Something Ain't Right

Sometimes you have to get out of your little aquarium to really see the strange world we've created. I'm on a little jaunt to Grand Rapids, Michigan, staying at a hotel in the shadow of the Gerald Ford Museum. How odd to see the glorification of a man known for occasionally bumping his head (also playing football without a helmt),and pardoning Nixon.

The Lovely Carla and I are on a business-based road trip. It's not often that I'm behind the wheel anymore. It's strange to see the artificial, pre-fab, car culture in full force. Grand Rapids seems to be a false-front city. It's drab and kind of creepy - corporate mall land.

There's very much a sense of "we don't belong here." This is America, but it's another America, not the one that I know and love. This has a distinctly Republican odor to it. Of money, of the hustle, the scam, an eerie Stepford-like optimisim that probably betrays some really dark, creepy reality. David Lynch excels in depicting this type of land.

Is it really so different than from where I come from? Yes, and no. I truly identify with a more gritty urban land, a place where the culture is, or pretends to be multi-cultural. It's times like these that you begin to realize that we still adhere to some kind of tribal identity. This seems to be one the centers of the tribe of Red State Capital, we're actually staying at a shrine to Amway...I can't wait to get back on the road, turn the cd player up loud and point our Dodge Charger homeward.