Some people look at a flag swaying in the breeze at the White House and say "That's America." Whenever I see an American flag hung in a window of a basement apartment by guys who have better things to do with their money than buy curtains, I say "That's America to me."
In America, there are fifty-one states. Or maybe it's eighty by now. Does England count? I'm not quite sure. The one thing I am sure of is, if I'm standing in a warehouse beside a time clock and a guy is punching in his best friend, who's too hungover to get out of bed, I'm standing in America, the makeover capital of the world.
The place where every young man has to answer in his heart the question "What do you love more: your girlfriend or your car?" Where that young man can buy a beat-up car for three hundred dollars but have to spend a thousand to insure it.
The land where even a paper boy can option the film rights to a book. America.
In America, a woman on an assembly line works out her overtime to infinity. And, at the exact same moment, her husband gets into a car crash because he was looking at a girl in a tube top.
America, a land where spelling doesn't count, people's pets do!
Where else can a guy get a job riding a whale at Marine Land?
The land where a guy's girlfriend breaks up with him over the phone, so he takes a gun and kills the principal. Everyone's sad until they get the day off. Next week, another guy, another gal, another "we can still be friends" phone call. Whuh-oh. The assistant principal gets killed and everyone is sad because they don't get the day off, because he was only the assistant principal.
America, a land of opportunity. Yes, that great lumbering beast that journeys tirelessly and only stops to eat a clubhouse sandwich and pick its teeth with a matchbook cover and fall asleep with the TV on.