Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

Know what sucks? Most stuff.

However..

Went to a peace march today. That's right, in Laramie, Wyoming. It was both encouraging and exasperating, at the same time. Encouraging because there were probably 150-200 people there, from little kids to oldish folks. Exasperating because there were probably 150-200 people there. And this is a freaking college town. There were hardly any college students there. Maybe 50 out of the total number. Someday, I'll go to a real college where people aren't such lazy boring bastards and they care more about what happens IN the West Wing, than what happens ON "West Wing." Actually, that's probably giving them too much credit. My guess is that they watch lots of reality shows and car racin' 'round these parts. By the way, I don't think we should have Colleges of Business. Or Agriculture. That's what drags colleges down. Bunch of young Republicans with middle-age-person-hair sitting around talking about mutual funds and shit. No desire to get anything out of college except a piece of paper that will let them make more money. College should be about one of two things: 1) Art (to include literature, music, language arts, the fine arts, etc) or 2) Science (and political or economic "sciences" don't count. cuz they're not really sciences. plus, politicians should be people with some background in something useful, like history or literature or something like meaningful that, not political science. i can't imagine anything of less value a political science degree.) All other people could go to some kind of technical school. Where the objective is to teach practical skills. Sorry, I just get depressed when I go to my Stats class (which, for some reason, is in the Business building) and have to walk by all those boring people and their boring hair and boring clothes and boring obsessions with little green pieces of paper.

Anyway, back to the encouraging part.... It was nice that there was a good cross-section of people there. It wasn't like it was all burned-out hippies, violent feminists, hackysackers, etc, though, to be sure, there were some of those folks there as well. It was good to see little kids involved in the process. Maybe my generation wouldn't be made up of such apathetic obesites (probbly not a word) if we had ever been made to care about anything other than Super Mario Brothers. I heard a father explaining to his son that we still believed in our government, we just didn't agree with what they were doing and wanted to let them know. The most poignant moment, I think, was when a car drove by, and the little boy sitting in the back, who was probably about 7 or 8, stuck his fist out the window, revolutionary-style, and said "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah!" So in a way, it was hopeful, that maybe at least some of this youngest generation will actually give a crap about stuff when they grow up.

Wyoming is as conservative as they come. They're all about ripping big holes in the ground to take out oil, coal, gas - all kinds of stuff. They're in love with fossil fules, for sure. And by and large they are very solidly Republicans, by God. So I expected to perhaps be threatened or at least accosted quite a bit. My rough estimate, though, was that about half of the cars honked, gave thumbs up, chanted along with us while they were stopped at lights, or even got out of their cars and walked with us. Probably about 40 percent either ignored us or didn't make any reaction. Then there were some pro-war people. They ever-so-eloquently stated their views on the war, and on us marching, by revving the engines in their Camaros or '78 GMC pickups, and sometimes, cleverly, flipping the bird. But I must say this was a small minority of the people we encountered.

I didn't carry a sign or anything. I saw my role mostly as an extra, and to some degree as being there to punch inbred cowboys that might have trouble in mind. Somebody has to protect those poor, under-proteined hippies. But, happily, that never came up. I think a couple of hundred people are always fairly intimidating.

The best sign I saw today: "STOP MAD COWBOY DISEASE!!"

Brilliant...

In unrelated news, we went to a slideshow/stand-up comedy brew-ha that was given by John Krewson, who is one of the more senior writers at The Onion. He was a funny dude. Sort of a cross between Curly from the Three Stooges, and my friend Scott's friend, Hoss (they really don't look much different, so if you don't know Hoss, you aren't at that much of a disadvantage). He talked about the formation of The Onion, some about it's history, about its writers, etc. He cursed alot, but he cursed well. It's not every guy that can curse well. That guy was not afraid of ANYONE. By which I mean that he (and The Onion, in general) is not afraid to make fun of anyone, at any time, for any reason. They're independently owned, and lots of their advertising money comes from "adult bookstores" and "adult novelty stores" and "adult porn sites," so they don't have to worry much about pissing off sponsors. He talked some about the difficulty of writing the issue that came out right after 9/11. How it was difficult to be funny, and seem appropriate - The Onion office is in NY City. It was actually a little touching. And it was interesting to hear his philosophy on a number of topics, especially on humor, and what humor is. You start to understand that good comedians or humorists are just really brilliant psychologists. It was quite good.

In regards to all the harsh and potentially offensive things I said above, I would like to reference something John Krewson said the other day, after mocking Catholics for a bit, "Stereotypes are funny, aren't they? ...And ALWAYS TRUE!!! (thumbs up)" In other words, 'relax, don't be so damned stuffy.'

-m