New America '76: 5. The Perfect Sentence

 

The flag has its proper place.  Behind God, and family, and health, and good times, and sleep, and dreams.  Behind friends, and food, and a good movie, too.  Or a good book, nothing's better than a good book.  Maybe a Grand Slam 5-setter is better than a good book, if Nadal and Novak are involved.

Looking for the perfect sentence.  No way I could write it, but I'll read it somewhere, someday.  It will come from a young person, the old are too worn.  It will be spontaneous and true and short.  It will stop any reader.

T-shirts will be made.  Hats and koozies.  This perfect sentence will change the world one letter at a time.  All the flags of the world will hang like sad rags.  The air will be still.

New America '76: 4. Anything Is Possible Now

Like a surgery, there's no need to watch.  The staff'll brief you in the waiting room when it's over, the victims can take visitors when the anesthesia wears off.  One at a time, please.  They'll be confused, ornery, and mean.  Have patience with the patients.

None of it flys in the modern world, the ridiculousness, the mental excuses, the Poor-Ole-Me crowd, the justifications of deceptions.  We hit the low already, around the time our intelligence was insulted by the intelligence communities.  Only federal spooks crawl out a moving truck and march down the street like masked lunatics waving obnoxious flags around.  Stir it up for the cameras, make a show.  Lots of fine people injected with bleach having a bloodbath while insulting soldiers.

We're sitting in the waiting room, trying not to make eye contact.  All the magazines are old and dirty, the time clicks away.  The doctors are doing their thing.  This is our own island, it's just us.  Anything is possible now.

New America '76: 3. A Sad Chuckle

 

So touchy Old America was, lots of off limits words, lots of off limits humor.  Feelings were being hurt at a record pace, a flood of tears, always tears.  Anger, sadness, guilt, everything was tears.  Except laughter, only snide jeers were allowed.  Profiling lost its edge, the kind everyone knows is hilariously true, silently acknowledged by most.

Most know where to get good donuts, for example.  Most are leery of a certain demographic of driver.  Most aren't afraid to talk to Russians.  Most aren't huffing the gas anymore.  Let's bag on each other, but keep it funny.

The self-righteous wail either way, easily offended and quick to offend.  Irony undetected, hypocrisy lost.  Covered in shame, without pride.  Loony, in a way, good for a chuckle.  A sad chuckle.

New America '76: 2. Clear Liquid

 

Outsiders are in, insiders are out.  Populism goes the people.  Keep your bottle of red, keep your bottle of blue, we're going with the clear liquid this time.  We want to see through it.  No more roofies from the employees.

The lake must be dried, the bottom must be examined, the stumps must be cleared, the beaches must be combed.  Get a rocket eye view, down with the tyrants.  They'll go kicking, screaming, and changing the subject.  Back to skin tint, ignoring skin thickness once again.  Mock them relentlessly, bleed their sour cancer.

For laughs, of course, but also to save them.  Their brains are confused and frightened.  It's fight or flight or shave your head and join the Dry War.  Their choices are dwindling.  Hang in there, maybe they can get to Mars one day.

New America '76: 1. Temporary Gut Check

 

Of course, America was never gone for good.  It was a temporary gut check, a look in the mirror, a decision.  The slime still oozes, but not as much.  The gas it still lit, but it's dimmer, it's flickering out.  Sanity and it's clarity, rationality and it's reality.

Hilarious is what's left, wrecked minds of woe and depression.  Go with acceptance, anger has no future, the shock was enough.  Get back to whining and moaning, it suits the mushed brains better.  The artists are triggered, finally we'll get some good music.  More stick-it-to-the-man, less endorsements.

Change all the rules, talk to only a few folks, get it done.  Debate nobody, the debate is over.  Clear out old-timers, scram you greasers, so long bribers and blackmailers.  The Light Lobby has arrived, the Sledgehammer Lobby is being formed.  Demolition of the American kind.