Greetings citizenry! I’m back on the road again after a rare and wonderful weekend at home with my wife Peggy, her goddamn kids, and my wonderful boys. As much as I just love to be on the road constantly pretending to be interested in the needs of every godforsaken slackjaw in this great land of ours, it sure feels good to kick back with the family once in a while and get my bonding on. We did a lot of the typical family stuff that Americans do, from taffy-pulls and may-poles. Saturday night was my favorite White family tradition: Movie night!

Now, I’m a bit of a hard-ass when it comes to movie night, as Peggy and the kids can attest to. There are only a few rules, but they are strictly enforced. First, everyone must be present. This includes Peggy, her two children from her previous marriage (whose names I only repeat when insulting them), my kids, Butch and R.J., and Consuela, our maid. I don’t invite the road crew, because this is supposed to be a vacation, after all. Whenever possible, I try to avoid having Anselmo over when Peggy is home. There is always an inexplicable tension in the air whenever they are in the same room.

The second rule is that there must be mountains of extra-buttery popcorn, and not that microwave bullshit, either. Consuela never disappoints in this department. Whenever she comes back from a visit to her homeland, she smuggles in some unbelievable stuff. Tortillas, Polenta, Hominy; those Mexicans are like little brown corn geniuses!

The third and most important rule is that the movie must be, I repeat, must be Roland Emmerich’s 1996 masterpiece Independence Day. Not only is this movie set on my birthday, but it also features Will Smith’s most compelling performance. I can’t say enough about this film. It’s got everything. Aliens, Presidents, nukes, dogfights, Jeff Goldblum, you name it! There’s no sex, though, unless you consider killing to be a type of sex (which I do). I think the thing I like best about this movie, though, is it’s dignified and heroic portrayal of the President. In fact, if I were completely honest, I would have to say that Bill Pullman’s character of President Thomas J. Whitmore is my single biggest political influence, and perhaps the reason I’m entering politics at all.

You look surprised. “What,” you might ask, “is so great about President Whitmore?” Well first, he’s slightly good looking. Second, when things get tough, he’s not afraid to jump behind the yoke of a fighter jet. Third, his wife dies, which has always been a personal dream of mine. Need more? Fourth, Whitmore’s a brilliant orator. If you didn’t cry when he made that speech right before the final air battle, you need to get some help because guess what? You’re a sociopath. The bottom line is that President Whitmore, while fictional, is better in every way than any actual President we’ve ever had.

Perhaps you are now wondering if there are any ways in which Thomas J. Whitmore and Rich White are similar? Well, let me put it this way: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our last names are identical for the first four letters. I’ll put it another way as well: Yes, we’re similar. In fact, if elected, I pledge to bring to the White House the decency, courage, and mild good looks that Pullman’s character embodies. While I realize that, as President, I will probably not have to fight actual aliens, I choose to view the aliens as a figurative representation of the various challenges that a President must face. For instance, I would be willing to jump into the cockpit of an F-22 to fix Social Security or Education; that’s the level of commitment I’m talking about. In short, I will not go quietly into the night. I will not vanish without a fight. I will live on. I will survive. Today I celebrate our “Independence Day.”

Oh, as far as movie night is concerned, it didn’t turn out so well. Peggy’s slut daughter Bekka referred to Bill Pullman as Bill Paxton (I think she did it on purpose). Because of the searing rage that exploded within me, I am unsure of the precise course of events following the incident. I woke up the next morning on the floor, and the house was completely empty. Lots of things were broken. I called Anselmo to come pick me up, and I haven’t spoken with the family since. Don’t worry though; sooner or later one of them will call to apologize.

I used to watch a lot of porn in college, so I think it’s safe to say that I know a thing or two about women; lesbians, in particular. Unfortunately, this knowledge didn’t get me very far on my recent appearance on ABC’s “The View.” I don’t know if you’ve heard of this show or not, (I hadn’t) but apparently it is quite popular with the unemployed, and possibly the unemployable. Anyway, when I received the invite to appear, I was skeptical. I hadn’t heard of any of the women who host the program, but at Anselmo’s behest, I accepted. As the date for the appearance approached, however, I began to get nervous. Was I being set up? What should I expect? So I decided to do a little research.

I made a call to a good friend of mine who I like to call “The Donald.” He’s my lawyer Donald Siegelmann and we go way back; all the way to Princeton. He’s my Jewish friend, so he’s my go-to guy for advice on things like medicine, law, jewelry, banking, and the entertainment industry. He had some interesting things to say about the show and its hosts. Apparently, it is a talk show with a sort of “Coffee Klatch” format, hosted by four women, all of whom are lesbians. The boss lesbian is a big lady named Rosie, who has a loud mouth and sits on the left. There is also an old grandmother lesbian named Barbara. Then there is a jewish lesbian named Joy (chosen, I suspect, because of that race’s inherent adeptness at observational comedy), and finally the hot or “lipstick” lesbian, whose name I don’t care about sits on the far right. They sit around and chat about all manner of topics, from tampons to maxi pads, and they also have an interview segment where some important person comes by and they ask him questions. Pretty basic stuff, so when Anselmo dropped me off at the studio that morning, I was confident and relaxed; ready to take advantage of my first TV appearance.

Everything started out pretty nice. I was practicing the new smile that I had been working on (the Edwards) when there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, there was a big black-haired woman wearing what looked to be maternity clothing standing outside the door grimacing at me. She introduced herself as Rosie, and told me that she was very excited to meet me. I reciprocated by telling her that I too was pleased to make her acquaintance, and that I was not the least bit disgusted by her homosexuality, but that I would prefer to not shake hands. Then I excused myself and went back to the mirror for a few last minute tweaks to my technique.


When the show went live, I was hustled off to a place called the “green room,” which was pretty nice, though the only green thing in it was a puke stain in the corner that I later learned was left there by Danny DeVito. I love his work on TV and film, but his vomit was a bit of a disappointment. There was food, but since I only eat Surf ‘N’ Turf, I passed. They did provide a TV, though, which I initially thought would be a source of entertainment, but I soon found that there was no way to change the channel on it. I poked my head out the door and asked a crew member how I could get CNBC on this biatch, but he just said it was “closed circuit,” or some such nonsense. I managed to take care of that one pretty quickly, though, since to open the circuit, all you have to do is unplug the damn thing. Then I sat back and flipped through a copy of People magazine while I waited for my cue.

About 20 minutes later, the stage-hand comes in with all sorts of attitude, telling me that I missed my cue and that I need to get out there in a hurry. I told dude to chill and then walked out on the stage to some reasonable applause. The only available seat was in the middle of the four ladies, and so I sat down there and immediately felt extremely vulnerable. It is very disconcerting to be surrounded by lesbians, knowing that if you are looking at one of them, there are others that you can’t see that could be making out with each other. They welcomed me warmly, though, and started asking questions. I don’t remember precisely what they asked, mainly issues related stuff. I played it pretty cool, talking slowly so they could understand, telling them how nice their hair and outfits looked, asking them what kinds of things they would like to cook for me. You know, just being charming and conversational. I thought it was going pretty well.

Then everything went to Shitsville. Rosie asked me a question about my views on Gay Marriage. Now I had been preparing for this one, so I had my answer pretty much planned out. “Gay Marriage,” I said, “is a great idea, because by allowing them to pair off and sequester themselves, we could ensure that none of the gays could reproduce, thereby preventing the passing on to the next generation the gay-genes that make them want to do it with people of their same sex.” This was, in my opinion, a very well thought-out and irrefutably logical answer. I found out very shortly that I was wrong.

Rosie opened her mouth and I suddenly got very bored. She seemed to be saying lots of things, but I couldn’t understand any of it. Perhaps she was speaking a language I don’t know, or maybe her voice was of a pitch that my ears are not sensitive to. Either way, I eventually turned the other direction to talk with Barbara. You see, I’ve always had a thing for girls with speech impediments. I know it sounds crazy but I think everyone has a turn-on that they can’t explain. In this case, however, the explanation is known to me. I was molested by my favorite babysitter when I was young, and she had something wrong with her palate. When she talked, it always sounded like she had a tablespoon of peanut butter in the roof of her mouth. Anyway, I knew Barbara was gay, but I couldn’t resist, so I tried to lay on the charm.

I wasn’t having much luck with Barbara. She seemed distracted by something, so I looked back over my shoulder and saw Rosie, her mouth still moving furiously. I knew I could never get a word in with Barbara with Rosie doing that so finally I said “hey, could you keep quiet?” Evidently she could not, because she threw her two-quart coffee mug in my direction. Luckily, I do Pilates, so I was able to easily avoid the mug (plus, girls can’t throw, even if they think they are men), and it hit Ms. Behar in the bosom, sending scalding coffee spraying into her face.

At this point, you might say “wow, Rich, that is truly a situation that cannot be repaired.” But Rich White doesn’t give up that easily. There, amidst the chaos, I thought of faithful Anselmo. He would want me to summon every ounce of gumption available to me and salvage that interview, so that is what I resolved to do. Unfortunately at this point, recovery was no longer an option. Behar had been taken off the stage by paramedics, Barbara had given up and stomped off to her dressing room, and Rosie had savagely bitten a Security Guard’s hand and was being tazed repeatedly. Not knowing what to do, I stood up and walked out of the studio to the curb. Anselmo drove up a few minutes later, and we went and got ice cream. It was a pretty good day.

I’ve always been really into hunting. Back in Kansas when I was a boy, my father would take me out at the crack of dawn, and we would go out to the edge of the pond where everything was very still, and a light mist rose up off of the mirror-like surface of the water. Such beauty! Then we would lay out poison bait for the swans. It tasted like bread, so they seemed to really like it. Within a few hours, the last one would stop moving, and we would collect their frail bodies and burn them in the yard, taking care not to inhale the fumes from the fire. It was a lot of fun, and the golf course paid us to do it! I treasure those memories of a simpler time, when cruelty could be put into action with barely a thought, and I think those memories speak to something in all of us. Nowadays, people scold you for shooting squirrels with a pellet gun, but when I was a boy, we used to make masks out of their dried skins as a testament to our prowess. You can go to jail for sticking knitting needles into a rabbit now, but in the good old days, no one minded so long as you stuck to animals. But ours is a dynamic culture, and will continue to adapt as people’s sensibilities change.

The noble craft of hunting still thrives today, though, and last week I went on an expedition with my wife’s brother Cletus. You may have heard of him, since he owns several large conglomerates: J. Cletus Merriwether III. He’s super rich like myself, and owns a great deal of land in the Adirondacks. The trip was a lot of fun, and rekindled those old treasured memories of my boyhood roots. We woke up early on a Saturday and packed up the Jeep with a bunch of beer, guns, and pizza, then headed out to the other side of the property, which lies on the side of a mountain and provides an unmatched vista of the breathtaking Adirondack sunrise. There were several stands that had been permanently erected in some of the more strategic areas, and were difficult to see due to the large quantity of military-grade camouflage netting that covered them.

After we loaded our cache of weapons and provisions into one of the stands, we settled down into that familiar old pastime of the hunter: the waiting game. Luckily, because Cletus has several automated deer feeders about 100 yards from the stand, we didn’t have to wait long. A majestic buck entered the scene and approached the feeder, which was dropping soy pellets onto the ground beneath the boughs of a stately Silver Maple that I admired through my scope as I brought the crosshairs to bear on the buck’s grace-ridden throat. My breathing quickened as I tightened my grip on the lightweight ballistic carbon forestock on my Heckler & Koch PSG-1 semi-automatic sniper rifle. I steadied myself, and on my exhale, I slowly squeezed the trigger, sending a 7.62mm NATO round into my prey. The spray was incredible, as was the look of sheer disbelief in the eyes of this beast. For a second, we seemed to share an intimate–almost sexual–connection, that of predator and prey, but then he was dead. In this battle, I had been the victor, but next time? For that answer, we would have to wait and see.

But again, we didn’t have to wait long. The rest of the afternoon was pretty much the same way. With each kill, Cletus would radio his men to come collect the carcass, which saved us a lot of inconvenience. They even sprayed down the area so that the other deer would not smell the fresh kill on the leaves that lined the forest floor. We had pizza, beers, and some manly conversation, and in the end I got pretty lit. I don’t know how many beers I ended up having before I used that 50-cal to bring down that pregnant doe, but I can say one thing: I was feeling no pain. That was a messy one, for sure, because I was using some new ammunition that one of Cletus’ companies was developing for the U.S. Military. It was made of something called a “prestressed ceramic maniform” that pretty much explodes when it hits bone. The technology may be high-tech, but the result is something anyone can understand: A shot to hell deer. Cletus was a bit surprised to see her, since the synthetic pheromones his people spray are only supposed to attract bucks. I guess we’ll file that one under “Bonus!”

After we killed all of the animals that had been placed that morning, we packed up our things and drove on back to the lodge. There, we continued drinking and having a good time. He asked if I knew about the “most dangerous game.” I said yes, that I was well acquainted with jai-alai. People get hurt all of the time in that game, because the balls are very hard and move very quickly. He told me that he was actually talking about killing people by setting them loose in the forest without weapons and then following them and shooting them like deer. I told him that didn’t sound very dangerous, and he got frustrated and went to bed. I was tired too, so I hit the bunk as well, where I slept like a goddamn baby.

When I got back on Sunday evening, Peggy told me the she sensed a change in me. I think it must be the thousand-yard-stare. That’s the thing you get when you go to war and when you come back, you have a faraway look in your eye because you saw such cool shit. I think that the three hours I spent in a well-hidden deer stand did something special to me, like maybe I connected with some primal self that lies within all of us, but which we all keep hidden. A self that is born of the battle for survival, the tooth-and-nail struggle in which one dies so that the other may live. With the acceptance of this self came the respect for life that so often comes to those who have gotten life’s precious blood on their hands. Of course, in my case, that would be figurative blood; because Cletus’ staff keeps his weapons so tidy, my hands didn’t actually get dirty at all. Besides, there was quite a supply of moist towelettes up there in the deer stand. We were eating pizza after all, and that can be messy.