Cowboy Confessional

Monthly, Men’s Health magazine tallies cites by a certain attribute, ranking the 100 largest bergs in America.

This month, it is booze and Men’s Health statisticians have obviously been drinking themselves.

Foremost is the fact that Boston somehow bottomed the list, allegedly less alcoholic than Colorado Springs.  A city littered with Irish who long suffered under Teddy Kennedy cannot possibly be more sober than Seattle, where the cold and rain keep people far from bars.  I have had the experience of visiting Boston more than once, and I’m unsure I met anyone unblitzed.  Not even the nuns.

If we assume that the rest of Men’s Staggering List is anywhere near accurate, one oddity emerges from the failed city side of the roster.  The ten most intoxicated towns have three entries each from Texas and California (and strangely, my San Francisco is not on the list, which clearly means I need to work harder).  Granted, California and Texas are big places with even bigger egos, so they each have statically better chances for bad behavior.  Yet for 2/50ths of the states to claim 6/10ths of the Drunks Hall of Fame not only bends the curve, it ties it into a neat little knot.

Of course we need to judge each city by its individual ethos.

Getting drunk in Fresno needs no explanation – it is the only alternative to experiencing Fresno.  Riverside, on the other hand, is so boring that imbibing might be the only way to feel anything, if regurgitation is a feeling.  California’s last detox destination is Bakersfield, which at least has the advantage of being further away from Hollywood than Riverside.  One would think the sobriety quotient would thus kick Bakersfield off the rummy roster.  But it has been said that Bakersfield combines the worst elements of So Cal, the desert and Sierra hillbillies, so perhaps Bakersfield has a corrupt city-wide gene pool.

Texas, never to be out done, shoved Lubbock, Austin and San Antonio onto the chart.  San Antonio simply makes no sense, aside from being pouty because Houston blocks their view of New Orleans.  The town is simply too tidy to tipple totally.  Lubbock, being a cheaper version of Bakersfield, gives reason to suckle bottles, but not much more.  Austin is infinitely more understandable.  The town is the live music capital of America, and has more open bars than anyplace outside of New Orleans, and with equally good music.  It is also a left-of-center city in a right-of-Reagan state, so it suffers from isolation syndrome and needs a good belt … hourly.  Worse still, Austin is the state capital, and as Ray Wylie Hubbard sang in his tune Screw You, We’re From Texas, their “politicians are swindlers and loco.”  Such a high concentration of elected sleaze will drive any populace to partake.

The other three non-Texas and Non-California cities make and don’t make much sense.  There’s nothing wrong with Tucson, Arizona that moving it to Phoenix wouldn’t fix.  Reno, Nevada is perpetually drunk, but then again is was designed precisely for that purpose.  That leaves Billings, Montana.  Having 34 square miles and a mere 104,000 people means you have drive somewhere just to see other humans aside from those that live with you.  Given what winter in Montana is like, you may be stuck with your family all season long, which now that I think about it is a swell reason to swill.

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Some accidents occur at high velocities, where victims are instantly eliminated from future history (this seems especially true of Olympic luge racers and rock stars).  Other accidents are the slow motion variety, where the impact is plainly visible to onlookers but not to the victims themselves.

Of course I speak of Obama.

Several combined news items show a certain cluelessness about the regime du jour, the type of obliviousness that in other circumstance proceeds being belted by a biker or ditched by a girlfriend.  Within the gears of political machinery, slow-mo self destruction comes from declining to see that The People dislike incompetence or autocracy, though they will tolerate a competent scoundrel (for all his sins, and there were many, at least Bill Clinton lifted his head from an intern once in a while to take the pulse of the voting public).  Obama combines incompetence and autocracy in such a unique package that he’ll have the same number of terms as Nero, though ten fewer years to fiddle.

Such is Obama’s perpetual misreading of the public and voter demographics on the issue of health insurance.  Polls routinely show voters against legislation as drafted at Obama’s behest (Gallup say 60% against and Rasmussen says 56%).  By and large, The People are disenchanted, showing detest and come November they will be inclined to divest.  The secondary stimulus for their disaffection is the feeling that Obama and Company are not listening much less obeying.  Ever want to whack your child for being dangerously obstreperous and disobedient?  I know my parents did.

Voters appear poised to backhand Obama.

The primary political point is a general discontent with Washington, personified by the Tea Party movement.  Unlike the media, we must keep in mind that Tea Party rabble was roused in the waning days of the Bush administration as a backlash against incomprehensibly unconstitutional bail-outs of buddies (the unsavory collusion of Hank Paulson on behalf of his perpetual employer Goldman Sachs being instructive).  The peasants (a.k.a. my friends, family, neighbors, employees, preacher … everyone aside from politicians) were revolting against unrestrained power and apparent corruption before Obama waltzed into the White House.

He merely poured jet fuel on smoldering embers.

The Tea Party movement is a reflection of something deeper in the American political psyche.  Republicans imploded because they failed to stick to constitutional principles.  Democrats, not equally handicapped by constitutional fidelity, hijacked the crisis of economy and attempted an ideological end-run around the express written will of The People, folks with a nasty tendency to vote.  Disenchantment with the two parties and their indifference to The People’s policy is the paramount propulsion behind party defection, and the growing number of voters who self-identify as independents.

Independents hate ObamaCare more than Republicans or Democrats, with a full 62% willing to vote out anyone who votes up Obama’s legislation.

The collision ahead can only be ignored through blindness, willful ignorance, outstanding arrogance or plain stupidity, with “all of the above” being a distinct possibility when describing Obama’s latest misstep.  During this week’s refreshingly teleprompter free, but unfortunately day-long health insurance summit, Obama made it clear that his Henchman Harry would use a budgetary procedural gimmick (which Reid opposed when his party was out of power) to enact legislation despised by 62% of the largest voting block in the country.  Summarized, Obama is antagonizing the group most likely to beat him to an electoral pulp.

Uncle Bob used to call that “pissin’ in your own porridge.”

Tea parties have a recurring theme.  The original party was called because the government at that time ignored the express written will of The People.  The modern Tea Party movement and growth of the independent voter block is rising from resentment to the two halves of a similarly arrogant government.  When the 1773 government failed to listen to the people and abide by their will, blood was shed.  Let’s hope King Barry learns from King George before history reluctantly repeats itself.

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A friend of mine came close to witnessing canine cuisine this morning when a neighborhood shih tzu decided to pick a fight with her 80 pound pit bull.  Leashes prevailed, which is just as well.  Shih tzu’s are Chinese, so the pit bull would have been hungry an hour later.

One good outcome from this encounter is that a cultural mystery has been solved.  In many Asian regions, people eat dogs, which is more or less unheard of in Western civilianization (aside from Michael Vick).  Shih tzu’s are the key to the cross-cultural riddle.  These and other Asian breeds are small, annoying and perpetually agitated rodents.  They are unpleasant, odiferous and no burglar takes them seriously.

They don’t even make good footballs.

In other words, the only thing you can do is eat them.  I hypothesize that long ago one of those yapping rats was pestering a chef when the cook discovered there was no meat for the dish.  With hungry customers waiting, and with a good half pound of protein circling his ankles, the chef decided to improvise, no doubt telling his clientele that the mystery meat tasted just like chicken.

Indeed, this clever culinarian was likely the first person to ever wok a dog.

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Old bigotries never die, they just metamorph into more nuanced prejudice.

The problem is that old bigots fade about as slowly.

I am assuming that Keith Bardwell is an older man. Bardwell notes that he has been a justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana for 34 years. Assuming that Bardwell was not elected at birth (and given Louisiana politics and corruption, this is not out of the question) he is likely approaching or has achieved dotage. Thus some of the peculiar notions onto which old folks cling are understandable.

Until those notions are inflicted upon the citizenry.

Down south where Bardwell dwells as I once did, race relations are a messy affair. When Dixiecrats and other dinosaurs roamed the swamps, racial hatred was institutionalized in many pockets of prejudice. These districts, which thanks to George Wallace included the better part of Alabama, were the functional minority. Most southerners had worked together for centuries and were largely unaffected by race. Some of our ugly minded cousins occasionally obtained office – either public, in their local Klan chapter, or both simultaneously. These Crackers with Credentials were the unfortunate face of The South and ones which modern media amplified into an unrealistic caricature of southerners in general.

That’s the media’s job – the amplification their own prejudices.

Over the eons, as air conditioning permitted Yankees to relocate in the lowest of the 48, the myth of wall-to-wall racists faded. When one of the few and rapidly dwindling dimwits sounded, the majority of honorable southerners would wince in embarrassment while reaching for a shotgun. Yes, bigots are stupid, but they are bright enough to understand the downside of buckshot.

With the possible exception of Keith Bardwell. I fear intelligence has stealthfully bypassed him, which explains why the only work he can find is in elected office.

Being a justice of the peace is lowest rung on the judicial ladder and mainly involves paperwork and petty crime adjudication. One of Bardwell’s burdens is to pass out marriage licenses, a nominal task as the only criteria for obtaining one is that both parties are adults and that neither is already married to someone else (the latter being negotiable in parts of Utah). Ancillary issues are not criteria for denial of a license to surrender your freedom and happiness via wedlock.

Except in Tangipahoa Parish.

Seems a 30+ couple came to Bardwell seeking the requisite paperwork to legally bind them together … and were refused. Bardwell, scraping together what only in his alleged mind could pass for logic, said that that his concern was for any children the interracial couple might spawn (which shows Bardwell is completely unaware of out-of-wedlock birth rate in his state – a lack of marriage being no obvious barrier to bayou babies). His assertion is that mixed race progeny are problematic, saying “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

Then in a fit of oxymoronic muttering Bardwell claimed “I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way.”

Ignoring for a moment that justices of the peace are not empowered to make such judgments nor deny a license outside of legislative criteria, we must wonder foremost if the allegedly good people of Tangipahoa Parish had any inkling of Bardwell’s mental illness. The parish is not minor backwater after all. There are over 100,000 people residing there and household incomes indicate that Tangipahoa tenants are at least properly educated, a benefit forsaken by Bardwell.

“I didn’t tell this couple they couldn’t get married. I just told them I wouldn’t do it.”

What makes Bardwell’s buffoonery amusing is that the sitting governor of Louisiana is an East Indian, and several shades darker than the man Bardwell refused to license. Since Jindal is a Republican, Bardwell’s Dixiecrat buddies will no doubt find a way to blame this situation on the Governor.

The problem with prejudice is generational. Old men harboring ancient ideologies linger longer than we like. We must tolerate their company since beating old people is in bad form. Removing them from positions of power is not, and Bobby Jindal needs to make a public example of Bardwell … before the Dixiecrats find a way to pin this episode on the Republican Governor.

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After 144 years you would think it odd for a black man to be publicly roped and whipped in America.

Unless it is downtown San Francisco and the one wielding the whips is a lanky blonde in a leather body suit, wearing little else aside from a maniacal grin.

San Francisco is a city where fetishes are topics of discussion at PTA meetings and where even the nuns are kinky (and the pseudo nuns are odder than the authentic variety). It is a town where you are likely to meet your neighbors at a sex club. When common debauchery is nearly communal, the truly twisted are not far beneath the surface and occasionally escape.

Such is San Francisco’s annual Folsom Street Faire, an event where the interesting and somewhat scary people come to exhibit themselves and their hardware. The Faire attracts whips and chain, BDSM and all manner of leather clad folk from around the globe, as well as a stack of innocent watchers who want only to sneak a toe into the wild side.

The rest of the attendees are happily disturbed.

Which brings us back to the whipee – a well built man (in all manner of speaking) who was roped in a spread-eagle hang, under a sign for an online fetish pornographer and before a mixed audience of the similarly situated and the utterly stunned. With each stroke of her nine tails, short whip or jolt from a miniature cattle prod, he thanked her for inflicting injury (she did stop once to get an alcohol swab for his welted rump).

The scene was almost Romanesque. With a one-handed shocking device, she jolted his back, arms, chest and then headed south to his naked nether regions. She asked the crowd which part of his genital and surrounding territories she should electrocute next. Each audience member shouted their request in an orgy of borderline blood lust. I’m sure the Coliseum saw more action than the Folsom showcases, but maybe not by much.

Shameless is our city, and more so the people who tour these event in the nude. I’m no prude and a good looking and equally naked woman always grabs my attention. Sadly most of the public nudists at the Folsom Fair are exactly he kind of people you want to keep clothed, with the majority being pale, old, fat white men. Seriously, either keep your clothing on or drop a few pounds and shave your back.

And women thought saving their legs was tricky.

In the mix are the committed and the comical. The former are those who have made their particular peccadillo an utter lifestyle. Swarms of identically clad men stand in the intersections watching for soul mates and bedmates to gravitationally attract. Women both tied to Saint Andrew’s crosses and switching the bound, the latter stopping only long enough to ponder the selection of straps with which to whip the former. Men looking particularly breathless in their corsets, women looking particularly excited about chains, and the straights looking particularly perplexed.

They contrasted sharply with the wannabes – those who may some day be devotees but for now sport dime store dog collars. As with musicians, you could tell the experienced from the amateurs by the quality of their gear. The fellow who strode mightily toward the entrance in a leather vest thinner than a politician’s promise was obviously a newcomer. The more mellow man had a think harness, double knitted chains, accessorized nipple clamps and a crotch pocket that appear to have been custom molded to his member.

And then there were the drive-by tourists who collided with one another while rubbernecking the entrance line.

Every city has an essence and San Francisco’s is merely unabashed. Local constabulary willingly allow anything (aside from smoking in public) that doesn’t result in non-consensual violence. What other Americans do in private and feel guilty about in public, San Franciscans do on street corners to exorcize their exhibitionism. The lunatics are running the asylum … and are doing a pretty good job of it.

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