"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In"
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
This is a special time of year for me. This is when I get the chance to gather all my mentally-retarded cousins together at the old family home stead in Valdosta, Georgia, and force em to eat sweet potatoes and red beets until they’re sick. And then, after they all clean their plates and start begging for pumpkin pie that’s been cooked so long it stays in your mouth till Christmas, I say, “Now it’s time for Uncle Joe Bob’s story of how this great country of ours was created.”
I’ll never forget the sound of those little voices when I say that. All together, like little blackbirds attacking a mongoose, they say, “No! Please! Do we have to?”
And then I begin the ancient story. At first the only Americans were Indians, and they had names like Pocahontas and Geronimo and Butch.
They were extremely ugly. They never exterminated.
Then the white man came. He got malaria and croaked.
Then the next white man came.
He killed a few Indians, got malaria, and croaked.
Then a bunch of white men came over to Massachusetts cause, as we all know, Massachusetts has full medical benefits.
The guys in Massachusetts attacked a turkey, dug up some sweet potatoes, and forced the Indians to eat em. The Indians fled to New York. The guys in Massachusetts started wearing extremely stupid hats and killing heretics and writing bad poetry.
Then the Indians sold New York for 23 bucks and used the money to invest in Appalachia. The guys in New York invented lawyers, sued the Indians, took the money back, and made em pay rent on the property in Appalachia.
Some of the Indians started hanging around in Alabama, but the rest of em started doing musical comedy in Cherokee, North Carolina, for tourists.
Then the white man killed a few hundred thousand Indians who refused to live in Oklahoma cause the cable reception was so bad.
Then a bunch of mean Indians in Boise swooped down through the prairies and started killing white men cause the Indians wanted to hog all the hunting grounds for theirselves.
Then the white man killed all the Indians in Boise, killed all the buffaloes, killed all the prairie dogs, killed all the otters and beavers and mooses and mountain lions and bears.
Then the white man gave the Indians some hunting grounds back in New Mexico, cause all we needed that land for was nuke tests.
Then the white man got organized and sent the U.S. Calvary out there and killed all the rest of the Indians that didn’t live in Oklahoma or New Mexico or Arizona.
Then the white man sent some professors out there to write books about the Indians.
And that’s why, today, in this great country of ours, we celebrate the sweet potato and the turkey and, of course, the lawyer. There’s an old Indian saying that comes to mind at a time like this. Let’s see if I remember it. It goes something like this; “White man resemble hind end of sick goose.”
