The American Dream Part 1 : American Rants

A three parttrilogy. Part One:American Rants

  by Wicked & Lumination

                                                                                                       the Spirit of Hunter s. Thompson

                                                                                                       Josh Darling

                                                                                                       Patrick Gallagher

                                                                                                      Baron and his Hello Kitty shirt

                                                                                                      & music by Rob of 7 Feelings

11.53 PM, Wicked is in a hotel surfing on a wave of digital madness – although the madness was a bit flat and low that day. Just as she’d given up on any kind of forward motion, a window opened,

“Hello!” The window said.

It was Lumi. Wicked flicked away any rude responses she had saved up for and set her fingers to keys.

“Lumi, was I dreaming when you asked me if we could do a piece on the American Dream?”

There was a pause, so Wicked went into the details of her dream. She told Lumi she was in a strange place behind a desk, speaking to small windows. She spoke with finger-words to people halfway around the globe, or right next-door. “That sounds Neat!” Lumi squeaked, but Wicked droned on. In the dream, she was speaking into a window with Lumi, who had said, 

“Wicked! I’ve been reading Fear and Loathing, and it gave me an idea. We could use the interwebs to find the American Dream!” Wicked was stunned by such a great idea, although thought it was a heavy thought to take on. Her fingers hoovered again as she waited Illumination’s thoughts.

“Well…” Lumi said. “I want to tell you a lie…” 

She adjusted her glasses as she settled in the driver’s seat of the enormous pink convertible couch they’d rented for such occasions. “But it was totally a dream.” Wicked deflated a little, staring out from behind over-sized sunglasses. “HOWEVER…” Lumi said in her most encouraging voice. 

“I think you where having an Electric Dream, with Hunter S. Thompson as your totem-animal! Who are we to argue with an idea like THAT?” 

She flashed her best smile to Wicked, which generally meant they where going to end up causing some trouble, and pressed her foot down on the gas. The great beast leapt forward with a VROOOM!

And with that, Lumi and Wicked went to search the vast interwebs for the American Dream.

Wicked exalted, “This is so titillatingly homage-y I can barely stand it!!! I am going to draw pictures while you drive!” As the Aunties raced across time and space, they catted and screamed about the horrors and wonders they saw. Lumi had yet to make her mind up about what an American Dream even was and half listened to Wicked pontificating in the background.

There was something about the social traps the Government laid for society at large in post World War II America. 

     This “wisdom” was interspersed with bizarre stories about a man-caterpillar smoking a hookah, who Wicked said they would be visiting (followed by talk about how his window lead to an upside-down world, which made no sense to Illumination.)     Wicked gave her speech, Lumi noticed, with seven markers ; three in each hand and one in the mouth. The whole scene confused her enough, but with Wicked’s cata-friend-man puffing psychedelic smoke from one of the open windows, she began to feel dangerously overwhelmed, so she tried very hard to concentrate on her lipstick.     She concentrated a little too hard, because before Lumi knew it she had passed out a little (make-up related black-out!). When she came to, she realized with an ominous clarity that Wicked was at the wheel. The Pink Fuzzy Beast was by now screaming along the Information Superhighway, and at first Lumi brushed the thought away like a cloud of gnats. Wicked’s hat flapped in the wind. Her cigarette holder clamped between her teeth, the roar of the engine vibrating Lumi’s fluffy thoughts.

“…Wicked?” Lumi finally said.

“Hrmph?” Grunted Wicked, face all fierce and stuff.

“I didn’t know you could Drive?” Lumination squeaked.

“Oh I could always DRIVE! I just don’t have a license! “

     Wicked Smiled one of her patented crazy-smiles, and stared with glowy-intense eyes and laid her foot to the pedal. VROOOM! The engine gunned and Lumi went cold with the fear. Just then a white blur crossed in front of them. “EEEE!” screamed Lumi, “A RABBIT!” Wicked made the irritated and confused face, “What the mother-of-fuck are you talking about Illumination?” she grunted before she noticed the thing herself. “FUCKING RABBIT! I’ll cook you into a lovely stew YOU SWINE!”     The Car swerved, as though somehow the Pink Mammoth knew Wicked would make good on her threats. It spun in a donut and screeched to a halt in a great cloud of dust, while Lumi screeched and Wicked cursed. When the chaos settled they found they had traveled very far south through wild jungles of tourists traps and colorfully garbed legions of old people. Illumination rolled out of the car and muttered her famous words, “Gonna Barf!”     “THATS NO RABBIT!” Said Wicked’s voice before she strode fourth from a swirl of dust, cigarette and hat in perfect order. Wicked marched up tape recorder in hand and held it aloft, “What say you of the American Dream, Not Rabbit!?!?” Instead of a Rabbit, The Aunties had come upon, Joshua Darling : Film and Troublemaker Extraordinaire. Lumi, over her travel-sickness, ran over to listen.      With very little hesitation, Mr. Darling, set his terms and rules for said answers (he only struggled slightly when Lumi set her own term of bunny ears, But once Illumination had an idea it was difficult for even the even most seasoned arguer to win her over). Darling whipped out a megaphone which he held up to a cassette recorder. Lumi, for back-up also took notes and Wicked drew pictures. 

—

The American dream, a speculation on nightmare.

A nonfiction travesty by: Josh Darling

     In 1971 Hunter S. Thompson set out to try and capture a snapshot of the American dream in his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas… That America. The America of 1971. An America of hope and an America freshly suffering from the slaughters of Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and a whole bunch of Vietnamese. That was the OH-SO “America time”, in America where the exciting energy of turbulent change for the better was filling the the air…     Their Dream was different, it was closer to providing freedom, before Ray Crock could thoroughly pollute it with and happy meals for one and all. Because the America of today is such a grossly different and hideous beast, Comparing their dream dream versus the dream of today is like comparing a Michelangelo’s David to the most rank gay porn.     But this dog will hump a that leg on a different day… Back to the Dream. I don’t want to start spouting off with the hatred that both big business and big government have for the little people. I want to start off by talking about the little people. The American dream, the original American dream was obviously to come up from oppression, and then it morphed in the streets of gold. These are the dreams of the little people. These little people are the cogs of the machine that is America. The cogs that allow it to run but what if the machine decides it no longer wants or needs its cogs? What if the machine no longer cares if it runs smoothly? What if the brain decided that body was no longer needed mostly because it could enslave other bodies? But as the brain is sentient so are the cogs. But what do the cogs want?     Not pawns mind you, cogs cause the whole machine runs on them … What makes their eyes twitch under the lids when the day is done? Before one can really talk about dreams we have to look at the environment of the dreamer, because dreams of the processed data of the subconscious and that subconscious builds its database from perception. If you’ve traveled America you know the landscape is the same everywhere you go: *When you get to the end of the list wash, rinse, repeat.*

Starbucks, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Gap, 

Hot Topic, Pizza Hut, Old Navy, Best Buy Disney, 

Game Stop American Eagle, Wal-Mart,Outback Steakhouse, Victoria Secret,Denny’s, Sephora, Target…

Why the Stores?

     It’s simple, if you want to know the dream…you must first realize the state of the dreamer. Americans have always thought that the lifeblood of freedom is capitalism however these two things are really ships passing in the night. The mistake comes, of most Americans thinking their money and freedom are somehow tied together. Americans assume freedom and lust for the dollar are one in the same. But as we stand today and look up at that landscape but no longer live off the land…As we see that land carved away by high calorie food stands, as we feel ashamed to do manual or factory labor, as we see jobs outsourced…      What is this dream? We no longer work for a living or for enjoying work. We have, in fact, given up getting paid a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work instead opting for flatter televisions and x-boxes. To fill in the gaps we offer up cookie-cutter life lessons and Twilight Zone morality. In the face of this, I can’t help but wonder, What is it that Americans are dreaming for? If we are a democracy and people on the whole are giving lease to the psychotic Christian mutants that make up the Tea Party, selling our future for the latest toy, and wishing for nothing more than to be the next wealthiest insta-star than I say:

America no longer has a dream and America no longer future.

     If Americans are so bankrupt on all levels orally, psychologically, economically, that we are turning to people who are willing to destroy the government and destroy America then I say America is over and if America is over, so goes the dream. Just look at fat-fuck Pentecostal children’s pastor Becky Fischer, best known as the semi-closeted lesbian, in the movie “Jesus Camp” ….How are these people still under the ether of “Manifest Destiny”? Bad enough that but the poison goes deeper, because a better tomorrow is going to come if we all just wait and pray for it to happen because god and America are obviously one, despite all that silliness about separation of church and state. When we talk of The Dream, we are really talking about what Americans want and America is driven by mob rule.  The minority means nothing the majority is king. This could be problem enough. But there is also a secret minority, not a minority of the poor or so-called downtrodden, but this minority is the ultra rich. This minority are the people who pull the strings behind the politicians. I don’t say this as a “conspiracy theory” I say this as-in :

this is the way things are, 

this is the way things have always 

been, 

and this is the way things will always be.

This minority controls the ideals and dreams 

of all of the people who are easily swayed. 

For the 

majority, I believe this dead American dream is 

to fuck Jesus.

wait for a savior

for a daddy

to pull us out of our shit

shit that was voted for

to use hate, to hate

the enemy

to not attempt to understand anything

to not have to understand, to continue

to live in fear, because it’s just easier, and just do it, we put the

baby to sleep and sleeping it will remain.

     If you’re poor and have transcended the bullshit of religion and are looking to have a real dream, the real American dream… Jerry Springer/American Idol/ America’s Next Top Model/The Biggest Loser have it for you. Big money in the bag all at once – that is the new American Dream and why? Because there are no more bootstraps to pull yourself up by… We outsource. There are no more government programs to help you. Jesus, in his infinite wisdom, and compassion did away with them for supply-side economics. If you are in the so-called “middle-class” you may still have a dream, but don’t work too hard at it, because you’ll be coming down to our level soon –    We no longer live in a place where dreams happen, we live in a place where subterfuge and circumvention of the laws that protect staples of humanity is common practice. Free speech will become freedom death. The American dream, denial. Deny logic, deny reason, deny science, deny responsibility… I fuck you over, I steal from you, I rape you, I murder you, I suppress your rights, I apologize to my God or my CEO and make everything okay. The new American Dream is indeed: Fuck You!  I dream of having everything taken out of my hands. The dream of not doing. The dream of zero work, zero responsibility and all returns are pure Cream. I would love to leave you with a happy thought, that some brilliant anarchist revolution will come and save you… I would love to leave you with happy thoughts.

—

Wicked realized that Darling was finished when he took out a camera and started making a mockumentary, “Satire of the Homage” of  Lumi’s American Dream  Project.

Despite their fascination  with Darling’s Strange World, it was time for the Aunties to go. Wicked jumped in the Pink Beast and said “Let’s go!” Lumi said “WAIT”, “Why wait?” Wicked irked. “I know the answer!” Lumi waved her pen.“To what?” Said wicked archliy,“His question!” Said Lumi over the screaming wind,“No time! Just tell me – we will put it in the blog later!” Wicked waggled her cigarette holder.“The answer is COOKIES! There are always at least still cookies to dream about!” Said Illumination with satisfaction. To which Wicked replied, “Are cookies American?” 

With that the two bottle-red-heads, were off to their next destination… GEORGIA!

Just before they could make it to one of Lumi’s many old stomping grounds they ran across a protest, almost literally. If it hadn’t been for one girl standing right in front of their car with a sign and a bullhorn, Wicked and Lumi might, in fact, not be writing you this blog but rather cooling their heels in Atlanta City Detention for the crimes of accidental running over 5 or 6 activists. It turns out the girl’s name was Ami and she was very interested in the Aunties project and had some very colorful things to say about it unfortunately Lumi who had been taking notes and this is all that remained of the girl’s impassioned speech on the American Dream.The American Dream you ask? “…is to be culturally indoctrinated and socially engineered to detach from our innate self-awareness in exchange for materialisms. In short ladies, it is to live in excess.” 

The Aunties left behind the activists and stopped by at the mall before heading on a video chat with a history buff!

     At the mall Lumi swung around on her way to the frozen yogurt stand when she saw a man in a hot pink hello kitty Shirt! She squealed, “OMG we have to meet him!” . Wicked in her usual non-plussed fashion mumbled, “Oh THAT’S Barron!.” Lumi was very excited about the Hello kitty shirt so she blurted, “We are a on a mission to find out what you think is the American Dream – got any answers?” Wicked looked both slightly embarrassed and amused. The Hello-Kitty wearing Baron looked wryly thoughtful and said,

“What, the American Dream? Isn’t it basically just to have more than the next person(the most money, the most kids, the most houses) so one can brag about it? At least that’s what I’VE always thought. Or are you referring to something else entirely?”

It seemed the Hello Kitty wearing man (Lumi’s new hero), and the film-maker and the activist had some in-common things to say. Wicked and Lumi walked away shaking their heads in mesmerizing unison, even forgetting they had meant to say hello.

The two were beginning to wonder if this trip was going to be a bummer… There only hope was some historical perspective from one very Mad Hatter, Patrick Gallagher, who was going to take them on a whole new trip. 

They had provided the good sir with an email simply stating, “What is the American Dream?” and so the historian extraordinaire came prepared to the video chat with MUCH to say and much Noir-style lighting to match the droll-dryness of his quick paced banter. (Most of which they heard, despite the fact the three golden panties boys continued to distract Lumi with e-mail overtures of adoration.) Patrick’s words that rung through and very true sounded something like this :

—

The American Dream – Historian’s Rant 

::

by Patrick Gallagher 

     “I’m more and more convinced that much of the Dream’s manifestation in the concept of improving one’s economic circumstances is just the modern incarnation of what Eric Foner described as free labor ideology in his landmark books “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men” and, later, “Reconstruction.” Both deal with the civil war era and argue that dominant labor ideology in the North was based on the idea that via temporary wage work in one’s youth allowed a person (here being white men almost exclusively) to accumulate enough capital to become an independent proprietor in his own right, whether that meant a small farmer, shop owner, or whatever. This of course stood in direct opposition to Southern slave labor, where manual work was considered primarily the domain of the unfree, and that free men should only perform it as the distasteful but necessary means to buy their way out of laboring via the purchase of slaves.     Free labor ideology is, as you’ve likely already noted, itself an outgrowth in large part of what Max Weber famously describes as the Protestant Ethic; work hard, be thrifty, and success will follow. Though I suspect most Americans these days no longer aspire to what Foner describes as independent proprietorship (and as he points out even in the 1850s it was increasingly becoming less obtainable due to the rise of industrialized manufacture), it does seem to me that the majority do at least hold to the American Dream of a successful, comfortable life via working hard and prudently saving.     It’s a nice dream, but I cannot help but wonder if, like most dreams, there’s not a little wishful and willful ignorance in play here. If we’ve learned anything from the past several years of economic hardship, I’d like to think it would be that all the prudent hard work in the work can be easily undone by actions far outside of anyone’s personal control.      Like all pleasant imaginings, the American Dream too easily turns poisonous when it’s clung to too tightly in the absence of its tempting promise. When prosperity doesn’t follow, two options present themselves to the Dream’s adherents: The first, and by far the more benign of the two, is to simply presume that they have not been working hard/long enough. The Dream remains valid, it rather is they who’ve failed to hold up their end. While often stark, this conclusion is at least internally consistent.     However, I used the word “poisonous” above deliberately here; in such situations far too many instead go looking for scapegoats. If only the damn government would stop over-regulating the marketplace/wasting money on domestic social spending, then I’d be able to make it! If only those damn illegals weren’t keeping wages down by working at below-market rates, I wouldn’t be a month behind on my mortgage! If my hard-earned money wasn’t being taxed so heavily to pay for all those damn lazy welfare queens, I wouldn’t be struggling to keep my head above water! A staggering array of similar historical examples from the various Panics of the 19th Century and recessions of the 20th exist as well, though curiously only a minority few from that harshest reality check ever thrown the American Dream, the Great Depression. Reality it would seem is at least in the most extreme cases able to trump ideology (though it must be said that even then, the hard core of libertarian “fuck you, got mine-ism” survived).     That the initial premise of the Dream remains unexamined here is no accident. The ideal is an old one, and one frankly that most Americans have been taught from birth to hold as sacrosanct, particularly any who grew up before the end of the Cold War and death of the evil Communist Enemy. It’s a powerful ideology, more powerful than the Protestant Christian counterpart it so often walks alongside if we’re being wholly honest as what it promises is less abstract and more concrete. And much like that counterpart, questioning (outside of narrowly-defined safe regions of inquiry intended to reinforce the original concept) is not encouraged, lest the faithful fall away.     By this point I suspect at least a few readers are frothing at the mouth in righteous fury, prepared to savage me for being some commie pinko bastard who wants the government to pay for everything and has never worked a day in my life, etc, etc. Fingers poised eagerly above keyboards, they now prepare to vindictively tear me to be bits in an appropriately triumphalist terms. For those I offer the following mollification: have no fear, the American Dream is alive and well. The promise of the nation remains genuine if perhaps a bit dented. Dreams rarely stay as gleaming when recalled in the harsh light of wakefulness.I would however offer this final caution to such Dreamers: while work and effort are a vital and necessary element of success and prosperity, they surely are not the only ones. That you can succeed is no promise than you will, and Dreamers who came before you have, in their dreamlike delusions, made sure the safety net below the tightrope upon which you choose to walk is perilously close to the ground, and increasingly moth-eaten. Do your best not to fall…

—

The end of Patrick’s brilliant speech trailed off, as the email said ding once again. Lumi received a track written to the tune of their American Dream theme. 

Endless Aspiration by sevenfeelings

(Rob Deyz sometimes is so kind to tailor soundtracks to the Aunties liking)

The Aunties went wheeling off into a beautifully back lit sunset. Their chatter was heavy with these American rants and punctuated with frequent beepings of “You’ve Got Mail!” As Lumi began to sift through the new responses, as Wicked was indeed still driving, she realized that a wave of American Optimism as well and some very distinct international impressions of The Dream were arriving. 

“Wicked!”, Lumi yelled over the roaring of the wind, “We can do a TRILOGY on the American Dream!” 

Wicked pulled down her sunglasses and said, “As long as we don’t reference ANYTHING Star Wars. I am SICK SICK to death of forever Star Wars references, if you ask me THAT is possibly what is eating away at the American Dream, this plague of Star Wars references and of course hipsters….” Didn’t you make a painting about that Wickie?” Lumi chimed. Wicked nodded,”Yes, Yes I did….”

see more great art at Art Fruit

See The Teaser for Part II : The American Australian Dream 

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