Lighter Fare This Week...

Oooh!  i hate it when i don't post for so long! and i really have lots to say; in fact, a few times in the past week i have begun a post, only to delete it, because i thought it just got too ... too ... well, too ramble-y, you know?  the way that my thoughts often are but that i try to organize and pare down to the essentials when i write for a (possible?  small?  somewhere, someday?) audience :)


anyway, the first thing on today's "lightness" menu is this link which was sent to me via one of my email subscriptions; the HuffingtonPost, which i do consider one of my favorite hodgepodge blogs, always has these montage-type posts that are filled with photos, advertisements, newspaper articles and the like ... all gathered with a theme of something outrageous and usually something that i, and apparently people of like mind with me, find hilarious.  but today, ohhhh today!  just go here and see for yourself, paying SPECIAL attention to PHOTO NUMBER SIX (please)...  go on, i'll wait... really, if you're in a rush, you can JUST look at number SIX! ... ...


back?  okay then.  here's the astonishing thing:  I took the exact same photograph like 8 years ago whilst on a road trip to the indiana state fair, accompanied by my best friend and my brother, to see the ill-fated boy band O-TOWN perform.  dammit!  but before we get to THAT little tidbit... how and why did i find myself at such a state of mind shrine to ridiculous racism, which apparently was SO hilariously inappropriate and ridiculous that the HuffPost AND i found it appealing -- nay, necessary -- to snap a photo?!   allow me to explain...


while driving for what was the first time for all of us in our neighboring state, we had only to cross the border before launching into a full-blown attack on their inferiority (i apologize now, okay? i was immature and pathetically trying to find an identity, if only one attached to my midwestern "prairie" state).  i successfully ran a crazed truck driver onto the shoulder so that i and others could pass him after he had been spotted for miles and miles aggressively nudging and forcing small cars and other 18-wheelers out of his lanes.  in the traffic jam that you will almost always find just over the bridge / state line between IL and IN, i was actually cheered and given fist pumps of approval for my aggressive off-roadin' while, well, ON the road.  that was fun.  it only served to encourage the raucous behavior and the mental state that one often acquires on a road trip with friends ... that in which everything is hilarious, and no one else ever noticed it before you and your witty, genius friends.  


well, the traffic broke open, and we drove through little town after little town, on and on through flat lands of grass and factory smoke and some corn (yes, it's the same here, and in our OTHER neighboring state, Iowa, except i would estimate that in IA, they have more corn, less factory smoke).  we were about 45 minutes or something from our destination, hungry and almost not finding everything funny anymore ... when we saw that sign (is that right?  perhaps i was delirious?  i cannot recall exactly where these towns are, and quite frankly, i've not been motivated to look 'em up on google earth, ok?)!  


"look!  look!" i screamed, slowing down, because hey, there wasn't any traffic to engage in  vehicular fisticuffs anyway ... there was a state highway sign informing us that these two towns were coming up in three quarters of a mile!  thank you, highway department of Indiana!  that sign gave me an idea that something was strange and that we needed photographic proof.  summoning my camera from phil, my friend and navigator at the time, we actually found this important enough to pull over onto the shoulder and get out of the car.  yes, we really did.   


"this state is hicksville central," i joked, "there are two SEPARATE, but i'm sure EQUAL, towns for 'whites' and 'browns,' and i think we all know what they mean by that."  always one to jump in when an inappropriate or uncouth statement is being made (you might call it a joke if you share our sense of humor), phil said, "so where do red and yellow stay?"   but THAT remained a mystery during our visit...as, so far, we have not seen any towns or cities in IN that indicate where any other races should go.


SO the picture was developed from my disposable road trip camera ... EIGHT years ago, or possibly more???  i'd have to pull my O-TOWN/Indy State Fair ticket out of its memorabilia box to be certain.  And now, somehow, someone else has seen fit to publish the same photo (taken under very similar circumstances, wouldn't you guess?) in this "ridiculous" compilation.  i think i'm offended that MINE wasn't used.  i think i'm also offended that the HuffPost is getting all the credit for my old, worn-out, COLLEGE jokes.  


also, tell me what you think, but ... i dunno, to me most of those pictures weren't very hilarious; they were kind of just ... offensive.  have i turned too serious or something?  i mean, racism isn't actually funny, after all.