originally posted at Obnoxi.us, 29.04.2011
Most of
what I write I publish on my other, primary blog, a place where I share my thoughts on all
sorts of issues, from music to philosophy to current affairs and personal
stuff. Over the time I’ve been doing this, I’ve developed a certain kind of
persona – which is certainly me –
reflective, balanced, polite. It’s me all right, but not all of me. There are certain other, darker, wilder parts of my
personality which don’t really suit the persona of the author of Attempted Essays. He’s a cultivated,
educated, middle-aged type. If he occasionally farts in public, he tries to
cover it up, or looks embarrassed if somebody notices.
My Mr. Hyde
is quite different. I think I’ll call him Frankie. Frankie will happily fart in
public while simultaneously picking his nose and examining the boogers and if
you don’t like it, well, that’s your fucking problem, isn’t it?
I have to
warn you, I have no idea what he’s going to do when I let him out. I fear he
may disgrace me, the way the characters of my great compatriot Brian O’Nolan,
a.k.a. Flann O’Brian, a.k.a. Myles na gCopaleen frequently rebelled against
their author and creator …
Frankie Jaysus, Hunt, will you cut out the fucking bullshit, for chrissakes? Bollocking
on about obscure metafictional Irish authors. This is an American website, you
don’t think any of those ignorant Yanks are going to understand what you’re on
about, other than a few frustrated professors of English lit, oogling their
nubile co-eds and wanking into their bed sheets at night?
Americans! Jesus wept! It takes some kind of
arrogance to appropriate the name of two continents and use it to designate
themselves. What about the Mexicans? Or the Canadians? Or the fucking Costa
Ricans or Brazilians? Aren’t they just as much Americans too? The correct name
for them is U.S.
Sweet land of liberty. Founded on an act of
genocide and ethnic cleansing so monumental that Slobodan Milošević looked like a choirboy in comparison. But if you call it “Manifest
Destiny” then it’s all right. It doesn’t even register. Oh yes, you can do a
Dances with Wolves Hollywood catharsis but when you come out of the cinema in
most of the USA the only Indian remnant around is the name of the state or the
river. Dances with Wolves is a great example of the American Dream, Kevin
Costner earning millions out of a sanitised noble savage guilt trip, with the
guilt only lasting as long as it takes to drive your pickup to the next
McDonalds.
So what about the Indians? Those who’ve wised
up and aren’t lying drunk in their own piss on some reservation have finally
achieved the ultimate revenge, making money on the white man’s addiction to
gambling. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee ? Yeah,
and bury my money in the Foxwoods Casino.
This is a country where they pride themselves
on being the best in the world – where there is a collective belief that their
history which has made them the richest and most powerful country in the world
proves this. Well, big deal, I say – it’s not all that difficult when you have
the entire resources of half a continent to exploit in a few hundred years;
from the coal mines of Kentucky to the California gold, from the lobster banks
of Maine to the oil fields of the Gulf. And all that rich farming land too,
once you’ve dealt with a few minor annoyances like Indians, buffaloes and
forests – from sea to shining fucking sea, even if some of that shining has
been from the sun’s rays scintillating on spilled oil recently.
Ah well, no matter, it’s always been the
American attitude that, if you break something, hell, you just move on and find
something else. That’s what the frontier’s for. Go west, young man, and leave
the ghost town and the Dust Bowl behind. Of course, even back in the thirties
that didn’t really work any more as Okies like the Joads discovered. Brand new
state, gonna treat you great! So what do you do when you run out of frontier?
Why, you set up an empire and take over the world! And if you break things
there, like in Vietnam or Iraq
Oh, it’s God’s country all right, where at the
age of nineteen you can vote, and join the marines and see the world, meet
interesting people and kill them, and get executed for committing murder but
where you can’t go out and buy a drink. From the halls of Montezuma to the
shores of Tripoli Tripoli
But what can you expect from a country where
nearly half the citizens still believe that God created the world in six days?
And that he then planted the fossil records which prove otherwise – as some
kind of test. They haven’t learned anything since the Scopes Monkey Trial, for
chrissakes! This is a country where millions apparently refuse to accept that
their President was born in the country, despite incontrovertible documentary
evidence to the contrary – but this has nothing to do with the fact that he
happens to be a nigger with Hussein as his middle name. And these are the same
people who claim the right to arm themselves to the teeth in case their
neighbour tries to break into their house.
When I think about it, if I had fucking neighbours
like that, I’d want a gun too.
I think I’ll give Charlie Sheen a call and ask
him if he feels like a night on the town …
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