City. And at once I realized that my lifelong dreams were encompassed at this moment. My friends, I live in a land where I can potentially grow big and strong and filthy dirty rich enough to spend money on billboards all over my chosen city that can convey cryptic, innappropriate, and somewhat pervy messages. And why? The answer is a question: Why not?

Already I'm imagining what would come to a tacky advertising space near you. Little nuggets of enigmatic wisdom like:

"Hardstrong and wet is the way"

"Cheese sandwiches=the apocalypse."

"Thongs save lives and marriages."

"Justin has crabs like mad, Yo."

"Only one reverend heals your dirty pain."

"Remember the golden rule."

All original thoughts that mean little to anyone and not much more to me, all to show you that I have the nerve and the dollars to do such things. The starving and uneducated can go to Bill Gates for a handout. When I'm dead, I realize that all I may have are the memories of my own amusement. I'd bet a nice steak dinner that Jesus is the president of my fan club. My mom and various Sunday School teachers taught me that.

...mellow yellow genesis of a buzz beginning as I sit on the deck of the 4th floor Skky Bar, thinking many many lots of things, especially about how the use of the double k is gaay.

Beautiful night. A gorgeous blonde (who I didn't even pay for this time) sitting across from me. A drink in my hand. A baseball game in the short distance concluding. The lights in the ballpark go out and a fireworks show begins and the night sky of my city is painted in the pyrotechnic watercolors of the planet Earth. Baseball, blonde, alcohol, fireworks. At this moment, I am consumed by--well--I'm horny for America.

The land of the free, the home of the billboard space filler. The sights and sounds of this night are rapturous...

Drunk cookie-cutter coeds with a Red Bull and vodka or a Bud Light in each hand. The boys with hair gel carefully sculpted, the girls with hair bleach so fine and tans that are extra tasty crispy. The Camel rep stops to give me a free pack of smokes. She asks for my number (to get the smokes, not for her to get the Puerto), I give her a fake number, wrong address. I run into old friends, casually conversate, casually make out with my friend. Another friend asks how long we've been dating. I say we aren't. My dysfunction and contradiction shines like Silver Surfer and my friend is confused. Complexity makes me interesting. Right?

A week into my 27th year, I do it all again. I do it all for America, this little dance. Dress up, go drink, hook up or give the old college try, go somewhere else, drink some more, repeat, repeat, repeat. My forefathers wouldn't be proud, but they sure as hell might be jealous.

She flashes in my head once. Hope she's not having any fun, at least not like I am.

Saturday, poker. Sunday, a barbeque. Beer and burgers, babes and bullshit, boys and bigger bullshit. I watch these three little kids play in one of those tiny inflatable pools you can buy at Target or Wal-Mart. They push and shove and throw and run and laugh and cry and smile. Their goodness is sweet for now. Wait until they're older and cooler and have more stuff and more to fight over and want to fuck and want to possess. That's where the fun begins.

Last day of vacation, the sadness of Sunday falls as surely as the sun goes down. I bought comic books today because I hadn't since I was ten. Batman is wicked cool and his problems with women are great because I can open and shut them and watch him beat the shit out of supervillians, the way I always knew I would. America is my warm little blanket.

Quick. What are the three most important things in your life? Well, I know I'm number one, but what are the other two?

Here's what I was raised to say (by my mother who liked to tell me how my dad had this all screwed up):

1. God
2. Family
3. Work


Here's what it is:

1. What I want, even though I may have no idea what it is.
2. What I need, even if it is usually only something I want.
3. Work, so that I can pursue numbers 1 and 2.

I think God is in my top five, but I feel guilty for not being patient enough with Him. Though getting that seventh season of Buffy on DVD is making a run at the top five...

My friend told me that I have a gift for writing. But I think I have a gift for making you all think I have a gift for writing.

JUST SO WE'RE CLEAR, I AM NOT DEPRESSED.

Like all of you, I live with regrets and wishes, devotion and doubt. It's like a jug of water to carry around that just sloshes around while I take my steps going wherever the hell I'm going. I hope there's a Taco Bell along the way. I want to try one of those new spicy chicken crunchwrap supreme things.

My peers across the ocean work to live, to provide, to hope. But hope is the key thing, you know? Growing up, I was always told to eat my food because there were starving people all over the world who'd die to have what I have. Hope is America. This is what they're working for. The freedom to be the dick that necessity and strife never allowed them to be. To buy billboard space for unknown reasons, to drink and dance and hit on girls or just look at them from a distance because you're afraid and to buy DVDs and write a fucking blog.

My America, my home sweet home. I could say I wouldn't trade it for anything. But let's face it. All you can really trade it for is to be in a position where you are trying to work to achieve IT all over again.

I think this may be why, deep down, I want a wife and a family. I'll have no time to ponder this red, white, and blue gift. I'll be too busy wiping ass, working myself ragged, and hoping to get laid twice a month, all the while longing for the good old single life again.

Yep, that's it. America is defined by the God-given freedom to work, pursue, and hope for that which you do not possess--or that which you used to have but grew tired of and are now romanticizing again. Yeah, my dad told me to never be satisfied. Good guy, but that philosophy may have led to five marriages.

Thus concludes my ode to America, the land, the place, the state of mind, that makes me hornyy for myyself.


Album of the Week: "Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By"

Artist: Lovage

Song Highlights: "Pit Stop (Take Me Home)", "Lifeboat", "Strangers On a Train", "Sex (I'm A)", "Stroker Ace", "Archie and Veronica"




Song of the Day: "Look Inside America"

Artist: Blur

Album: Blur

Lyric of Possible Relevance:

"Look inside America
She's alright, she's alright
Sitting out in the distance
But I'm not trying to make her mine
I'm looking for America with its kookie nights and suicides
TV says its alright cause everybody's strung out on something or other
And the whole world could have passed through me
But I don't know that it means much to me."