Dude: Don't go to Chicago tomorrow, dude.

Chicago, Illinois--You know, once the home to my father until his family wouldn't pay protection money to "the Outfit" (Capone's former gang continued on without him...), Chicago is a place of ambivalence to me, and it always will be.

I love the town, don't get me wrong. It's an exciting place and I've had my share of great times there, but wow...how are they going to turn away all those people tomorrow? I mean, really, Chicago's closed. Chicago's going to be closed, man, game over, like NYC in 1975--who's going to tell them to drop dead when Gerald Ford still is? Does Rod Blagojevich's hair look so funny now folks? Of course it still does--he sports quite a pate--but that's not the point. Ask any scientist and most philosophers, and they'll tell you that there is no point (eat your heart out Michael C. Moynihan). I concur.

C'mon, Gerald Ford spared us from so much, you know. Like upholding law and order and allowing Nixon to be prosecuted fairly (no favors, no sentimentality, just the letter of the law) so we wouldn't be in the mess we're in right now with the executive branch. But to be fair, the integrity of all three are endangered now, so thanks, Jerry, for saving us from ourselves. Why celebrate Woodstock when you should be reflecting on Nixon's resignation 35 years ago? Pardon me. Where was I? Ah yes, Chicago, home to the water tower that Oscar Wilde loved so much...

So, if you want to go to a library, a city clinic, have your garbage picked-up--crazy shit like that--you're outta luck, babe, the social contract is over, and they put one on you. The cost-cuts (sounds commercial) being done with the City of Chicago only affect non-union and non-sworn union city workers, which to me just illustrates why we should be getting everyone unionized, just a thought. If union bosses had half-a-clue, they'd be unionizing every single illegal alien they could get their hands one, starting yesterday. And strikes? C'mon, people need work, but it's been 90 years since there was a general strike in a major American city, why not have one for yucks?

But don't go to Chicago tomorrow, on Monday, August 17th, 2009, things could go wrong. C'mon, most Chinese restaurants are closed on Mondays anyway! Monday= bad. They get it, man.

L.A.'s "Reason" magazine (who are they?) writes about...ME!

Los Angeles, the City of Raymond Chandler--It took Michael C. Moynihan (who's he?) just four-months to discover my article "English Accents and American Advertising," a piece primarily about the proliferation of the UK-accent in American advertising, and my take on why it's occurring. But instead, to Moynihan, it's about "how enraged" I am about my "intellectual isolation," and how Brits are invading the United States to buy things and misbehave...or something along-those-lines. Maybe. Thanks, Mike, you read my mind, and you know everything about my life and Indiana. Thanks.

Moynihan either forgot or willfully misrepresented the real message--the subtext--of my original article: that Americans have allowed themselves to be dumbed-down, and that even our politicians sound stupid when they talk. Listen to our current president and tell me with a straight-face that I'm wrong. For that matter, listen to almost any current incumbent holding office in these here U-ni-ted States attempting speech.

To Michael Moynihan, the run-up to the war in Iraq never happened, and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld never called the EU "Old Europe," or that most of our diplomats have such bad diction that they're unable to effectively form the right words required to negotiate with their peers from other nations.

Look, I know that "I'm just jealous," and that someone who can barely write (Moynihan) probably draws more money from his so-called "writing" than I've ever made (or ever will), or that who his exact audience is is beyond my lowly working-class comprehension. But enough about his connections, or his ability to kiss executive/foundation asses. Mike should do the thinking for us. Never mind that the subtext of his piece, "Rant: Take Them Back to Dear Old Blighty-The ugliest byproduct of the sagging dollar," supports the thesis of my original piece in-spades, and please-please, do step over the victims of America--you might get those expensive Italian shoes soiled.

Who are you talking to Mike? Who is your audience? My uneducated guess would be well-off professionals like you, the trust fund kids and the silver spoon crowd whose job is to tell the rest of us how to think and how wonderful you all are. Shame, but at least your article is utterly incomprehensible.

One might assume--making an ass of you and me--that his piece angered me, but that would be wrong. I'm loving the irony, and the tiny bit of exposure it's brought to my humble little blog, "J to the Power of 7" (http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com), and the fact that it at least got him thinking for a few milliseconds. Cognitive dissonance hurts, I know. So, while all the comfortable people watch in horror as the economy they said shouldn't be regulated collapses for that very same reason, we can feel safe in the knowledge that Michael C. Moynihan...what does he feel?

I couldn't tell from his article, and couldn't locate a thesis. Maybe it's: "The British are coming! The British are coming!" Considering Moynihan's Irish-American, that might be measure of concern. Thanks for the laughs and the exposure, Mike, it felt good being quoted in the same paragraph as actor Val Kilmer (Brother Val, I agree!). And Mike, you're arch-neoconservative whether you know it or not. Go buy a tie, it looks better. But Mike and I have something in- common: nobody knows who we are, nor do they care.

"English Accents and American Advertising," 10.27.2007: http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2007/10/english-accents-and-american.html

Michael C. Moynihan's article at "Reason magazine" (April 2008 issue): http://reason.com/news/show/124935.html

Revised 07.02.2008

English Accents and American Advertising

"Well, you speak better English than I do."--Byron de la Beckwith, deceased convicted murderer of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, from the HBO/BBC documentary 'Southern Justice: The Murder of Medgar Evers,' 1994 . Beckwith was convicted the same year of the broadcast of the documentary of Evers' murder. He mercifully croaked in 2001.

USAHHHHHHH, Fuck It...--Say what you will, but for a developed nation, we're the red-headed stepchild of the Western world. We've always been a dowdy, poorly-dressed lot of malcontents, but it's getting embarrassing. Compared to the average slob in most other 'modern' nations, we're incredibly fucking stupid and boorish.

Thanks to our lousy miseducational system and corporate owned mainstream media, many Americans have an pathetically low vocabulary and are not very well-spoken. Nonetheless, it's the fault of the individual, and it takes two to tango.

You have to have someone willing to be a poverty beforehand. But just look at interviews with average individuals in the U.K.--the differences are stunning, we sound like the cavemen that many around the world (rightly) think we are. Ignorance is hip, sounding 'smart' is out, and it's well known we're a decidedly anti-intellectual anti-culture. Enter the usage of voice-talent from the U.K. .

If you even watch television casually in the United States, it's inescapable that you'll see and/or hear an actor or actress from Great Britain doing the voice-over for any number of ads. Why? Because of the aforementioned: their voices sound 'authoritative,' while ours...like apes. Watch a young American woman speak: it's like seeing a baboon's ass pulsating from being in heat, which is pretty nauseating, I can tell you. Cockney flower girls in Victorian England were more well-spoken, while most of us are simply ignorant bores (well, not me...).

It's not just the American South either, it's everywhere in this country. This is about rednecks entirely, or even about machismo--it's about willful ignorance and mental laziness. There's no excuse for it in the modern world, none whatsoever. But it's not just about inherent intelligence--it's an attitude that being and sounding smart is somehow threatening. Well, yes, if one is stupid and lazy, and materialistic. Some of us never needed to be corrupted by the outlying society, we already were that way.

As a result of how incredibly stupid we are as a culture, we get the vocal-talents from another English-speaking country because they sound smarter than most of us, so therefore, they must know better (my targets cannot read this article--isn't this thrilling?!!). The most glaring example are these retarded ads on gold investments with the British woman (who could be an Aussie or a New Zealander, but I detect a British accent here).

The ad is definitely aimed at the perpetually frightened elderly reactionary who has some money to be deprived-of by the company paying for the advertisements. Or there's the one with the silly poof in the pond with the laptop, showing us how wireless works. Great. Recently, a LOCAL ad attacking a Republican mayor in Michiana had an English woman's voice-over. Bully for you. Face it: an English schoolgirl sounds more authoritative than the voice of most American politicians.

When will it end? When we (mainly you) aren't so fucking stupid. Probably when all of us are dead and buried. The very little kids will wisely grow-up and reject our ways...at least, that's my hope. As the "greatest generation that ever lived" croaks-off, we're going to see some very rapid change. We already are. It will become even more rapid with the baby boomers--particularly the male demographic in America--since they were a larger generation.

Whoever said mortality was a bad thing was assuredly wrong, it's natural and (thankfully) inevitable. I'm looking forward to my well earned rest, you can take immortality and shove it. Would you want George W. Bush to live forever? Would you want to be around all these pseudo-Christians forever? Right, you're nuts, but I'll welcome oblivion when I'm at its door (Never Mind the Bollocks).