[UA] 10 Most American Things

[Joshua Clark]

This is brilliant. I'm actually currently working on a Twin Peaksish UA game
(set around a group of high school students) myself, and as I read through
this thread, I'm finding it taking more and more shape in my mind.

---J

On 1/10/07, Rev Kev <kelmore at rocketmail.com> wrote:
>
>  "I'm kicking off a Twinpeaksey campaign in a few weeks -- a small North-
> state town, take elements from TP and every other small town story out
> there -- inspired by a rerun, and as a non-American locating his campaign
> in the States, I'd like to know: what are the most American things that
> every European should include in his/her (UA) campaign set in the States?"
> Ah, this is the moment where an American can proudly display how great his
> country is, and I am just simply embarrassed by the list.  But here goes:
>
> 1.  Football fans.  Not the real football that involves playing with your
> feet, but American football.  I don't know enough about football, but the
> Seattle Seahawks is in the northwest.  However, I find that a homogenous fan
> base exists only in the city of the team (for example, you find very few
> non-Chiefs fans in Kansas City).  As you move away from the big cities, you
> probably have a wide array of Packers fans, Broncos fans, 49ers fans, etc.
> During the fall, the bars will be running games on the TV.  College football
> too.  Actually, in a small town where nothing much is going on, the locals
> will probably watch anything.  The trifecta of American sports seems to
> focus on football, baseball, and basketball.  In the northwest, I suspect
> there may be a bigger draw toward hockey than where I am.
>
> 2.  Piss-drinking.  By this, I mean the cheap beers that the average slob
> drinks.  Budweiser, Miller, Coors.  We joked in college about how incredibly
> thrifty it was to buy Milwaukee's Best (Beast).  I don't even know if they
> still crank out that crap.  But the bars in your town will probably serve
> those three beers.  It'll have some hard liquor for men who are serious
> about getting plastered.  But Woodchuck or Guiness is out of the question
> for the average drinker.
>
> 3.  Religious billboards.  While the west coast is better about religion
> than the rest of the nation, rural is rural, and rural people tend to be
> more Christian.  I'll speculate that the northwest rural is not as mad-ass
> crazy as the south, but you can turn up or turn down the zeal factor.  Your
> town might be just as nuts as rural folks in Alabama.  Expect to see
> billboards advertising Christian radio stations, a "Why don't you stop in
> and see me" message from Jesus, and "Abortion stops a beating heart"
> warnings.  Despite the overly religious billboards, the people usually don't
> bring it up.  Either they are simply polite about it or they cannot possibly
> imagine that you do not love Jesus, so controversy never comes up.  Of
> course, nuts do exist, and you can have fun with that.
>
> 4.  Hunting.  Hunting is a recreation in many rural towns.  In the
> northwest, I imagine a lot more, as the country there is very productive.
> It wouldn't be unheard of for one guy to tell his buddy, "We're going
> hunting tomorrow.  Wanna go?"  The buddy would agree as if it were nothing
> more than an invitation to come over and watch a movie.  They may stay at
> the bar until 2 AM, sleep for 2 hours, and head out at 4 AM.
>
> 5.  Industry.  As someone mentioned, lumber mills would be big.  A rural
> town usually exists because it has something to keep people there.  Many
> children grow up and move away.  Some stay there and aspire to serve in the
> industry.  In Pittsburg, Kansas, the big industry was coal mining.  In
> Maryville, Missouri, there are few factories to keep locals employed.  Hell,
> always factories.  A friend of mine worked as a temp at a factory in
> Maryville.  He worked beside someone who was also new.  He told my friend
> that he couldn't wait to get out of high school so he could work full time
> on the assembly line at Kawasaki.
>
> 6.  Liberal college.  Some rural towns exist around a college, especially
> a state college.  This definition of rural may not jive with you.  Maryville
> and Pittsburg are towns that are about 10,000 people.  If that's too large
> for you, then skip the college.  On the other hand, a college may provide a
> haven for your characters.  Due to the nature of youth, the college will
> usually be more liberal than the rest of the town.  I worked for a boss in
> Maryville who absolutely hated the college kids.  He bragged about how he
> dropped out of high school and is running his own business now.  Who needs
> fucking education?  The college may have a symbiotic relationship with the
> town, or it may have an antagonistic approach, as the college kids get
> druink in their bars.
>
> 7.  Church.  In a very small town, it's a given that you go to church, and
> people can tell when you haven't.  A friend of mine told me of the first
> time she moved to a small town in Georgia.  A very small town.  One Sunday,
> she got a knock on the door.  It was one of the townspeople who wanted to
> make sure she was okay.  The townie was worried when she noticed that the
> newcomer wasn't at church.  You could go that crazy, but many small towns
> just assume that you should go to church, and they don't really notice if
> you don't go.  I imagine that in the northwest, this isn't a big deal.  You
> can expect to see a church every couple blocks, though.
>
> 8.  Child abuse.  My ex-girlfriend was studying to be a teacher.  She
> student-taught at the local elementary school in Maryville.  She learned
> that over half the kids come from homes where a parent regularly beats
> them.  In my opinion, I think more kids are beaten than we know, simply
> because some kids are too afraid to come forward.  This seems to be a larger
> percentage in a smaller town, but I don't have the research to back that
> up.  Knocked-up unwed mothers are fairly common (true anywhere).  Sometimes,
> the unfit parent still gets to see the child.  A friend of mine had trouble
> winning custody of his daughter because the state of Kansas almost always
> sides with the mother.  He had to pile on the evidence that the mother did
> drugs, lived in lice-infested squalor due to not paying the electricity and
> water bills, and did not drive the girl to school every day.  Finally, he
> won custody, but it took about a year.
>
> 9.  Xenophobia.  This is a nice term for racists and homophobes.  Even the
> nicest of people will utter some slur.  It may not even be an indication
> that the person hates the entire group, but it's a convenient label to slap
> on people that piss him off.  For example, my grandmother-in-law doesn't
> hate Mexicans, but when she complains about the inconsiderate neighbors, she
> refers to them as "those Mexicans."  Some people have more aggressive
> xenophobic attitudes.  Matthew Shepard is a casualty of such attitudes in a
> small town.  Even if people are not rabid racists and homophobes, they may
> still engage in some fag or nigger jokes.
>
> 10.  Conspiracy theorists.  This is not limited to just small towns.
> There are people who are convinced that the Moon Landing was staged.  There
> are those who believe in the Magic Bullet theory.  Usually, these people
> live ordinary lives.  You may have some nut jobs who want to convince the
> world of their beliefs.  Not entirely related to conspiracy theories, but
> you may find a lot of survivalists out in the northwest.  I saw a
> documentary about survivalists in that region who chose Idaho and Montana as
> ideal places to raise their families; other locations are prone toward
> tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes.  Many survivalists are honest folks
> who don't want to deal with society that often.  Some--the ones you usually
> hear about in the news--are bat shit crazy and will eventually have a
> shootout with authorities.
>
> Those are 10 things that spring to mind.
>
> Some movies you may want to rent:  A Simple Plan, Arlington Road,
> Deliverance, Sling Blade, Near Dark, Nightbreed, American History X, The
> Ref, and Donnie Darko.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> UA mailing list
> UA at lists.unknown-armies.com
> http://lists.unknown-armies.com/mailman/listinfo/ua
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.unknown-armies.com/pipermail/ua/attachments/20070110/5b1fcbde/attachment-0001.html