Who Is Bubba?

The Question is usually asked by your effete Easterners and West Coast ponytails who pretend to like trout pizza and fat novels written by Ecuadorans.

Well, to start, Bubba is not a Southern redneck who thinks a rented movie and a six-pack are quality entertainment.

That happens to be a distorted view of Bubba, a view largely advanced by people who can't appreciate the wisdom in a country song such as I Just Hope Those Honky-Tonks Don't Kill Me Before I Live Myself to Death. Granted, more than one Bubba from Georgia has spray-painted his girlfriend's name on an overpass. More than one Bubba from North Carolina will list Jack Daniels among his ten most-admired people, and more than one Bubba from Texas has seen his wife's hairdo get caught in a ceiling fan.

But more than one Bubba from Minneapolis likes to do his Christmas shopping at Grace-land. More than one Bubba from Chicago has to buy a VCR because professional wrestling comes on when he's at work, and more than one Bubba from Rochester has more curtains in his van than he has in his home.

The fact is, Bubba is an attitude more than anything else. There are perfectly sensible people who sleep much better at night realizing that without Bubba's attitude, biscuits and gravy might soon be run out of town by curried pumpkin soup, and then where would we be?

Bubba knows. We would all be so politically correct that we would march in parades to protest battered lesbian seals. We would eventually be forced to refer to halfbacks as African-American ballcarrier persons.

This is primarily why all of your Bubbas, no matter where they come from, choose to embrace the same philosophy of life, which is:

"There's always one more sumbitch than you counted on."

Life: Bubba thinks life is a pretty good deal, all in all, especially on those days when a man has some money in his pocket and his Firebird has just come off the lube rack.

He knows it's a better deal for Americans than for anybody else, of course. That's because your American has things to be interested in--football, cheeseburgers, adultery, pantyhose commercials--that keep him from wanting to make the sort of trouble that your foreigners do.

It's Bubba's guess that your troublemaking foreigners would enjoy life more if they didn't have to argue all the time about Buddha or Muhammad or whether Jesus went to Heights or Poly.

That's when they're not having to put up with earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanoes--those kinds of things.

It's too bad life treats foreigners this way, Bubba says. But better them than him.

One thing they might do is try eating a lot fewer fish heads.

Love: A very difficult thing for Bubba to talk about, as it is for most normal men, he believes.

In fact, in all the years Bubba was married to Janie Ruth, he can't recall that he ever really opened up his heart on the subject, except for those afternoons he was with Vicky Lynn Kilgore at the Shady Valley Motel.

Wives: Bubba is still trying to figure out what they want.

Bubba's good buddy, Joe Ed Starkey, who's been married six times, keeps saying, "You can't do nothin' about them--they're flawed creatures."

Bubba is not that cynical. He keeps working at it. So far, he's pretty sure of this much:

They like to be hugged fairly often.

They like to get flowers.

They like to talk about shit.

The first two are easy enough. It's that last one that really takes a lot out of you.

Ex-wives: You can accumulate ex-wives real easy, Bubba says, particularly in this day of the no-fault divorce.

Among his friends, Bubba has noticed that you can get yourself an ex-wife if you refuse to spend any money on all that furniture she thinks you need to keep your house from looking like Beirut.

You can get an ex-wife if you keep on wanting to play golf on your vacation instead of going to Disney World.

You can get an ex-wife if you make that tragic mistake of not being able to recite poetry while you're trying to lift something heavy or fix the plumbing.

You can eventually get an ex-wife if you continue to give her anniversary presents that plug in.

The quickest way to get an ex-wife, of course, is to let Janie Ruth catch you with Vicky Lynn Kilgore.

Also, you can get a second ex-wife real quick if you let Vicky Lynn find some panties in your glove compartment that belong to Melissa Evans.

Girlfriends: It's been Bubba's experience that your best girlfriends, those who last the longest, are the ones happily married to somebody else.

This is the girlfriend who lets you know up front that she's strictly in it for the adventure, like you are.

A girlfriend is not a mistress, incidentally. Your good mistresses are expensive to maintain, and Bubba would rather spend his money on a new set of Hogan irons.

Girlfriends are not always as goodlooking as wives, but they're certainly more good-natured--which, by and large, is why they become girlfriends in the first place.

It's always a sad day, however, when the girlfriend suddenly turns out to be not so happily married and not so good-natured. All you can do in this unfortunate moment, Bubba says, is heave a sigh, shake your head and quietly say to yourself, "Oh, Christ--here we go."

Female Bubbas: They lead a double life. You'll see the rascals around the office or downtown during the day, and they appear to be dedicated, responsible secretaries or receptionists, though one or two may give you a hint of what they're up to when they say something to you like, "Where we gonna boogie tonight, ace?"

Then night comes and they're out on patrol in their skintight jeans, showing off their store-bought tits, chain-smoking Vantage 100s, drinking Bud Lites, discussing the size of Randy's dick and saying fuck every other word.

Bubba's not fooled anymore. A lot of big talk is all they are.

Fathers: The thing Bubba remembers best about his daddy is how his daddy never talked to anybody in the family as much as he talked to the TV set. This gave him something in common with most other daddies, actually.

Bubba's daddy would come home from work every night and sit in the same chair and eat his dinner off the same tray. It was from this vantage point that he could tell Ironside who the kidnapper was, or tell Kojak to watch out for that crazy sumbitch with a knife hiding in the closet. Mostly, however, Bubba's daddy talked to news commentators and to all the vagrants and foreigners who turned up on the news every evening.

There was definitely a news broadcast on TV if Bubba would overhear his daddy saying any of the following things:

(1) "That's a crock."

(2) "There's a liberal for you."

(3) "I don't believe you can sell any of that crap in this house tonight."

(4) "That's right. All of you lay down in the street now."

(5) "Well, I've got a suggestion for you, hoss. If you don't like it here, why don't you get your ass on over there to Mozambique?"

Bubba's daddy almost never saw anything good on the TV news.

Patsy Clair swears to this day that it was those I-raqis and I-ranians who caused his heart attack and killed him.

Bubba's mama: They don't make women like Bubba's mama anymore. If Bubba had to pin it down, he'd say they stopped when the microwave oven came along.

There was never a household problem Bubba's mama couldn't handle with a smile. She cooked and cleaned and picked up and held down a part-time job all her life. She never got sick. As a matter of fact, the only time she ever even had to lie down on the bed for a minute or two was when Florence died--she loved that Lab.

Bubba's mama was a great lady in all ways, and she left Bubba with a wonderful legacy, which was the recipe she invented for chicken-fried bacon:

Dip pieces of bacon in milk.

Dredge with flour.

Sprinkle salt and pepper.

Place in cold skillet on hot stove.

Turn once.

Remove when brown.

Serve with Bisquick biscuits.

Bubba can still hear his mama's voice talking about her invention.

"The bacon don't shrink, and all the fat is preserved inside the crispy brown coating."

She was about half saint, is all she was.

Dogs: To Bubba's way of thinking, there aren't many things more entertaining than rolling around on the carpet with a slick-haired dog.

Dogs have many splendid virtues, he says.

(1) They are entirely sympathetic about your problems at the office.

(2) They enjoy hearing about your golf game, hole by hole, shot by shot.

(3) They like the same TV programs you do.

(4) Food will square most any differences you have with them.

(5) They hardly ever object to anything on moral grounds.

Movies: Bubba enjoys going to the movies. Mainly, he likes the ones where something happens.

One thing he's certain about, however: There can't be as many serial killers around as Hollywood would have you believe or there wouldn't be a pretty girl left in America.

Bubba has been known to sum up the various types of movies for his friends:

Romantic movies: Edward doesn't see how he can divorce his wife as long as she's in the wheelchair. Rachel doesn't see how she can divorce her husband as long as he's off at war. Oh, well. Time to fuck again.

Cop movies: "Make my day, Carlos, so that I can hasta la vista your dope-crazed ass."

Adventure movies: "Let me get this straight. We have only 12 hours to get the diamonds out of the temple or the Nazi mummies will stick forks in our eyes?"

English movies: They talked for three days and the girl never fell off the cliff.

Subtitled movies: They smoked a lot. Nobody could figure out how to stop the windshield wipers and two or three people finally caught trains.

Western movies: "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, Clarissa. Put the (continued on page 161)Who is Bubba?(continued from page 118) coffee on while I go kill the rest of those outlaws who forgot to shave today."

Science-fiction movies: "It doesn't seem possible that they can look, talk and act just like humans when only three days ago they were in boxes of Cream of Wheat. How in heaven's name can that be, professor?"

Safari movies: "He says he saw a white man here six weeks ago, but he thinks that he went to Magoola Gomba with Ava Gardner."

Medical movies: "I'm afraid the pain will slowly consume his whole body, but he probably won't go blind until there's no one left in the audience."

Historical movies: That moat doesn't seem to do much good.

War movies: "No, sir, I've never tried to land a B-17 before. I'm just a homespun tailgunner from Pocatello, Idaho."

Horror movies: "Is that you, Debbie?"

Dove hunting: It is essential, Bubba says, that you and your friends go out and kill several hundred doves every year. This helps prevent the evil doves from taking over the entire western half of the U. S.

But there is a right way and a wrong way to go dove hunting. The right way involves the following steps:

(1) Store up enough whiskey and food for the weekend.

(2) Make sure the bimbos can find the cabin.

(3) When the bimbos actually do find the cabin, tell the Mexicans to go kill the doves.

Ballet: Bubba has never been to a ballet, but he learned a crucial thing about it when he saw these ballet dancers on public television one night: Most of your swans come up short on tits.

Work: Bubba believes in hard work. If you work hard at your job, you'll get ahead. Of course, if you want to go any higher, you'll have to kiss some ass. That's how businesses are run. Business set it up this way sometime after the industrial revolution.

Bubba has been a salesman all his life. Right now, he sells big ones and little ones. If he sells little ones, he has to sell about 5000 of them a year to come out all right. If he sells big ones, he has to sell only two.

Bubba is proud of being a salesman. He says everybody in the world is a salesman of one kind or another. It doesn't matter whether you deal in floor covering or paint Hindus in flower beds, you're a salesman.

Politics: Bubba believes strongly in exercising the right to vote, but he has hard and fast rules about the candidates and issues that will get his vote:

(1) Never vote to expand or extend anything, because it will only raise your taxes more than they would be raised ordinarily.

(2) Never vote on any kind of environmental issue, because yes may mean no, or no may mean yes. The bird-watchers will trick you any way they can.

(3) Always vote against the incumbent unless he's one of your golfing buddies.

(4) Never vote for a lawyer, naturally.

(5) Never vote for a hairpiece.

(6) Never vote for a shiny suit.

(7)Never vote for a pair of tasseled loafers.

(8) Never vote for a man under five feet four.

(9)Never vote for anybody from Massachusetts.

(10) Never vote for any man or woman who has a relative in the readymix concrete business.

Sexual harassment: Bubba is all for doing whatever it takes to put an end to sexual harassment. It is a disgusting thing, he says, and he knows what he's talking about because he has been a victim of it himself on more than one occasion. He vividly remembers that night when Maxine Shaw rubbed up against him at the Blue Note and said:

"I want to fuck you, Bubba. If you fuck me, I won't tell your wife. If you don't fuck me, I'll tell your wife you did."

Bubba vows to fight on the side of feminists to destroy this dreaded epidemic.

Stress: Stress results from staying pissed off too long. Bubba and Joe Ed Starkey believe that getting drunk or kicking inanimate objects are still the best ways to relieve stress--or pissed offedness, if you will.

Sidewall Thornton has a different idea. Sidewall recommends farting in public. Sidewall likes to fart at the 7-Eleven while the Haitian is ringing up his lottery tickets and beer. He says farting loud and long in crowds often helps him integrate back into society when he's feeling separate and tense and confused. Several people have learned the hard way never to pull Sidewall's finger if he asks them to do it in the middle of a social gathering.

Condoms: Condoms are for queers. Bubba staunchly believes that his wholesome sperm deserves to enjoy its freedom and he likes to think it has a grin on its face while it's splashing around in the lagoon or playing softball or trying on some caps.

God: There is no question that God is an American. God may have started out in Europe, but He came to America as soon as He noticed that we were basically good-hearted people who bathed regularly and would someday invent central air-conditioning.

Bubba says people who sometimes have doubts about God being an American just need to remind themselves of where cold meat-loaf sandwiches and college football came from.

Bubba loves God and tries to go to church every Easter. He also prays to God in his own quiet way, usually in those moments when he would dearly like to have a tee shot in the fairway on a long par four or badly needs a touchdown in the fourth quarter to cover the point spread.

But he understands completely that there will be those occasions when God is in Palm Springs with His phone off the hook.

Europe: Bubba saved up and went on this package tour of Europe a few years ago to see what it was all about. It was mostly about trying to ditch the tour guide and stay out of cathedrals but not miss the bus.

He was glad he satisfied his curiosity about Europe, though, and had a number of things to report to Joe Ed and Sidewall.

(1)Switzerland was the tallest.

(2) Your Englishman doesn't seem to mind finding a bullet in his meat.

(3) France doesn't care if you sit in a sidewalk café all day.

(4) Italy won best ruins.

(5) Your Germans act like they're about half-ready to try it again.

Philosophy: Bubba believes you can find more useful philosophy on the signs behind a bar than you will in some book that was written by a goatee in the Balkans. Among his favorites that have adorned the walls of Dottie's Paradise Lounge:

There is no Substitute for a lack of Preparation.

The other line moves faster until you get in it.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

Truth is one of man's many options.

Friends that come and go never leave quick enough.

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have somebody in mind to blame.

Suicide will end most arguments, except in the home.

"Politics: Never vote for any man or woman who has a relative in the ready-mix concrete business."