fucked up as hell

This story in the NYT about synthetic marijuana demonstrates in two important ways just how ridiculous and fucked up this society is:

First, how fucking ridiculous, ridiculously evil, is it to let people use dangerous chemicals that exist only to mimic the effects of a harmless weed? Pretty ridiculous, and fucked up.

Second, the kid who killed himself "began “freaking out,” saying he was “going to hell.” Isn't it possible that his ridiculous religious beliefs had at least as much to do with his suicide and the fake weed? Fucked up as hell, I say.

The illusion of waterfall

As regular readers know, chuckling is a fan of waterfalls. But you, mythical regular reader, also know that chuckling is less than enamored with all that is fake.

So how will I react to “The New York City Waterfalls,” the new big time art installation in New York by the artist Olafur Eliasson. We'll see. I saw all four waterfalls today, but will withhold opinion until I've seen them at night and at least six or eight more times.

Regardless of what I ultimately think about them as art, I'm happy as hell to see them as public art. This is the kind of thing that puts cities like New York and Paris over the top. Sure, you can look at how much these things cost and say the money would be better spent going to battered or starving children, but realistically you can look at the budget and see so many things that should be cut to fund all the worthiest of goals before doing away with major public art projects. In the real world, these art projects are not costing other worthy programs anything. And hopefully a few battered children will marvel at the beautiful waterfalls, or gates, whatever, and dream a different dream.

On a completely different topic, New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg let out a particularly stinky fart at the opening ceremony:

I like Old Masters, I like big sculptures,” the mayor mused, adding, “To me great art is something that I couldn’t do myself. To me great art is something that tells a story.

Ummm, okay. Bloomy likes it old and big. It's your money, bub, you gets whats you pays for. Big art for big money. But remember the all important flip side my friends. Big art ain't necessarily great and small art necessarily can be and when you're feeling blue don't forget that big money can't stop great art. Not all the time.

Anyway, I'll post some photos eventually.

American excrementalism

Orlando -- Do you believe that every child should go to Disney’s Magic Kingdom while he or she is young enough to appreciate the magic? I do. I believe that. I believe that somewhat less than fervently. So I have made it a point to take each of my children before they become teens. Last week was my son John Bob’s turn to appreciate the happiest place on earth, to be the happiest kid on earth. Hopefully, it will not screw him up for life.

I am not confident, you see, in my belief that all children should experience the Disney brand of happiness. But I have to choose, so I do, and off we go, but I am sick with gut wrenching fear when I ponder what it all means. How can we know what is best? Any act of parenting can conceivably ruin a child's life. Disney is a huge gamble. And the horror that is Orlando is infinitely more dangerous. A gateway drug. A taste of the life of the rich and famous. A megachurch for the worship of consumer crap. A shrine to all that is false and shiny. A place where moral values trumpeting senseless acquisition über alles are instilled into impressionable minds. A soul-sickening place of surface happiness masking vileness and insecurity just below. An animatronic illusion that many will chase for the rest of their lives. Unknowingly or not.

That, you see, is the danger of shielding the children from all that is Orlando in this world. What if you don't take them? Will they feel cheated? Will they come to worship that which they were denied? Society would give them plenty of encouragement. Your parents never took you to Disney? What monsters. It’s the happiest place on earth. Didn’t they want you to be happy? What? You’re not 100 percent happy every moment of every day? If only your evil parents had taken you to Disney…

And what if I don't take my children to Disney? They might become like those adults you see there. Adults at Disney without children. They go at least once a year. They have sashes with hundreds of pins, one from each visit. They get married in the magic castle. Spend their honeymoons, their anniversaries, their birthdays, mothers day, fathers day -- all of their vacation days within the confines of the park. They don’t go to Europe, Asia, South America. They don’t go hiking, camping, exploring. They go to fake castles, fake rivers in fake jungles, fake frontier towns, fake tomorrow lands and they enjoy fake liberty in a fake 18th century New England town square. They live in a nightmare. They aspire to it. A nightmare, I tell you true.



Yet there I go. It all started very innocently. The phone rang. I answered. It was a telemarketer. She was polite, so I was polite. I didn’t hang up. How would I like to spend an inexpensive vacation in paradise? There are many paradises to choose from. I, and my family, could spend 4 days and nights at a luxurious resort. We could have it all. Swimming pools, fine dining, beaches, golf, whatever we could dare to dream. And it would only cost a pittance. All we had to do was sit through a 90 minute sales pitch for a time share. We didn’t have to buy. We were, she implied, too smart for that. Yes, that would be nice, but we have plans for this year. I understand, can I give you a call back next year? And so on. Every few months she would call and whisper lurid tales of luxury in poor chuckling’s ear. But chuckling is rarely tempted by luxury. We offer more than mere luxury. Do you have children? Have they been to Disney? John Bob is getting old. Time is running out. If we don’t take him to Disney soon, the results could be, as I detailed above, grim.

You must understand, my wife Lola and I had no idea how time share sales work. We had heard that they put you under a lot of pressure to buy before you leave, but that’s pretty much it. Are time shares a good deal, a bad deal, a rip-off or the chance of a lifetime? We had no idea. We entered the sales facility without prejudices. Like freshly fallen snow at Disney’s Blizzard water park, we offered ourselves to our salesperson. The first impression was all his.

Chris was a portly fellow who appeared to be a heavy drinker and seemed to be under a lot of stress. He began by emphasizing how important it was that we like him personally. If we liked him, you see, then we would like the company and would want to buy its product. I half expected him to have a moment of clarity and ask if he’d really said that out loud, but apparently he really didn’t know that he wasn’t supposed to share that strategy with the prospective suckers. Lola and I were amused and although we tried to hide it, I think it showed.

And it would only get worse for poor Chris. We were his first appointment and he already reeked of flop sweat. Looking around Orlando it wasn’t hard to imagine the kind of pressure he must be under. Selling a questionable product to people who have made a pact not to buy is difficult enough. But with the tanking economy, the gazillion other giant resorts all around, and an almost equal number under construction -- the competition had to be fierce. His job could be hanging on the next sale. How long had it been since his last?

And now he’s looking across the desk at me and Lola. Sizing us up. Wishing he could wake up from this nightmare and see some white bread. How many vacations did we take together a year? Not many. How many is not many? Well, we don’t usually take vacations together. What do you do? Typically, she visits her family and I visit mine. Or I go camping somewhere. You never take regular vacations. Well sometimes. What do you do? Usually camping.

Poor Chris, he showed his exasperation. But he soldiered on. He could see that we were at a point in our lives where we were ready to change our ways, to start tasting the luxury we so clearly deserved. And he did make a pretty good argument. For less than the price of a cheapo new car from Korea, we could buy two weeks of vacation a year pretty much wherever we wanted in the world for the rest of our lives, then we could deed it to our children, and they to theirs, forever till the end of time.

Were we ready to take that step? Chris could see that we were. And to make it even easier, he thought he might be able to talk his manager into giving us a special bonus if we were to sign right then and there. We could talk amongst ourselves as he went to fight for our prize.

Unfortunately for poor Chris, even if Lola and I were keen to buy a time share and even if we were the types to sign on the spot, there was no way in hell that we would buy a time share in Orlando.

Chris was mystified. Orlando is great. One of the best places on earth. Why wouldn’t you want to come back?

There’s nothing to do here, I said.

What about the theme parks?

Poor Lola shuddered.

Literally. Shuddered.

On that note, our sales meeting effectively ended.

But we’ll consider it, I said.

Sure you will, whimpered Chris, accusingly. Then he looked at his watch. It was only 9 am. Too early for a drink.

* * *

Our daughter Jane Bob’s trip to Disneyland was on the fourth of July. If you are like us and want your children to experience the Magic Kingdom without becoming entranced by it, I highly recommend going on the fourth of July. The park was so crowded that we only got to go on four rides the entire day. The Haunted House was the only good one. Then we did the teacups and Peter Pan. Lame rides with two and a half hour waits. Finally, we waited the 90 minutes it took to get onto the train and spent the rest of our time riding around the park in circles. Jane Bob claimed to have had a good time and remembers it fondly, but she never exhibited any desire to go back to Disney thereafter. I couldn’t have scripted the result any better. It was as close to the perfect day at Disney as you could possibly get.

We didn’t have quite so much luck this time. Sure, it was crowded but they now have a system where you make reservations for the good rides and can go to the front of the line. So the day was not a horror show of waiting in line. It was almost not unpleasant. And the kids had a great time.

So were my fears justified? Will John Bob become a Disney dork? Perhaps, but I think we’re good. The Disney evil just ain’t what it used to be in this age of American excrementalism supreme. As we were leaving the Magic Kingdom I asked the kids if they wanted to come back the next day. They were horrified. Truly horrified. No, dad, we want to go somewhere else!!!



Sometimes I get down on my knees and pray. Jesus, I beseech thee, this is chuckling. All I want is a cold waterfall on a hot summer day. And a cold waterfall on a hot day is something within my means. I can even afford a cold beer or two to make a perfect day. Yet here I am in Orlando, sitting literally in a cesspool at Sea World's Aquatica water park. I'm on a fake rock under a fake waterfall on a fake beach watching fake waves roll in and pondering the meaning of it all. The waterfall is the temperature and consistency of warm piss. Untold 55 gallon drums of chlorine mask the smell. A life guard tells me to get away from the wall. What did it all mean?

John Bob has had a good time. He will remember the trip fondly. As an adult he will not be able to keen that he never got to go to Disneyland. He knows the feel of a real waterfall and can recognize the superiority of the one over the other. I have done my job as best I can. At some point you have to let go.

Who knows which incidents will ultimately mold a child? It’s never the ones that parents plan for. Maybe this trip will increase John Bob’s love of the natural environment. Maybe it will make him want to become a real estate developer. Whatever. He got a few moments of happiness out of it. And so did I. That’s about all we poor mammals can hope for.

Different rules for different tools

Atrios reports a scam in which Bank of America has bought Countrywide and rigged it in such a manner that it can keep the good assets and form a fake company to declare bankruptcy on the bad.

That is the kind of textbook example of why most companies don't want to do business in third world countries. There simply is no meaningful rule of law.

You know that I am sometimes mildly critical of Atrios, like when he tells other writers to shut up or like the other day when he told me and everybody else that we had to move to Manhattan, but I really give him credit for his relentless reporting on the housing mess.

As far as I know, he doesn't get anywhere near the credit he deserves for persistently reporting that story, which in a sane, first world country would be leading the news just about every minute of just about every day. And truthfully, as far as I really know, he has never gotten any credit whatsoever. I've never actually seen anybody give him any. If I'm the first and only, that's sad. It's very good work.

Note: Someone asked me what the photo is and why I used it to illustrate this little essay. So FYI, it is a a prominent New York bank that is in danger of imminent collapse. I thought it might kinda symbolize the entire mess.

Nothing to see here, move along (enhanced edition)

Via the New York Times, some blogger asks a question:

Jay Rockefeller is constantly learning of legally dubious (at best) C.I.A. intelligence activities, and then saying nothing about them publicly until they are leaked to the press, at which point he expresses outrage and incredulity — but reveals nothing. Really, isn’t it about time the Democrats select an effective Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one who will treat this scandal with the seriousness it deserves, and who will shed much-needed light on the C.I.A. program of torture, cruel treatment and obstruction of evidence?

What the naifs who populate the top echelons of our press and punditry fail to realize is -- as usual -- the obvious. Jay Rockefeller is an effective Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee precisely because he covers up these things. When you are a prominent member of a fake opposition party, the willingness to cover up for the bad guys is one of the most important qualifications for the job.

Look at any issue and you’ll find “democrats” following the same script. They use their positions in government to cover up the inner party’s high crimes and lesser misdeeds then blather fake outrage and do nothing when anything illegal or embarrassing comes to light.

And everyday the same old becomes new again:

For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised.

Objections were not raised? However could that be?

The press, which fulfills its function as a guardian of truth only slightly better than the “democrats fulfill their role as real political party, still has trouble calling torture torture. Beating, breaking bones, wiring genitals, drowning people; none of that is torture. Those interrogations may be harsh. They may be severe. But they are not torture. They are nothing more than techniques, methods and tactics. Good things all. And sometimes these techniques, methods, and tactics are enhanced! The goodness never stops!

But occasionally some truth slips past the gatekeepers.

Waterboarding as an interrogation technique has its roots in some of history's worst totalitarian nations, from Nazi Germany and the Spanish Inquisition to North Korea and Iraq. In the United States, the technique was first used five decades ago as a training tool to give U.S. troops a realistic sense of what they could expect if captured by the Soviet Union or the armies of Southeast Asia. The U.S. military has officially regarded the tactic as torture since the Spanish-American War.

Of course the fact that the US is aping the worst totalitarian nations in the history of humankind comes near the end of the article and the fact that it’s blatantly illegal comes far past the point in the piece where 95 percent of the readers will have stopped reading. Hmmmm, top government officials in both parties collude to commit horrible crimes against humanity in the worst tradition of Hitler, Stalin, and Torquemada. Big news, you'd think.

In journalism-speak that’s what's known as burying the lede. I suspect that pretty soon the powers that be will figure out that they’re in for a dime, might as well be in for a dollar and figure uncle Joe knows best. They’ll put an end to the journalists' practice of burying uncomfortable facts deep in the article and start burying the journalists who publish facts instead.

Mermaid Day 2007

Yesterday was the 25th annual Mermaid Day Parade in Coney Island. The weather was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, temperature in the seventies. The crowds were the largest I’ve seen.

Given the impending development/destruction of Coney Island as we now know it, I couldn’t help but see this year’s Mermaid parade through the prism of its impending doom.

The Mermaid Parade is one of America’s last great bacchanals. Hundreds of people dress up like sea creatures, often with little more than body paint or glitter, and parade down the boardwalk, around the amusement park and carnival games, past the freak show and shoot-the-freak, and all the cotton candy, candy apples and other assorted attractions.

You see a lot of tits and ass, bare skin and the odd simulated sex act or swinging dildo. One of this year’s sea creatures sported a six foot green penis. But there’s a family element as well, though I imagine it’s mostly ultra-liberal artsy types that bring their kids or dress them up and put them on a float. I brought my boy (we’ll call him John Bob) this year. I’ve brought the girl (Jane Bob) in the past. Do I worry that they will see some T&A or a fake green penis? Not in the least. I think it’s healthy for them to see people having a good time and expressing themselves artistically. Television is far worse in every way. Television bad. Mermaid Day Parade good.

But how long can such a parade go on into the fast approaching era of pseudo-Disneyfication? Not long is my guess. Coney Island will become a family destination. Of course it is already is a family destination, but in the new and shiny future it won’t be just any old families who go there. It’ll be the right kind of families. The middle class. Mostly white, though hardly exclusive. People who go to church and salute the flag. Traditional values. More money. Lots more money. That’s the family spirit. No more semi-naked art shit. We might keep the tits but we’ll definitely lose the penis. Those people should be arrested. They can at least be banned.

* * * * * * *


The first time I experienced the Mermaid Day parade was by accident. I had taken the kids to the beach on a hot summer day. We were sitting innocently on our beach blanket. John Bob was playing with his sand bucket. Jane Bob was reading Nancy Drew. I was drinking beers I bought from the Mexican vendors on the beach. Then all of a sudden we heard the sound of an approaching brass band. Then we were surrounded by half naked sea creatures dancing in the surf. A big bearded Neptune with a trident waded out in the surf and declared it summer. The brass band wailed. The sea creatures danced. I lost the kids in the crowd. But that didn’t matter, I had forgotten about them anyway. taking photos. Then I realized they were gone and looked for them frantically. I couldn’t find them. I took more photos. Eventually I saw them in the viewfinder as they were being chased by a giant lobster. And then there were Mariachis. It’s all a bit hazy at that point, but I had learned about Mermaid Day and went back to photograph it every year after.

Until yesterday. This year I took no photographs. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am taking a sabbatical from (unpaid) photography. So I was just a parade goer much like everyone else. A witness to what I fear will be one of the last gasps of a truly special event.

For me, Mermaid Day always starts on the F train. You can’t help but notice the gaudy sea creatures, especially the females with their tits hanging nearly naked and their asses showing. But this year, even though the train was far more crowded than it’s ever been, there were no sea creatures in my car. Everyone was dressed pretty much just like me, which is to say unimaginatively, the guys in knee length cargo shorts with plain colored t-shirts and black sneakers with ankle socks, the women in shorts or blue jeans with modest-for-the-most-part tops. I took this as a very bad sign.

But when we get off the train there are a few sightings. Two girls with blue sequined fins and bikini tops, a naughty school girl with seaweed for hair and 50-something woman in fishnet stockings carrying a blowup doll.

But my fear that the parade would be taken over by the establishment thickens when I hear a prep school accent. “Someone brought their blow-up doll, ugh.” “No way.” “Ugh.” “Gross.” So that’s how it’s gonna be? No more blow-up dolls? First they ban the blow-up dolls. Then the dildos. Then the tits and the ass. Then the art. The progression seems inevitable.

So I’m seeing everything through dark tinted glasses. And I don’t see a lot of light when we get over to the float staging area on 16th street. This is usually one of the wilder scenes but this year in addition to the tattooed roller girl pirates and other old stand-byes, there’s the Brooklyn Cyclones painted car, the Brooklyn Lager corporate float (not handing out free beer, btw) and Marty Fucking Markowitz. There’s still a loud rock band, a bunch of asshole photographers, and still plenty of assorted crazies, but the vibe has changed.

When they start rolling out we make our way around Cyclones stadium to get to the boardwalk. I fear that the sterility of that soul deadening stadium is the future of Coney Island, but don’t dwell on it. Then we get a good spot on the parade route, one of the last remaining. There are at least twice as many people attending the parade this year. I don’t know if it’s due the weather, the impending death of the event, or what? It really doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Enjoy. Enjoy.

But it’s difficult to enjoy. The beginning of the parade is corporate crap. The Brooklyn Cyclone mascot. Keyspan (Climate is Everything). Marty Fucking Markowitz (again). Then the king and queen roll by. I’ve never heard of them. They should make David Johansen king-for-life. Then comes a black marching band working for some outfit called “The Future of Coney Island.” What the fuck is that? Must be the developer. Then grandma mermaid and some little mermaids in wheelchairs. A small group of older women in tastefully concealed bikinis with a boombox blasting California Girls badly bombing and basting in flop sweat. Then all of a sudden it’s over. Everyone starts walking up the boardwalk. I’m just sick at this point, and not from the beer. My worst fears have been realized.

But then the cops start yelling for everyone to get back. The parade is not over. The real parade begins to arrive. A brass band. The Flames of Discontent. Rides not Timeshares. The god Thor hammering the Wonder Wheel and the parachute drop. Women painted white with black eyes and black pasties. Giant styrofoam Starbucks cups. Gay guys in thongs pretending to fuck half naked mermaids. The Rude Mechanical Orchestra. Sparkles. Sequins. Fishnets. Plump girls in sailor suits flashing red undies. The bloody ghoul from Mermaid Days past. Goat horns. Bloody boobs. The East Village Sea Monster Marching Band. Semi-naked hula hoopsters. Blue men. Yellow man. Green man with six foot dick. The dawning of the age of aquarium. Dead fish. Uninhibited flesh. A blue woman with hanging penis obsessed with her image in a mirror. Sirens of the Sex World. The Main Squeeze Orchestra (girls with accordions). Overheard conversations. “Mommy, that’s my teacher.” “I thought you were in jail.” “Where are the police? Why aren’t they doing anything about this?” “Nothing is as it used to be.” “I’m glad I saw it when it was.” A giant fat guy covered in glitter wearing nothing more than silver shoes and a thong. Hellvis. Stop Starbucks and Red Lobster by any means necessary. A buff guy with eight giant snakes coming out of his jockey shorts. Bare stomachs wiggling in my face. Flesh, flesh, everywhere. And for the most part, it is not the flesh of the beautiful people. It is the flesh of the people you see on the busses and subways (albeit on the lower east side).

Eventually we make our way down to the beach to catch the official start of summer, but we are way too late. Apparently the corporate sponsors rushed front loaded the event for the evening news and let the real parade happen out of sight. But there’s a brass band splashing around and a few mermaids in the surf. It’s definitely the most white people you’ll ever see on Coney Island beach. But we missed the good part.

So back up to the Cyclone where the parade ends (if it doesn’t go on to the beach). That’s always a good place to Mermaid watch, though it’s often hard to see much through the throngs of asshole photographers. I too am an asshole photographer, officially since 2005 when I purposely took pictures of T&A for that year’s parade to make a point about asshole photographers. They are disgusting though. Usually middle aged men obviously taking close-ups of women’s tits or ass. The great majority of them don’t have professional equipment. Some even use cell phones. I don’t know if it’s due to the huge crowd this year, but the asshole photographers didn’t seem as onerous as usual. There were even quite a few women photographers showing much better taste by how they framed their shots.

Our Coney Island Day ended at Jimmy’s prime meat market where we picked up some of Brooklyn’s best hamburgers to grill later. “It’s a beautiful day in Coney Island,” said Jimmy, the white haired proprietor. “This’ll show em that Coney Island’s not going anywhere. This’ll show em we’re coming back.” As much as I like and respect Jimmy, I fear his idea of “coming back” is quite a bit different than my own.

Re-creation

We left New York under a gibbous moon and journeyed far into the past. Our goal was the beginning of time, but we only managed to go back about 40 years.

It began with a drive down the BQE towards the Brooklyn Bridge at 3 am. The lights of lower Manhattan twinkle on the other side of the river. A rush of adrenaline wakes me up as I speed across the bridge and fight for position with the yellow cabs. Then I’m winding down Chambers street dodging potholes. The sidewalks are filled with junkies, prostitutes and the homeless as I near the Holland Tunnel. The whores are calling the cops out for a suck. No, sorry. That’s just Lou Reed on the cd player. This is Tribeca, one of the wealthiest zip codes in the U.S. It looks seedy to an untrained eye, but in reality it's difficult to drive through there without running over Robert Deniro. A few beautiful people are still on the street. That’s about it.

Then New Jersey, PA and WVA. The morning wears on. O-hio, a strange land where so many people still wear their Bush/Cheney decals defiantly on their bumpers. A few, however, appear to have scraped them off.

But Ohio only takes us back to 2004, or 1984 at best. Kentucky’s on the event horizon now, just across the Ohio river. There, I have been led to believe, we can go back all the way to the beginning of time, 4000 or so years ago, when the cave-men and their pet dinosaurs walked the earth.

Sorry, to be so hokey with the tease. The story is this: I came across this article about a Creationism museum the other night. I IM’ed my daughter a few choice quotes and asked if she wanted to go. She was pysched so we decided to make a road trip out of it. The next day I got a car, loaded up the children at 3 am, and off we drove.

As I was saying in the previous post... with all the instant messaging, cell phones, and other wacky new technologies, our family communication has suffered. We sit in our small apartment – my daughter in her room listening to the iPod, my son in his room playing the GameBoy DS, me in my cave, drinking cheap beer and thinking vast and noble thoughts, and communicate by instant message when we are not 50 feet away from each other physically. It makes me yearn for an earlier time.

I think back to the sixties before we had those technologies. How did families communicate? How did they spend time together? Well, one way, perhaps the best way, was to get in the station wagon and go somewhere. Preferably somewhere far away. Being cooped up in the same car for a long day would bring us closer together then. Maybe it would bring us closer together now?

But it didn't appear to be working. We weren’t three feet apart. My daughter sat right next to me in the passenger seat and listened to her iPod. My son was just behind me playing his GameBoy. And there’s nothing like a long road ahead to get the deep thoughts thinking. After a few beers, I decided to resume work on my 13 part treatise on the films of Studio Ghibli. I had become stuck on the fact that Princess Mononoke wasn’t really about the Princess, but now I saw a way around that obstacle. I saw a grand literary prize in my future. Finishing volume XIII would be a cakewalk. What would I wear to the ceremony? Those thoughts consumed me for several hours and nearly half a case of beer.

That was great, but the trip was supposed to be more about togetherness. I wanted it to be an educational experience for the children as well. That’s why we were going to the Creationism museum.

The chuckling household is non-denominational. The kids don’t learn anything about religion at home beyond the fact that it is laughable. Of course they go to a progressive private school where they study the bible, but I wanted them to learn about the real Christianity, not the one you read about in some old book. And it’s not enough that they intellectually know that it is laughable. They need to laugh at it themselves, to witness its irrational senselessness at the apogee of its glory, to feel it in the gut. And what better place to laugh at religion than a Creationism museum? And in Kentucky no less.

I was a child in the sixties and my parents were young and liberal. They paid lip service to the ideas of racial and ethnic equality and I was taught not to discriminate based on the color of a person’s skin or where they were born. The only exception to those fine ideals concerned Kentuckians. It’s sad and I am embarrassed to share this, but it’s true. I, and everyone else in my neck of the woods, was raised to disrespect people from Kentucky.

I don’t guess you could call it racism. Kentuckians weren’t really considered a different race. They were more of a sub-species, like monkeys only not quite as cultured. Sorry, it’s hard to break the ways of our upbringing. They were portrayed as an ethnic group, one like any other in which inbred stupidity and cowardice are the norm. These days we call them Republicans or conservative Christians, but back then they were just plain old Kentuckian dumb fucks. But now I realize that was wrong, that Kentuckians are just as good as anyone else and I vowed not to raise my own children with any of the those horrible prejudices.

Still, even though I have pulled free of my anti-Kentuckian roots, I have to confess that I got a bit of a snicker from the fact that the Creation Museum with its dinosaurs on Noah’s ark is located in Kentucky. Unfortunately however, the joke was on me. The article failed to mention the very important fact that the museum was not yet open and I hadn’t done any other research. When we pulled up at the gates I learned that the Creation Museum not open for another two months.

That was a bit of a blow, I admit, and the teenaged one was, as you can imagine, cruel, but we are a resilient people and I would have to make the best of it.

The plan had been to camp near the museum and spend several days there, but now there was no plan. I drove aimlessly, scanning the horizon for a sign. And it was a sign I saw, in the form of a giant inflatable bottle of Jack Daniels. What the fuck is the matter with these people, I thought. If there is one good thing you can say about Kentucky, it is that they make some damn fine whiskey. Why, in the land of Jim Beam Black, is there a giant bottle of Tennessee whiskey making eyesore of the skyline?

I stopped in to investigate and bought a bottle of Ezra Brooks to help me ponder these things. That’s just whut people like, said the cashier. Just whut people like. Just whut people like. God, fuck, people. Whut they like? This trip was going south. Whut was I going to do? I drove in circles around the giant bottle of Jack Daniels thinking, thinking. Going south, I thought. The trip is going south, so maybe we should go south. That was it. That was the ticket. We got back on the interstate and headed south. Soon we came to Louisville.

I’ve passed through Louisville many times but never learned much of anything about it. On the positive side I knew that both Hunter S. Thompson and Mark Ames, two writers who revolutionized the practice of journalism, came from there. It may seem counter-intuitive that cultured, creative people could come from such a place, but it’s really not so surprising. Talented people stuck in these hellholes just want to get out and the struggle fucks them up. They come out twisted in their own particular ways. I also know that Cassius Clay was from there, though I never quite saw what made him such a hero. I guess anyone that stood up against Vietnam and went to prison for it, especially someone with so much to lose, is deserving of respect, but if there is justice in this world, he may rot in hell for what he did to the English language.

Anyhow, Louisville's Main Street proved to be an artsy little mile. We saw galleries, museums, expensive gift shops, bars and trendy restaurants. We parked and walked around. They had commissioned a lot of art for the sidewalks. We passed various sculptures, a cool bike rack, that kind of thing. My teenage daughter made snide comments about how out-dated my anti-Kentuckian snobism. This place was cool and up-to-date, unlike some people she knew.

It also seemed that there was a vintage car revival going on. We saw several from the sixties, including a very cool Ford Fairlane station wagon that had been restored and painted. Funny how what must have been the un-coolest car of the entire sixties looked so cool now. And there were a couple of guys, not a couple, just different guys, and I don’t even think they were gay, in different locations who were wearing tight fitting gym shorts and t-shirts like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. What was up with that? I was forced to ponder. But that was not all.

We also noticed that Louisville was also doing the Kentucky version of New York’s painted cow thing from just a few years past. We saw decorative race horses at various points throughout the city.
‘
And soon we noticed that it was only 5 o’clock on a beautiful spring Saturday and almost all of those fancy art galleries, gift shops and museums were closed. My son, who is only eight, speculated that it must be a very Jewish city, but my daughter became increasingly angry and began composing Kentuckian jokes of her own. Why do all the shops in Kentucky close before five? So the yokels can get home in time to have sex with their siblings. It was obvious that my lessons against anti-Kentuckinan discrimination had failed, but I confess that I felt a shameful kind of pride. Where I’m from it's a big occasion when a child made its first Kentuckian joke. Sadly, we’re never as far away from our roots as we’d like to think.

But I made a game face. You have to be positive, I said. Think of it as time travel. Traveling to Kentucky is like going back in time forty years. It’s still the sixties here. Of course everything closes as five. But when you’re old and want to revisit your youth, all you have to do is come to Kentucky. They’ll be wearing the same fashion and listening to the same music then as you do now. They'll even be driving the same cars. And wearing the same underwear.

Unfortunately, by that time I wasn’t making much sense. I had drank way too much whiskey and was driving erratically. The only logical thing to do at that point was to get off of the street so I drove faster and took the sidewalk. Before going half a block, I ran over one of those god damned fake New York cows, a rainbow-colored horse and jockey. The damned thing was staring at me across my crumpled hood. I backed up, confused. Fucking Kentuckian horseboy, I yelled and ran over it again.

Umm dad, said my daughter, here come the police. Fucking John Law, I thought, just won’t leave me alone. Still, seeing the lights and hearing the siren sobered me up a bit. I spun around, raced down the street, up the on-ramp to the interstate and headed for the state line as fast as the little car would take me. But two sets of flashing blue lights were gaining on me in the rear view. One was right on my ass.

You may think that I am writing this from my jail cell, but it wasn’t all that difficult to outwit the Kentucky state police and escape across the river. When I came to the last exit ramp before the bridge, I turned on my right turn signal and slowed down as if I were going to exit. At the last second, I gunned it forward. The cop, unable to react in time, took the exit.

That was easy, but the second cop car took its place on my ass. No exits remained. We were on the bridge. I didn’t know how I was going to lose him. It was a conundrum.

Then I thought, what the hell, it’s worth a try. I flipped on the right turn signal and slowed down as though I were going to exit. The cop was totally fooled and drove right off the bridge and his car exploded into a giant fireball when it hit the water.

Nevertheless, our bad experiences in Kentucky taught us a lot about inclusiveness and I think the whole family came away more open minded. And next time we will visit the Creation Museum.

Whatchu got

Atrios writes:

Republicans really believe that by promising to stay in Iraq forever they'll win elections. I do think the politics of Iraq are a bit tricky, even though the press completely ignores polls showing that the Democratic positions are in fact popular, but it's up to Democrats to make the public understand that this is in fact what the Republicans are gloating about.

Make no mistake. I like Atrios and appreciate his effort. I check out his site pretty much every day. And although I don’t visit quite so often, I even like the earnest young folk at Daily Kos. In fact, I like pretty much everyone out there in left blogastan. So I don’t take any pleasure in the fact that their dreams will never come true. I’m not saying that they are ineffectual. That would be sad, yes, but hardly tragic. No, tragically, they are worse than ineffectual. Don’t misunderstand. I tell you this from absolute knowledge. I can see the future.

But more on that later. Here in the present, the Senate’s 86 - 13 vote against withdrawal from Iraq tells us everything we need to know about the state of the party. I say party in the singular because the Democrats are no more of a political party than the Washington Generals are a basketball team. For those of you unaware of the Washington Generals, they are a fake basketball team that plays the Harlem Globetrotters in venues all across the country. They are not really an independent team that plays to win. They are employees of the Harlem Globetrotter corporation who are paid to lose, and lose in such a way as to make the Globetrotters look good.

Same thing with the Democrats, hereafter referred to as Doormatocrats. They fulfill the same corporate role as the Washington Generals. They make a few shots, keep the score close, maybe even hold the lead for a time, but when it matters, they’ll stand idly as Curley or Meadowlark dribble circles around them and go in for the winning lay-up. And if corporate interests are deemed to be at stake, they won’t even make it close. They will lay down on the porch with a black Welcome emblazoned prominently on their backs.

So when Atrios and our other liberal friends wistfully opine that the Doormatocrats could win if “only they could make the public understand...” it’s a bit pathetic. The Doormatocrats are not even going to play meaningful defense, much less lead.