Confederacy of Dunces

http://nyti.ms/1skVMyf

You've seen it on all the news programs lately: why all this fuss over some old flag? Because, (and this will be the last time I will address this issue with any amount of serious consideration, because it's that fucking stupid to me), our ancestors fought and died in our nations' bloodiest war: a civil war that divided families and pitted brother against brother, in the name of righteousness. 

Southerners created their own stupid dip-shit flag and useless Monopoly money so they could pretend to live in a delusional fucking world where it's okay to murder, torture, rape, and continually victimize people like they're worse than the cattle most of us eat every day. 

You see, if a cow didn't make the brutal trip across the sea and over a very long distance, like, say, the ones West African people were forced to endure under inhuman conditions, those poor people of the South wouldn't have food, ergo cows are better than people from another country. See? That's logic! No?! Well, my stars. 

http://theurbanchica.com/poetry-and-still-i-rise-by-maya-angelou/

Take down that fucking flag hundreds of years after we won the war, because it is a symbol of your continually deliberate and very calculated system of ignorance, hatred, and oppression, you inbred fuck. I mean it. You lost. There. Get over it. 

You will not "rise" again. There is no "confederacy", and they never will be. We are one united nation, shitheads. Oh, and your boringly repetitive music sucks, too. Ahhh...now, I feel better. Thanks, guys!

Here's your homework, fuck-up:
http://www.ushistory.org/us/27f.asp
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html 
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/overview.html 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war

For Kara

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-colonial/1904

Insane Cat Posse

Uh oh. I feel eyes on me, like I'm being watched....

Rockland County rednecks like lots of things: Hooters, hot wings, beer (all in one great location), huntin', big trucks with flashing lights and awesome monster tires with stripper silhouettes on them mudflaps, and dollar stores. The dollar store in my town is no different than, say, a Wal-Mart is out west. There are pairs of scratchy polyester pants, cheap plastic shoes; in fact, a bevy of plastic goods that "off-gas" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outgassing) at such an alarming rate, you get a headache if you're in there long enough. It's an unhealthy but sometimes necessary place to shop, for financial reasons.

Ah!! Scared the bejeesus outta me!

And just like my truckin' neighbors, the t-shirt rack rarely disappoints. It's a wealthy mix of loud cheesy prints, sayings, and slogans, most of it overly jingoistic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism) nonsense about flags with colors that don't run, big deer heads, guns, and camouflage prints that relay strong fears about "foreigners", and that's just the male shirts.The women tend to like chocolate and cats; lots and lots of cats. This one design is so particularly egregious, such a high temple to offensively bad taste, I had to snap a few pics. These cats' eyes follow you, and they are angry; oh so angry. Beware. Halloween is a'comin'.

Cornfield to Nowhere

Huh. That's an odd juxtaposition.

"Welcome to mah jungle!"

I've walked past this oddly cultivated batch of corn and other assorted plants for awhile now, and I have no idea what it's doing behind a gas station or next to a bus stop, but I really don't care. I like the idea of some wacky station owner or old county farmer refusing to sell out to developers by obstinately retaining this weird garden patch in the middle of nowhere. 

Why an arrangement of corn rows densely interspersed with lawn hedges? Dear readers, I went in for a closer look, and I still have no fucking clue what this crazy redneck is thinking of, but whoever he (or she) is, they're my kind of rebel. Raise your freak flag high and grow some vegetables, you damn Yankee. Hat's off to you!

A little bit of rust and car exhaust never hurt no one.

Fill 'er up, dump off old clothes, pick some corn, or take two shrubs. Huh?

Boat and rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.

An exceptionally dense Yankee thicket.

Corn AND ornamental shrubs. Oh my!

And corn. And actual ear of corn can grow here.

Why ram a truck into it, or park two trailers, a boat, and a pile of rocks?

Because he's a rebel redneck Yankee and you're not. That's why!

Jeebus...real corn with cobs and all.

Squash patches and car oil.

Why here?! Whose is it?

You caught my attention with your strange garden patch. Grow on!

Redneck flower pot=discarded tire.

You beautiful weirdo. Kudos.

Rockland County Redneck

Tits, guns, cows, and lots of red meat. Fuck you, city folk!

Believe it or not, we have serious hicks in New York. It's hard for outsiders to acknowledge that, because they see these crime dramas on t.v. about city people, but truth is, we have an enormous amount of wilderness here; a state so vast up north, driving in that direction will take you to Canada.

I need fake books, hot wings, and beer to be American!

And so, we have certain pockets that stand out in stark contrast to the neurotic, uptight, therapy-case Manhattanite who's originally from "Lawnguyland", or "Long Island", as it's referred to in English. Upstaters chafe at "The City", citing Albany as the state capital and all them types that frequent urban areas as being different and threatening to them and their culture, and they aren't exactly wrong about that.

Spelling and punctuation sucks! If you do it right, you're a pinko liberal.

Truth be told, an upstate accent sounds much more like a Wisconsin "donchaknow" type of folksy backwoods talk than a "Nuyorican" (a New Yorker of Puerto Rican ancestry) who's lived on one city block for his entire life. Provincialism exists everywhere on the globe, and we are no exception in that regard, either.

Mah huntin' dog gets me through deer season. Fuck you! Go hump a tree.

But ideally, genuine native New York culture is actually one that incorporates town and country, like the magazine of the same name. Urbane, sophisticated people typically have a home at the beach or in the woods, and an apartment in the city, switching up locales on the weekends and holidays. It's a harder lifestyle because it necessitates a certain level of income, but also a flexible and adaptable mentality to go along with the life, too.

I needs guns to express myself, asshole. Get a job!

It's something me and my group of friends have always had that marks us as not quite fitting into rigid categories of "city", "country", or "beachcomber", which some people trade on and off like a set of clothes. We do it all because we love it all: the beach, the mountains, the woods, the waterfalls, the wild untamed forests, the parks, the culture, the food, the weather, the changing landscapes with their exceptionally beautiful vistas, and most importantly, our fair Gotham.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Yorker

To know us well is to know and appreciate those things, too, with all their individual facets, and if you can't do that, then we don't have much to talk to you about, so bounce, muthafucka, because that's how we roll. Keep up, will ya?