A.sskicking - Just ask Saddam Hussein, oh wait you can't.
M.urder - As in it will murder your family if you don't accept its greatness.
E.rr - Yeah, let's skip this one.
R.adioactive - It's what you'll be if you fuck with it.
I. was never very good at these in school...
C
A
You know what, fuck that shit. Acronyms are for pussies and people who hate freedom. We're here to discuss the American dream, and why it is much better than any other dream (even that one where you get a jet pack).
The American dream is an elusive one; like the bastard offspring of Waldo and Carmen Sandiego it lurks in shadows, just out of reach of our reality.
Now, some say that the American dream is to have a spouse, a home, and a family all to yourselves. But that can't be true because Mel Gibson has all of those and he is a very angry man.
So clearly it wasn't a house and a family I was searching for. No, the American dream is something much more subtle and cerebral. The American dream is deep and important. The American dream is the kind of thing that Leonard Maltin would call an edge of your seat journey into the heart of your soul or some bullshit.
All I know is that Hunter S. Thompson didn't find it in Las Vegas even though he took every drug known to man while he was there. The odds were not in my favor here. Clearly I needed something a little more powerful than a suitcase full of amphetamines and hallucinogens. I needed a weapon that even Raoul Duke in his drug-addled stupour was too afraid to use for fear that he would never be able control its awesome power.
All I know is that Hunter S. Thompson didn't find it in Las Vegas even though he took every drug known to man while he was there. The odds were not in my favor here. Clearly I needed something a little more powerful than a suitcase full of amphetamines and hallucinogens. I needed a weapon that even Raoul Duke in his drug-addled stupour was too afraid to use for fear that he would never be able control its awesome power.
Enter this bad boy:
The poncho is the greatest American invention since Karate, fireworks, and pizza. It's a blanket, it's a shirt, and in this case it's a blazing symbol of glory and freedom that's both stylish and fire retardant. How the American dream restrained itself from jumping out and admitting surrender the moment I put this Herculean symbol of manhood and national pride on I'll never know.
As I slid myself into that star spangled banner, somewhere in a lonely desert a dove sitting on a dying tree with no branches shed a single tear.
Of course, clothing was only half the battle. My awesome poncho was no good if the dream was far away. And where would a patriotic dream lurk but in the most patriotic of places on Earth? A place that was made up of pure uncut freedom and liberty. A place where the people bleed red, white, and blue. I knew immediately where I had to go:
Most people don't know this but the Texas flag is a picture of a bald eagle fucking an apple pie while Uncle Sam just sits in the corner and watches.
So after getting my Texas driver's license and my state-required .44 magnum hand gun, cowboy hat, and aviator glasses I preceded to the nearest hotel and started to formulate my strategy.
I settled on the DFW (That's Dallas-Fort Worth for all you foreign scum) because I saw the show Dallas once. It was a show about people, and there was a guy named JR. That was pretty sweet.
I strode confidently into downtown Dallas in the middle of the night, not afraid for myself because I knew that I was in Texas. And if I looked behind me, that was where a ranger was gonna be.
After wandering through the streets I came to a nice upstanding joint called the Flag Pole. It was a well lit bar with searchlights and a long line of people reaching out to the parking lot. This was why I found it peculiar that the "l" on the sign appeared to have gone out.
The inside of the bar was an atmosphere of excitement and flashy colors. The speakers were vomiting out Lady Gaga's Bad Romance as if it were a plate of week-old fish. Bubbles filled the air, and bright flashing lights shined in my eyes as I made my way across the dance floor under the mirror ball. I noticed the club was men only, a true American knows that women only get in the way of freedom. I was among my people at last.
I strode up to the bar and sat down, I ordered a dry whisky in a dirty glass. The bartender gave me something neon pink and filled with sparkles.
"I'm looking for the American dream." I announced to no one in particular, my hat pulled low down over my eyes as I sipped my drink. It tasted like cotton candy and ether.
A big burly man sat down next me. He was a biker, no doubt about it, and he lived for the road. This was a man so unconcerned with the norms of society that he had come into this fine establishment without a shirt on.
"If you're looking for something dreamy, check in there." the biker said, pointing to a dark section of the bar with a big sign in front that said "closed for renovations."
I threw a crumpled up five at the bartender and walked toward the darkened section of the bar like a man with a purpose. I had found the American dream and it was hiding in a bar in Dallas, Texas.
I stepped into the darkness and was immediatly seized by a million grabby hands. This was a trap, the biker had tricked me. One of my attackers tried to suffocate me by placing his mouth over mine, another one began undoing my belt. No doubt to try and choke me with it.
I had two choices: surrender or fight. And these colors don't run. I broke out my best kung fu and my knee connected with a jawbone. I karate chopped another attacker in the neck and strangled the one close to the ground with my wallet chain.
It was about the time that a bouncer walked over to the darkened section and said "What's going on over there?" His flashlight illuminated me and my attackers and I saw full well what I was dealing with.
I was surrounded on all sides by naked transvestites, some with bloody noses, others with raging erections. One of them had a wine bottle up his ass. I assumed my best fighting stance and cursed my horoscope for being right today.
I was more than a match for the transvestites. The bouncers, wanting to keep it fair, seized me by the arms and dragged me out of the Flag Pole kicking and screaming.
So I left Dallas, The Flag Pole sitting ominously in my rear view mirror as I strode through the mid-cities. It was then I was accosted by a man in a dirty old coat that smelled of spoiled meat and ripened cheese. His breath was a reek of booze and cigarette smoke and he appeared to have some sort of glowing fungus growing on his flesh.
"Hey man, you want to buy some shoes?" he asked, brandishing a rusted tin can and a brick taped on the end of a stick. "$30 for the pair."
I looked behind my back expecting to find Chuck Norris in a duster standing in front of a majestic blue sky. Instead I found only an empty parking lot and a drunk woman trying to jam her cell phone into the door lock on her car.
"I have shoes." I gestured at my Earth shoes, adorned with spurs. I began to walk away, reaching for my state required handgun and only hoping that he had lost his.
"I don't s'pose you're looking for the 'merican dream are you?" he asked.
My eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What do you know about that?" I asked.
He leaned in very close to me and whispered. "I'm inside your mind. I've always been there."
I questioned the bum for several hours about the American dream. I thought I was on the crux of discovering it only to find out that this was all part of an extended sales pitch to sell me some meth.
I walked home slowly and downtroddenly when I watched a group of teens throw an old couch into a dumpster and light it on fire. I sat down among them and shared in their bounties of wine coolers and a wet pack of cigarettes one of them found by a parked car.
I woke up the next morning to find that my pants had disappeared and it was just me and my poncho lying alone next to a smoldering fire-warped trash dumpster.
The American dream had won. Even my poncho wasn't enough to bring it out to me. I sat there in that parking lot for an hour when a piece of paper blew by and got stuck against my shoe.
I picked up the paper and unfolded it and in that instant I knew the answer. It was all so simple. There sat the American dream right in my hands:
I stood up, a tear in my eye, as I placed my hand over my heart and sang all four verses of the national anthem. The dream is alive and America is the greatest country in the world!
