The Amerikkkan Cult of Mediocrity

I am slowly making my way down towards Buenos Aires. There is a part of me that wants to slack off and there is the part of me that wants to make it to Brazil before long. The slacker in me got rewarded with a cold that forced me to stay in Tafi del Valle during my recuperation. Being sick made me realize that, as much as I love Argentina, I probably couldn't live here. The thing that disappointed me was that I could not find either fresh chiles or ginger anywhere I looked. I am in Tucuman right now. It is one of the bigger cities and I still can't find these ingredients. When I am congested, I usually like to make spicy food and ginger root tea to speed up the recovery process but I had to live without. In Argentina, it is not hard to find good meats or cheeses but try looking for fresh vegetables, that aren't regularly used here, and you will eventually have to give up in desperation.
Another negative thing that I have noticed about Argentina is that more people smoke and it is banned in less public places. I even see mothers walking down the street holding a child with one hand and a cigarette with the other. Smoking is a nasty habit not to mention the fact that just being around cigarette smoke gives me a nasty headache. I have been turned off from countless women on account of their smoking. It is the feeling that I just have to grin and bear it that makes me think I might not enjoy living here.
The death of Michael Jackson has made me reflect on a growing phenomenon in Amerikkka: mediocrity. Mediocrity pervades Amerikkkan life. We have mediocre schools, mediocre healthcare, mediocre politicians, and mediocre everything. The tragic thing about this is that Amerikkka used to produce excellence. It is the country that gave the world jazz and rock and roll. Now its contribution to the world is Christina Aguilera and The Fast and the Furious.
Michael Jackson was the personification of mediocrity. His entire career was just one giant piece of shit in my opinion. I can't think of a single Jackson 5 song that doesn't make me want to stab chopsticks into my eardrums. Hearing a prepubescent child sing about love drives me into a murderous rage that causes me to have dark fantasies about torturing Tila Tequila and then stoning her to death with the severed heads of the Jonas Brothers. The only thing that could possibly be more cringe-worthy is if the adult Michael Jackson wrote a song for N.A.M.B.L.A. For those of yall who aren't in the know, N.A.M.B.L.A. stands for the North Amerikkkan Man-Boy Love Association. Since the Jackson 5 was commercially successful, the large music companies have been marketing bands with children in them ever since. You can blame the Jackson 5 for Hansen, the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, and any other shit band made up of children. As a rule of thumb, unless the child is channeling Django Reinhardt, I don't want to hear it.
I can't deny that I liked Thriller when I was a child but looking back now, armed with the awareness of much greater musicians, I see it for what it really was. Thriller marks a crucial turning point in the devolution of Amerikkkan music. It laid the foundation for Madonna, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, and any other "musician" who makes me want to kill people randomly. Looking back, there were only three songs on the album that I liked even when I was a kid. Jack-Off made only one hit song after that album. He was too busy morphing from a black man into the alabaster freak that he became.
Did I mention that M.J. was an overrated dancer. He had a very limited dance repertoire that consisted of the moonwalk, a counterclockwise pirouette, a right-footed kick, a right-handed crotch grab, and a few jerky motions. He was nothing compared to greats like Barishnikov and any of the street dancers who helped invent break dancing. In fact, I don't think he would make it past the second round of So You Think You Can Dance. You can again blame M.J. for the prevalence of pop stars whose only qualification is that they hit the right notes and can dance with back-up dancers. Speaking of back-up dancers, Michael Jackson was frequently upstaged by his in almost all of his music videos.
Why does this matter so much to me? Because I am tired of being told that something that is truly mediocre is really excellent. It is this American complacency with mediocrity that gives us politicians like Sarah Palin. Can you think of a better example of someone who best epitomizes megalomaniacal mediocrity. I think she is so popular because she is mediocre just like her supporters. People want to vote for someone who mirrors them.
Barack Obama is a man of exceptional intelligence and exceptional P.R. who, nonetheless, produces mediocre results. The Audacity of Hope should have been called the Audacity of Bullshit. I am trying to think if there is a single promise he has made that he hasn't already broken or botched. I can't think of anything. I could exhaust myself by going down the list, starting with giving immunity to telecommunications companies that assisted the Bush administration with illegal wiretaps, but then I would be too pissed off to think clearly. To make matters worse he was all buddy-buddy with Alvaro Uribe during his visit to the White House. Obama praised the Colombian president for his "human rights" record. This is the same president who has presided over the country the entire time that homeless people were being killed and disguised as rebels to facilitate the promotions of army officers. I guess Barack Obama is the mediocre president that mediocre Amerikkka deserves.
Amerikkka still excels at two things: greed and gluttony. Only in Amerikkka would a man have the greed-induced chutzpah to create a $50 billion pyramid scheme like Bernard Madoff. If he had shut down the operation after only a few hundred million dollars he probably would have gotten away with it. Joey Chestnut is a new Amerikkkan hero. He is the man who has now defeated the Michael Jordan of competitive eating three times a row at the annual Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. Before Chestnut came along, Takeru Kobayashi, the little Japanese guy, was dominating the world of competitive eating. As an aside I should mention that the video of Kobayashi going head-to-head with a giant Kodiac bear in a hot dog eating contest is hilarious. Despite the fact that Kobayashi has broken his own personal records in latest hot dog eating contests, Joey Chestnut has dominated him. In the last contest Chestnut consumed 68 hot dogs. U.S.A., U.S.A. We're number one!
The California budget crisis has brought out the anti-immigrant folks. Mirroring Proposition 187, these folks are trying to deny all state services to immigrants and their American born children. After hurling thinly veiled racist attacks on the "illiterate" hordes of Mexicans they then go around by interpreting the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in a manner that only displays their functional illiteracy. They actually believe that they can interpret, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." to mean, "No wetback children." I almost feel sorry for these folks since they are most definitely products of our mediocre educational system.
Amerikkka is a society in decay. I will probably come back for a little while to make some money and say my goodbyes but my long term plan is to get the fuck off of this sinking ship. In twenty years, the dollar won't be worth shit. We already spend more money paying the interest on our debt than even our military budget. When our debt is around $15 trillion-- it will reach that-- our foreign creditors will probably want a higher interest rate than what they are paid now. The current economic crisis is a direct result of Amerikkkan greed. I don't want to pay taxes or even spend money within the Amerikkkan economy any more. I am ready to opt out.