As the Savior said to Kinky Friedman when he ran into him in the men’s room
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Hi, there, “coastal elites”. A message for you from flyover country. I’ve been living here for most of my life now (like, decades!) and I have been watching with fascination as the pundits have been fingering you for being out of touch, misguided, and contemptuous of those of us here in the heartland. I would just like to add my voice to the mix, as someone who has actually lived in flyover country (unlike most of the people writing the pieces about flyover country, who have mostly flown over, and decided to stop over for a night or two and talk to the first six people they met before they hopped back on the plane to write a piece about flyover country from the enormous experience they had just acquired).
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Some of my favorite moments have come when I have been sitting at my desk, quietly doing my regular job, when somebody bursts through my office door in a panic, requiring my help in determining whether a given song contains any narcotics allusions. Many years ago, one of my most desperate clients was a co-worker who had just been told by a friend that Simon and Garfunkel were lovers and that “Puff, the Magic Dragon” was a drug song. Although I was able to reassure him that I had never heard anything about Paul and Art being lovers, and that it seemed unlikely to me—not to mention that if they had been, they were currently engaged in the world’s longest-running lovers’ spat, I had to tell him that yes, “Puff” (to give it its actual title), was indeed a drug song. And what thanks did I get for this valuable service? He poutily informed me that when he listened to it, he wasn’t thinking about narcotics, so it was in fact not actually a drug song, therefore elevating the philosophy of solipsism to heights hitherto undreamt of. So taken aback was I that I never felt able to charge him my usual fee.
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