Mortgages were bought and sold in ways that while we still do not fully understand.

Some banker prince in Monaco probably understands, but he is engulfed in model flesh and caviar, and so he isn’t around to explain it to us.

Trouble breeds uncertainty, and vice versa.  For over a year now, we are a nation that has bent its head and at times wept.

But one thing has always been there for us.  One steward of misfortune adjusts and bears the load when the worst happens.

It is the appendage that offends white linen tabletops.

It is a wrestler’s billy club.

It is all some of us have.

Gomito maccheroni, more commonly known as elbow pasta, is the foundation of American pasta culture.  While we would like to claim something fanciful like fusilli, democratic like spaghetti, or something with the blank canvas promise of manicotti, we simply cannot.  Elbow pasta, in all its tubular glory, is our pasta of choice.

Okay, okay, I hear your complaint.  “What authority are you to judge America’s pasta?  Where have you eaten that allows you to do this?  Where is your family originally from?”  My answers to those questions are, respectively: I don’t care, Little Caesars and Tennessee.

Now that we got that out of the way.

So, elbow pasta, or, even more particularly, elbow macaroni is the foundation of the United States pasta culture.  But why?  What’s the answer?  The answer is that it itself is an answer.  It is an answer to this problem:

Fact: Americans like to order salads.
Problem:  Americans don’t like to eat salads.
Solution:  Take out the lettuce and replace it with elbow macaroni.

I should note that this was the basis for a fantastic High Life commercial in the late nineties.  This, however, does not help my thesis.

Onward ho.

Now, what product is elbow pasta featured in more than any other?  Answer: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. What do babysitters cook for kids when they parents leave for vacation for three weeks?  Answer: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, every night.  What do parents tell their tweens to cook when they leave their kids alone in the house in those formative years of independent thinking?  Answer: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and vodka.

This being the case, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese represents what Freud labled as his “Maculey Culkin Theory”.  In this theory, Freud stated that anyone left alone to fend for themselves in the formative tween years will likely make associative comforts with anything that replaces maternal or paternal comfort.  Therefore, for most of America’s youth, this is represented by the stovetop promise of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese filled with, what else, elbow pasta (Mcaulay Culkin wasn’t as lucky as he chose red wool sweaters and high grade Peruvian cocaine).

So, is it any surprise that they had commercials with kids singing that they had the “blue box blues”?  No, these kids missed their fucking parents.  When they grew up and it was time to be adults and order salads, what did they do?  Replaced the lettuce with elbow macaroni (a.k.a. parents, see Freud’s “Baby Carrot Hypothesis” for further reading).

Elbow pasta was the subconscious babysitter of a generation.  Now, it can be seen everywhere from Ruby Tuesday’s salad bar to children’s art.  But where to next?  What are parents leaving their kids to eat these days?  Word on the street is organic free-range chicken.  Oh no.

Now I’m not sure where this last idea came from, and clearly it wasn’t the most absurd thing I believed in, but it is clearly the most perplexing.  It is confusing because if that were true then there are implications that I totally ignored.  For example, in the spring why was God such a whiny bitch?  How did he stay so strong in the summer?  And most importantly, if he was creating tears, where the hell were the rest of his body parts?

That got me thinking.  I’m an adult now, but I’m not too old to enjoy a good hypothetical game.  It’s like “would you rather or Marry/Fuck/Kill” except you are assigning an anatomy to the All Mighty himself.  So I decided to indulge in the game and this is what I came up with: God’s anatomy, from asshole to elbow.

God’s Asshole – Geyser (You don’t fart rainbows?)

God’s Tears – Rain

God’s Tear Ducts – Clouds

God’s Heartburn – Volcanoes

God’s Period – Red Tide

God’s Vagina – Grand Canyon

God’s Penis – Tornado (If you see it, you’re fucked)

God’s Orgasm – Earthquake (No picture necessary)

God’s Armpit – New Jersey

God’s Elbow – Owen Wilson’s Nose

Number 1: Fuck you

Number 2: My name is Lawrence Bowtanton and my life was fine, no, perfect without you. I had tons of friends. I was making well into the six figures, and I was bringing home a different girl every night. Then you happened.

You made that shitty movie that no one saw about that dead singer that no one had heard of. Then, the idea that you yourself could actually sing made its way past your 14th Street door knocker earrings into your disgusting head. You made that awful song with that skinny little zero Ja Something and then found the gall to actually start calling yourself J. Lo. That’s when you ruined my life.

I went from Larry, the happiest son-of-a-bitch on the planet, to L. Bow.

I HATE THAT FUCKING NAME!

Now I can’t hold a job, I haven’t been laid since ’04, and I haven’t had a good BM since “Gigli.”

I loved being Larry. I was PROUD to be Larry. I never wanted to be L. Bow. For 10 years now, everywhere I go it’s been “Heeeey, L. Bow!” and then people would unnecessarily elbow my left arm. They never said why, they just did it. I worked on Wall St. Those guys are all HGH riddled mutants with confidence issues. Do you have any idea how badly that shit hurt!?!?

Why would you do this to me Ms. Lopez? Who gave you the right to meddle with people’s identities? And it’s not just me: my friend, Victor Ginakowski killed himself two years ago because he could no longer take the humiliating nickname that you so selfishly burdened him with.

How does that make you feel? How does it feel to know that you single-handedly destroyed, at the very least, two once-proud men?

I hope this letter serves as a wake-up call to you. My only solace lies in the fact that your career appears to have died. Nevertheless, your careless disregard has spawned an entire generation of celebrity nicknames like R. Patz and Speidi, and thus I remain saddled with L. Bow.

For that, I hope you rot in Hell.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Bowtanton

In the game of basketball, “throwing elbows” is an illegal move players do to send an antipathetic message to opposing players. Urban Dictionary defines it as “popping someone in the face with your high slung elbow in order to cause serious disruption to some punks (sic) face, ie: ‘some ho came up to me and she was all like ‘ahhhh’ and i was all like ‘no way’, then that crazy bitch started throwing elbows.’”

Here is a list of 40 people, whom—in the game of life—I’d like to throw a ‘bow into.

In no particularly hateful order:

Ann Coulter
George W. Bush
Osama Bin Laden
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Audrina Patridge
Carson Daly
Lindsay Lohan
Bill O’Reilly
Michael Vick
Paris Hilton
Barry Bonds
Spencer Pratt & Heidi Montag
Al Sharpton
LFO (for the song “Summer Girls”)
Bernie Madoff
R. Kelly
Lauren Conrad
The entire cast of Real World: Brooklyn
Bill Belichick
Lleyton Hewitt
The writers of the movie Hancock
A-Rod
Manny Ramirez
Every guy who’s ever been on The Bachelorette
Karl Rove
Mel Gibson
Adam “Pacman” Jones
The proprietor of the Subway in Mt. Kisco, NY
Phil Mickelson
Ty Pennington
A.J. Pierzynski
Dick Cheney
Kim Jong Il
Rush Limbaugh
Terrel Owens
The Sham Wow guy
Alex Trebek
Tiger Woods
Pat Robertson
Absolutely anyone associated with the show My Super Sweet Sixteen

It’s impolite because the elbows hold it all together.  They are the bookends to a loaf of bread, and without them, the loaf falls apart.  Like an accordion without a strap, it flops out on the table, scattering crumbs like a swarm of bumble bees over a watermelon flavored Jolly Rancher sitting in a puddle of freshly spilled Zima.

But it’s not all impoliteness and doom and gloom.  When a loaf of bread falls apart, as the slices fan out in a spontaneous fashion, a noise is made.  It is a soft, beautiful noise.  Like the gentle plop of a balloon bouncing along the litter ridden ground at a state fair in 1987 or the silent thud of a feather that falls from a waterfall at an Alaskan national park or the light step of a Native American as he runs through the forest hunting a deer in the early hours of a chilly October morning with nothing but a crudely made knife with which to kill and a loin cloth covering his bits.

It is a noise unlike any other, and is barely audible and easily missed, and it is the reason I always eat the elbows first.

It’s a cultural phenomenon that my (our) generation is growing up with a completely different definition of success than previous generations. When our grandparents and great grandparents were huddled behind enemy lines in occupied Europe almost 70 years ago; they were not praying for the war to end so they could go home and be a creative director. They did not want to be the CEO of a major corporation or found the next innovation consultancy. They wanted to make it home to work hard. To build cars, drive cabs, open stores and contribute to the prosperity of a nation. We have lost this mentality today. We are a generation of immediate gratification and highest aspiration.

I reference the Mike Rowe talk because he speaks to something that is waiting to be championed. He notes that every year there are fewer plumbers, fewer electricians and enrollment in trade schools is dropping off exponentially. People are not looking at these careers and getting excited about the possibilities any longer. The life of the Blue Collar worker is becoming more and more unattractive.

When in actuality this is completely wrong. You want to know what an honorable day of work is? It’s performing a service that satisfies basic societal needs. We must begin bringing the appeal back to these jobs.

People who put in more than 8 hours everyday of difficult, physical labor are the new elite society in our country. More and more MBA’s, lawyers and academically trained robots are pouring into the workforce and the thought of getting their hands dirty is enough to send them back for more degrees. Hard work is not something everyone can do- this should be celebrated.

Value brands (Target, Vizio, Wal-Mart, Ikea) are very much in vogue but none of them speak to this blue collar group while ruthlessly excluding the delicate, pencil pushing white collar worker. Where is the brand for the American Worker? A lifestyle brand that is built with the hard worker in mind and one that serves the specialized needs of this group. Grooming products, clothing, shoes, tools, cooking products, catering trucks.

The opportunity is waiting- the American worker is due for another time in the spotlight.