WTF America: Car Culture (Chapter 19)
A V8 engine. The open road. A 1967 Shelby Mustang. A turbocharger kicking on as you ease the needle over 3,000 rpm, or a supercharger whining up to speed like jet engine, barely contained underneath the hood. A pickup truck, a chevrolet el camino, a Ford, a Chrysler, an Oldsmobile. Americans love their cars.
WTF America: Homogenity (Chapter 18)
McDonalds does a pretty poor job at representing America. Low wages, substandard ingredients, frozen food, quick bullshit over lengthier substantive items. Wait…
WTF America: Everything will be OK (Chapter 17)
haven’t noticed Americans sharing in this attitude. When things are going poorly, people will say that they’re going poorly, and then they’ll ask for help. Or people will spontaneously offer help, and it will be received. Nobody would say “Ah, sure you’re still living. Buck up, and fuck up would ya?”
WTF America: Anniversaries (Chapter 16)
You build it up in your mind that this is the ending, the closing chapter, the end to two years of being so unjustly separated.
But, obviously, it’s the beginning. Of a new life, of a marriage, of a lifetime in another country. But it doesn’t really feel that way. They never go into the happily ever after in fairly tales because the happily ever after isn’t the interesting bit.
WTF America: The Mall (Chapter 15)
Or do they just need a new pair of fucking khakis. Sometimes it’s khakis. Probably most of the time its khakis. I read somewhere that Americans spend an average of two hours a week shopping for things that aren’t food. I don’t believe that I spend that much time shopping, but when I think about, I’m starting to break out in longer and longer bouts of shopping.
WTF America: Gotta have that confidence (Chapter 14)
eople take all sorts of terrible advice from other people, and there are plenty of people over here that seem very ready to give advice, medical or otherwise, that isn’t grounded in any sort of fact, logic, or often even reason.
WTF America: Why do people trust Dr. Oz? (Chapter 13)
Commercials for boner pills. Now if you’ve lived a sheltered life I’ll fill you in as best I can while being as vulgar as possible. If you have difficulty laying with your wife, in the biblical way, in your twilight years, there are little pills that can help you out. These pills can cause an effect. If this effect lasts longer than four hours, a doctor should be consulted.
WTF America: New! And improved? (Chapter 12)
There’s late night tv shopping, where buff assholes with mullets will sell you this year’s flavour of elliptical, cross fit, underwater, on the moon strider that burns fat and guess how many minutes per day you have to use it for? It’s always 6 isn’t it. Why six? And you can watch tv while you use it, or you can knit or read while some electric weight belt shocks the bejesus out of you.
WTF America: American as a second language (Chapter 11)
So come here now you, here to me now, for a pair a minutes til I get talking to you.
WTF America: Electric Six (Chapter 10)
I’ll begin by saying that Electric Six is the best band in the world. There’s no questioning this, as it is an inalienable fact. Ever since 1996 during their formative years as The Wildbunch the band has been a powerhouse of rock and roll and disco, and they have cut a cross cultural swathe across the land that is American, and further afield, spanning oceans and decades.
WTF America: You capitalist swine [working title] (Chapter 9)
But my internal commie bristles at the injustices I see here. But it bristled at the injustices I saw and still see back in Ireland. All around the world your average working stiff still hasn’t recovered. The stock markets have more than recovered. Stock brokers aren’t losing too much sleep these days, but I know that there are people all across the world right now that are deciding between heat and food.
WTF America: Cities on fire, it’s a billion degrees (Chapter 8)
I arrived here on October 31st of 2013, and the weather was nice. It was downright lovely for my body which had been preparing for the onslaught of another winter that had snow in it. I experienced a few days of rain in several months, and temperatures were cool, but I spent a great deal of the winter sitting outdoors in a hoody drinking beer. It’s warm here, even when it’s cold.