Things I like about America (abridged)
This land is my land.
What I like about America: an incomplete list
1.
I should disclose that I haven’t been to many places that aren’t America. But what’s nice about being from America is you’re never all that far from it.
For two weeks in 2014, I was in Istanbul walking more than I’d ever walked in my life. Each morning I’d go outside, fuel up with an unfamiliar candy bar and one of those pulpy yellow Fantas they sell in Europe, then walk towards whatever looked interesting while I listened to St. Vincent on headphones. It seemed like each neighborhood was devoted to a specific purpose — the clothing district, the restaurant area, the electronics section. I stumbled upon an entire city block of stores that just sold gear for construction workers, where I seriously entertained buying a traffic cone as a souvenir. I didn’t.
Late in the afternoon one day, I was overheated and exhausted and hungry. So so hungry. Before I could make a culturally conscientious decision on a traditional Turkish eatery, I turned a corner and came upon a beacon of my homeland: Little Caesars. Yes, the very same bottom-shelf pizza dispensary chain where, as a child, I would beg my parents for my own bag of Crazy Bread. On this summer day in Istanbul, I ordered iki bags of Crazy Bread. God bless America. For 6-7 minutes of doughy engorgement, I was home again.
2.
The 2005 Chicago White Sox won the World Series. They were an American team with a Cuban pitcher, a Japanese second baseman, and a Venezuelan manager. A Dominican shortstop made the final, championship-clinching out. All of these people came to America to play on the best team in the world.
3.
My best friend in fourth grade was named Roberto. Roberto and I got along because we both liked playing sports and being funny, which were really my only two prerequisites for friendship back then. (It’s up to four or five now.) Our senses of humor were very 9-year-old-boy-chic: lots of references to butts, farts, boobs, wieners, and playful expressions of over-the-top violence.
Once in a while I would sleep over at Roberto’s house and watch movies.1 I remember coming over one time and Roberto’s dad, who didn’t speak much English, was watching “Apollo 13” with surround sound speakers. I stood agape as a rocket launched on screen and, somehow, all around me.
Roberto’s mom ushered us away to watch different movies in a different room — the surround sound room was his dad’s private domain. Roberto’s family didn’t seem to have a ton of movies for kids. I recall watching “Broken Arrow,” “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story,” and “Se7en,” the latter of which was thoroughly confusing to me. By the end of the movie, when Brad Pitt was hysterically crying, “What’s in the box?! What’s in the box?!” over and over again, my little boy brain just kept thinking, “What is in that box? Why won’t they show us?”
I was raised on “The Mighty Ducks” and “The Sandlot.” Roberto’s American cinema upbringing involved gory murder mysteries and action thrillers starring John Travolta. But we had more in common than you might think.
4.
There’s an anecdote in “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin about how Abraham Lincoln, a country bumpkin lawyer from Illinois, goes to Ohio to help argue a case in federal court. I’m sketchy on the details, and I can’t look it up because I keep lending out my copy of the book. But what I recall is the two prominent lawyers who invited him basically snubbed him the entire time and treated him like an embarrassing backwoods cousin. But instead of being all put out about it, Lincoln effusively thanks the men for the opportunity, expressing gratitude for how much he learned from the experience.
It might sound weird, but reading “Team of Rivals” made me a better person. I really appreciate this reader’s perspective, which I feel compelled to share in its entirety:
I am an Indian and I didn't have any clue about how drastic was the civil war and how many lives were lost due to it. The book paints a very clear picture of it and it is a wonderful book.
But I am writing here not because of that, but how I fell in love with Abraham Lincoln, the one and only. I don't think I have ever felt this way after reading a book. Lincoln is what every human should try to become. When Stanton said, “Now he belongs to the ages,” tears were already rolling down and I still got goose bumps. I don't think its common to have such extremes of mixed emotions while reading a book.
In this day and age because of the media and these corrupt politicians, I had come to hate the term patriotism and the idea of it. But now I know what I understood to be patriotism is not patriotism. What Abraham Lincoln had was patriotism, and I love the author for writing such a detailed book which can easily be read by a common reader like me, who is not a history snub or anything.
5.
Crazy Bread, of course, is always a satisfying and comforting fallback, but there are more (dare I say) sophisticated options right on the street where I live. There’s the Indian restaurant with a secret sports bar in the back, or the Mexican restaurant with a secret sports bar in the back, or the Chinese restaurant with a secret normal bar in the back that has a TV that sometimes plays sports. The falafel place next door to the Thai place is great. The Thai place is good too. There are several pizza places within a Crazy Bread’s throw, and a few burger joints, too. There’s that fancy Italian place I’ve never been to because I don’t feel fancy enough, but it might be good. A kebab house just opened up nearby. An “Indo-fusion” restaurant has been threatening to open for like a year now, and I can’t wait to try it. On Sundays, there’s a pupusa stand at the farmers market.
There are also two McDonald’s and a Subway. But come on. It’s not Little Caesars.
6.
In my formative years, “The Simpsons” were broadcast three times per weekday on the local FOX affiliate station: 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. I almost never missed a timeslot, and that’s the reason I am who I am today.
When I studied abroad in the Netherlands, “The Simpsons” served as a cultural cipher. I didn’t know hardly anything about anyone’s country outside of the superficial stuff. They knew a lot about mine, though, and to no small degree it was thanks to the remarkable international saturation of Simpsons content.
My German friend Eva was particularly enamored with “The Simpsons.” She grew up in eastern Germany, born of Polish immigrants, and lived through that spectacular episode in American TV drama where actor Ronald Reagan, playing the role of a lifetime as “American President #40,” stood in Berlin and implored the leader of a crumbling superpower to ameliorate the city’s restrictive infrastructure. It sounds boring, but believe me, everyone was talking about it back in the day.
Eva told me she had an optical condition that made her see colors more vibrantly than most people, which must have converted the already-bright palettes of “The Simpsons” into a saccharine visual feast. She loved the episode where benevolent German businessmen buy Springfield’s nuclear power plant from Mr. Burns, the elderly, cold-hearted billionaire who literally controls the levers of power in Springfield. The Germans, who are kind but practical, decide to retain every employee at the power plant except for Homer Simpson, whose stunning incompetence is too much of a liability for a nuclear safety technician. But as the Germans get a closer look at their investment, they soon realize ineptitude and disregard for safety is rampant throughout the facility. In desperation, the German businessmen sell the power plant back to Mr. Burns for pennies on the dollar. Mr. Burns is perfectly content running the plant as an ineffectual death trap.
What Eva liked most about the episode was a fantasy scene where Homer daydreams about Germany being “the land of chocolate.” I wonder now if what amused her was the notion that this was how the average American imagined her home country: a chocolatey paradise where you could take a delicious bite out of anything. The Germany of Eva’s dreams could only exist in the American imagination. Maybe the same could be said for the America of my dreams.
7.
I haven’t been to many countries, but I’ve noticed one thing that’s different about America: It can be whatever you want it to be. This is its defining feature, its unifying principle. Nothing else keeps us together. Nothing else makes sense.
Americans ascribe America to a blurry reflection of themselves. It works best when we all let each other do it. It falls apart when we don’t. 249 years ago, a bunch of rich guys who didn’t want to pay taxes gave themselves the right to be themselves, and it worked so well that everyone wanted in. People left their countries to come here for it, and the people already here who didn’t have it fought hard to get it. It’s messy and incoherent, but goddamnit, it works. Put any American next to any other American, and by golly, I guarantee that American will be just as American as the other American, or any other American you can find. Americanness defies definition. Americanness is self-evident. An American is an American because they are here and they are themselves, and they would rather choke on Crazy Bread than let someone tell them to be someone else.
I could probably live in another country if I chose wisely. It might be kind of fun to try a new place and see what new dimensions of my personality unfold. But as long as I live in America, the one thing that truly makes me feel like an American is my humanity. I am nothing without relation to or responsibility for the people around me. There’s no other reason to exist.
8.
I just looked out my window, and a man walked by with a cat on his shoulder.
Click Roulette
The below links match one of the two descriptions provided for each. Click at your own peril!
CLICK HERE FOR LINK ONE. This is either:
An online store that only sells sweater vests for pandas.
Tim Robinson talking about his “spider league.”
CLICK HERE FOR LINK TWO. This is either:
A 16-month calendar featuring South Carolina’s sexiest trees.
Shohei Ohtani pouring cups of water for his teammates.
CLICK HERE FOR LINK THREE. This is either:
Grainy footage that shows a bigfoot-like creature ordering fries and a custard shake at a South Dakota Culver’s.
A Microwave oven on a dirt bike stealing a bag of chips from a guy who starts doing backflips.
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To the Juarez family: I am so sorry for falling asleep in that papasan chair and peeing my pants. I thought I just got really sweaty.
"fistpound-fire-USA" emoji over and over and over and over......