JAIMIE VERNON – SUNTAN LOTION: AN AMERICAN PARABLE

The United States is going to decide on Tuesday who gets to live in the White House. That’s it. It’s a fight over curb appeal. It comes with a desk job related to maintaining the façade of Leader of the Free World. The outcome is already foretold in the ancient scrolls. Americans call it The Constitution. It’s like the Get Out of Jail Free card in Monopoly. Invoke the incantation called ‘The Second Amendment’ and men with guns appear as protectors of freedom.

The person in the White House sends them to their favourite vacation spots. It’s usually in hot and sunny climates where there are sandy beaches with no water. They’ll have to sleep in it and learn to wipe it from their ass cracks while people in these vacation spots reign fiery death on their heads. They too have a Get Out of Jail Free card. They don’t like tourists wearing camouflage who fly drones and wave guns around.

Everyone in the Home of the Brave are so free that there’s now a secret club. The hazing ritual to get into the club is known as ‘Take Your Shoes Off’ at the airport. Apparently, everyone in sock feet get to fly on airplanes and go anywhere they want in the world except those who look like they should be living somewhere else. They have to do more than show stocking feet. They must surrender to a colon inspection, a groin grab and the disposal of shampoo. Only then can they leave to go back where they came from but there’s no guarantee they can return to America ever again. They often end up at beaches with no water as well. Everyone wants to vacation there while the locals are desperate to leave.

Americans call these people undesirables. There’s no need to parse words like refugee or immigrant. Go away. We don’t want your kind here. One of the people looking to sleep in the White House wants to build a wall to keep these undesirables out. He doesn’t understand they have ladders and airplanes of their own.

Meanwhile, the other person who has already slept at the White House and wants to go back would like to send even more men with guns to the waterless beaches and take all their suntan lotion. Millions of barrels of it. Other countries want the suntan lotion as well. One of them lives at the Kremlin. It’s like the White House only red. He doesn’t care who lives at the White House. He doesn’t plan on visiting it anytime soon. They would make him take his shoes off when he got there. Red House man is friends with the people that own the waterless beaches. He has promised to protect his friends. He has sent his best fishing boats to make sure the suntan lotion stays buried under the sand. And so there is much tension.

Neither of the people who want to live in the White House cares much about anything except that suntan lotion. Not the poor. Not the starving. Not even the poor and starving being forced to leave the waterless beach because their homes sit on top of the suntan lotion. Strangely, America has suntan lotion already. They just don’t seem to have enough. They’ve already removed the people living on top of the suntan lotion who live in the United States. Those people are not happy. They just want to live in peace and don’t want the suntan lotion getting spilled everywhere – especially on the real beaches that do contain water.

More men with guns have stopped the people from voicing their concerns. They do not work for the government but for The Corporation that owns the suntan lotion. The Corporation has a bigger voice in all the elections and influences all the people that work with the person in the White House. Suntan lotion is the most important thing in the United States. Even bigger than the ancient scrolls that protect the rights of the people living on the land. They cannot have the suntan lotion. They must buy it back from The Corporation. They need it to operate all the machines in their lives. Machines to go to work. Machines to power their homes. Machines to entertain and distract them.

Others wanted to help the defenceless people from The Corporation. They too worked very hard to live in the White House. They were stopped by people who believe the suntan lotion Corporation and many other Corporations must come first. Those people will never get to live in the White House because they don’t care about suntan lotion. They care about people. Corporations can’t sell people. Not yet. The person who gets to live in the White House on Tuesday will be working extra hard to help Corporations sell anything they desire. If that means people then the ancient scrolls will be amended once more and enforced by more men with guns. No one will be taking their shoes off after that. They’ll be wearing work boots and dungarees and helping to extract the suntan lotion on the Corporation’s behalf.

On Tuesday, vote for the people to remain free and not for suntan lotion.

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Jaimie Vernon, 4003 Ellesmere Road, Toronto, ON M1C 1J3 CANADA

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Jaimie “Captain CanCon” Vernon has been president of the on again/off-again Bullseye Records of Canada since 1985. He wrote and published Great White Noise magazine in the ‘90s, has been a musician for 33 years, and recently discovered he’s been happily married for 16 years. He is also the author of the recently released Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia and a collection of his most popular ‘Don’t Believe A Word I Say’ columns called ‘Life’s A Canadian…BLOG’ is now available at Amazon.com http://gwntertainment.wix.com/jaimievernon