If You Haven’t Read This

by Attila on November 15, 2004

. . . you should. It’s Iowahawk’s take on how the Blue Staters are coping with the “Dollywood” values that ooze into their lives.

“It was one day last spring,” says Ellen McCormack. “My life partner Carol and I were in the garage, working on a giant Donald Rumsfeld papier mache head for the Bay Area March Against the War, when Rain walked by. I thought he looked kind of strange, so I stopped him and looked closely into his eyes. Then I realized the truth — he was wearing a mullet. I was shocked, but he swore to me that it was only ironic.”

“After a few months, it was clear Rain had lied to us — that hideous Kentucky waterfall was completely earnest,” she adds, choking back sobs.

Her 18-year old son would soon exhibit other signs of disturbing changes.

“I was driving past a McDonalds one day last summer, and I thought I saw Rain’s bike outside. He had told me earlier that he was going to a friend’s house to stuff envelopes for the Dennis Kucinich campaign. I pulled a U-turn and headed back,” she recalls. “When I confronted him in the parking lot, he started giving me a lame story about how he was only there to protest globalization, but I could smell the french fries on his breath.”

McCormack says that Rain’s erratic behavior would also come to include excessive politeness and deference.

“Everytime I tried to talk to him it was ‘yes Momma,’ and ‘no Momma,’ when he knows damn well my name is Ellen,” she says, anger rising in her voice. “It was like I didn’t even know him anymore.”

Via Mikal, the selective, eclectic bookseller. And several other fine blogs.

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: