America – From the Inside Out
An Advanced Field Study
Leave it to the European fuckheads to tell America the truth about itself. The “truth” is comprised of both the cold hard naked facts of everyday life - the same facts that you have been taking for granted for so long that they have become invisible to you - and the myths and urban legends that surround your nation as seen from the outside.
American Mom = Milf
German Mom
= Over the Hilf
Not interesting in Europe, or in New York.
American child in the year 2045.
You get a lot of attention in the US. Everybody wants to know what's going on in your life.
Not an April's Fool joke. They really eat this shit.
On everything.
"Abandon all cheese, ye who enter here!"
A Strip Mall.
Not as exciting as it sounds. We have yet to get a blowjob in this parking lot.
What passes for bread in America. Strecthes into shape and goes stale in 2 minutes. Eat with haste!
Sorry. Not pizza.
Cheese pie with pepperoni - Yes.
Pizza - No.
If Italy was dead Europe would have an Richter 9 from the massive grave rolls.
All American Girl.
This one sucks worse than Bigfoot.
Coffee is not supposed to come with mousse and a straw.
Fills your bladder, not your soul. This is what they serve at AA meetings in Europe.
Too complicated.
American Movie Queen
Swedish Movie
Queen
If you yell it loud enough maybe you can trick yourself into some sense of false reality. Freedom, my ass.
Fear the profanity!
Can you find your state?
Who is this guy to say shit about anything? Fucking French bastard candy ass motherfuckers.
America:
Idiot Proof (uh-huh)
Child Safe (yeah, right)
No sugar added (HA!)
May cause warfare
Happy Grace
Drive-thru Parks:
The only way an American would ever venture into nature.
Traffic Jams: A social event in America.
You don’t have to live in your goddamn car. You don’t have to go to the drive-thru bank, the drive-thru post office and then the drive-thru McDonald’s. No shit, I hear they don’t even leave their cars to shoot people anymore. There is a reason European cars didn’t sell as well in the US, and it took ages before the makers figured out why; no cup holders. An American car is built around the cup holder like it was a shrine in the middle of the car. In European cars it’s some frail thing you fold out from underneath the glove box at best. After all… Who eats and drinks while driving? Wanna see Bubba the Redneck or Mike the Lawyer, freak? Put him hungry in a Saab on a Swedish highway and tell him to go from A to B without passing Go. He’ll have an aneurysm as he tries to call in an order to the local McDonald’s and have them walk it out to his car in the lot (they would hang up on him), or just scold his balls raw when the coffee cup balanced between his legs tip over on the single-lane narrow roads (and I thought that was the epitome of Fahrvergnügen).
In America, life is a drive-thru experience. If it doesn’t come out of a window, it must be some goddamn communist invention. Even though one famous American already impressively proved to the world that Windows = bad.
Get out and stretch those legs, America. Smell the coffee. Oh, that’s right. You can’t.
Or they’re just too stupid to say “fuck it” and stop worrying about getting anything done. I laid down to die when I was 18, figuring life was over anyway. Okay, whether that’s really the European way is debatable but (more, much more than this…) it’s my way.
You know these people are all hating the shit out of us now, right? They are getting ready for their “Yeah, motherfuckers, but you would all be speaking German if it wasn’t for us” rant. Oops, Seb, too late for you, kid. Not too late for the rest of the world, though. Just wait until they legalize “Mein Kampf” again. Just kidding. Of course. I mean, really.
So, in closing, to serve as the global educators we after all are – me and Seb, if there is just ONE thing we would like to teach America, it is this:
Get out of your cars and fucking walk.
Americans in general have an amazing appetite for life. I have come to admire this the most. That is why I would never take my family and move back to Europe. In Sweden you kinda lay down and die after 30, figuring life is over anyway. What’s left? Old age and processed food at the nursing home? Americans take charge of their lives and make sure to put silver linings on those clouds as they roll in, as clouds always do. Each age has its charm here, and most people around the world could learn a great deal about heart and soul from the American people. (Your happy nature really disgusts me at times. - Thanks, I get that a lot – but you have to understand that as long as you put some sweet icing on, Americans will swallow any shit you serve them.)
To me, the bottom line is that Americans like to play it somewhat safe. They may act like they don’t, but they do. The politics are safe. The food is safe. The TV is safe. The goddamn political correctness has put its stamp on everything and everybody. Even though most people bitch and moan about it, you have to ask yourself if it’s not in some way an extension of the American psyche after all? Why else would there be a need to censor uncomfortable things and file down sharp edges unless there is an actual subconscious desire from the public to do so? Supply and demand, the American Way. That’s the way it goes. Ask, and you shall receive.
Then we have the paradox. No matter how “safe” and “ignorant” Americans live their lives, the American way is still ten times better than most other ways in this fucked up world. Not counting the Milky Way, of course. Americans are way more enterprising than any European would ever be on his most active day. You could be crass and say that Americans are good at enterprising because they like money, but that is not true. It is the joy of building things, making them bigger and better, that drives them. The money is nice, and of course rocks, as a bonus.
Basically, any typical jokes made about Arkansas farmers fit the image of the typical American in a lot of European heads. Most people in Europe has turned into little Michael Moores lately. True… Self-righteous bastards, pointing fingers at other countries, while sticking their fucking heads in the sand about anything going on in their own backyards. As many people see it nowadays, Americans start their lives as little brats who learn how to shoot guns from their hillbilly dads, become stupid jocks with a D average, go to a nice college on a scholarship and eventually all turn into fascistic warmongers. And people know all this without ever actually having been there. Stereotypes. Therefore I can somehow understand why many Americans never leave their country. Europeans are judgmental pricks. Luckily, you and I don’t suffer from that and can offer some balanced debate. But there is more to the world than just that, America, and I recommend everybody, in all countries, to check out the whole damn buffet before stuffing themselves with those greasy chicken wings they’re familiar with right away.
Okay, nobody’s without prejudice, especially when it comes to other nations. So I will try to give you some kind of an understanding of how a stereotypical European sees a stereotypical American.
One of the most common arguments among wannabe-antiglobalists: “Americans are uneducated”. I’m not sure where that’s coming from. It probably has something to do with many Americans paying less attention to events taking place outside their country’s frontiers than over here. Yes, I would say “ignorant” rather than “uneducated”. Then again, the horrors I witness in my kid’s grammar school makes me wonder. Of course, it’s funny to anyone from Europe when they hear questions like, “Is there a lot of tension on the Chinese-French border?” or “Is Hitler still president?” (which were actual questions from a survey among young American students published in a newspaper some years ago). On the other hand, I don’t know anyone here who could explain to me where exactly Minnesota is (neither could most Americans). Especially those who always scoff at the stupid Americans. You also get “Americans are nationalists” a lot. There aren’t many countries with such proud habitants. So what? I personally think patriotism is complete bullshit but to each their own. And it’s completely retarded coming from people in France or Italy who can easily keep up with Americans in terms of patriotism.
I know. In Europe cursing is a fucking art form and you will hear it on a news broadcast or read it in a newspaper headline, as well as experience it face on, being delivered from a stage at the Royal Theater. The proper use of curses enhance all our languages. In Spain you don’t get your citizenship approved if you can’t curse foulmouthedly enough to make seven Croatian sailors blush simultaneously. It’s all the hypocritical American politicians’ fault. Do as they say, not as they do, or say, or what they don’t do. Either way. Just smile a lot, don’t inhale, wave to the camera, say absolutely nothing and clamp down on anything that even resembles true freedom. All in the name of the holy constitution. You don’t see shit like Parental Advisory labels, edited versions of CDs or the PMRC in Europe.
Yeah, America is all about freedom. Excuse me while I go searching for my ass that just fell off laughing. (HAHAHAHA! You’re so fucking German! "My ass fell off laughing". Dumbass perhaps? - Grace changed that around by himself to make me look confused, I swear! Wait, was that a compliment? You could have just said “you’re so fucking foreign”… okay, now I am indeed confused.) Just because you can yell “freedom” louder than anyone else doesn’t necessarily mean you’re freer than anybody else. And even if you think censorship sucks you can’t even properly express your anger about it since cussing is like a fucking crime. Calling one of the most commonly used words there “the F-word” could very well be the gayest idea I ever heard.
At least the chicks are hot in American movies. European movies are always either too artsy fartsy or way too realistic. If I wanted to see ugly chicks I would just watch a Swedish soap opera, complete with suburban housewife misery and suicidal teenage angst.
Don’t get me started on the German, French, or even worse, Arabic ones. Like soap operas are watchable anywhere anyway. Just watch Dynasty for ten seconds and you’ll realize they were a bad example. Linda Evans was a whore in bed. I know she was. Was that the one who always had problems and cried a lot? Wait…
Another thing: what are those insane TV censorship rules all about? Who the fuck came up with the brilliant concept that violence is okay, but a pair of tits is not? There’s soft porn on pretty much all European TV channels every night (and hardcore porn in the middle of the night on cable –cumshots and everything).
Seriously, is there some kind of patent for making instant movies in Hollywood? If a movie diverges slightly from a certain formula it’s probably considered an art movie or shit like that. But instead of just submitting the American audience to the occasional oh so artsy foreign movie, they rather just re-shoot the whole fucking film with Tom Selleck instead while conforming it to the familiar Hollywood standard.
I don’t think it’s necessarily an “artsy issue” as much as it is a reading comprehension issue. The best example was when they voiced over “Trainspotting” with American actors doing fake Scottish accents because nobody understood the original accents and were too dumb to read the subtitles.
Why does every director use the same fucking clichés over and over again? Lone fighter saves the country/planet and gets the hot chick in the end. Or it’s: lone wolf meets his first love who ran off with some rich guy and who he could never forget. Somehow he still gets the hot chick in the end. And that wouldn’t even be so bad. I like hot chicks as much as the next guy, if you at least got to actually see something of the hot chick. But no such luck.
Fuck coffee. What’s up with the beer? It happens to be the weakest, sweetest piss on the planet. I’m still trying to understand how they can live in happiness drinking beer that tastes the same, no matter if you opened it a minute or a week ago. I would still drink stale beer for the alcohol, but I’m not even sure American beers contain any. Even the French know better and everyone knows they’re just a bunch of fruity winos.
Monty Python said it best: What’s the same about American beer and making love in a canoe? Anybody? It’s fucking close to water.
Ironically, they don’t even allow you to drink that sweat until you’re almost too old to have any fun with it. But, of course, a guy who’s driving to cast his vote for the leadership of the country with his shotgun laying on the passenger seat can’t handle a beer once in a while… it’s the child that has to be protected after all. Makes perfect sense.
Now, a couple of words on American movies.
Not that I care so much about that, but yeah, I have to admit I had some great food there as well. What bothers me about all restaurants there, however, is that you can’t seem to go eat anywhere after 9PM. People rarely go out before that over here. I realize it’s a young country and all, but is there ever really a reason to go to bed at 10PM?
And coffee… I don’t get the coffee over here either. Americans seem to sometimes have a need to balance their extrovert toughness with an introvert faggy need for lame flavors. The coffee here is just black (if you’re lucky) water with no texture, depth or character. You pay $7 for a cup of bold Columbia coffee at Starbucks and still end up with a cup of brown piss. You have to stand in front of a mirror to drink it to actually convince yourself you’re in fact swallowing it. Most Americans get the Caramel Deluxe Mocchiato with Double Whipped Cream and Walnut Syrup anyway. I doubt they even put the damn coffee in those, period.
Veto! Those pizza creations are a fucking travesty. I could do without those potato pizzas with bologna, bananas, spaghetti and pudding on top. I like my pizza the way it’s made in Italy. I also like it less than three inches thick and I want it coming out of an oven on a big ass spatula instead of out of a pan. Calling Pizza Hut a pizzeria is like calling Paris Hilton an actress.
Who the fuck is calling Pizza Hut “pizza”, except Pizza Hut? It’s a fucking abomination. The Abominable Snow Monster is a way better actor than Paris Hilton, by the way, and probably gives better blowjobs as well.
So other than these little things America is a kick ass country if you like food. Because of all its many totally integrated cultures, the best international kitchens of the world have come together and created the ultimate smorgasbord of excellence in foods. I could die happy here, just eating. Except cheese. I still don’t get that. Or bread…
Amen. Here you have to go to a specialized bakery and buy a $5 tomato basil loaf that you could find at 7-11 for $.50 in any European country. They like their bread the way the ducks in the pond like it; fluffy, light and easily dunked. I agree with you, Fritz. Americans should grow some teeth. You know what’s sad, Yngwie? They’re probably making up even more unfunny jokes about English people’s teeth as we speak, and it’s all our fault.
And for a country with such a proud Italian heritage they have as much imagination when making pizza as the local gas station has in presenting its different grades. You always end up with a damn Pepperoni Mushroom no matter how you cut it. There is a world outside the four ingredients your local pizza place offers. Put spinach, chicken and feta cheese on it. Put steak and fresh tomatoes on. Substitute the mozzarella for provolone. Take some goddamn chances already. If I never see another pizza in America again, it will still be too soon.
Another thing that I just don’t get is American bread. Join the club. All you get is some white wishy-washy substance someone forgot to actually put into a toaster for half an hour. And no, that stuff around a Whopper doesn’t qualify as bread either. There’s a reason why we’re born with teeth, you know. Over here we expect the bread to be harder than the stuff on top when eating a sandwich. And not hard as in stale either. (A side note… It’s funny you say “on top”, because in America a sandwich is always bread on top AND bottom with the good stuff in between. In Sweden you get sandwiches with one slice of bread and everything on top of it - yeah, you need a knife and fork sometimes. Having paid my dues working in a NY deli, I have come to appreciate the American sandwich model more than the European one.) Yeah, but you still need good bread.
And these fast food joints can be found right next to the strip malls. A strip mall is a one storey affair with: a nail salon, a Chinese hole in the wall, a cell phone store, a check cashing place/pawn shop and a gift shop with little crystalline figures and funny postcards not even old ladies wet their pants over. If you have seen one American suburb, you have literally seen them all.
Anyway, just like with the fast food “restaurants”, we had to copy that too, of course. That’s what we’ve become pretty good at, and we seem to have a special talent to only pick the shittiest stuff out of anything we see America come up with. Tell me about it. In Sweden we're celebrating Halloween and shit. I am just waiting for July 4th to be declared a Swedish National Holiday as well. We're sad copy cats. McDonald’s (which I found out was pronounced MickDonald’s when I moved over here – I am still in shock) and Burger King all over the place is bad enough, but what’s up with Dunkin Donuts? When I first tried that shit I was actually looking around left and right in search of a hidden camera and some smirking show host telling me I was on TV. That shit is so sweet I get sick even thinking about it. And besides exotic fruit, food should not come in sexy font colors like pink. I used to think muffins were bad, and actually I was right, but those donuts take the cake. Even most ice cream I’ve had over there sucked.
You people would either have a massive stroke or a fucking orgasm if you ever tasted a REAL piece of cheddar or gouda. Real cheddar is supposed to age for years and years and be so sharp it gets absorbed into your body through the roof of your mouth before you even have chance to swallow. And cheese is mostly ROUND! Because it is traditionally hand MADE that way! Not paste pressed into square molds! What the hell is the matter with you? For a people who EXCEL in food and hands down have the best assortment in the world of tastiness, you fucking SUCK at cheese. What are you so afraid of? People in Rwanda have better cheese than the square Cracker Barrel shit you buy. Damn.
Well, either that’s what it’s like in Sweden, or my colleague here just sits too far up his high horse and it starts to affect his perception, because we indeed also have that disgusting cheese he described above. Well, Germans are fuckheads too. The difference is that we know it fucking sucks and have the actual choice to buy real cheese instead. I’d still really like to know what the idea behind those wrapped slices is. Is it to generate some kind of excitement, reminding you of tearing the wrapping off presents on Christmas?
I moved to the US four years ago. There are a couple of things that people at home (or “back over there” these days, since I don’t speak Swedish anymore) do NOT believe about America when you try to describe to them.
“Mom. You know that paste they put on Big Macs? The stuff that passes for cheese? Yeah, the yellow stuff. Well, here it comes wrapped in square slices, individually wrapped. No. No, I ain’t shitting you, mom. Little plastic wrappings for each slice. No… You don’t really buy a big chunk of cheese here. No. You buy a little monolith shaped package with any cheese molded into shape. Cheddar, Swiss, Mozzarella… Yeah. Molded. But see, Mom, here’s the kicker. It all still tastes like that paste they put on the Big Macs. No, none of the natives have caught on yet. No, you can’t send me cheese, Mom. It would expire in Customs.”
Politics? Captain America or Dirty Copper? It has been beaten to death and you will never learn, so what’s the point in arguing?
Sports? Niggah, puhlease! American ADD sports are as exciting as a game of chess. Make one move and then take a five minute break.
You guys know you’re all fat so I am not even going to cover that. What would be the point? You will still send your kids to school with a sweet snack that the poor child needs as much as China needs more Chinese people. You all eat like somebody is gonna steal the food out of your fridge tomorrow and feed it to the drooling homeless guy outside your window. Really, people. That Diet Pepsi with the Super Size meal won’t make you thin, but its healthy amount of carbon oxide will transport that million of calories from the Fat Burger out into your system faster than you can say “heart attack”.
But, speaking of food…
But, as Grace said, there are many hot chicks so even grumpy social mavericks like me can deal with being approached a little more often.
There are a lot of obvious things to point out, and others not so obvious…
The thing I first noticed when I visited America is the people’s attitude towards strangers on the street. Aside from regions like southern Spain, where everyone’s lying around on the beach drunk by 10AM, most Europeans are totally indifferent about the people around them. You don’t greet passers-by if you don’t know them. It’s even considered rude if you do and it’s often perceived as an invasion of one’s privacy. You don’t smile while walking down the street and you look away if there’s anything exceptional to see. Here, in Europe, you could walk around all day naked and on stilts with an umbrella on your head and everyone would ignore you. Well, they would in New York too, but that’s just because such phenomena are everyday occurrences there. When I came over to America everyone and their fucking mother wanted to talk to me all of a sudden. And the mothers rock. You’re waiting at some red light and there are voices coming from all sides, telling you that the band on your shirt sucks, or just asking you how you are. It’s definitely striking. Many visitors like that friendly manner, but of course you could also argue that that attitude is just faking interest in other people’s affairs. I’d say it’s just a matter of taste.
One thing that immediately strikes you when you actually set foot on American soil is that the chicks are way hotter than you figured they would be. Not only are the girls hot but their mothers are even hotter. In Gothenburg, where I am from, we don’t have the term “MILF”. We say “American mom”, and fuck is that true! American women, more than any other country’s women, seem to actually care about their sex appeal in more mature ages. Most of it comes from the inside, that’s the secret. American women love sex. Take it from me, your Swedish reporter; the American woman is much hotter than her Swedish sister and WAY sexier. You wouldn’t wanna get down and dirty with many Swedish women over 30, whereas the American grocery stores and libraries are crawling with MILFy women who ooze sex like it was going out of style.
I used to think that was bullshit, but I have just recently come to the realization that he’s probably right.
Two fuckheads… Who are we to say shit? An arrogant asshole Swede and a cynical drunk German? What the hell do we know about anything anyway? People probably still don’t have indoor plumbing in our countries, right? What the hell did Sweden and Germany ever contribute to the world other than shitty disco music, boxy looking cars and two world wars? Well, that may very well be true, but this is not about our backward part of the world. This is about you. Brace yourself, America. The truth hurts like a motherfucker.
By the way, that was Skeletal Grace, your fearless front-line reporter who probably doesn’t even know how to find Europe on the map anymore. I could always ask an American for directions. Er, that’s right… They can’t find their own state on a map. My name is Sebastian Bullhorn, observer from a safe distance, and I’m here to throw in my thoughts on America from a tourist’s point of view. And, of course, I’m here also for that loudmouth from some barely tolerated EU-member nation to poke fun at.
Seb
