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September 6, 2008

Between Gustav and Hanna: Traveling Notes Of The Elitist

By Mark Uchine

On my way back right after we crossed the Mason- Dixon line I turned on the Johnny Cash CD and heard the right words, 'Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, have your mercy on me!' Dream on.

::::::::

‘…And then Jacques Tuverlen felt a new feeling rising in him.

It was a very distinct feeling, something very precise, something he surely could define

It was hatred.’

Lyon Feichtwanger

The Success

Always money, son…

John O’Hara

Lockwood Concern

From the author: To all my readers. If you, folks feel offended by any of my metaphors or statements about overweight people, women or homosexuals- please, read to the end.  Give me a benefit of a doubt. I specifically state here and now though that it is not my intention in any way to insult the groups above; I just have to use the proper comparisons because the truth is always inconvenient. Thank you kindly for your understanding.

There was a very clear message to the teenage boys from the GOP convention: knock up the proper chick and get a standing ovation from the family values crowd. Not that I have something against that.  Wondering though what would have happened if Bristol Palin had a child with an adult man.  In that case even an honest intention to marry her would not help the poor guy: off he would go in handcuffs for a statutory rape. But if you  are just a walking penis with no brains- on the podium you stand under the lights of glory.  Wondering, where were   the boy’s parents, though?   Detained indefinitely in the secure dungeon by Chertoff and his goons?

I spent the Gustav- Hanna time traveling back and forth over the Mason- Dixon line.   It was quite a revelation.  Last time I traveled to TN and GA by car it was in 1993 and the boys in the South were thrilled with AK – TN quartet in the White House.  Now it is a very different story.

Food is bad. Connecticut is notorious for its bad food but at least it is not pretentious. That is they do not advertise in New England that water/milk concentrate jelly filled with bubble gum as   the best clam chowder    to the south of Danbury or that piece of over-frosted salmonella as an Omelet of the Century.  In the South they do.   Two sticks with something undercooked between them are called The King of the barbeque ribs. Maybe they mean Elvis in his last years?  A strange yellow goop   with gummy pieces scattered over the surface is called escargot.  As for omelet I wanted to suggest to call it ‘Omelet McCain’ but that would sound too political. It did look like it survived the Hanoi Hilton really. Omelet for a President, that’s what I say!

Is it me or Cracker Barrel had really changed since 1993?  Those dusty walls, those untidy floors, those unfortunate cheap souvenirs, all made in China and Pakistan.  And the customers, my God!  Where did they get so many fatsos!  Most of the people could not fit in one chair! The cider was the same as before, thank God. Otherwise the food was really lousy. And for the twice as big a price obviously, no questions asked.

Some things are really painful. What had they done with their coffee? OK, I know that coffee is poisonous in New England where I live but I was craving that aromatic brew of   the old- fashioned Confederacy.  Right under the defiant confederate flag I took a gulp and realized that the Northern aggression had been accomplished- that was a direct line from the CT sewer.  It even smelled that way. I should have preserved a full   cup as a souvenir from the Civil War. Together with greasy napkins, dirty toilets and unbelievably untidy rest areas.   The North is marching on, folks and Tennessee now has a New York stench. Welcome to the United We Stink.

In all fairness there are still some specifically southern aspects a stranger should appreciate.  Like dungarees, shorts and overalls. The further you are from the current Hillary Clinton's State and closer you are to the swamps she is from the higher is the percentage of men in those   les vetements, pardon my Cajun. Their asses and   their legs are amazing.  I should recommend  Dr. Dobson to introduce the course of watching the parade of those legs into his rehabilitation program for the allegedly recovering homosexuals.  After one lookup I guarantee that they all will go straight. And then they are up for the  bitter disappointment: the female legs in those shorts are by far not that different from the male ones. Dungarees are at least decent but boy, are they dirty!  It is like the whole issue of the Confederacy was about keeping that dirt intact.

The accent is still there. Thus the ugly anti- Obama TV message about him being ready to ‘tax and spend’ sounds like,  ‘OlabamataxingspendingIamJohnMcCainand Iapprovethismess…. age.’

BTW, why are those states called Red? They are Beige if I ever saw one.  Those hats are beige and those faces are beige (except for the Mexicans).  There was this little town in VA where we spent a night.  Seemed like directly from the Howling series. All beige and gray.

Southern hospitality is terrific if only they had not been asking  for your ID all the time.  It is as if they all work in the Homeland Security part-time. This brings me to the conclusion: we do need a universal Real ID. Only it should be customized. I want mine to have Mark Twain’s house on it with the words around it  ‘The Connecticut Russian Jew’ printed in red. Just to keep the records straight. Funny thing- none of those clerks have any right to ask for any ID but they still ask for it in that innocent voice of theirs as if it is just a matter of fact. The only place my ID was not asked for was a Liquor Store. Most likely my huge purchase of whisky proved who I was.

Our goal was to visit the Ruby Falls in Chattanooga and also the Cumberland caverns in McMinnville. The latter are smaller but far more wild.  We had a magnificent tour. While climbing up after the guide at the comfortable 56F and 99% humidity I contemplated that it should be a great idea to have the party conventions in those caves. Just seal the bastards until they nominate the candidate. No TV, no food except for the crickets, no water other than the one from the special hose. And forbid them to pollute the cave. Let them read those historical graffiti (one was from the Y1895!). And if they stay too long- turn off the lights.  The taxpayer’s money would be saved.

Under the magnificent chandelier from Brooklyn we sat in that cave and then they gave us some kind of a biblical presentation.  I especially liked that part when  God looked at his creations and 'said that it was good’.  I sincerely doubt if  He would say that now. Most likely he would trumpet, ’What’s the f&%k is going on!’

I doubt if God would approve those magnificent crosses everywhere.  The architecture of the Pentecostal Churches is dull to say the least but the crosses are huge. Looks like they could be used for many different purposes: to worship, to hang someone, to crucify, to put on signs, to serve as lighting rods, to show the directions, to have picnics under, to make family photos. I would argue that those crosses had lost their Christian meaning and can now be considered as some kind of empty totem polls ready for the carved stories to be told.  No, God certainly had nothing to do with them. Those Churches did seem odd like those in the Howling series, once again, those that served for the transformation of the community to werewolves under the full moon. I was happy there was no full moon at that time.

Ruby Falls cave  is on the Lookout Mountain, the place of  one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. About 34000 people lost their lives and those were the young lives. There is the only monument honoring the soldiers of both sides there in the Battle Park. And lo and behold- there was Dick Cheney there sucking some old bones before his trip to Azerbaijan to raise more mischief.  Hey, they should bring him to the Rock City and leave his stuck in the Needle Passage. Heeerie stuck is Dick Cheney, the Vampire of the Century. No such luck though. As I said, Southern hospitality is terrific. We instead went to the Rock City ourselves, made a great panoramic photo from the Seven States point and also took a ride on the Inclined Railway.  Poor General Grant- he had to go up on foot.  There were no fatsos at that time, that’s for sure.

You have to be grateful to the caverns for one thing: there is no TV there and you are spared from the ‘Hurricane Sarah’ spin. OMG! I have nothing against Sarah Palin. She is the prettiest politician I have seen so far from all the view angles but how many times do I have to hear that Hurricane Sarah shallow cliché? It is usually followed by this incredible statement, “We have to see if the Democratic levees will withstand   the Sarah’s fury”. Wow, what a creativity! What a sexy metaphor! I feel the punch already. Truly, we could argue, for instance that the woman who already named her daughter for a dingy brew-drenched city in England might not really appreciate to be associated with a destructive force. Also, we could for instance use the metaphor like ‘Iceberg Sarah’ at which the Democratic Titanic will meet her peril. That would be juicy. On the other hand, I can anticipate the reaction of the notorious Zhirinovsky the Russian Duma speaker and a patented jester. It was him who offered Condi Rice a platoon of young soldiers for the total satisfaction. In case Sarah Palin really becomes a VP   the abominable  Zhiric will  surely say that in this particular case the platoon of soldiers would feel satisfied too. The possibilities are endless  to exploit the topic  but our media  folks (here I refer to those two bozos, Cal and Tom from USA Today as well as  to the other non-named bozos) are not only lazy, ignorant bastards; they  also know the secret- our readership does not  read. That is  the most highly guarded secret in our society; it is more TS than   the plans to attack Iran.

Our readership does not read. Oh yes, they can  construct phrases out of words but their cognitive abilities to process the information on the basis of experience and also on the basis of some established reference standard are lost forever.  That is they  cannot distinguish between the noise and the real signal. What can you expect from the people whose  reading  choices are guided by Oprah Winfrey, a person so obviously delusional and  out of reach that  she can  be paraded in the psychotic ward as a perfect clinical example? Not a chance such people would read something like. ’.. the Russian forces invaded Georgia which resulted in  them returning  to Ossetia..’  and  think, ’.. something is definitely wrong here.  How could an invasion of Georgia result in returning of the invasive force back to the original positions? We surely did not do that in Iraq.’ Nope,  the fatso mind  will not process that. The fatso mind will switch  to  the Fox News to watch the parade of fatsos surrounded by the  underfed Blondie wives at the GOP Convention. The fatso mind will then switch to  another fatso  Rush Limbaugh,  hear his ‘McBrilliant’ diatribe  and order another martini, “We will vote for the old boy against that another boy.”

There were a lot off sad similarities in both  conventions. The poor had no say; here I agree with Bill Maher. No voice was given to the antiwar people, to Cindy Sheehan, to Veterans for Peace. In fact, the big issues like   Peace, Justice, equality, development, Social Structure were not even addressed.  The exception of Dennis Kucinich  only fortified the rule. Obama scored surely  by his magnificent speech at the stadium but McCain  got his day of fame appearing surrounded by chicks. Of course, no one even considered the primary issue; whom did the candidates represent really. If we put the rhetoric aside Obama represents the powerful Midwest Political Power rising, the one who made a deal with the  Kennedy clan to  take back control over the Demparty  from the Clintonians and that they did. For the GOP McCain is a their Hindenburgh, a transitional  President  to  pass the buck  eventually to someone  like Bobby Jindal. Hey, this time they helped Bobby  big time in New Orleans; he was their golden boy after all.

Our spinmeisters, of course carefully avoided the  obvious explanation of the future role of Sarah Palin. That role is money management. In the famous interview with the  Evangelist pastor McCain promised them federal money; he sold our  tax dollars for their votes. That Palin appointment is the  signal  to them about the deal stricken. And right after that Dobson and his crowd  followed their part of the bargain endorsing  Madame Palin, lock stock and barrel. Always money, son.  A billion dollars for Georgia  and  about 5000 dead young Americans in Iraq together with hundreds of thousands of civilians dead are nothing for those money- grabbers who put the whole country on the  way to death for a fistful of dollars.  That simple and that deadly.

 There is a glimmer of hope though. People get tired of the  political games drenched in blood even in the US. Senator John Kerry decided to say the truth at last, maybe because he jest got fed up with lies or maybe because he  considered that the stakes were too high. In his most eloquent  speech at  the Democratic Convention (http://www.demconvention.com/john-kerry)  he said, “The choice is clear; our cause is just; and now is our time to make Barack Obama the next President of the United States.”

OUR CAUSE IS JUST!  We better stick to it.  And let’s elect the right man before it is too late for all of us   and before  the fatsos crush us with all the weight of their fat asses.

On my way back  right after we crossed the Mason- Dixon line I  turned on the Johnny Cash CD and heard the  right words, ‘Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, have  your mercy on me!’ Dream on.



Authors Bio:

The writer is a retired engineer


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