I LOVE country music, blues, jazz and rock `n' roll, and Dwight Yoakam, John Prine and Waylon and Willie are among my all-time favourite musicians. I have more American friends than Dutch ones and Marilyn Monroe is still the best-packaged female that ever existed...

So, why the hell does this nation of nice, friendly and cool people manage to piss me off so often? Why is it that they have this urge to elect some of the greatest morons in the history of mankind to power and why is it that they think that democracy is the greatest thing since the Earl of Sandwich figured out what to do with sliced bread, while they live in the most elite and big business run society in the Western world?

Why is it that their leaders and representatives are always the first to point a finger at other countries while their own, although the richest in the world, is in a constant mess itself? The corporate crime in the US is larger than the rest of the world combined, their criminal activities in regards to the environment are well documented, corruption and political conflicts of interests are so well documented that they win awards, and still they feel superior.

The racism and classism in the US is second to none, and in this country of endless opportunity, being poor means being poor. One US TV commentator summed up the New Orleans disaster and the subsequent migration of tens of thousands of poor, mainly black people, to different sport venues by saying that it was still better than what would have happened to these folk in Africa if this disaster had happened there.

As Sofia was suffering from its own man-made disaster at the time, the thought came to mind as to why the majors of Sofia and New Orleans should not be re-elected: "They both forgot to take the garbage out".

Interestingly enough, most Bulgarians share my fascination with the US; although few Bulgarians like country music, many have the dream of one day visiting this country.

Alas, although the US did not hesitate to lean on Bulgaria to send troops to Iraq and have its boys die side-by-side with Americans and others in this war for peace, and even use Bulgarian airports for transport of troops, it is almost impossible for most Bulgarians to get even a tourist visa.

In recent weeks I heard of a situation where an American company wanted to hire some Bulgarian programmers to work for them in Sofia. For logistical reasons the head office preferred to interview the selected candidates in the US rather than sending their human resources people overseas. No way, said the almighty American consulate in Sofia, and denied the visas, forcing the poor folks of the HR department to come across the ocean to this country, which by American standards is terribly close to the Middle East, which in turn is full of terribly scary Muslim Arabs who have not taken the Lord Jesus Christ into their hearts and thus are alien aliens, un-Christian, un-Democratic and un-American.

I remember the days that I and my fellow Cloggies needed visas to go across the ocean and the unbelievable arrogance of the American bureaucracy, while my American friends could just jump on a plane and, with no questions asked, were welcomed to our countries and cheap rail systems.

I visited the US many times and at one stage even tried living there; I discovered that welcome was only a word written on the walls of JFK Airport, and absolutely not part of any official's vocabulary at the borders of the land of the Free and the Brave. The average employee of the border control in the US makes their counterparts at Sofia Airport look like they all have a degree in congeniality from the Avon academy of good manners.

For fear of having offended a few Americans in the expat community of Sofia, I beg for forgiveness for my ignorance and appeal for clemency in these ho-ho-ho-holidays and after having suffered some self-inflicted therapy I have decided to blame it all on my partial Jewish roots, God, Vietnam, inhaling in the seventies, Arafat, my partial Arabic ex-wife, John and Yoko, the sexual revolution, Mother Theresa, rakia, Bill and Monica, Religion, Cartoon Network, my Bulgarian wife, and most of all CNN.