Monday, February 02, 2004

Letters

Dear Oh, For God's Sake,

If Bush and Cheney win re-election, will you move to another country, like Massachusetts or San Francisco?

--Soledad

Dear Soledad,

No, I won't. While I've often fantasized about Amsterdam and I've had naughty daydreams about Canada, I love my country. In fact, I love her so much that, no matter who wins the election, I plan to cook her a romantic, candlelit dinner (serving her a little wine or maybe even champagne), and, later, lead her gently to a cloud-soft, animal-fur rug (I know how she loves dead animals) in front of the fireplace, undress her, cover her in honey and lick it back off while she succumbs to the toe-clenching, swooningly undeniable reality that I can have her (unlike cake) and eat her too and that even when I inevitably stray, her memory of me will not be bitter like that of those other cads but fondly romantic because she knows that deep down I know that capitalism and democracy, while being the cruller and diet cherry coke of political/economic systems are, as Churchill pointed out, the world's worst except for all the others. Also, I'll quit reading the newspapers.

Sincerely, Oh, For God's Sake

*****

Dear Oh, For God's Sake,

You seem like such a pussy. A tree-hugging, tofu-eating, tire-recycling, tax-and-puke crybaby liberal pussy. Do you mind if I call you Topanga?

--Ronald Prescott, III

Dear Ronald,

Not at all!

Sincerely, Topanga

*****

Dear Oh, For God's Sake,

What about Minnesota? I hear good things.

--Lakshmi

Dear Lakshmi,

Hmmm. Are y'all trying to get rid of me? True, Minnesota is lovely and in many ways similar to America. But not only could I not leave America, I could not possibly leave even my beloved Kentucky, no matter how much smoking and shooting and shooting while smoking happens in my home state, because of the way complete strangers call you "honey" or "sweetie" and invite you into their homes for dumplins and chawklat pah and a soft couch pillow no matter what manner of harelip or socioeconomic or ethnic disability you have and will fix you a casserole dish of corn puddin or lasagna when somebody you love dies not because it's duty or even custom but because they have reached deep into your soul and felt it and known it and despite what people from other places think, they know that a corn puddin, fixed just right, Can So Too help get over a death, even the really bad kind. Oh, and the way alfalfa smells when it's sprouting next to red clover. And the way one-syllable names like Jim or Ben are two-syllable -- Jee-um and Bee-un -- as if to say We got plenty of time, No need to rush the pronouncin' of them names. Also, brachiopods in the river and that girl with the freckles in her cleavage.

Sincerely, Oh For God's Sake

*****

Dear Oh For God's Sake,

How does straw help grass to grow?

--Calvin

Dear Calvin,

Many people think it's the way it holds in the moisture and warmth, enabling truer germination, but the truth is, it (like a lot of things, in fact) is just fuckin' magic.

Sincerely, Oh, For God's Sake

*****

Dear Topanga,

Do you really think capitalism and democracy are the best way? I'm surprised to hear you say that.

-- Ronald Prescott, III

Dear Ronald,

Oh, no. In America, where capitalism is stronger than ever and democracy is weaker than ever, the former is destroying the latter. Greedy and power-drunk evildoers are serial-boning the masses, who were reluctant rulers in the first place. The masses don't want to rule; the masses want to watch TV and eat snack foods that end in "itos" and go out to supper on a Friday night and bowl and mow the lawn and smoke a little weed and make love while some horrible classic rock music plays, like Styx or Kansas or fucking Golden Earring. Eventually capitalism will completely annihilate democracy and even poor people (and, really, isn't this the magic trick that makes capitalism work? Getting poor people to buy into its glitzy promise of future wealth, future capital-gains tax cuts, and future inheritance-tax cuts because how dare the government take away their kids' inheritance even though they will never, ever actually get to bequeath them jack shit, never in a billion years?) will stop believing in it and the whole caboodle will cave in and, boy, then won't Adam Smith's two-hundred-year-old macroerection go limper than a 1970-issue greenback that's been through the washing machine's hot/hot cycle fifty million times? But that is Whenever and this is Now and so far we haven't found anything better. But -- and here's my goddam point -- shouldn't we try? Just because communism bred bureaucracy and corruption in the Soviet Union and just because socialism lead to five-hour waits at the clinic and just because owning a bicycle and a goat and a moderately sharp knife makes you Bill Gates in half the world, does that mean capitalism is good? Especially since we have such overwhelming evidence that it just slightly better than sucks? Isn't that like saying because Benson was better than My Two Dads there was no need to make Seinfeld? Shouldn't we try? And isn't the fact that the staunchest proponents of the American Way, the man-in-the-tower ubercapitalist, the one with the American flag on his luxury SUV and the Support President Bush sign in his yard is so damn insecure -- in the same way the ultra-homophobic guy who can't shutup about how being gay is unnatural is the one most likely to draw cartoon penises going into his cartoon mouth all over the spiral notebook of his unconscious mind -- because deep down that ubercapitalist knows the system that is propping him up isn't propping up EVERYBODY and so it's not really working and instead of a Seinfeld is basically a My Two Dads when it comes right down to it because if President Bush really deserved everybody's support instead of just the McMansion owners who tend to post those yard signs and the Lincoln Navigator owners who tend to sport those flags, there wouldn't really be a need for the signs and the flags in the first place? Shouldn't we try? Because a nice, classroom-style segue to a better system would be much less bloody and much more civilized than the revolution that's coming? Shouldn't we try is all I'm asking.

Sincerely, Oh, For God's Sake

*****

Write to Oh, For God's Sake.