From a remote location high in the Missouri Appalachia's..............

Just when you thought it was safe to go on line...........I'm back bitches! So listen, I realize everyone assumed I would come out guns blazin on my first, post Independence, Mo. move, post. I'd be doing the obligatory "I'm living among hayseeds and meth zombies" wisecracks, mullet sitings, you know, my usual stuff. Well, if that's what you thought I was going to do, then you were as right as rain. In the immortal words of Gene Autry, "How is it you know me so well, when I hardly know me, myself ?" Now don't get me twisted, there are a few small pockets of civilization left in this fair burb, but by and large Independence Mo. is the Appalachias of the Metro area.

Here are but a few, not nearly brief enough, excerpts from my first week among the lil Abners and Trailer Park Barbies.......................

I made a little grocery run to the hyvee on Noland road about 7 last night, a Friday night. I wasn't aware that Friday nights were still Family grocery gettin excursions. Well in this neck of the woods, that tradition is alive and well. After experiencing first hand the lack of rudimentary social skills, like saying "excuse me", "sorry", and "go fuck your mother", I am convinced that a large portion of this ugly red headed step suburb, were raised by wolves. These douche nozzles will congregate a dozen deep, right smack in the middle of the isle. What looked like an entire extended family, mom, pop, kids, grandkids, even a 15-ish year old mother with a big headed baby on her hip, who was intently trying to nurse through the over sized t shirt mommy was wearing, were completely barricading the middle of the cereal isle, oblivious to their surroundings, and the people trying to pass. Should you be brave enough to offer up an "excuse me", so you may pass through the human knot of spiky mullets, sleeveless T's emblazoned with rebel flags, eagles, and wolf silhouettes, rotund women, sans bra, sporting muffin tops that would make Entenmann's proud, the uber inappropriate belly button ring peeking out of the folds of flesh, should you be so foooooolish, to say excuse me so you might pass, you will be met with a look that says, "huh?".

So I wound my way among the throngs of Hot pocket eaters, serial breeders, and camaro drivers, finished my list off, headed for the check out, in hopes of getting some distance between me and THEM. I hit the express lane, it was moving at a faster than expected clip, seeings how the girl at the register made Corky look like Einstein. There were 3 or 4 people ahead of me, the guy right in front of me had a big plastic jug O' hy-vee vodka, a 2 litre of hy-vee ,soda pop, and the biggest bag of Slim Jim's I've ever seen. He steps up to the counter, the girl starts ringing his stuff up, and then it happens; Eb wonders over to the floral dept, mid check out. He grabs a single long stemmed rose from the case then stands among the house plants just looking around. Maybe he was looking for some Baby breath or some special accoutrement to garnish his one rose with. Lurlean was gonna be one happy chica. I mean seriously, what woman in her right mind could resist a gallon of Vodka that was probably distilled in Wichita and a purty flower. After watching the flower buying mouth breather for a few minutes I went to a different register and beat feet up out of that shit hole.

Let me just state for the record that Noland road is the areas hotbed for low IQ scores, incompetent drivers, and car loads of white boys with ball caps cocked ace/deuce. That's sideways for you folks who don't speak the dialect of the north American Wanksta. (white gangsta). Honestly, I've never been able to figure out the appeal of Noland road. Why throngs of young white kids, in 1980's era mustangs, with Eminem blaring through tinny speakers and trunk rattling bass, flock to this road like herds of Wildebeests at a Serengeti watering hole, is beyond me. But flock they do, and loathe them I must. Show me a white kid in shorts that look more like high water big pants than actual shorts, a wife beater T, shrouding a chest so bony the sternum protrudes like a third tit, or large goiter, whose every sentence begins and ends with the word DAWG; and I'll show you the most convincing argument for late term abortion this side of four legs and a flipper.

I'll be honest with you, I was afraid moving to this quiet little tree lined street would take away my edge, quell my anger, and have me writing about cleaning gutters and the latest episode of Hells Kitchen. Well it hasn't, if anything it has sharpened my edge, pissed me off even more. I can leave this tidy row of clean little houses and in minutes I can be smack in the middle of a wasteland of human detritus. If this is the face of independence, and it is, please someone , cover it the fuck up already. The photo at the top of this post is but one small albeit blurry example of what I am talking about. The bus had just unloaded about 20 kids, early teens, dressed in military fatigues, in front of a pizza buffet joint. The woman with the 120 ml cig in her cake hole, wearing the ensemble that perfectly matches the bus, was apparently the chaperon. The kids were too young to be in the military so it was either ROTC or some kind of boot camp for juvenile delinquents. I prefer the latter choice, but either way, that fuzzy photo gives you a sense of what awaits me here in the fair enclave of Independence Missouri. It warms the cold dank recesses of my heart to know I will never lack for material.