Slinking away, I stroll down Irony Row; a two-block stretch of Sunset Blvd. filled with boutiques peddling vintage 1970s lunch boxes, summer-camp T-shirts, and baby-doll dresses for grown women. So steeped are its denizens in the culture of irony that almost everyone thinks my shirt is a hilarious joke. As I browse through the Vice magazine store, a pair of girls giggles at me. One of them comments, "I've never seen that one before." A 40ish man dressed in cargo shorts, flamboyant sunglasses, and a Lance Armstrong bracelet sees my shirt and bursts out laughing. "Way to go, man!" he says, giving me a thumbs up. Then, as I walk into a wacky gift shop, I hear a shriek. The woman behind the counter throws up her hands in mock horror, "Oh no! Bush-Cheney! In Silverlake!" she cackles, feigning horror at my hilarious costume, as if humoring a child on Halloween.
On Vermont Avenue, irony fades into gentrification. A fashionably dressed woman seated at a sidewalk table makes a disgusted face at the sight of me. On line at Psychobabble coffee house, another woman in a blue velour tracksuit rolls her eyes and grimaces at me with undisguised hatred. Realizing there are no seats but the one next to me, she stares intently into her cup, avoiding my polluting glance, until another table opens and she quickly relocates. Out on the avenue once again, I am gifted with my second "Asshole" of the day, this time muttered by a young man with bright dyed raspberry hair.
The next day, I head to Brentwood, the lush epicenter of modern limousine liberalism and the hillside home of left-leaning Hollywood. This is where activists like Norman Lear and Laurie David live; a few months in residence here and Arianna Huffington dropped Newt Gingrich like a hot tamale to become a paragon of "progressive" politics.
I enter the faux-rustic Brentwood Country Mart, a collection of shops intended to look like an olde-time barnyard. On the central patio, I pass a woman who looks up from her gaggle of children to see me passing and exclaims, "Ick! God!" A group of teen skater boys waiting on line to buy the Mart's famed "Chicken Basket" discuss whether Bush will be removed from office by the time they turn 18, thus saving them from the draft. I sit down to eat. Dining nearby is a young girl who looks to be about 6 years old; she gazes at my shirt with a look so forlorn, I expect to learn that Dick Cheney just stole her crayons. Her mother arrives and gives her a hug of consolation. The girl starts to talk, but I can only make out "Bush shirt," which she says to her mother as she points my way. The mother turns and glares, shaking her head at me. I start to wonder what sort of person I am to inflict this on a poor child.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - bhw
My friend's father was threatened by a passerby in a car for putting a Kerry/Edwards sign on his own front lawn.
We can go back and forth with these stories all day. The political climate in this country is pretty wild right now, and you can't really assign the role of bad guy to just the Democrats, as much I know you'd like to. Assholes exist on both sides of the political spectrum.
2 - curt
bhw -
will rj be able to grasp such calm, rational common sense?
3 - Roscoe
OH GOODY Anecdotal testimony.
4 - Al Barger
Yes, lots and lots and lots of anecdotal testimony about the thuggish ill behavior in this election season, mostly by Democrats.
Of course, you get enough anecdotal evidence, and you start seeing significant recurring patterns and statistics and such.
5 - Winston Smith
How could this divisive atmosphere have come about?????
Let's ask Sean Hannity...he might know...
6 - andy marsh
RJ...I thought it was a great story...I smiled the whole time I was reading it!
I will share this with you. Last week, as I was leaving work, I noticed that I could not get in the drivers side door of my PICK-UP truck. The reason, a Lexus with a kerry/edwards sticker was a foot over the line into my parking space. I was kind enough to leave a note informing the driver that their parking skills were actually a little better than their skill at picking a presidential candidate! And how much I appreciated having to slide into my PICK UP truck in the rain from the wrong side.
I figured I'd share the fact that I drive a pick up...I like to think that I fit into that stereotype that I've been placed in since I started putting in my 2 cents.
7 - JR
No, we can't all just get along. The U.S. should just divide up into two independent nations. Why should either side have to compromise its values?
8 - Rodney Welch
Was the above supposed to be some kind of horror story? It's not. Anytime you wear a shirt or have a bumpersticker declaring some kind of political preference people who don't agree are going to take as at least some kind of an affront, aren't they? The best you can hope for is not to be physically assaulted, which he wasn't. And you can easily find as much on one side as the other; just wear a Kerry-Edwards shirt to a Chamber of Commerce function in Columbia, S.C. if you don't believe me. And look at Andy Marsh -- he responds to this story by stating how he went out of his way to offend a Kerry supporter. (Love the fact that he thinks he was being kind.)
9 - Mark Saleski
anecdotal testimony about the thuggish ill behavior in this election season, mostly by Democrats.
it's amazing how people can convince themselve of stuff like this.
people have showed up a bush rallies and been arrested for doing nothing other than wearing the wrong shirt.
heck, an elderly woman was carried off in her chair in new hampshire.
gee, i wonder if any of the gop organizations will hire people to jam dem get out the vote phone banks (like a couple of years ago).
10 - andy marsh
Actually Rodney, I was pointing out how "kind" the kerry/edwards supporter was to me for parking her lexus a foot over the line into the parking spot that I was already in and making it so I couldn't get into my vehicle.
The fact that this "person" who obviously can't park in a straight in parking lot, also can't figure out who should be running this country was very ironic to me.
11 - Shark
Nice bit of plagiarism disguised as an original essay, RJ.
And Big Al's "...lots of anecdotal testimony about the thuggish ill behavior in this election season, mostly by Democrats..." almost brought a tear to my eye.
PS: In comtemporary Amerika, "liberal" will soon replace "Jew!" And just wait until the GOP starts with the post-election "de-lousing centers" for the "intellectual elite."
Gotta run! I'm off to my mandatory "Creationism" class!
12 - andy marsh
de lousing centers sounds like a good idea...
As far as creationism being taught in schools...why shouldn't it be? it's a theory, just like Darwins THEORY of evolution...just a thought.
I was taught both, were you?
13 - Mark Saleski
theory: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
"just a theory", i love that one.
14 - Shark
re: Creationism Wish-Fantasy -vs- Darwin's Theory of Evolution
ANDY: "I was taught both, were you?"
I dropped out of Bible Study when I realized that no dinosaurs were mentioned.
15 - Mark Saleski
best snl weekend update joke in years:
This week, Georgia’s board of education approved a plan that allows teachers to keep using the word "Evolution" when teaching biology. Though, as a compromise, dinosaurs are now called "Jesus Horses."
16 - andy marsh
so shark...you spit on something you have no knowledge of?
I guess that's the difference in parochial schools and public schools...where I went to school we were taught both theories and actually encouraged to think!
Here's a couple more definitions of the word theory for you
Abstract reasoning; speculation
A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment.
An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
All of which fit both Darwin and creationism...because you weren't there and neither was Darwin.
17 - Mark Saleski
and by the way, i was taught creationism in school. catholic school.
but the same nun who tought this stuff to me also showed us a little plastic container which supposedly contained a sliver of jesus' cross.
the first seed of doubt was planted in my third grade mind.
18 - JR
andy marsh: I was taught both, were you?
Why stop at Creationism? If you're so open minded, why not learn every crackpot superstition ever dreamed up by ignorant savages?
19 - Shark
ANDY: "...so shark...you spit on something you have no knowledge of?"
Andy, I have more knowledge in my big toe than you've exhibited in a month of mindless posts on Blogcritics.
20 - Mark Saleski
i have no problem with creationism being taught in school....if it's part of a comparative religious studies course, christianity, islam, hinduism, buddhism, paganism.
all by itself? not with my money.
21 - andy marsh
I haven't been here for a month!
22 - Distorted Angel
Andy, I'm pretty sure that Christians don't consider creationism to be a theory.
23 - Shark
Andy: "I haven't been here for a month!"
My apologies. Time crawls when you're doing the typing.
24 - Rodney Welch
Andy -- There's no irony. Obviously, the person who can't park straight does know who to vote for; if she has a bumpersticker, apparently she isn't confused about the matter.
And Mark makes an EXCELLENT point about Bush rallies. If Al Barger wants to take his right-leaning blinders off, he'll see that those Bush people don't mess around when it comes to bitch-slapping the loyal opposition at every opportunity. "Mostly by Democrats" my ass.
25 - bhw
This thread is a scream. I'm crying over here.