Contents
Those jeans screamed a good time:
O! Greasy zipper, O! Dungaree’d winner
O! Big ticket, so hard and so fast
The permanent nectar of manufacturing flowed free
in those days. Every working person could increase forever,
when times were cheap and jobs rained steady; every mill
was humming and every degree was an add-on; China was
a sweatshop and Europe was walled up good. But she was
the handsomest machine anyone’s ever seen. She was a lifted
pickup truck with big bulging fenders blowing beautiful fumes
from her vertical stacks. Her weapons poked out from every
corner of the globe. Her girth was a testament to the divinity
of the macro-nutrient trinity. Her generous fields were well
plowed and well fueled. No one complained because their
mouths were full of her good stuff.
When the government was a going concern, no one was sad
who wasn’t bad (probably). Not just not bad, either; huge,
too. Hollywood humped its way around the entire world.
Values flagged from weekend steeples and military vehicles
and schools. The Hemi™ engine of it all was built from a tall
order of American dreams roaring and soaring spectacular
like fighter jets over a stadium (cheering). Even our sweat
back then was a soft drink, or so I’ve heard from commercials
(applause). Perspiration shiny like a movie set was everywhere
to be seen, drip-dropping from brows like domestic beer onto
blue collars, not to mention cigarettes were just what the
doctor ordered, and bandannas wagged from back pockets
to the beat of Born in the USA—those cheap-motel jeans,
that snug fit. Science was the only unsexy big thing other
than the bombs and rockets (didn’t know, didn’t want to
know). Otherwise it was one big score after another, and the
jumbotron was always on—until the pie came to a crumble,
somehow, in the end.
Where did it all go—the stereo systems, good-guy gun owners
and wholesome television programs? I was born under a new
wave of video games, Internet porn, and Simpsons. Too much
of a good thing wasn’t worn out, it was lived in. Under the
auspices of denim duds and defense spending and who-cares-
about-concussions discussions, the never-incorrect customers
developed a taste for sour grapes. Someone had to deliver.
It was the era of the Type 2 expansion, but the megaphone
was big enough to remind everyone that what happened to
SUPER SIZE™ could happen to us (#CANCELED).
I didn’t hear it coming without the megaphone, but I listen
to it now on repeat. At all hours the megaphone hollers a
different song. Who are you calling too big for your britches,
I moved like a bitch on those bitches (high five). This guy has
got me in stitches, this guy is none of your business: He gets it
(trademark pending). Now the megaphone says everyone
was right all along, it’s not our fault if we didn’t know. The
megaphone makes us miss the big times when he says they
were great. The megaphone tells everyone it’s time to go back
to the black-and-white times, and people yell—
I believe in big things and that the big things sound good,
because they are loud. But I wish I could hear myself think
about how big it is to be alive right now.
đź‘–
Those jeans screamed a good time:
O! Greasy zipper, O! Dungaree’d winner
O! Big ticket, so hard and so fast
The permanent nectar of manufacturing flowed free
in those days. Every working person could increase forever,
when times were cheap and jobs rained steady; every mill
was humming and every degree was an add-on; China was
a sweatshop and Europe was walled up good. But she was
the handsomest machine anyone’s ever seen. She was a lifted
pickup truck with big bulging fenders blowing beautiful fumes
from her vertical stacks. Her weapons poked out from every
corner of the globe. Her girth was a testament to the divinity
of the macro-nutrient trinity. Her generous fields were well
plowed and well fueled. No one complained because their
mouths were full of her good stuff.
When the government was a going concern, no one was sad
who wasn’t bad (probably). Not just not bad, either; huge,
too. Hollywood humped its way around the entire world.
Values flagged from weekend steeples and military vehicles
and schools. The Hemi™ engine of it all was built from a tall
order of American dreams roaring and soaring spectacular
like fighter jets over a stadium (cheering). Even our sweat
back then was a soft drink, or so I’ve heard from commercials
(applause). Perspiration shiny like a movie set was everywhere
to be seen, drip-dropping from brows like domestic beer onto
blue collars, not to mention cigarettes were just what the
doctor ordered, and bandannas wagged from back pockets
to the beat of Born in the USA—those cheap-motel jeans,
that snug fit. Science was the only unsexy big thing other
than the bombs and rockets (didn’t know, didn’t want to
know). Otherwise it was one big score after another, and the
jumbotron was always on—until the pie came to a crumble,
somehow, in the end.
Where did it all go—the stereo systems, good-guy gun owners
and wholesome television programs? I was born under a new
wave of video games, Internet porn, and Simpsons. Too much
of a good thing wasn’t worn out, it was lived in. Under the
auspices of denim duds and defense spending and who-cares-
about-concussions discussions, the never-incorrect customers
developed a taste for sour grapes. Someone had to deliver.
It was the era of the Type 2 expansion, but the megaphone
was big enough to remind everyone that what happened to
SUPER SIZE™ could happen to us (#CANCELED).
I didn’t hear it coming without the megaphone, but I listen
to it now on repeat. At all hours the megaphone hollers a
different song. Who are you calling too big for your britches,
I moved like a bitch on those bitches (high five). This guy has
got me in stitches, this guy is none of your business: He gets it
(trademark pending). Now the megaphone says everyone
was right all along, it’s not our fault if we didn’t know. The
megaphone makes us miss the big times when he says they
were great. The megaphone tells everyone it’s time to go back
to the black-and-white times, and people yell—
I believe in big things and that the big things sound good,
because they are loud. But I wish I could hear myself think
about how big it is to be alive right now.
đź‘–