What Happened?

I want to know what happened to this America. I hope you clicked on the link, because it's just an absolutely badass picture, but I get a real jolt describing it. So here goes. It's the commander of the Apollo 10 mission on his way to the launch gantry, carrying that briefcase air conditioner, full on hero mode. Straight up crazy padded white ninja. And on his way, he walks by Gordon Cooper's secretary, who is holding a goddamned Snoopy stuffed animal. A big one, and he pets Snoopy. She's smiling, he's smiling. Oh, and then, prolly after sitting around for half a day, he went to the fucking moon.

That should be our flag. No symbolism there. Dear world, we believe in luck and we like cartoons and hot secretaries. If you don't think we're trying to put a missile base on the moon, well World, you are naive as hell. But honestly, other than Viet Nam, we're not so bad, and just as honestly, there's some crazy shit going on there, and we just chose a side, because nobody else wanted to be on these guys' side, and we're scared to death of China. But yeah, as I go to the fucking moon, we're prolly fucking it up pretty bad over there. And fuck you, Russia. My neighbor never disappeared in the middle of the night. You really are an evil, evil bitch. USA #1!

I'd be a lot more pissed if somebody burned this picture in a protest than if somebody burned a flag. Forget indirect symbolism. This is the sort of direct symbolism of everything that was just cool as hell about us before I was born. I can imagine this whole scene as a doodle on the back of a pink "while you were out" pad, with a balloony astronaut and a lovingly detailed Snoopy. As a kid, of course I drew the rockets and the fighter planes, and whatever, but I wish I could draw the really important pictures. I wish I could draw pictures like this one. That's the story. Shooting a half mile column of fire out your ass on the wayto the moon isn't the story. It's pretty, and it impresses the locals, but damn if Snoopy, well somehow that astronaut was as inspired as all of us, but he knew the fire was the means.

Then we have this. I'm not going to harp on this. It has been well covered. Actually, this is from the 'Mission Accomplished' flight. All I'm going to say, no jokes, is that we've lost our Snoopy. By the end of my book, the only thing I want to convey is that as a culture, we have lost that sincerity. We aren't exactly 100%, 24/7 parodying ourselves, but we are a collection of images and soundbites meant to impress. It can be as simple as the subliminal link between a butter churn hanging on a wall and our need for Tato Skins and mozzarella sticks, to our most Presidential color, olive drab.

But George W. Bush never pet Snoopy. NASA people can get in all the trouble they want for espousing global warming as a fact, or stating with certainty, that the Big Bang lasted more or less than 6 days depending on your perspective, but that it definitely didn't last exactly six days, so fuck a Bible, but having this picture as the picture of the day does more damage than any of that.

You know that people like Cheney remember things like astronauts and hot secretaries and Snoopy, but they don't want us to remember. Actually, W and Cheney are the ones burning the Snoopy picture! Dicks. At best they wish it was sort of an inner-strobe light subconscious slide show that makes us associate "military" with "good." I guess it started with Kennedy, a shitty President, but prolly not a bad guy. Or maybe an asshole. Who knows. But he really did it. And ever since then, every crony politico fuckwad has sat in the background mumbling, "that war shit really plays in the sticks."

Kennedy and GBSr really did do the war thing. Of course so did McCain, and Kerry. But in McCain's case, "that 'daddy was President, too' really, really plays in the sticks." And Kerry, well Kerry was a botch from the start. A probably genuinely good man. Maybe better than Kennedy, even, which is a low bar. But he was a 100% Democrat shoehorn job, where some different fuckwad politico noted, "How do they keep kicking our ass with that war shit, considering the President's daddy is the last hero they had, and they sat on McCain like he...well they sat on him like something you sit on to hide...no, not a chair. Jesus, we suck. Rove would right away be like 'sat on him like a pineapple.' No, that was an example, but it was the first thing that came into my head. Fuck you, I know you don't sit on pineapples!"

There's just some sincerity missing is all. You don't have to study history to know it, either. Just be aware that there was a history, and that is ours, not theirs. That the President, and Cheney and Rummy all want you to forget it, so you can think of it fresh and new, as a wholly owned subsidiary of W Enterprises. TM. Here's the reality. This, and look around for yourself, is revisionist present. They just chop up a happier yesterday and arrange the pieces as delicately as a serial killer arranging clues. That's what happened.

"A fart. Sat on McCain like a fart. Yeah, of course you can sit on a fart. Well of course it's going to escape, just like McCain. What do you mean he never escaped? You're an ass..."