American Character as Voluptuous Bitch

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The essence of the American Character, as a national phenomenon can be summarized by the image of a mirror overlaying a mirror. It is a character that is limned by the super-icons of American life; the Road, the Car, the War, the Celebrity, the One Night Stand. At its core it is a striding base line and a rolling chrome wheel. A chrome wheel that in it's spinning creates a mirror. A mirror that has, like Narcissus, stunned us with a terrible beauty. The world looks on appalled by our apparent indulgence and infantile stare. But they cannot hear the whisper and see only the solipsism.

The whisper is America talking to itself. It’s important to note that America talks to itself more that any other nation on earth. We cannot utter the words; Values, Family, Way of Life and many more without prefacing these with the totemic utterance of the word “American”. Our media carry an almost constant flow of navel gazing information. “What do you think America? Register your voice at dot com whatever.” The phrase “The American People” is droned by our political candidates almost constantly as a soothing mantra. In reporting any mortal tragedy, invariably the number of American dead is stated as a separate datum.

The rest of the world does not do this. These words are used as a talisman and are invoked to sustain a fragile image of our special status. The whisper begins at birth, and seems to travel over fragrant, full red lips that tickle the ear and speak of American transcendence, power, kindness, leadership, opportunity and above all wealth. It is an erotic life long susurration - seducing the soul. This is a show that fixes the mind and installs the skeleton of our national character. The skeleton is then over time and through education, popular media and social interaction fleshed out with the various trappings of class, region, style, fetish, dreams, etc... an infinite variety of expressions. It’s in this variety and through unimaginably fleeting manifestations that our character is born daily, almost hourly- it seems. Things and traditions move, are changed and disappear at an always accelerating rate. We are in a feedback loop caused by a mirror in front of a mirror. We are transfixed by a culture that is created by our transfixion.

The world, to a lesser degree, is also fascinated by the flashing, violent strobe that is American culture. They can’t look away, or more accurately feel that they look away at their own peril. However, without proximity or access to the voluptuous and false messages; the diorama becomes an inexplicable train wreck. It’s a charming, frightening and dangerous light show.

Dangerous because like all solipsists we create the truth as we go. And the truth can always be found by “staying on message”. We cannot as a nation be wrong since we are a priori perfect in countenance and action. She says so.




The face of the American character is perennially new. But the whisperer is old school and she is nationalistic and her message fuels war and consumerism. Where she comes from is another essay. And to understand why we are who we are it is essential to understand the whisperer and the message that defines the American Character for the rest of the world.

She says that red, white and blue are the most beautiful colors in the world. In fact she dresses in those colors - think Rachel Welch as Myra Breckenridge. She is in love with vast spaces as canvas for her destiny. Fireworks are more than entertainment - they are her exhalations. She says “buy that- want that- fuck that- NOW”. She says that you are not good enough for America. That without celebrity America has passed you by. She says that the rest of the world wants to live with her- but can’t. She says any evil perpetrated by our nation is first false and if proved - justified- then forgotten.

She says loudly and with no apparent embarrassment that America is the greatest nation on earth. She says that American lives are of more value than other lives. She worships the trappings of sex, military, cars, achievement, television and the ‘Mean Green’. She has great disdain for intellectuals and is made wet by action of almost any kind. She has big breasts. She is sentimental and bathetic. World War II was her high school prom. She is easily insulted, stupid in her anger and slow to forgive. She has a short span of attention. She is a bitch. Revenge is her Spanish Fly.

And she is in every American’s ear every day. Think about it.

Still to discuss the American Character in macro terms captures only the balloon’s skin and ignores the billions of atoms that through their interactions push that membrane forward. We citizens as individuals are like those atoms. And our character’s while American, are built individually, and to varying degrees by, bravely I think, editing the Bitches Whisper. Some Americans, far too many, I am afraid, have deified this Whisperer and have swallowed her utterances whole. They are the loud, dogmatic and endlessly self absorbed persons you notice as they tour your county asking “Is this food safe?” “Where is the decent food?” and other food related questions. All the while saying disparaging things about their host nation ‘sotto voce’ at a volume comparable to a bellow among the civilized. They, like our nation as a whole, are comparably rich (It may be true that utter narcissism is directly proportional to the development of financial wealth). And since the whisperer has bestowed such cash; how can she be questioned? They are also seen and heard, as all knowing right wing pundits. Who without historical perspective, human compassion, political education or much charm proudly pronounce the complete and unequivocal rightness of all things American. They are high profile and truly detested, or barely tolerated by the vast majority.





The American character en masse as translated by our institutions and rituals is greatly different than the character of ‘One American’. And at any given moment a great majority of us feel this schizoid gap between the macro and the micro. The right wing shivers at the easy moral and sexual corruptions of the left. The left wing hangs her head at the shameful abuses of power and corporate greed that constitute our foreign policy. And every iteration possible can be found between these poles. This is more than democracy at work. It is a function of an ultra rapid rate- of –change which creates a kind of cultural ‘white noise’. White noise is a conglomeration of all audible frequencies. It sounds like hissing.

We as people, as opposed to ‘A People’, choose the frequencies that resonate with our individual spirits. And I have found that while the macro face of America is garish, evil at times, fat and anti –intellectual the individual Americans who have taken only what they can or will from the great white noise are to a large degree kind, generous and non-violent. We are pathologically afraid of one another but this is without real reason, and is predicated on risk assessments that do not reflect reality. Oliver Stone while doing publicity for his film Natural Born Killers said in an interview “the media creates its own weather.” And we see only the aberrant there. So we, through a form of projection assume the aberrant to be the norm. The facts are much different.

As individuals you will find that we are overall, pretty good people. Not worldly, or multilingual in general (there are exceptions) but OK folks with a sense of humor and a live and let live attitude. That’s really what the American character was always supposed to be. And when you experience its modest individual monads as opposed to its vast global projections, that simple character can be observed. In fact it is all most of us have ever aspired to. It may be our modesty that makes us too easily lead by the few. It is the whisperer that makes us abhorrent to others.

So why has the American Character taken such a PR beating of late? It has been essential to the American Experiment that as many voices as our national conscience can bear to hear, be heard. And as the din of legitimate points of view has increased; so have the many tectonic faults at the base of our culture been revealed. And the Bitch wants to stay on message. There are no faults. Her whispers have become more shrill, jingoistic and urgent and her reactionary spirit has galvanized a mob filled with fear that have turned her volume up, way up. So now more than ever the Message of America reflects the values of the whisperer. However, the curtain is about to drop on this act. Stay tuned,
I for one can’t take my eyes away.

A Lark of His Own

Had an early drunk day last Friday. By early drunk day I am referring to an occasional morning that I will either leave my office, or call out in order to go directly to a little waterfront dive at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. The place is populated at different times with commercial fishermen and women, the dentally challenged counting their change for drinks, hipsters on an occasional lark, old school retired union guys, and sometimes real scary bad asses who would like to kill you.

The sound system is far superior to the overall ambiance (previous owners over- invested and went bankrupt so the SS came with the place at basically no cost) and there is an incredible computer Juke Box with just about everything you could want- sans jazz. But I wouldn't play jazz in there anyway lest it cause a stir.

I usually start with 2 or 3 pints. Oh and I forgot to mention I only do this when I'm hung over or haven't slept the night before. I start out almost gaging when I first walk in, (it is pretty rank in there) but after a pint or two I am suddenly having the "...fucking best time of my life with the greatest people on earth." You know the drill.

Jello shots (cherry $1.50). Drinks "For all my friends" Barfly style as I engage in a couple of simultaneous conversations while the volume of everything goes up.

One of those conversations was with a serious hobo looking guy. Thick salt and pepper hair, roughly combed. a long tangled beard; full and bushy hanging down to the middle of his chest, piercing, rhumby, red rimmed blue eyes and a deep regional accent. He was an anarchist, and a self professed hermit. He lived about an hours ferry ride out in the bay, on a sparsely populated island. He didn't indicate in what kind of structure he lived in and I neglected to ask. MISTAKE (Dana Gould's portly top hat wearing man steps out of the closet- tips his hat and sings "MISTAAAKE").

It was a couple of hours before sunset when I boarded the ferry (beers hidden in jacket pockets )with my New Best Friend.

When the ferry or any boat for that matter leaves the dock an instant and amazing transformation occurs. Every time. You are suddenly surrounded by much cooler salt air, and the ocean informs you that it is in charge as surely as sunrise informs you of a new day. The light (we are famous for it here) is charged and sharp with shadows hard edged. The surface wave motion is manifestly spiritual and the colors; yellow ferry, water shades ranging from incandescent blue to nervous death inviting greens churning just below the surface. The prop wake is preternaturally white. Smell of diesel exhaust and deep hum of the engines. The water is killer cold.

My NBF and I were on the fantail with some other island commuter types he knew. We all stood there under the cloudless sky. We talked and drank beers as the Mainland got smaller. You feel as if it is kind of permanently gone. A weird illusion anytime, but weirder still when seriously drunk and a joint has been surreptitiously passed around. It occurred to me that no one knew where I was. An unsettling tremor of paranoia was towed in the wake of that thought. Fucking Weed.

It was, as filmmakers say the magic hour with gold light filling in the interstices by the time we docked at the island. NBF and I said goodbye to our buddies and started off along a path just off the main dirt road (all roads are dirt on this island). We walked for 20 minutes or so into a deep hardwood forest, up an incline across a rocky beach and back into the woods. NBF saw a piece of quartz which was as white as the wake. He gave it to me. I noticed about then that Dude hadn't spoken in a while. It was getting dark fast, the path was getting hard to see. And we were in some deep woods.

When we arrived at his place it was a converted shed, with interesting stuff hanging all over it and a door at the back of a storage area. We had to maneuver around some bikes and scrap metal , it was really getting hard to see, to get to the actual door which led into a pitch black room. He lit a lamp to reveal a couple of chairs, a wood stove, an old rug, some dishes and a large bottle of water, I couldn't make out what was hanging on the walls.

Anyway this is getting too long so I'll split it up. He handed me an old coffee cup, opened a gallon sized bottled of cheap whiskey and poured me half a cup. It was pitch dark outside.

to be continued