Hurricane Full of Sharks

A storm's a-brewin', as they say, and for those of us in the greater tri-state area, things are about to get... interesting. This Hurricane Irene business has already proved to be a more hostile, high-speed run on commercial goods than this winter's Milk and Eggs fiasco - bottled water flying off the shelves, the newly-militarized Knights of Columbus are stalking the streets with bats and chains, looking for loosely secured goods, generators, tarps, anything that isn't buckled down, really.

That's right! You best hope that your genny is running if you've got one, and if you don't, you can kiss your milk and eggs goodbye because when the power goes out this time, it ain't coming back for a fortnight minimum. Mid-September's trash will be rife with those steaks and gallons of chili you forgot about in the back of the freezer. By Wednesday, there will no longer be such a thing as ice cream, only the memory...

But I'm no fool! I don't subscribe to such tomfoolery! It's all an idle threat - at least to me. I have a lead on a black market deck cannon from long ago decommissioned WWII Navy Heavy Cruiser that went by name Greta, and enough Silver Iodide to blast Irene into the Sixties. Now the only question is how to get that big gun mounted on my roof.

Of course, all things being equal, and let's just say this big bitch does in fact rip through my perfectly manicured back yard - I will be ready. The human body can subsist on canned goods and booze for many weeks, if not years, and we are chock full of that, man! The only thing left to consider is this: How many horrible, man-biting sharks is this hurricane going to pick up, with their soulless eyes, and mouths full of chomping razor death? And who do you call to remove these flopping, sashimi-grade station wagons from your yard?

The American Dream 2011

Here is a notion that has become confused, one that I spent a good deal of time pouring over during a recent personal chautauqua of self exploration. Some say the Dream is dead and we are spiraling down a dark and gruesome toilet from which America may never return, where the ideals we were built upon are soiled, poisoned, and left to rot in the effluent. Something occurred to me while I was tapping into that explorative part of my mind the was so wild and active during my college years - entitlement has tainted the American Dream.

Off the heels of the Great Depression, our grandparents and great-grandparents worked themselves beyond death so that they might provide for their families, eventually achieving their Dream and providing unprecedented level of comfort along with it. By the time our parents' generation came along, that cradle of white suburban comfort offered them the luxury of pursuing the more quixotic goals of social equality and a higher level of civil consciousness. It was the Sixties and although it's easy for anyone who grew up in the Eighties to wave an ignorant, dismissive hand at their parents' battles and write it all off as some modern version of manifest destiny, the fact is they pushed harder than even they could've imagined, and for all their effort the fourth wall finally came down and society was changed much to the benefit of the disenfranchised. That was their Dream. But now, all these years later, their entitled children gaze back in a post-ironic way, weary of nothing, posturing eco-friendlyist hipster throw-up. Which, of course, makes it all so easy to discount.

With such a seemingly withered base, it's easy, now, to lose sight of the American Dream. We have grown up easily, and even the term American Dream has been translated into a sense of entitlement, a privilege, something consumable. This is not true. It's still something that needs to be worked for, and it certainly isn't stuff. The Dream is of an easy life - and not easy when compared to working, easy when compared to surviving.

So the Dream has been tainted by entitlement, but only insomuch as entitlement to stuff, purchasing power, excess - the diarrhea of ownership. This is a false birthright, smoke and mirrors; there is no satisfaction there. There is no lotto ticket, and the prize is not millions. The prize, is comfortable fulfillment.

The American Dream is still out there. It is borne on the backs of those who toil, it is permeated with the stink of their sweat and has grown malleable from their labor. It is in the quiet nights and rowdy weekends. It is in the anticipation. It is when the windings of the air are thick with electricity and there's a static charge in the circuitry. It is the Good Times.

Let this be our new Manifesto: Fun is King, and death to those who oppose the Fun Club!