‘ This new American uniform – the baseball cap, t-shirt, shorts and trainers (why not a scooter?) is not about looking good. It’ s about disappearing into a new, unofficial, global army of cultural babies. It says:
I eat hamburgers and watch TV and chew gum all day
I want everyone to play my game
You have to be nice to me and if you’ re not I’ m gonna shoot you
I can’ t understand a word you say
… and what is that but American foreign policy?’
Todd McEwen left the United States in 1980, but it’ s still driving him crazy. He worries about cheeseburgers, Cary Grant, Henry David Thoreau, democracy, the Elks Club and Daffy Duck. Join him on his acid-reflux examination of what America has come to be.
Todd McEwen left the United States in 1980, but it's still driving him crazy.
'This is an exceptionally urbane and witty collection of essays, loosely linked around varieties of Americana...and although the book is laugh-out-loud funny, the reader is acutely aware that the comedy is a carapace for profound misgivings... If you like the Daily Show or The Colbert Report you will find an ally, a comforter and a co-conspirator in McEwen. If you don't like them, you'll probably never pick this book up and have a deep scepticism about the written word anyway.'
