This quirky old fashioned phrase was oft used by Ric in many of his stories. Basically, it means something that was hyped up and turned out to be a lie. This is my view lately about America.
Back in the day, at least for kids of my generation, we were told that America was the best place on Earth. No other nation could even come close to our high quality standard of living. As I grew up and developed my unique self thinking brain, I realized that this wasn't necessarily true. But at least we had it pretty darned well and, above all else, like we were told, we are far better off than those commie countries, Russia and China, right?
And so the media would still have you believe this. But when the media is itself drunk under the influence of its own Kool-Aid, what is served up as the truth is often far, far from it. We're constantly being sold a bill of goods.
Lately, because in part of the shit going down in Ukraine, I've been watching a few YouTube videos of people doing real-life vlogs from Russia and even peeking a bit at ones from China. Do they show the oppression and censorship of the citizens from these places? Well no, of course. Those videos went "unexisted" way before we Americans could ever see them, if you know what I mean. So what we get are sanitized, for sure. I know that. But still, on the scene video is hard to fake and the stuff my eyes are drawn too isn't really big secret shit anyway, it's just never reported to us here by our own media so we live in ignorance of the facts.
I've seen Russian malls and shopping centers full of high-end products, shelves bursting forth with well-made, high-quality goods and foods, shiny happy shoppers milling about wearing nice clothes and behaving very civil and carefree. Smiling and living life to their fullest.
In America, I go to Walmart and see dirty shelves separated by dirty floorspace poorly stocked (due to "supply chain" issues) with low-quality products and edibles. No shiny happy shoppers, just frowning miserable fucks pushing through crowds impatiently or smacking at unruly kids making way too much noise. They wear ghetto clothing and are constantly frowning. They're not living life to their fullest, they're merely existing.
I've seen huge LED illuminated skyscrapers filled with spacious, clean and fully equipped apartments for $400 a month in China. High speed rail lines zipping citizens from one mega city to the next all the while passing not one sign of graffiti or homeless tent camp. Cities Americans never hear about have over eight million inhabitants and boast statues like this that I am awestruck by, happening upon images of it by chance.
In America, only the rich live in nice places. The rest work their asses off to pay a huge portion of their income for tiny, dirty crappy housing. Here there's just one railroad, Amtrak, and it will slowly get you a few hundred miles passing structures covered in graffiti and countless homeless camps filled with desperate people eagerly waiting for your train to stop so they can rob it blind. Big cities in America are far from proud. Riddled with crime, corruption, and pollution, they're practically unlivable anymore. Here, great statues are torn down, not honored.
My latest purchase of a bill of goods happened today as, in absentia, I was handed over like freshly killed pray to Bank of America for thirteen thousand shekels. Goodbye Kruggy and Hulk, I'll soon be selling your asses for me to add more Bennies to my box. And sadly, hello again to the necessity of working for a living. With no car, that'll mean CSR phone monkey slavery where I'll likely be selling my callers their own bills of goods from my "livin' the dream" trailer park home.