Howell Michigan- Riley Hanson

So, I am a journalist, and I am going to Howell Michigan. The Suburban sprawl spreads its sweaty fingers all the way to the good ole country bumpkin. That same boy wears a rebel flag tee shirt, drives tractors, and calls girls bitches. I meet some kids talking about all the sex they’re having. Their mommies and daddies don’t give a damn because they’re too busy pulling nine to fives at the place down the street that that one girl killed herself at. Driving down these mud-mucked roads I find a few good ole American gems. The white picket fences, a few windows to peak through, and I guess a new swingers group just moved in the neighborhood. But wait, maybe this is all some goddamn Middle American John Waters film. Little boys come crashing down hills on skateboards; they probably toss eggs and smash mailboxes too, all to get away from daddy throwing plates at mommy. That’s the only soul saving business, the skate shop. And maybe the coffee shop on the corner. If it weren’t for that auction house down the street auctioning off a klu klux klan robe back in the summer of 04’ this place might have a chance at a breath of fresh air. No matter all the swell looking billboards promoting a new face lift, this place will always have an evil lurking. At least until all those fucked up ideologies die, and its been way to long for grandpa’s racist slur’s to make it to the ear’s of the freshly popped out young pup. That poor little boy still doesn’t have a chance though, because his daddy wants him to be a ball playing star so hard that that little boy will be so goddamn scared to be himself. God forbid he comes home with another boy in his arm.

This is why I’m here right? A journalist? So I can make some sort of work to show you and everyone else the false ideologies breeding oppression right here in our backyard. “You know sometimes good ole family values are okay,” I recon those values they’re talking about, aren’t the okay ones.