Penn Magazine November 2017

“A man once said that the
pinnacle of success
is when you’ve finally lost
interest, in money, compliments,
and publicity.”
— Todd Snider
I am an American.
And I believe.
I believe in opening your presents
Christmas morning, that
Sasquatch is an ape, jet flyovers
and it would be weird to write down
shit all the time. I just keep repeating
the words in my head and maybe
I’ll remember. “Italian” because
I’ve never heard Italian live before
and I say something stupid to Ruth
about Italians looking normal until
you hear them talk. “Literary”
because we go down Literary Way
and I want my statue to be there.
“Park Ranger” because there
is a guy sitting in the park wearing
a big UFO hat who told us
cryptically where the restrooms
were, and I think I can find some
way to put Park Ranger into this.
box, but it couldn’t be found.
And it was time to leave because
it was time to get off the
damn computer, wow, you do
know what I’m talking about?
And it was time to
go to a dive bar in
Brooklyn. That’s what really
sounded like fun to me.
We went for a walk in Central
Park because it was close and
it’s Central Park. And we found
out that Michael Moore has a
show on Broadway. We had already
planned to see The Book
“Park Ranger” because there is a guy sitting in the park wearing
a big UFO hat who told us cryptically where the restrooms were.
over the stadium were put there
by God, God is umm, not sure ...
Lee Harvey Oswald killed John
Kennedy, George Washington
chopped down the cherry tree,
and something about the moon.
Not really. Not necessarily.
I believe that what Americans
need though is a saying,
something to summarize, to
protect, to help us get through.
Italian Literary Park Ranger.
That’s not it. Those are my
mind notes I keep repeating as Ruth
and I walk through Central Park.
Yes, we went to New York, drove
out of the woods of northern Minnesota
to Minneapolis and were
outa here, because it was time.
While I’m walking and gawking
in Central Park I’m making notes
in my head because I have no paper
52/Penn Magazine/November 2017
So, sometimes all the notes you
keep in your heard are stupid and
when you get back to paper you
just let it go. Because it’s stupid.
We Americans do think funny
things, weird things. Maybe Italians
and Chinese and others do, too,
but it’s harder to tell. We believe
in Lake Wobegon, for one thing,
or we want to, we really want to.
We have lots of sayings, funny
things that we believe, in
which we base whole lives in.
Anyway, it was time,
time to leave Minnesota.
The Duluth Public Library
could not find my Wisconsin
beer box of books I had brought
in and offered to the library to put
into circulation. The fiction editor
had turned them down and
now I was there to pick up the
of Mormon, but that was another
night. We checked the prices and
found tickets and there we were.
M
ichael Moore has a Broadway
show and the Duluth
Public Library can’t find my beer
box of books. I think MM and I
could have been buddies, journalistas
chasing down the bad guys,
Michael & Me [but mostly me],
but so far that has not worked out.
It was time to leave Minnesota
because I was done writing, it was
not working, and there was nothing
else to do and maybe there is something
to do in New York, probly not.
It was time to leave Minnesota
because I had read in the Duluth
Reader how Garrison Keillor,
who calls himself The Old
Scout, believes that Lee Harvey
Oswald killed John F. Kennedy.