When I was in college, I had an algebra tutor. Algebra was something I just couldn’t understand. I couldn’t figure out why 2 over 5 equals x over z or whatever the hell they try to do there. I mean, it seriously just didn’t compute in my brain, not in those days, and it wouldn’t in these days, either. I was, and remain, mathematically challenged.

So when I was in college I got this Chinese tutor, and she spent an hour with me going over and over the whole x over y = whatever thing. I was totally baffled but she kept on until, all of a sudden, I got it. A godly note from a Casio keyboard sounded (this being the eighties) and a pink light shined down on me. I really got it! For one second, because when the session with my tutor was over, I totally lost whatever I had, forever. Frustrated, I quit algebra and took statistics, which I would have failed except everyone else in the class failed worse than me so I got a B.

Anyway, I guess the point I am eventually going to try to make is there are some things I will never, ever understand, even if I try really hard and maybe even listen to people who seem to know what they are talking about. Such as:

That freaky red state/blue state county-by-county who-voted-for-who map of the USA. I keep staring at this thing and I must say, I am totally baffled. I won’t even go into how many red counties there are. The freaky thing is the whole composition if you look at it with a baffled mind. The patterns and non-patterns of blue; an oasis of blue in a trillion miles of red desert; large clumps of blue in weird places, like West Texas. What’s down there in West Texas that I don’t know about? Also, how come 90% of Washington D.C. voted for Kerry? Almost every county on the Mississippi River is blue, from the top of Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana, while everything around it is red. Isn’t that like, just a little weird?

I was shocked, and baffled, to find that I live in a red county. I guess I was living in a La La Land here in OB, which is as pretty far from red as one can go. If they showed OB as a county on this map, it would be blue, maybe in a sea of red, sort of like Louisville, Kentucky. But then lots of cities are tiny blue dots in seas of red. I guess I’m not so baffled about that one, but it is weird to see it so spelled out on a map.

I guess I don’t really understand the whole Democrat/Republican thing, either. Why should a person be one or the other, and why do these parties even exist? What purpose does it all serve? Also, do the people who label others, and themselves, even know what those labels mean? Maybe they are all like me, with the algebra. At least the Communist party in Italy has cool festivals with cheap wine, fried squid, and Beatles cover bands who sing in bad English; the D’s and R’s here – at least the serious ones, have pretty much forgotten a) how to have fun and b) how to get people to get into it on a regular basis.

But me being a Democrat (which I’m not, as I don’t really understand what the hell that means, it’s just the, uh, thing I’ve been labeled with and the road I’m forced to follow, since the Italian Communist Party doesn’t exist here) I do find some Republican behaviors even more baffling than my own. Such as:

Today, driving up to another Republican county, on a highway I travel often and with an assortment of people too usually the same (asshole, SUV driving, cell-phone talking, tailgating morons) I noticed an slight exception from the norm. A guy drove up right behind me, in a giant white pick-up truck, got right on my bumper, then made a quick lane change to the right and started on his whole weaving/riding the guy-in-front’s-bumper-then-brake/weaving some more/then exiting at the next exit procedure. He probably wouldn’t have been a blip on my radar since there are so many of them out there, had it not been for his two bumper stickers. One bumper sticker said one word: REPUBLICAN. The other said, REAL MEN LOVE JESUS.

OK. Excuse me, while I barf now. What the hell is going on here? I really don’t understand. For one thing, homie in his hot white truck looked about as far from a political guy as you can get; like Homer Simpson canvassing for the Green Party. Also, what is this shit about Jesus and men? Has homie ever really thought about the teachings of Jesus? Er, would Jesus exclude a fairly huge part of the world’s population from being Real Men just because they don’t believe in him? Wouldn’t Jesus be like, uh, dude, it takes a little more than that bumper sticker, believing wise? Also, would Jesus advocate that kind of driving? That kind of driving is not loving thy neighbor, that kind of driving is saying fuck you get off my road to thy neighbor. I wonder what kind of car Jesus would have? Probably a used Volvo, or a Vanagon. Probably an old Vanagon that only goes 50 miles an hour that asshole Republican truck drivers would harass! Now that is something I can understand! Hallefuckinglujah.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2004 at 9:39 pm and is filed under How do we all stay grounded when the world is spinning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.