Not long ago, this country was a diverse place. In Beat America, that fabled land of adventure and intrigue, all you needed was a hitchhiking thumb and a dream to find yourself on the road to adventure. Unique mom-and-pop shops dotted every winding roadway, and even a chance pit stop at a gas station represented a singular experience, an opportunity to see something new. But today that America is dead. And I say good riddance. Because it was making us soft. The only thing those finger-snapping no-goodniks ever taught us was that if you give enough Benzedrine to a kid who writes poetry, he'll probably suck your cock.
No, sir, give me today's modern American roads, transcontinental highways the size of dinosaurs, with ten lanes of insatiable traffic and a Burger King and Diamond Shamrock at every exit! That's progress. I've no time to sample that slice of pie in your quaint cafe, Norman Rockwell; just inject me with the jalapeño-popper syringe and point me toward Des Moines: I've got houses to foreclose on. The new, improved America is the one for me. No surprises, no emotion, just a lot of praying to Jesus until we get rid of everyone who doesn't. And on that day, the earth will transform into heaven.
But there are still threats out there to the great American homogeny, cross-eyed rebels who huff glue beneath full moons and try to knock up our daughters while we sleep. I'm talking about blue laws. Absurdly, even in the year 2008 in these so-called United States of America, individual states maintain their own peculiar policies regarding the purchase of alcohol. In Connecticut, where I went to college, you have to purchase your liquor before 8 p.m., because all liquor stores are required to close at that hour. In Pennsylvania, beer and hard alcohol are sold in completely separate stores. And I'm told that in order to purchase a twelve-pack of beer in Hawaii, you have to capture and slaughter a wild boar, then publicly denounce the emperor of Japan.
But Colorado has finally gotten in step with much of the rest of the country. On Monday, Governor Bill Ritter signed a bill that, as of July 1, will allow the sale of liquor on Sundays. This bold move did not come without backlash, however. Convenience and grocery stores protested the measure, arguing that the opening of legitimate liquor stores on the Sabbath will devastate the sale of 3.2 beer, the watered-down trucker piss that resulted from Colorado's archaic blue laws and represents convenience and grocery stores' futile attempt at booze-peddling. Well, excuse me, Safeway and 7-Eleven, so sorry to hurt your sales, but I couldn't care less if 3.2 percent alcohol beer goes the way of Charlton Heston. Have you ever tried getting drunk off that stuff? It takes about thirty cans, and even then you're only slightly buzzed and spitting up foam like a toddler.
Colorado's move is a visionary one that puts us one step closer to the national alcohol conformity so crucial to maintaining our world-power status. You think countries like China allow regions to make up different rules regarding liquor sales willy-nilly? Of course not. That's why China is such an effective world power. All purchase of alcohol throughout the People's Republic must be accompanied by three fluid ounces of Tibetan blood, whether you're in Beijing or Shanghai. No exceptions. In fact, Ritter — nay, America — would be wise to take a cue from the Chinese and push for elimination of yet more blue laws. Why not let the convenience stores and grocers sell the real stuff as well? Not only would that shut them up, but the children of this country would have infinitely more shoulder-tapping opportunities throughout their youth, would get addicted to alcohol earlier — and far more severely — and thus would be far better equipped to cope with the PTSD they will inevitably suffer after we send them to fight our wars. And when they win our wars, we won't have to deal with fixing them back up because the booze will cure what ails them. Then we can simply put them back to work as contractors in those conquered countries, building enormous, soulless highways like ours, making the world a hell of a lot more like America, and a hell of a better place.
A place where a beer is a beer is a beer, be it on Sunday before church or Wednesday at 8 a.m. Amen.
