This always happens. Just when I have a topic for a column, something happens and I get derailed. I was planning on telling you all about my hell gig in the small town of Harriman, TN. If you’re not from Harriman, then you have some thanking to do. I’ll let you create your own visual from these facts about the show:
- What I was told would be a college audience was actually a crowd of grade school kids and their cranky parents.
- My “stage” was a gazebo.
- It was outdoors in a state park.
- Nobody was listening except for a few moms who complained about me saying the word “ass”. Had I followed it with “Get r done!”, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have griped at all, because in their minds, that’s great comedy.
I was hoping to enlighten you all with an entire column entitled, “Train Wreck in a Gazebo”. But then…we got a call from a bitch named Katrina, and I feel compelled to provide you with my two cents regarding the goings on in the Gulf region. Some of you may be asking, “Well why doesn’t he just write two separate columns?” Very good question. Now shut up.
Before I get started, let me first say that this whole story has me torn to pieces. It’s a disaster zone down there, and better days are very far off. I hate watching destruction and turmoil unfold. To watch civil unrest ensue is even harder to stomach. This column is being written under extreme frustration and stress. Emotions are high, so this may seem a bit choppy. In no particular order, here are my thoughts:
- Looters should be dealt with. Not the people who are taking products necessary for survival, but the ones who are inexplicably stealing firearms and stereo equipment. They should be arrested. Where will police put them? How about this game plan…instead of handcuffs, strap a life jacket on each one and have them serve as buoys while the corps of engineers repairs the levees. If they object, they have to serve as tackling dummies for the Saints. If they object to that, they will actually have to play for the Saints.
- Some are saying that this ordeal is a result of global warming, that America’s history of corporate imperialism and lax environmental standards has provided Nature with the capability to destroy at will. In essence, our behavior as a superpower capitalist nation helped Nature obtain “weapons of mass destruction”. First of all, anyone who uses a natural disaster for an opportunity to promote a political agenda is just as slimy as a punk who steals water rations from an old woman. Furthermore, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, etc. have been wreaking havoc on this planet long before industrial titans roamed America. If their argument is valid, then what did the dinosaurs do to incur a cataclysmic meteor? Take too many giant shits, thus emitting too much methane for the cosmos to be content? Well those damn dinosaurs and their ties to the shit industry sure got what they deserved, dammit! I’m sure when category-5 Hurricane Camille hit the Gulf in 1969, those same people blamed it on NASA launching a rocket to the moon. You realize it’s only a matter of time before some political opportunists draw the parallel of 1969/Camille/Vietnam to 2005/Katrina/Iraq. Of course they’ll also say that our government knew about Nature having these WMD and just stood by doing nothing. Had we preemptively attacked Nature, it would have also been wrong.
- Was this preventable? Of course not. If we can’t prevent every Tom, Dick and Pepe from crossing the border, how can we prevent an attack from the ocean? But I do believe that the destructive aftermath was preventable. When engineers warned of this very scenario every year for the past decade, they were met with the age-old excuse of “lack of funds”. In case you missed the latest budget that our fiscally-inept President just signed, the government plans on funding a bridge in Alaska that will stretch from the mainland to an island on which fifty people live. Cost… 252 million dollars! We can’t add a few feet to a levee, but by God some Eskimos will have a quicker route to the blubber market. If only Louisiana had oil under it. Wait, it does…but we already have the okay to drill there. Now I get it. Good ol’ cultivation grease. I fucking hate politics.
- Hurricanes are categorized Level 1 through Level 5. Levels 1-3 are horrible, but can be dealt with more easily. Most storms are already given female names, so why not call a Level 4 or 5 hurricane a cunt? I know that’s harsh language, but my mom is too Internet-challenged to visit my website. Besides, we all know how much more powerful that word is. The word “bitch” is too diluted. But “cunt”…Microsoft even underlines it as unrecognizable. Go ahead…type it. See? That’s how much of an impact that word brings. If meteorologists told the public that an upcoming storm was a big, fat cunt, everyone and their brother would envision their ex-girlfriends and drive a bus down there to help evacuate. Just sayin’.
I’m sorry for the long-winded, sporadic rant. I’m not exactly at a loss for words, but it’s somewhat difficult to get it all down coherently. I know that I was a little opinionated at times, but the fact of the matter, needless to say, is that people are in need. It’s time to show the world how gritty and resilient this country is. It’s also time to pray…and I suggest doing it in public to glorify God Almighty and to simultaneously piss off the ACLU. I can assure our ACLU friends that there aren’t too many atheists on any rooftops in the bayou right now.
They need us. I’m sure all of you are doing whatever you can. But I implore you, please don’t buy into any of the crap our elected officials are spinning, whether it’s bashing the Bush administration or promoting it. What the good people of the Gulf region are enduring right now transcends our social polarization. Once we realize that and extend our generosity as a united, unpolitical force, the easier and quicker it is going to be to get through this.
Take care out there. God bless.