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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Though it might surprise the ignorant, the holiday of Christmas was celebrated long before Christ came along and limp-wristed his way into the history books, or at least the history books that are available at most major motels. They didn't call it Christmas back then, since that would just be spooky, but regardless, the winter solstice was celebrated for eons before Christ laid the golden turd.

In northern lands, ancient peoples celebrated the passing of the midpoint of winter, looking ahead to longer days and the return of the light, which would remind them just how ugly their neighbors were. With the light came the melting of the snow, which rang in the springtime removal of the dead bodies of all the dumb assholes who had frozen to death over the winter. Hence the term "spring cleaning" was coined, though over time it's somehow come to mean some yuppie sponging out his microwave.

The Norse in Scandanavia celebrated Yule, a vague holiday that involved eating and went on for however damn long they wanted it to. Anyone who asked if the holiday was over yet was eaten, and as a result it often dragged on for months.

The ancient Germans didn't celebrate, since they were German, but they were scared shitless of the pagan God Oden, who they placated by never going outside. The exchange of goods in the winter months consisted of things being thrown from one house's window to the next. This usually worked fairly well but mishaps did occur, and most houses had at least a few frozen chickens stuck to their outside walls. The biggest problem was that if the town butcher threw his back out, the entire town would starve, since Germans don't believe in vegetables except for sauerkraut.

The Romans had their own insane version of Christmas, which basically involved everybody getting naked, fucking, and throwing up all morning. They had a few other traditions rolled in there, but mainly they were just thinly disguised excuses for fucking.

In the early days of Christianity, Easter was the only holiday, and it got so out of hand that they were afraid to add any more. The early Christians were known for having an extreme early version of Attention Deficit Disorder, and as a result the celebration of Christ's resurrection soon morphed into a mutant strain when somebody thought they said procreation and they started dressing up like rabbits, and then somebody brought a bunch of eggs because he didn't have a rabbit costume and didn't know what else to do, and then somebody else said "Fuck eggs, I like chocolate!" and the modern insane Easter was born.

In the fourth century, the church decided it was safe to make another go at it and they added a celebration for the birth of Christ. There was a slight problem in that nobody had any idea when Christ was born, and the Bible just said something about there was tallow in the Eastern bung and nobody knew what month that was supposed to mean. The problem was solved when Pope Julius I scratched his nose for a while and then declared that Christ was born on December 25th. When scholars argued that this ran counter to all available evidence, he pope-slapped them and told everyone that if they wanted to piss off Oden, that was their own prerogative. Everybody agreed it was December 25th after that.

Julius I's real motivation was a clever one. By throwing the celebration for the birth of Christ at the same time when all of the non-Christians were celebrating the winter solstice by balling their brains out, he could confuse people into thinking that they were celebrating Christianity by drinking a lot of beer and nailing everything in the house to a tree, a deception that still stands to this day.

Once the Puritans took over England, they outlawed Christmas, and anything else that people liked to do. This lasted for about ten seconds before the people rose up and kicked their gay asses out of the country. They washed up in North America, complaining constantly about being religiously persecuted, and then outlawed Christmas there, too. The problem was that the Native Americans didn't know what Christmas was, so the Puritans had to teach them how to decorate their teepees with popcorn and nuts and little ballerinas on the outside, and then tell them never to do it.

Living with the Puritans eventually drove the Native Americans to drinking, which the Puritans had taught them to do so they could tell them not to do that, either. Eventually the Puritans died out after they decided that opening their eyes was sinful and then were all eaten by bears at night. But because of them, generations of Americans grew up without traditional Christmas orgies.

Eventually Charles Dickens wrote The Christmas Carol, which he completely pulled out of his ass during a wild weeklong acid binge. Naïve American readers believed that he was talking about real holiday traditions, and were pissed that none of the immigrants had told them about the fun of Christmas. Several immigrant-bashing why-didn't-you-tell-us-about-Christmas riots followed, and America's new arrivals quickly learned to make up traditions on the spot to appease the custom-starved masses.

Soon the entire country was celebrating a bastard amalgam of made-up holiday customs, believing that the Dutch or Ubangi or some goddamned people had actually strung lights up in trees and drank fermented egg snot for hundreds of years. The church was quick to remind everyone that Christ was born on Christmas, too, and they skylarked a story about three traveling salesmen giving presents to baby Jesus to make it all sort of tie together.

You might wonder how Santa Claus came into all of this, but that was all just a Coke commercial that everyone assumed was referencing an ancient tradition. To this very day, the guys at Coca-Cola are still kicking themselves that they didn't name the guy Santa Coke. Scandinavians may argue that Santa was based on their ancient myth about an elf named Jultomten who delivers presents in a goat-drawn sled, but that's just stupid.

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When Ned was a boy he liked few things more than throwin' rocks at boats down on the shores of the ol' Pomak river. Them boats would steam on by, their big paddlewheels a splooshin' along like so many scum filters in the aquariums. The ladies in their hoopty skirts and the gentlemanly types in their bowties and ice cream suits would wave to Ned from the boats, holdin' them Martinis and smilin' like it was time to get a picture taken to send to some poor kids in Somnabiqua so they'd know who was the folks sent them all that pocket change and lil' bits of crackers and rice kernels. Them folks would smile and wave at little Neddy, and Ned would sure as April rains throw rocks at them peoples and try to knock them right out of their four-dollar shoes. When Ned was especially small, his flung rocks only made it about half-way and them ladies and gentlemen would laugh at Ned, pointing their fingers and breaking sweet wind in his direction. But each year that went by them peoples laughed a little less and looked a little more concerned, and some of them even took to carryin' umbrellas out on the deck in case Ned should hit a growins spurt and gain some extra yardage.

Finally, when Ned was eight he was able to fling them rocks right up onto the decks of them boats, and them peoples who formerly had been laughin' would yell and duck and sometimes throw rocks, and deck chairs, and Cuban waiters back at Ned. These were high times, and Ned would often find himself on the banks of the Pomak, doubled over with laughter or sometimes with a gushin' head wound from a particularly well-returned stone. One time this was the case, and Ned done fell over, with laughin or with takin a head shot, it's not Ned's time to recall which it was, but when Ned was on the ground some Gypsies come along and scooped Nedder right up into a sack and onto them horses.

Them Gypsies done built a little wooden cage for Ned, just big enough for him to crouch inside, with designs and little dancin' bears painted all up it and down it. They would carry Nedro from town to town, where they'd set up a little stage in the woods and charge the townfolk a nickel to watch Ned dance and sing little songs, and play poker with a little miniature monkey named Migglio.

Neddle and Migglio was fast friends, as they bonded over knowin' that Migglio was scooped up by them Gypsies in much the same fashion, one day when he was flingin' fig newtons at the King of Morocco. Ned an' Migglio was inseperatistable in them days, sittin' in their wooden cages and singin' Al Jolsen songs in them two-part harmonies.

One day Ned and Migglio come up with a plan to escape from them Gypsies. Them caravan of Gypsies was comin' back through the town where Nedder was from, and that night after Ned and Migglio done finished their show, Migglio went and hid in a big cast-iron pot while Ned went back to his cage like nothin' was the wiser. Them plan was for that Migglio to wait until everyone was sleepin', then go an' grab the keys to Ned's cage, and they'd be off like two jackals in a bobsled.

Ned sat up an waited for them Gypsies to fall asleep, but at the same time he done gone an' fell asleep hisself. Them Gypsies woke Ned up for dinner and they all ate some monkey soup and then them Gypsies went asleep. Ned waited and waited, but Migglio never come. Late into the night, when the moon were high as an opera star in a coca farm, it donned on Nedder. That little monkey bastard! Migglio done left without Ned!

Ned decided enoughs was enoughs so he stuck he legs out through the bars of his little wooden cage, tipped it on over and scrambled out of Dodge like a turtle made of wood. When Ned got home his parents was mad at him for stayin' out for eight months without permission, on a school night no less, and for not being there to tuck in the hedgehogs at night. They busted Ned out of his wooden cage and he went to tuck them hedgehogs in, cursing that little bastard monkey Migglio all the while.

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