A Letter to Ohio

A letter to Ohio

I write this as Ohio swings in the balance. Doesn’t look too good. What the fuck, Ohio? What are you good for? Your cities are boring, your sports teams suck, and you don’t think too good. Wannabe Midwest state. At least real Midwest states have some faith in something, no matter how fucked it may be. And you call yourselves rocknrollers. You’re voting for Toby Keith! Cracker ass crackers. I don’t think you even deserve to be called crackers, now that I think about it. At least crackers have SOME identity. SOME direction. Even if it is Reverse in a ’76 Chevy half-ton.

I’m from Kansas, bitch. I know what it takes to be a Midwest state. You need a city that grinds its teeth in its sleep; a Tulsa, a Lincoln, a Topeka. You got Cleveland, a fucking wannabe Wichita. You can’t get dirty with us. You can’t get low with us. You need a preacher with a “GodHatesFags” sign, a federal building with a hole in its side, a blackclad school shooter. You need flatbed Fords and flathead catfish, a hometown paper with a blazing Jesus fish, the October ‘97 Guns and Ammo Heston interview matted and framed in your paneled bathroom. You need AC/DC and peanut butter crank running Richard Petty down the back of your throat. Dry lips sucking hope through a bic pen from a broken light bulb. Walls coming in, bills coming in, babies coming in, Arabs coming in, nuke em nuke em nuke em.

What do I got to lose?

My dad did things this way. Nuke em. His dad did things this way. Nuke em. The preacher does things this way. Nuke em. God does things this way. Nuke em.

So what’s it gonna be, Ohio? Keep looking for Reverse and you’ll find it. But even if you back all the way down through the dotted oilfields of Texas, you won’t find this thing that pushes us. It’s in the three hour Saturday drive to Wal-Mart, the sixteen hour shift behind the wheel of an International 8030. We plow circles in the fields, round and round and round, turning old dirt into new. This thing, this isolation, it bounces through the backwoods of Nebraska, echoes across the hills and hollers of Missouri, and settles on the porcelain plates of families eating Sunday dinner, alone.

My advice to you, Ohio, is to go back East. Go back to where you’re from. Forget the notion that you are a Midwest state. It will only get you, it will only get us, nowhere.

M. Nash