This year, Americans are on TV even more than usual, as they will vote for a Mr President. They are known for a love of volume and cheeseburgers. But! In her defense, America also gave us Miles Davis, Tom Curren and Norman Mailer. As if they weren’t enough, she also gave us Charlie Smith, who here , offers some insight.

this is Chas Smith, carrying a dead Hawaiian pig on the cover of Flux magazine.

Northeasterners: Northeasterners originally hail from New York or Boston or Philadelphia. They are loud and brash and love to advertise their opinions and do so with jarring accents. They love to complain about the cold and complain about the heat and complain about taxes and complain about their sports teams. The men bald early. The women shrink and become round, with age. They work as taxi cab drivers and garbage men. They find pleasure in their sport’s teams. Some of them, in New York, find pleasure in owning the best city in the world and being fashionable and being gay. Tony Soprano is a Northeasterner.

 

Southerners: Southerners tried to separate from the rest of America during the Civil War. But they lost. Some Southerners, say, secretly in parlor rooms, “the south will rise again!” And nobody knows what they mean by this. Today, they love eating delicate fried foods. They love listening to rap music or zydeco music or country music. They move slowly and are also slow to wrath. Their accents are pleasant and their skin is, often, very good. Clean. Nelly is a Southerner. Forrest Gump is also a Southerner.

Fly-overs: Everyone in the middle. Nobody cares about them but they are the heart of America. They vote in elections. They have small dreams and drive big cars. They work in manufacturing. Vince Vaughan is a Fly-over.

Californians: A country unto itself. Californians come from everywhere but once in California become Californians. They are vain. They make movies. The women augment their breasts and the men cheat on the women. They drink fancy cocktails and adore Mexican food, from cheap to the gourmet kind that goes well with cocktails. Some Californians make computers and things and these Californians become very rich. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Californian.

Pacific Northwesterners: Pac-Northwesterners live in the trees and cut the trees down for work. They listen to loud and angry rock n roll and drink coffee and drink fancy beer. They smoke marijuana and grow marijuana but all this marijuana and beer and coffee does not lighten their moods because it rains on them 325 days a year. They become depressed. They write loud and angry rock n roll songs. They wish that everyone else in America was more eco friendly but they also cut down trees for work. And then they commit suicide. Kurt Cobain is Pacific-Northwesterner.

(Chas Smith is originally a Pacific Northwesterner. He studied in England and was once kidnapped in the Lebanon. He escaped, and now lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California.)