A Memo Concerning: Why it is hard to be True in the year 2008.

Perhaps I am the sound that you hear in your head right after you do something you know is wrong. And if I was, I don’t think I would say something as foolish as “Stop.” We stumble, roll, then fall and when we get back up again nothing can ever be the same. I fuck up more often than fuck could ever be up. It’s called gravity bitches and there is nothing worse than giving a warning after the danger has already arrived. That is why we have A Memo Concerning: Why it is hard to be true in the year 2008.

I’m not being an asshole when I say that my generation will go down in history as the best thing that has ever happened to this world. I’m talking about my beautiful babies born seven years before and after the year 1983. Why seven years? Because it is the perfect number you Godless aliens. Maybe I’m being naïve, maybe it’s just a hangover from watching the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, but I still believe the difficulties my babies and I face are more badass than those of “The Greatest Generation.” Maybe it is because Tom Brokaw still eats his own boogers when he’s positive that nobody is looking. Maybe it is because hindsight is for television and foresight is for print. Maybe it is because I see pictures of my grandparents and the sense of pride in their smiles that rests in the idea that no matter what their challenges were they were leaving their children with something grand and beautiful. I don’t know, maybe it’s all of these things. Maybe it’s because when I look at people my parent’s age, the booming ass babies, the ones who handed me a world, they look back at me like a jackass who tries to pass a bounced check.

Please allow me to introduce myself, I have taste and crave wealth. I have a sense of entitlement based on years of US History taught to me by underpaid teachers one parent conference away from a mid-life crisis/high stage flip out/buying a Miata. I don’t know a President not named Bush or Clinton. Reagan is a re-election commercial for me. I understand that under the scope of history my family, and by family I mean country, has less than 100 years of kickassitude. We were born by the acts of bold men and women who loved wealth enough to shitstomp the world’s most powerful nation with slingshots and pea shooters. I understand that our only success is because nobody with real balls has tried to legitimately fuck with us. Japan thought they were ruled by the sun, radical Islam lives in caves, everyone else loves Coca-Cola and Tobacco. I can see the view from Ellis Island to Manhattan every time I see a girl I’m attracted to. It’s called opportunity, either that or clear skin and eyes that could light up the bottom of the sea.

It’s really simple my beautiful babies, if you aren’t stoked about America, what it means, what it could do, and where we can take it, FUCK YOU, you don’t deserve the birth certificate that makes you a citizen. Several million illegal immigrants think you are a brat. We are all the descendents of amazing people who dreamed big, acted bold, and dared to be progressive. Act on your birthright bros. How is it that we are brought to our knees by one region of the world that 75 years ago commuted by camel & horse and another that got it’s shit dominated by a country smaller than the state of California? (Sidenote: is there a bigger two pump chump than Japan? How embarrassing…) And here we are now as one region buys our debt and builds shitty, unbelievably ugly resorts and skyscrapers in what used to be, and should be, the anus of the world. The other? They make pacifiers made out of lead and throw elaborate opening ceremonies for the Olympics that cost enough to feed the entire continent of Africa for 100 years.

**For those of you not on the level, I’m talking about the Middle East and China. Don’t worry, it’s cool, I understand ignorance is a disability**

Am I mad? Of course. This is not what my Dad thought he would give me when he decided he should raise his family in America as opposed to Mexico, then worked his ass into a state of legitimate mental collapse in order to make it happen. This is not what the McNicoll family thought they would give me when they left the bullshit in Scottland for the idea of America. This isn’t why my great grandmother walked across the United States of America, feet bleeding, stomach empty, hoping to make the most of the dream of the West. This is not why George Rosado sacrificed his life while instructing pilots during the Second World War. There has been too much sacrificed before us to allow for our dominance to expire because of gasoline and neo-communism (AKA the re-emergence of monarchy).
I’m sorry, I’m still really distraught that Anheuser-Busch is owned by an Old-World company. By “sorry” I mean I’m not at all. I’m more stoked to be in a position to be able to say “Hello world, much like Wu-Tang, the USA aint nothing to fuck with. We are gonna Michael Phelps that ass."

My beautiful babies, I'm 25 years old and not even close to having kids, but these days I’m already worried about them. What country do I want to give them? What challenges do I want them to have? What will they need? Every day I see children who are born in a post-9/11 world. Their entire lives have been housing crisis, janky gas prices, the seed of Billy Ray Cyrus, and war. They might as well have hoped to be the sperm that missed the ovary rather than have to wake up into a life like that. But here we are. Can I give them the pride I have, or will we crumble under this shitty challenge that my generation now inherits? If we want change we do not do it for ourselves, we do it for our children. If we want change we can either make it happen or fumble the dreams that our ancestors cried for. When we look at the young there is a heavy weight my friends. They can either love us for our actions, or curse our names for leaving them with our mess.

Lets do this.