Wanted: One White Working Class Rural American male to give a White Urban Semi-Working Class Male survival lessons. Experience required. Will pay in acting lessons and successful sartorial tips.

What I need, first, is someone to teach me how to shoot a gun, or at least how to hold the thing properly so I don't blow my foot off. I need this ASAP. Not too big a gun, not one of those big things Bob DeNiro and Christopher Walken used in "The Deer Hunter."

I don't want to kill and mount anything, I just want to look good before the election. I carried a gun while in the service, and it looked really cool, but they took it away from me when I forgot where I put it one morning.

They then sent me to school to learn to type. Imagine my embarrassment. In those days, only girls went to typing class. You can see I have a lot of ground to reclaim if I'm going to be part of the WWCRAM group.

I also need someone to teach me to bowl and spit. I did some bowling once. I think I did better than Obama but I'm not sure. Let me get this straight. Stop me If I'm wrong. There are two ... no ... three holes in a ball? You use three fingers? OK. I'm cool with that.

As to the spitting thing, I just want to look as cool as Manny Ramirez. Nobody spits a cool as that Red Sox star.

Now, as to the drinking thing, and I'm putting this out there so my fellow elitists can get their acts together and join me in this socio-political transformation. If I can get enough of us together, we can form an elitist bowling, spitting and drinking team. Stop it. Badminton and croquet are not WWCRAM sports. You want to stay in that stereotyped sissy box forever? We're losing this election in the WWCRAM areas, and we need to come back strong in November.

What I'm trying to do here, of course, is dispel this right-wing notion that all left-wing liberals are effete and "elitists."

OK, I do tend to be a bit effete, I'm told I get that from my mother who was a terrific dresser. My father wore a uniform all of his life. I tried that for four years, and it didn't work out the way I hoped. Did you know that there is no pocket in a Class A Air Force uniform for a silk pocket hankie? And what's worse is that the shoes are all black. Khaki and black? Where did these guys go to school? Don't they read GQ?

Yes, there are good, patriotic American males, simple hard-working folks who don't ordinarily wear silk pocket hankies or cashmere scarves, who don't drive hybrids or drink imported Italian water.

I think they're called "survivalists."

I know they're afraid of Obama because he always wears a suit and tie. Rural working-class guys almost never wear a suit and tie except to attend the funerals or weddings of other white rural working-class guys. I speak from experience. Except for my father, all of my five brothers were white working-class guys who served their country in World War II. They smoked, drank, cussed and knew how to spit.

They tried to teach me these skills but gave up on me when said I wanted to be an actor. It's a family thing.

If anyone wants to help me blend into the Maine-guy landscape, I would appreciate it. I'll be out on the backyard practicing spitting. Gawd. I keep getting it all over me. How does Manny do it?

J.P. Devine, a freelancer, lives in Waterville.