Indivisible

First, old business: it was brought lovingly to my attention from the lumpen-prole shouting-class soundbox known as the comments section that I may have, perhaps, spent an entire blogpost, both repeatedly and consistently, misspelling one of the words that was central to the point I was trying to convey. Apparently "measles" is not also or alternately spelled "measels" and the red line that would appear every time I spelled it that way last week was NOT the Blogger infrastructural AI hurtling toward self-actualizing sentience, underlining the word for emphasis in approving recognition for the way I wielded it with rhetorical force, not unlike the way a giant might wield an uprooted redwood against his natural foe, the alien robot. Nope, turns out that was regular spellcheck. In my defense, I was making the natural connections in my head, thus: weasels, easels, morsels, measels. See? How could it be wrong? I was even using them as a mnemonic: the weasel on the easel eats morsels of measels.

That incontrovertible logic now established, I've decided to neither go back and edit them all to the "correct" spelling nor to apologize for the "error." Instead I will leave it as it is, as a tree-armed-giant-like blow against the alien-robot forces of conformity AND as a symbol of the twining beliefs and values that bind together the cobbled bits of truth that form the very core of my being, namely thoughtless contrarianism and physical laziness. Temet nosce, everyone.

See, that I spelled right...

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OK, I'm leaving.

Not right now. And not because of that bit of ridiculousness at the beginning. I mean in the next few days. On Saturday, in point of fact, if you're filling out your stalker itineraries. The kids (Mordechai, Chronos and Jakegyllenhaal) are all on spring break starting tomorrow afternoon, which means I've got an opportunity to travel a bit a) before everywhere in the whole world is melting from our Global Warming Summer or b) their mom steals their travel mojo by dragging them off somewhere first. It's not competitive with their mom as to where she takes them or whatever, not directly anyway. The only thing I'm trying to win is to make sure I'm first. Divorce can go a lot of ways for kids. For mine it's gone the direction of Doubled-Up First World Problems. When I've traveled with them in the summer before, I'd not only have to consider their mom's schedule, but I'd also end up taking them somewhere right after they'd gotten back from Hawaii or Yosemite or something with her. Kids who just got back from Yosemite DO NOT want to get back in a different car and go see the Grand Canyon the following week. What they really want to do is roll directly out of bed face-first into a laptop running everything on YouTube on a continuous loop. I could be the bad guy who kills that dream for them or I could stick it out and wait for school to start, so the state can be the bad guy again.

OR I could feverishly cram an entire vacation into a spring break. I'll have two teenagers here in about three weeks, so I figure it's only a matter of time before spring break becomes about roadtrips to the beach with their homies to Huntington or Venice or something to drink stolen beer out of a shared Big Gulp cup and look at girls they're too afraid to talk to. And unless you're Charlie Sheen's kid, who wants to do that with their dad?

Dissuaded by the threat of the Devil Snows from heading anywhere northerly out of spitting distance to the Horse Latitudes, we've decided instead to head south. Well, east technically, so not really south so much as South. I've decided that what we're going to do on this trip is fix America.

We're going to start in New Orleans and then drive across the Deep South en route to Atlanta. On the way, my plan is to stop in many small towns, sample their barbecue and then also heal all the rifts that currently politically, socially and culturally divide our country.

I see and hear what Southern people think about coastal types and northerners, with our gays and our marihuana cigarettes. They think we're trying to disassociate America from the values and ideals upon which it was founded: Jesus, guns and white presidents.

Before things get out of hand and the shooting starts, I've decided the best course of action would be to personally try to think globally and act... well, not locally, but intranational regionally. Mock my moxie if you want, but at least I'm doing something.

The people in the South don't need slogans cooked up by some Washington fat-cats to try to convince them that we're one people. I think what they need is someone to come down there, all on their own, with goodness in their heart, to look them in the eye and tell them that they're wrong. I'm obviously the most qualified. I've got an advanced degree from a university in a coastal state metropolitan area. Heck, my background is in history with an emphasis in Marxist thought. What more could these people and their Fox News brainwashing need than an education in the mind-clearing benefits of dialectical materialism as a epistemological regime? My biggest problem has always been I have too much hope. I believe in people too much. I just feel like Southerners, as a people, have gotten their poor, soft, undereducated heads turned around by the saturation of the talk-radio message that all they really neeed is for someone to sit in front of them, to speak really slowly in small words, and to explain to them all the ways in which their way of life and the values inculcated in them by their parents and grandparents are all value-less intellectual crutches leaned on by the simple.

I feel like once I lay it all out, they'll get it. They'll thank me. I'm not naive: I don't think I'll change the whole South's mind in one six-day trip. It's going to take some word of mouth and maybe a couple of follow-up texts to get these seeds I'm planting to grow into shoots. I'm hesitant to give a timeline, but let's just say keep an eye on how May Day goes over in Montgomery this year.

PS: So this means maybe no new post next week. That's why I decided to pack this one with two weeks' worth of quality. You are welcome.