Ugly American

There's nothing pretty about being an American these days.  Just look at our politicians.  Holier-than-fucking-thous on the right, politically-correcter-than-yous on the left.

Most of us somewhere in the middle and fed up with both extremes.

I heard someone comment on tv the other day that disgruntledness is in our genes.  Every one of our ancestors came here because they were pissed off at the way things were wherever they came from.  And that streak of cussedness now runs in our blood.

For sure we're never happy.  Puritanism is the nagging fear that someone, somewhere, is having a better time than we are.  Capitalism is the nagging fear that lazy, good-for-nothing-welfare-queens are bleeding us dry.

Sprinkle liberally, you should pardon the expression, with some American Exceptionalism, our Dominionist Mandate from Heaven to spread the Pax Americana everywhere.

Finally, throw some good old fashioned "I'm the Man and what I say Goes" evangelicalism on top of it, with it's sense of entitlement to dictate fiscal and sexual policy (I own the money.  I own the slaves.  I own your womb.  I *AM* GOD!) and what have you got?

Us.

Ugh.

Ugly.

My Despair

I pissed away a small fortune back in the 90's.  That's on me for being a drunk and believing a writer.  But one thing I've done for my entire life, notwithstanding a few sabbaticals along the way, was to work.  Since the week I graduated from high school, I've worked.  Hard.

I grew up believing, because this what I was told, that in America, if you're a team player, and you work, you will get a protective covering when you retire, in the form of Social Security and Medicare.

I turned 62 last year and started "doing the math".  The Social Security Administration started sending me yearly statements showing me "how much" I'd get if I retired at 62, 66 1/2 and 70 1/2.  Needless to say, the big payday for me would come when I was 70.  So I started mentally adjusting myself to the probability that I'd work until then.

But now, who knows what Congress has just given away to the far right meatheads who still fantasize that rich people create jobs.  And what will be my new "plan B" according to them?  Work until I'm 75?  80?  Dead?

I'm not feeling the love from D.C. these days.

Maybe my recurring nightmare of living in a beat-up, 1966, all aluminum Airstream trailer, somewhere in the high desert 80 miles east of L.A., where atomically mutated ants come visiting at night, and you have to shake the scorpions out of your boots every morning, will come true.

It may not be much, but at least it'll be mine!

Thank you, Ronald Reagan.

And thanks, Mom, for naming me after that bastard.