Gapers Block has ceased publication.
Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni.
✶ Thank you for your readership and contributions. ✶
TODAY
Thursday, April 25
Fuel
Appleby / June 6, 2007 11:47 AM
bad
lp / June 6, 2007 11:53 AM
instantly, i thought of hulk hogan's theme song: 'i am a real american.'
Mikey / June 6, 2007 11:56 AM
Disillusioned...embarrassed...angry.
mike / June 6, 2007 12:08 PM
Horny
kt / June 6, 2007 12:15 PM
donut-loving
Brandy / June 6, 2007 12:18 PM
Esperanto-American
printdude / June 6, 2007 12:31 PM
North
mike-ts / June 6, 2007 12:32 PM
I am an award winning, lesson learning, doughnut eating, summer book reading American.
Mac / June 6, 2007 12:33 PM
Casual- ?
Human- ?
Only By Chance Geographical Birth Out which Occurred out of my Control- ?
loadzone / June 6, 2007 12:43 PM
Random
Emerson Dameron / June 6, 2007 1:04 PM
Comedian
jb60606 / June 6, 2007 1:27 PM
ashamed and embarassed
Eric / June 6, 2007 2:21 PM
Busy. Too busy getting my life on track to really expend any energy on doing my part, aside from voting, donating, and staying informed, to get the country on track.
But really though, I'm with Mac, it's chance. Furthermore, political boundaries are arbitrary and mostly meaningless. The Tibetan monk and the New York banker ultimately want the same thing - they just go about getting it in different ways. (The banker may not ever get there, but that's an entirely separate topic.)
Flag-waving patriotism (not that this is necessarily germane to this thread) makes me skittish because too often, the waver of said flag has blind and ignorant faith our political leadership.
sonkey / June 6, 2007 2:21 PM
stoned
Eric / June 6, 2007 2:40 PM
Busy, overly-self-critical, sex-loving, family-wanting, whiskey-drinking, pool-playing...
Eric / June 6, 2007 2:40 PM
Busy, overly-self-critical, sex-loving, family-wanting, whiskey-drinking, pool-playing...
Eric / June 6, 2007 2:50 PM
Galt, you're not the only one. Dennis said he was proud. Proud as fuck, in fact.
I'm not proud of the government and big business, but I am proud of what's beautiful in America, and there's quite a lot of that.
ohk / June 6, 2007 3:17 PM
Also proud...
my great-grandparents came over from Ireland 100 years ago b/c America, though not perfect, represented their best shot at getting ahead...which to them meant literally putting food on the table.
I try never to forget what democracy and capitalism meant to them...food on the table is a pretty big deal if you couldn't always count on it.
Dr Kilovolt / June 6, 2007 3:25 PM
Electrified
annie / June 6, 2007 3:29 PM
Irish
shedawg / June 6, 2007 3:38 PM
Mexicana
Judy / June 6, 2007 4:16 PM
cynical
Spook / June 6, 2007 4:25 PM
Revolutionary, wild dancing, two fisted drinking, good shape staying, corporate greed, week democratic despising, stupid ignorant American hating, always book or New York Times reading, scooter riding, out loud laughing, deeply socratic, finger pointing inward and outward, citizen of the world type of American
Mo / June 6, 2007 4:48 PM
Half-Filipina
and after coming back from a trip to the Philippines where the poverty is astounding, but the people are still happy...
Thankful
fluffy / June 6, 2007 5:57 PM
medicated
Justin / June 6, 2007 5:58 PM
Awesome
Leelah / June 6, 2007 7:41 PM
educated
Brandy / June 6, 2007 10:40 PM
Ah, this reminds me - I feel un-American in a good way when I realize that I don't drive and I am a relatively low consumer. I'm striving to be very un-American by paying off my debt.
d / June 7, 2007 4:54 AM
conquitadores
Jim / June 7, 2007 8:33 AM
PROUD - Since this was originally posted on June 6, be proud of what our forefathers did on this date in 1944.
Jim / June 7, 2007 8:33 AM
PROUD - Since this was originally posted on June 6, be proud of what our forefathers did on this date in 1944.
moody / June 7, 2007 8:49 AM
cynical and disappointed
moody / June 7, 2007 8:51 AM
…but grateful to be born here
paul / June 7, 2007 9:35 AM
I am a latent American
jj / June 7, 2007 10:22 AM
Ashamed, but hopeful
Jill / June 7, 2007 10:26 AM
grateful
Appleby / June 7, 2007 10:38 AM
I think that pride should come from accomplishment or action. If I'm not doing anything to live up to my ideals or to defend and advocate for the ideas that matter most, then I don't get to feel very proud. If I put some effort into trying to make this country more the kind of place that it ought to be, then I think I get to feel a little bit proud.
But then I'm a prickly, Emersonian American.
paul Mccann / June 7, 2007 10:57 AM
If anybody asks, i just tell them I'm Canadian.
skafiend / June 7, 2007 10:58 AM
ugly
Pedro / June 7, 2007 12:28 PM
grown up and grateful
editorkid / June 7, 2007 2:27 PM
[adjective] Madlib-loving
Chuck / June 7, 2007 2:30 PM
proud
Spook / June 7, 2007 2:44 PM
Appleby agreeing,
while dissing shallow
self absorbed "patriotic"
being, while giving mad shout outs to Madlib, hip hop loving
Spook / June 7, 2007 2:44 PM
Appleby agreeing,
while dissing shallow
self absorbed "patriotic"
being, while giving mad shout outs to Madlib, hip hop loving
Sol / June 7, 2007 4:37 PM
I'm actually a German. An Afro-Panamanian German. The American thing was an accident.
ATP / June 7, 2007 8:20 PM
Chicagoan
Allan / June 8, 2007 10:55 AM
I knew I had had too much to drink at least an hour ago but once I hit that comfortably inebriated plateau I can never seem to stop. Before I even pick up the glass it is empty. I reach to pour another and get only a slow trickle of red. The bottle is finished. I ponder the empty glass and I am tempted to smash it in the fireplace and shout Salut! I don't know why, and I don't have a fire place but still I consider it. Then I remember the time my mother stepped on the broken light-bulb on my bedroom floor. How the blood squirted from her foot in the middle of the night, how dreamy eyed I saw it splatter on my walls and how, in the morning I was surprised that the yellow paint on the walls near my door, was not covered with a tiny constellation of red, but black. I rest the glass on the arm of my couch. This unexpected dip into my past opens the door to other long forgotten memories and for what seems like hours I sit swimming, then almost drowning. I imagine someone is watching me from space, able to see through the walls and ceiling, able to see a sad drunken ( but by no means a drunk) man sitting perfectly still on shitty couch, alone in his mediocre apartment. They would have no idea.Then in that sea of things past I see her, bright eyed and young. The smile on her face is troubled but sincere and my stomach start to hurt, because I miss her. She was my first girlfriend. The first, and possibly only girl who ever loved me. Both of us fourteen and too stupid to know that all to soon what we have will fall apart and that at least one of us would spent the rest of their life wishing they could have what we had again. I want to cry but I can't and the pain of this stops the drowning feeling but remembering her has made me hard and there is no one but myself to relieve me of this. This thing that my body demands of me. This burden of boys and men. She never did, not once. Maybe that is why, damn near twenty years later, I still want her. I imagine someone is watching me from space able to see through the walls and ceiling, able to see a lonely man, doing that unspoken thing that all men and boys do. A private violence, that sends it tremors through the aged wool and springs of a couch that is older than the man himself, tremors that release an empty glass resting on it's arm to gravity to be undone by the weight of itself.
That's what kind of American I am.
Recently on Fuel
Urban Ethos [26]
What is Chicago's "urban ethos"?
Cool Glass of... [16]
What're you drinking?
Supreme Decision [22]
What's your reaction to the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act?
Taking it to the Streets [20]
Chicago Street Fairs: Revolting or Awesome?
I Can Be Cruel [9]
Be real: what is the meanest thing you've ever done?
skafiend / June 6, 2007 11:46 AM
Disgruntled