Rejoice and Be Glad, but watch out for Red Necks

It's still Arsenic Hour in America, but here at Menopausal Stoners World Headquarters, it's time to rejoice and be glad.

I have secured employment for the fall with full benefits.
Whew! There are many, many reasons to be glad about this job, but I'm keeping them all to myself since I've vowed to never mention work in this venue again. Suffice to say the crisis has passed and I can get down to the business of collecting unemployment and making the most of the rest of the summer.

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em.

Velvet returns at the beginning of August. He's still bored into a coma by life in the suburbs, but it's good for him to experience the sense of social isolation that goes along with that territory. It's the opposite in New York City because we have to interact with people whenever we get in the elevator to go out or go to the laundry room in the basement. You can't avoid your neighbors. Consequently, there are times when we are forced to make pleasant small talk whether we feel like it or not.

In the suburbs, a person could go for days without speaking to another soul even if you went to the grocery store and stuff. Velvet's not as bad off as that - but he has been couped up with old poops which has convinced him that The Rolling Stones got it right: What a drag it is getting old. Luckily for Velvet, he's out with the two old poops who live down the block working as a Gopher. The three of them are driving around Houston in a big, black pick up truck allegedly inspecting job sites for environmental integrity - but I suspect there's a lot of barbecue and beer involved.

One of these old poops is an excitable Libertarian who fully believed that the Houston ship channel would be bombed on July 4, 2008. I can't remember why that date was significant, but rumor had it that terrorists were supposed to blow up all the refineries. We can be sure the Zionists would have been behind it.
Kaboom.
His wife was pissed that they had to dash up to their property in Arkansas - which I believe has an underground water source so they'll be safe from the mass hysteria that comes as a result of the current economic clusterfuck. He doesn't worry about Obama being black like the fellow who took Velvet to the gun show. Although The Libertarian worries about Zionists, he has Jewish relatives himself so he doesn't make sweeping Anti-Semitic generalizations like my mother's former Real Estate agent. Last time I was in Houston, I absolutely yelled at that woman when she declared that the Jewish entertainment moguls showed mixed race couples kissing on TV years ago because the Jews want to do away with all the white people. I had to shout her down because some levels of stupidity are so great that we have a moral responsibility to object to the statements and educate the moron if possible (usually not).

It's important that Velvet sees all these varieties of people since, growing up on the Upper West Side you can get the impression that everyone thinks as progressively as you do. I believe we were the only area of the country that voted solidly for Michael Dukasis in 1988. When Newt Gingrich came to power, I got a twitch in my eye that lasted for weeks. The doctor said that always happens on the West Side when Republicans are in charge.

With all this good news today, I'm clapping because I believe in fairies again. There's reason to believe this health care debacle will drag on til Christmas, but sooner or later, the red necks will get drunk and pissed off and start setting things on fire. Corporations and Lobbyists may be relying on red necks being dumb enough to buy the socialized medicine line - and red necks can be that stupid, for sure - but sooner or later, they'll get drunk and pissed off.

Some months ago, Slate ran a piece called, "Choctaw Bingo: A modest proposal for a new national anthem." According to Ron Rosenbaum, Choctaw Bingo, " . . . more truly represents the America of today: post-crash, pre-apocalypse, meth- and money-addicted, heading down the highway to self-destruction." My mother's neighbor The Libertarian is convinced that when this country starts going faster down the slope to Idocracy, all manner of white people will start drinking and shooting. That's why he's going off the grid in Arkansas.



Link to lyrics

My mom sent me this song a couple of years ago when Gayle the Hillbilly Hustler was gearing up for the Bloody Mary Juice Fast. When this song was on, Cousin Rhonda Gayle got her ass off the sofa and danced around the apartment wearing a big red tattered T-shirt that came to her knees with no underwear on at all. That outfit was nearly as troubling as those panties of hers, and it just goes to show you James McMurtry accurately captured the Red Neck Groove with Choctaw Bingo.