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.
WTF America: Everything’s Bigger In Texas (Chapter 7)
Everything’s bigger in Texas Outside the US the phrase is “Everything’s bigger in America,” but within these states, everything's bigger in Texas. And though I haven’t been to Texas, I can attest to the accuracy of the first statement. Everything is bigger here....
WTF America: Nice Shootin’ (Chapter 6)
I’m not buying a gun so I can prevent a tyrannical government from crushing my freedoms, I’m not going to start carrying it around because I fear for my personal safety. I want to make metal plates dings, I want to make copper jackets sing, I want to skip rocks from 100 yards away, I want to hold power at arms length and then tame it.
WTF America: Venice Beach Freakshow (Chapter 5)
On this level we’re happy to engage with the things we’ve sanitized before we’ve encountered them. Behind the glass the cyclops skull isn’t so scary, but when there’s no glass between you and the guy on the train that’s calling fellow passengers baby-killers, that’s where humans are uncomfortable.
WTF America: Cowboy flavoured pizza (Chapter 4)
Well scratch that last one – 4th of July is crammed full of freedom. It’s a stuffed crust freedom pizza with freedom fries, and the crust stuffing is freedom. Guess what it’s topped with. If your guess was freedom, you win some more freedom.
WTF America: Papers please (Chapter 3)
And you’re consulting forums, and you’re checking agency timelines, and you’re tracking the package to the best of your ability. However, you get very little information back, and any notification you do get is by mail. And if your mail correspondence gets dropped into the mail two days before christmas, and never reaches you, you’ll experience a three month delay. Papers, please?
WTF America: Three Fingered Kit Kat (Chapter 2)
The story assumes that you know what a Kit Kat is, and I believe that most people do. Biscuit, wafer, chocolate candy confectionery. Snap them in half exactly in the center, between the Kit and the Kat. The come in bright red packages, and honestly they’re quite hard to miss. They’re familiar to many.
WTF America: Religious Breakfast Cereal (Chapter 1)
You find your feet in a new country and you’re of the opinion that it couldn’t possibly be as different as you’ve made it out to be in your mind. And then you see the religious breakfast cereal.
WTF America shall be a book
Culture shock is a hell of a thing, and I still experience it on a daily basis.
What kind of pie? Occupy
So I haven't been to my local occupy event in a while now. It's a small event, only running for a few hours on a Saturday. There's no permanent encampment, not a lot of chanting goes on, not much in the way of flash mobbing. But it's our group and it's got some very...