i've been bothered lately. they say the daytona five hundred must be raced on ice this year, and the eskimos are desperately trying to protest with fish. the chief comes home with a pound of whale blubber and - smack - is struck by the force of a speeding stock car. pennzoil and budweiser pay the tribe off in beads and coats, while advertising the incident for men on couches in the suburbs. the chief survives, but is hospitalized. igloos are soon decorated with pin up calendars of bikini girls with trophies, girls carrying plastic cards with red numbers on them. the yukon is lost.

meanwhile, its business as usual in the state of southern california. another female recording artist wins a record contract by fucking both of the warner brothers. revealing clothing puts the music video on quick rotation, and commercial playlists follow uncharacteristically. as little tikes buy albums, dolls, and drugstore accessories, olympia is naturally outraged. however, no one cares but college radio and twentysomething women in fake eskimo coats. sure, the teenagers take their activism to kinkos, but only gannett and the new york times are trusted.

the photographed eskimo chief decorates page one of usa today. the increasing popularity of motor racing is proven with a multicolored graph. the life section raves over the female recording artist who never went to school in olympia. a look at the money section shows anheiser busch taking over whatever company owns pennzoil. anheiser busch is spelled incorrectly in the introductory paragraph. boys rush to the sports section, seeing washington ranked first in the coaches poll and miami ranked first in the associated press poll. boys in georgia are more inclined to trust the journalists, while boys in oregon are too busy trying new substances to defend the coaches.

in the high school cafeteria, girlfriends approach boyfriends with their photocopies. the boyfriends feign interest for sex. no way should michigan be picked twenty fourth, and kansas state is distinguished from the others receiving votes. the girlfriends laugh, of course. however, this injustice is hardly trivial. kansas state took nebraska down, early in the season. fucking michigan lost to fucking northwestern. northwestern is a good school, and therefore has a bad team. good teams don't lose to good schools. the girls are oblivious to all this, of course. this causes some tension at several of the tables. still, everyone has a good laugh over the hospitalized eskimo.

on the college campus, leaflets promote the hooray for jesus rally. the socialists yell at people to sign their petitions against injustice and war. students for war and injustice put their table on pavement rather than grass. professors walk by, contemplating the significance of small animals and floor tile patterns. students smile and talk about books and parties. frat boys talk about beer and drugs. none of the sorority girls can recall friday night. the socialists are yelling about desertification in ghana. signifying nothing, the electronic bell brings a new hour to the campus.

a lot of stuff goes on in british columbia without us knowing about it. nobody can name the prime minister of canada. the frat boys drink out of pretty blue bottles. hockey teams captivate the sun belt. some blathering indierock band sells up. we import inappropriate theater behavior. not enough people demand exile and walls for anything to happen. driving laws cease to exist and urban planners smoke chronic on sidewalks. kids are grateful when setlists are kicked in their direction.

it would be important to note that the cold war is over. russian submarines no longer patrol the bering strait. nome can watch television with open windows. that night, the town will sleep in peace, better prepared for the long drive to the race track. as the skinny farm boy knows, there are no women in alaska. this is why men on fishingboats need to watch cars circle the icy track and crash into eskimos. fishingboat life is lonely, what with no women and all the dead fish.

so there's supposed to be a festival on the island this year. punk rockers on ferry boats and a bus load of evergreen students are promised. greenpeace is taking the week off to build a makeshift tent. youth culture can be both threatening and insignificant. no eskimos were injured in the last exercise of punk rock. but tents were sold for twenty five dollars and the toilets leaked. when everybody got home they still had their day job. little can really be done with a revolution. hit up real estate agents and prepare for the parcel tax election, nobody's going anywhere.

stuck back in olympia, some people are talking way out of line. girlfriends keep making propositions. fuck yr insinuation and yr bullshit, they say several times. taking the big street between the ghost mall and the ross dress for less will only put you on the freeway. twenty miles south is a big billboard claiming the park police killed two hundred people in arkansas. the man who keeps it maintained thinks olympia girls are crazy heathens. that crazy guy with his crazy billboard is part of the crazy forty percent. they wanted the virgin mary to run the capitol building, but jesus was out bowling on election day and missed out on all the festivities.

on the homefront, lives are lost over super bowl victories and low fences. concrete barriers take five years for debate, twenty for construction. the gilman kids aren't getting any older. it takes a two hour bus ride just help with her show, and he still never gets a phone number for his transfer. lunatics brandishing swords are to be given quarters. elsewhere they are hosed down and knocked over with ladders. utopian ideals corrupt the best place on earth, concluding the evening news. nobody can name the canadian prime minister, but neighbors bake pies for each other.

later that afternoon, the former president is buried. the services serve as an important campaign stop on the southern california swing. blaming mexican women for poor catering, the governor picks up support in rancho santa fe. this offends the berkeley professors who already hate him. trespassing on library grounds, the crazy talk show speechwriter burns a japanese car. so much for the friendly speeches about china. those days pass with the twenty odd gun salute.

things are different. berkeley is angry, tired, and irrelevant. olympia is angry, alive, but still irrelevant. new drugs are invented in oregon. southern california continues to entertain the lazy masses. kids in evanston throw their silly screenplays into lake michigan. meanwhile, people are too busy to notice that the yukon is lost.