The American Largesse

I have often considered writing an article on America or for that matter Americans but I never really know were to start. I am though going to try; the scale of the task that I have set before me is immense. 100 articles will not cover the smallest state nor would a thousand anecdotes on American eating habits even start to ease the appetite! I must though begin somewhere as over the years I have worked with Americans, I have been employed by American companies, I have visited the Good Ol USA many times and I have friends who live there and who for that matter are 100% thoroughbred American - so much to write about yet the words always refuse to flow!

To look at the bigger picture before getting down to the Imperial brass tacks; the whole world suffers massive American dominance or influence (apart from the Australians who tend to live under their very own dominating influence) in one form or another! Take any old dictator for example say Fidel Castro a guy who has defied a series of elected presidents and whose whole life has been spent on keeping the door closed – I bet not a day goes by when he doesn't think about the big bad guy across the water. Asia suffers from endless Dollar mismanagement, the whole world from Coca Cola, McDonald's and Ford Cars, Africa from do-gooders and dollar diplomacy and Europe from “we rescued you in the second world war” reminders when the continental eyes start to shift sideways.

America is everywhere, they are big and they make sure that all the little men know it.

America is big. Let us not doubt that! The country is in fact massive and in more ways than one! The Americans themselves are also very big! I mean, there are of course some small ones, some middle sized ones, even some dwarfs and things like that, just like in any other country but then there are also some humongous humans that defy gravity and who tend not to use public transport from pure logistical reasoning! Transiting Newark Airport and with time on my hands I prepared to get something to eat but was rather put out to find nothing small enough to nibble on! The steaks that blocked my view must have taken a cow each to produce, the burgers three of them and a few other animals for padding! Even the salads were large enough as to be extremely unhealthy, I would have required the whole bottle of salad dressing to cover the genetically modified lettuce alone! I could have drowned in the smallest coke on offer!

America tends to have more than its fair share of extremely unhealthy humans (who move their rolls of blubber around with pride) but like everything American they carry this stigma without worry, without criticism and for the most part they either believe that they are fat because they want to be or because of some illness (imagined or inherited blame) that the doctors can’t get to the bottom of (mostly because the fat is in the way – ha)!

Americans think big, live big and act big!

I often wonder why the average American has a big mouth! I once, in a moment of insanity, travelled across America with nothing more than my little body and a change of underpants! I walked here, caught a bus there! I stopped for a bite of a steak here and a chip or two there; a half a glass of Mexican beer when I could find one or a cup of coffee when I couldn't. And during my six week test of strength, I learnt allot about the American way of life! I learnt all about Sam Rogers mother, how she suffers from gout and can't get up the stairs like she used to and I found out that Sam fitted those stairs himself without any help whatsoever – especially not from evil brother John! I heard endless grumbles of life from New York to San Francisco, I heard tales of incest in the Grand Canyon and of affairs on Boulder Dam and I learnt loosely that heroin should be legalised, that Samantha has a real alien from outer space living in her shack and that bigger tits bought marriage knocking at the door (a guy told me that)!

It wasn't till I got to Miami that I realised that I hadn't opened my mouth the whole time. I knew all about America but America knew absolutely nothing about me.

I wonder sometimes if this largeness is taught at schools. Do American kids get tested at the age of five on how to talk the loudest and the longest? Do the shy and reserved - those poor kids who like to listen - do they get beaten with a large stick till they break? “Say it till you believe it you sniveling piece of scum. I am big, I am huge and I am going to get bigger. Here stick this triple portion of ribs and this acre of chips in your mouth to help out and then tell me all about yourself without ever once listening to what I say!”

Miami? Wow, that’s a weird place! It’s all about big tits, bums, flash cars and roller blades and very white teeth!

I can’t drink American Beer! It takes like ‘piss’ and is far too sweet!

Everything in America is big! Take the quantity of illegal immigrants for example! This stretches into the millions, the ones they know about and then even more millions for the other ones that they don't know about! And then the poverty! Wow man, I've seen more upmarket Townships in South Africa! Big Cars! Big gas-guzzling pick-ups, big seats for big bums and big exhausts to cope with the big and dark-tinted attitudes!

And the crime man! Is any street safe to walk on?

Who spits out the most pollution in the world? America of course! America is extremely big on inspecting foreign ships when they enter American waters! They stop the ship during entry, they send inspectors and surveyors onboard to look for the slightest of transgressions and they ask interrogating questions that would put even the cleverest of defence lawyers on the immediate defence! Fines will be imposed, refusal of entry slapped on and resulting records will be publicly displayed if certain equipment does not work, if garbage management records are remiss for a certain plastic bag and if a drop of oil has not been accounted for! Yet should anyone look over the side of the ship swirls of black oil leave tidemarks on the hull, plastic bin-liners, bed-stead’s, coke tins and ford cars rust on the sea bed and big Americas complete disregard for their own environment is visible for all to see. This is simply another statement to the rest of the world of “one rule for us and another rule for you”.

Well America! You can have your pollution! You can have your massive cars and large dinners and you can have those endless dollars that control way too much!

Me? I'm off to wipe America from my mind! Admittedly tis hard to do when I am using my HP laptop with Microsoft windows, when I am in a room at a Hilton Hotel and with CNN mindlessly beating away on the television behind me! I have after all just recently consumed a Big Mac and an extra large coke, flown with Continental Airlines whose stewardesses had me fuming before the plane had even taken off the ground and I have been accosted by an American immigration official who seemingly spoke not one word of English – he must have been an illegal immigrant I suppose!

Maybe this article is simply my last splurge, my last outburst, before I become too big for my boots, like all that surrounds me here in New Orleans!