Read Online I Drink for a Reason by David Cross - Free Book Online Page B

Roswell, a sleepy (read: boring) suburb just north of the city. Now it’s all connected and pretty much
     part of the poorly planned sprawl of Greater Atlanta (see “The City in Mind” by James Kunstler for a sensible, well-researched
     essay on how and why Atlanta blew it), but back when I was a kid it wasn’t.
    Not everyone acquires an accent from wherever they are from. How come Jewel doesn’t sound “Alaskan”? Why doesn’t Stephen Colbert
     have a thick South Carolina drawl like that retard who works at the “Lil’ Peach” on Sundays? What about Amy Sedaris? Or David
     Sedaris? Or Dan Rather? He’s from Texas, for chrissakes! What about James Taylor? He’s from Martha’s Vineyard. Why doesn’t
     he sound like some elitist, liberal Kennedy-lite asshole? And how about Marlon Brando and Johnny Carson? They were from Nebraska.
     How come they didn’t sound like horses? Etc. etc. But as I’ve said before on my Grammy-losing * CD
Shut Up, You Fucking Baby
the Southern accent, in particular the “redneck” accent, the accent of the stupid and lazy, is mysteriously the most ubiquitous
     regional accent in all of America. Outside of the annoying upspeak of teenage (and not so teenage, sometimes) girls—which
     is its own, albeit less mysterious, phenomenon—the redneck accent can be found in places as diverse as Modesto, California;
     Hot Springs, Arkansas; and Cumberland, Maine. I don’t know why. I’m no sociologist, so stop asking. It just is.
    One of the more curious but lasting things about the South is the amount of science/blacks/Jews/fag/progessive-liberal/secular
     atheist/foreigner haters that particular region has a history of producing (albeit thankfully decreasing) and the corresponding
     cultural vacuum that exists outside of the larger cities. Is there a correlation to be made? Probably, but that would just
     open me up to cries of “elitist” or “condescending prick.” Hey, come to think about it, that doesn’t sound so bad to me. Who’s
     gonna call me a condescending prick, anyway? Jeanette Dunwoody? That Baptist home-schooling mom who will never even read one
     of my dirty devil words, or Cooter Dupree, that government-cheese-eating, welfare-soaking asshole alchoholic who does nothing
     all day but watch
The A-Team
and mildly torture his dog? I don’t give a shit about them, anyway. Nope, most likely I’ll be set upon by the other kind
     of narrow-minded, tone-deaf clown that is the biological sister to the lunacy of the well-heeled, Jello-salad-serving pride
     of the South—her counterpart to the northwest.
    The northern Californian über PC, well-meaning but sadly feckless lover of all living colors of the rainbow, be they black,
     white, brown, yellow, blah blah blah. I loves me a good hippie/ “anarchy now” dialogue. While there is very little if nothing
     I can appreciate about the couple in Vernon, Georgia, who will stamp their feet in anger and twist and sputter about at the
     idea of two gay guys in San Francisco who want the right to be legally recognized as married, I do somewhat empathize with
     that same gay guy who is upset with my “intolerance.” But sometimes it gets out of hand. A couple of years ago I did a show
     in San Francisco. I usually have pretty good shows there, but quite often, and this has been true of doing shows there my
     entire career, I will face pockets of invariable and wholly predictable PC anger at something I’ve said. By far, most of the
     time the audience has my back, and if they didn’t necessarily agree with my point, at least understood the exaggerated comic
     intent of the bit. But sometimes sincerely well-intentioned people are so overly sensitive and myopic that any sense of irony,
     parody, or satire is squeezed out of the bit, leaving a bone-dry statement devoid of humor lying dead on the hot sidewalk
     in its wake.
    At this show I did a bit that at its core was about how an atheist running for office in America (this was