California Rocks Most-Polluted City List Yet Again

loud and proud Southern California rocked the American Lung Association’s annual list of American cities with the worst air pollution yet again in 2004, with the region bringing home seven of the top ten slots in the report. Despite stiff competition from such air-polluting powerhouses as Houston, Texas and Detroit, Michigan, area residents insist their confidence never faltered that So. Cal would once again bring home the gold.

“Booya, bitch!� gloated local resident Tyrell Dipps between coughing fits. “Smog!�

Area residents were so confident that California would dominate the competition, in fact, that most of the anticipation leading up to the study concerned which part of Southern California would out-pollute all others, a matter of considerable local pride. Emotions ran high in the weeks leading up to the report’s publication, as area residents waged a war of words in this yearly competition between the various So. Cal regions, each hoping to take home the ALA’s “Black Lung� trophy for having the nation’s foulest, most unbreathable air.

“Bakersfield can suck my dick with their pansy air, man! You come down here you gonna get asthma, baby!� enthused Los Angeles resident Hector Villanova, while idling three cars simultaneously on his lawn.

Residents of the air-polluting upstart Bakersfield region relish their underdog status, dreaming of one day knocking Los Angeles off of its hazy brown perch in the national rankings.

“L.A.’s time has come and gone, man,� insisted Bakersfield resident Arlo Vipatna, reclining in a parka with his home’s air conditioning unit running full tilt. “Ain’t no way they gonna hold Bakersfield back, not with all them movie stars they got driving those little electric fag cars down there and shit.�

“Damn right,� agreed Arlo’s brother Uday, feeding from a disturbingly large bowl of chili. “I got your greenhouse gasses right here, yo.�

Numerous other Bakersfield residents were caught up in the excitement as well, spraying aerosol cans into the sky and setting fire to piles of tires in between bouts of wheezing and frequent breaks to sit down for a while.

When the rankings were finally released, Los Angeles was a familiar sight at the top of the list, with the surprise dark horse region of Visalia-Porterville sneaking in at number two. A clearly stunned Bakersfield ranked third, slightly ahead of Fresno, who didn’t know there was a contest and just has really shitty air. Houston, Texas was the lone top-five entrant from the other 49 states; a slot some think was wasted on them since Texans don’t believe in air pollution. The California cities of Merced, Sacramento and Hanford rounded out the top ten with Knoxville Tennessee and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, the last two Southern cities likely having some kind of BBQ cook-off the week the air quality measurements were taken.

American Lung Association officials assure the commune they plan to check in on Texas and Tennessee soon to make sure neither of the states is currently on fire, since the aberrant presence of non-Californian cities in the list’s top fifteen likely points to some kind of catastrophic Southern brushfire no one from any more-newsworthy states has yet noticed.

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It's good to have things back to normal here, and please don't laugh when I say that like everyone else does. It just comes off as passive-aggressive.

We've all been a little shaken up by Lee's massive head trauma and following period of insanity where he thought himself a beloved children's book author, but things are settling down again since we held him down and held an "intervention of fists" as I like to call it. Lee soon came back to his senses, except for the minor oddity that he wants to get his GED now.

I told him he was fine as is, though in complete honesty jumping on the treadmill a few hours every week wouldn't kill him—now Camembert, hoo boy, that would kill him, yessir. Lee, however, has no interest in exercise, or hygiene, I'd guess, but does have an overwhelming desire to complete his formal education.

As near as I can figure, Lee dropped out in the fourth grade over accusations of retardism. It was a hard thing to deal with for a boy of his age, 15, and there was apparently nothing to back up such accusations, but kids and certain teachers and the janitorial staff can be cruel, as the expression grows. If I had been thought beneath my intellect, to my face, it certainly would have stifled my ambition to complete school. But not Lee! Well, yes, Lee, for a long time, anyway. But not forever!

Apparently this GED thing is the equivalent of a paper saying you finished high school, except I don't know why anyone would go to high school in the first place if you could just do this. A lot of 8th graders I know would be jumping through hoops, like my Oscar party festivities, if they knew this was possible Four years of degradation and clique infighting and learning your place at the bottom of the social hierarchy can be prevented with a test a monkey could pass (I've held independent studies) and only a few are taking advantage of it? Without saying anything offensive, there would be fewer Columbines if this idea were promoted better. That's all I'm impulsively stating as fact.

From what I can gather, this GED test is just a series of questions about history and simple math and a lot of English, the language of England and abroad countries. If you come within a certain margin of correctness or make threatening eye contact with the test administrator, you pass. How easy! Not for me, perhaps, but for anyone who knows trivial details of information that American high school students know. Still, I guess if a test is too arbitrary and demands more than you're willing to give, you can always do it the old-fashioned way: Show up in classes once in a while in an American public school and create havoc until the apathetic teacher passes you to get you out of the educational system. I believe the president himself relied on this manner to get his degree.

Still, it's good for me that I started work so long ago my resume is long, and therefore difficult for employers to read. They skim the most recent job history and never noticed I only dabbled in professional schooling. I am smart, way smart, like Camembert tells me when I seek affirmation from him, but I lack the precise papers that declare it so. Who knows? Maybe I'll go back for my GED some day, when my self-worth has sunk so low I feel I need another person to validate my existence with a rubber stamp. Either that or I'll get a rubber stamp for Camembert.

Until then, Rok Finger gets by on street smarts: I know what street I live on, what street you take to get to the commune office, what street goes to Arvelyn's house for my nightly peeping, and what streets are known as "sidewalks" and can't be driven on. Some lessons in life you learn the hard way.

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I say, as long as hiding out from the mob leaves you trapped in a backwards country like Australia, make the best of it. Or at least I'm saying it this week, since it's not yet safe enough for me to return to the states. And make the best of it I will. And I'll make Camembert make the best of it, because making him do things he doesn't want to do is my only source of fun in this primitive aspiring Bayou.

Let it never be said Australia isn't rich in beautiful, untouched natural beauty. Or make sure it's never said around here, since a fat Aussie named Mick will pound you. Since there is so much natural beauty, though, I thought it was high time I lived out my dream of being a rugged outdoorsman. Ever since I was a child, age 41-49, I wanted to be one of those amazing men who made their living off the untamed frontier, like a cowboy, a lumberjack, or perhaps a headhunting cannibal. But since I can't ride a horse, am too short to wield an ax, and get queasy when I taste human flesh, most of those avenues have been closed to me until now. Before, however, I never considered gator-taunting—it's a top 5 upwardly-mobile field here in Australia.

If you've ever seen one of these gator-taunting shows, or their ancestral 1970s kin, the all-kinds-of-animal-taunting shows like Wild Kingdom, you know they're populated by fearless men who can stare dangerous beasts in the face without pissing their pants, are cunning enough to avoid serious injury, and know how to bounce back from those injuries they can't avoid. They also have another requirement—a bold partner, capable of narrating with a dashing voice. This is the job I want.

Yes, the dashing narrator—good people, those guys get laid like eggshell-colored bathroom tile. Not that it's my motivation, but any career admired by the ladies is good enough for Rok Finger. However, I obviously can't narrate to a video of an untaunted alligator, so that's where Camembert comes in. He might be a little slower to get out of the way of their vicious snapping jaws, confined to a wheelchair as he is, but Camembert has more than enough moxie to make up for a lack of agility. And moxie grows back when severed, I hear.

Before you bleeding hearts start emailing me again in defense of Camembert, I should let you know I haven't simply dragged him to the outback and thrown him into the maw of vicious gators without any practice. I brought gators home, and left them in our backyard, where he's sure to stumble across them while doing the laundry. If he succeeds with these "pop quizzes," we should be able to journey to the outback to confront them on their own turf as early as next week, excluding any necessary healing time.

The gators won't be his first experience with wild animals either. For years I have surprised him by letting loose squirrels or hungry raccoons in his bedroom while he slept—I originally started it to make him more alert to possible prowlers, but it worked out better than I could have imagined. I can't say his reaction time was always first-rate, but apart from the paint-peeling shrieks he composed himself respectably. I think perhaps the squirrels were too small, and the raccoons blended into the background of his bedroom too easy. Alligators ought to be much easier to see, and therefore react to. I tested this theory last week by having Felchyana toss a snake at him, and he reacted quite well, swatting it down and crushing its skull under his chair's wheel, all the while asking her what the fuck she thought she was doing.

Of course, none of this prepares me at all. I've practiced a little bit on my narration, turning down the TV while watching nature programs and doing running commentary on what's going on, and I suppose I need a little more background information on animals so I will be able to say something beyond "Look at this pervert" when the times comes. Not that it isn't a wonderful start to a very promising career.

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