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Who is like
the Europeans? |
Who
would not be like the Americans? |
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To the Europeans,
living is an art. |
To the Americans, living has a
meaning. |
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You could say
that the Europeans celebrate life. |
Americans earn a living. That is
the meaning of life. |
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Europeans seldom
work. |
Americans know that working hard
is the answer. |
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They drink
wine all day until the sun goes down and then they drink coffee. |
They drink Buds out of the bottle and eat juicy hamburgers;
afterwards they get drunk and talk about their new SUVs. |
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Everything
that Europeans say is meaningful. |
Americans like to small talk. |
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They don’t
speak, preferring instead to mime, unless they are asked to
discourse on the nature of existence. |
They have big voices, and like
to speak their minds out. |
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Europeans begin
forming complex narratives about the nature of existence during
early childhood. |
Americans are either bullies or
bullied during childhood. |
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They eat melted
cheese with their bare hands. |
They eat fluorescent food from
7-Eleven. |
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They are all,
of course, atheists. |
Naturally, all of them live in
the fear of the gods. |
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Europeans practically
glow with good health. |
Americans show bright white teeth
thanks to milk and cookies. Some of them are fat, but it is
beyond their will. |
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They consume
rare steaks at noon and swallow whole wheels of triple-cream
cheese at the day’s end. |
They eat numerous hot dogs in New
York, or full cows in Texas. |
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They wash down
their meals with gallons of young wine and beer consumed directly
from the casks. |
Once I saw an American drink wine.
But he was from Europe. |
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They smoke
several packs of unfiltered cigarettes during every meal. |
Once I saw an American smoke. But
he was from New York City. |
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They smoke
as they chew their steak and the taste of the smoke mingles
with the steak and the wine. |
New York City is the only place
where Americans can pretend to be Europeans. Here they are
allowed to speak with an English accent—but only if
they are in a café, wearing a beret, and listening
sadly to existentialist poetry.
|
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For Europeans,
life is a celebration. |
For Americans, life does not come
cheap. |
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Europeans have
an intense connection with the land of their nascence. |
Americans have a "stars and
stripes" flag on their front porch. |
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They work the
earth and enjoy the fruits of the earth and make love to the
earth and make love to each other upon the earth. |
They have trouble making love and finding mates because they
work too much or do not know how to dress properly at weddings.
Most of the time they wear blue tuxedoes and people make fun
of them, except for the girl of their dreams. |
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They tend to
have enormous families even though they are cautious during
intercourse and take RU-486 immediately following every meal. |
They have enormous cars. Plenty of food in it. With hunting
and fishing gear and even a canoe. Oh yes, and a dog too.
Sometimes even a child. |
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European women
wash down whole bottles of RU-486 with young wine and carouse
in the streets in search of mimes and men with creative facial
hair. |
Blondes from America have sex with their high school’s
quarterback, later regret it, and end up marrying the nerd
with the golden personality and a huge earnings potential. |
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They dance
the night away in clubs that open at six in the morning and
don’t close until mid-afternoon. |
They party in frat houses and have
fake IDs to drink light beers straight from the keg. |
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For Europeans,
clubbing is a cultural event. |
For Americans, getting drunk is
one of the surest ways to get laid. |
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Europeans have
so much je ne sais quoi that they make screwing a mime
into a cultural event. |
Americans think Jerry Lewis is
so funny that they still use him as their primary cultural
export to France. |
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At autumn harvest
festivals, onlookers cheer as mimes writhe in silent ecstasy
while being devoured by existentialist sluts hopped up on
RU-486. |
Over the years, Americans have
started to think that Jerry Seinfeld is well-dressed. |
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Europeans invented
culture. |
Americans own culture through AOL-Time
Warner. |
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Europeans make
movies about things nobody else can understand. |
Americans make movies about things
anybody can understand. |
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Although they
invented every genre of music, they choose to listen exclusively
to eighties techno. |
Although they invented every genre of music, they choose
to listen to country music (for white Americans) or rap (for
African-Americans). |
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Europeans know
something nobody else knows. |
Americans do not have a clue. Yet
they find it sufficient. |
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Because they
are celebrators of life, Europeans have created complex ceremonies
for each of life’s milestones. |
Because life is hard, Americans have tough initiations into
adulthood. This is how it goes and you cannot escape unless
you are a wuss. |
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No such milestone
is as exalted as the famous "Coming of Age." When
young Europeans reach their thirteenth year, they are captured
on 35mm being seduced, toyed with, and eventually overcome
in love by a distant relative. Even in a rural village, a
European father will scrimp for years to pay production fees
and directors’ exorbitant salaries in order to capture
the tender moments when his teenage daughter is deflowered
in the bread closet by her cousin, Gaerta, then six months
pregnant. He will work closely with the art director and production
team to address such issues as the quality of light in the
bread closet: it must be vibrant yet subtle—intense
and confusing, as if reflected by a spoon. Gaerta’s
hands should appear strong, almost masculine as they make
their way darkly into the folds of the daughter’s austere,
black frock. |
Needless to say, America is a big
country, the biggest one in the world. So becoming an adult
has diverse paths and ceremonies. In Texas, receiving your
first gun means you are a man and can hunt for food or Mexicans.
But the most interesting way of leaving childhood is in the
suburbs. There, becoming a man means having sex. American
girls also want to have sex, but not that much—they
can wait until after the wedding. Or the end of a roadtrip,
losing their virginity to a handsome guitar player. Or during
prom night. And with pretty much anybody. Well, having sex
is not much of a problem for girls in the suburbs. |
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In a nearby
city, another young European is depicted in the urgent moments
of childhood’s end. Sasha hails from a wealthier, noble
family. His father, a successful vintner, has hired Jean-Jacques
Annaud himself to film Sasha lying nude on a divan, fashionably
glossed lips slightly parted as his robust Spanish aunt and
two swarthy male cousins look on in anticipation. Annaud is
a master of his craft. Sasha’s expression is breathlessly
androgynous and his skin appears taut and dewy, like a young
grape on the lee side of a hillock. Nothing happens during
the film yet everything is implied. Sasha’s father is
pleased. |
For guys it is a different story.
Girls all get laid during prom nights, but none of the boys
do. I am pretty sure American girls are importing European
boys for the occasion. American boys have to have sex with
an apple pie, because in the U.S. that is the closest to making
love (whereas Europeans prefer prostitutes). Anyway, they
are all pretty stupid, because they desire the cheerleaders
who do not care about boys who are not rich and playing football.
And they don’t see the foreign correspondent or the
not-too-good-looking-girl-who-is-a-model-with-some-make-up-on-and-a-new-hairdo
who are totally willing to give it up. What a waste of time. |
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Upon completion
of the film, the parents of a young debutante feast and revel
nightly and con mucho gusto as they await the final
step in the coming-of-age process: the screening of the film
in America (or, if the picture goes directly to video, which
is usually the case, the first rental). But over the years,
this final rite has become increasingly difficult to perform
on account of a saturated market. American consumers are saying
"Stop! We have a limited demand for this sort of product."
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Funnily, Europeans seem to never get enough of these soft
sex movies. At first, they make offensive remarks about American
culture, but after a while, they start enjoying it. Most of
the time, they watch movies from America in big empty theatres
where it is forbidden to eat popcorn or talk to your neighbors.
Then they try to do it as they see it done in the movies,
see that it doesn’t work, and then go to a Woody Allen
film to forget the pain. |
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The tragic
result of every unwatched coming-of-age movie is a European
youth doomed to remain thirteen years old indefinitely— |
Obviously, the Americans are young
forever. Later, they go to high-school reunions where nobody
has changed physically or mentally. And it all happens again.
|
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An apple
blossom paralyzed by a late frost
An origami crane crumpled in a child’s palm
A tiger that leaps as if to kill, but only leaps
as if
A dog that lifts his leg to pee and then decides
not to . . . |
Nobody likes us, they’re all jealous
They think we’re dumb, they don’t get
it
For in the world, there is only us
And if you’re them, you’re dead meat
. . .
|
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The parents
of these unfortunates are bound by tradition to feast and
revel every night, in some cases until their bloated, cirrhotic
demise. Their children are doomed to remain permanently thirteen,
permanently confused. |
Hence Americans never grow up. And when there is a war going
on, they have the experience of playing Cowboys and Indians.
Actually, one American is worth twenty warriors of any tribe.
Maybe fifty Englishmen, who are mostly gay. |
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Siblings of
these trapped souls are left to weather life’s trials
without the shelter that comes from numbers, like solitary
baobabs on the pampas. |
Most of the time, Americans like to gather in big malls and
eat ice cream while talking about sex. |
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For Europeans
unable to complete puberty, the situation is grave indeed. |
For the Americans who cannot get
laid, life is a bitch. |
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They need your
help. |
They need your help. |
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They must taste
the subtle wine of old age if they are to fully celebrate
life. |
They must taste the "whatever
this European stuff is called." Hey, let’s have
a trip to Europe, dude! And France too! I heard French chicks
are hot. No, dude, they’re lesbians. And they don’t
shave. Really, dude? Man, this sucks, we’re never gonna
score! OK, let’s go to Tijuana. |
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Help them celebrate. |
Send your donations. |
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How can they
continue to celebrate when they cannot drink the wine of old
age? |
How can they be cool if they do
not have sex before college? |
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They need to
drink that they might celebrate. |
It is either fake IDs or dating
older people. |
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The wine is
in your hands. |
Their virginity is too heavy a
burden for their shoulders. |
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The wine is
in your local video store. |
Their stories are all over the
video stores. |
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Give them the
wine. |
Send back Lafayette. And lots of
Moulin Rouge girls. |
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Rent their
movies. |
Stop reading. Books are bad. |
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Apply your
ears to their ecstatic cries. |
Why not rent the entire Carrot
Top collection? I have been told the Voice calls
it "an elegiac celebration of American youth in the dawn
of the 90s." |
