While enjoying a crisp winter's day today, strolling through the seasonal scenery of Old Economy Village with my friend, the Pittsburgh Music Lover, I by chance made a significant discovery. That discovery is that the gayest, most homosexually inclined sentence in the English language--at least in my little corner of the mother tongue--begins like so:
This was how the Music Lover began a train of thought somewhere between the Blacksmith's Shop and the Mechanics' Building--a veritable nineteenth-century encantation of the Village People, if you will--on our tour of this historical landmark, a religious commune, full of industry and piety and a commitment to abstinence--except when, according to the tour guide, sect members "chose to marry and start a family,"
Ahem. In that order, more or less, I'm sure.
Once I stopped snickering over the sentence, I decided that for me, the second gayest sentence in English begins with the phrase,
I realize to a layperson's ear these probably sound like innocuous enough, albeit obscure, statements. What could they possibly mean? Why would they be considered particularly gay, let alone the gayest, sentences in the English language? And who cares anyway?
But look at it this way--at least by your lack of comprehension and interest, you're guaranteed one truth in this world: You're probably not gay, nor do you hang around with anyone who is a known Friend of Dorothy or Homeboy for Oscar(Wilde). Take comfort where and when you can, my peeps. Why, it's like an evangelical's (or Bishop Robert Duncan, the anti-gay head--chortle--of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Southern Cone))Christmas wish come true! No. More. Homosexuals. Ever!
Now if only you could explain away your husband's obsession with holiday garland, your wife's ability to cut a rug just like Ellen DeGeneres, your teen-aged daughter's need to put Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" in heavy rotation on her iPod, and little junior's repeated requests for a full run of Bratz dolls from Santa, you might just be able to dispense with donning all that gay apparel for another year.(Check your designer labels first, though.)
[Editor's note: This is what you get by celebrating a sea change in society with one too many lemon martinis.]
I am bored. Bored, bored, bored. Now with the elections over, I don't know what to do with myself. Other than my job. And where's the fun in that?
One thing that is keeping me busy and motivated is responding to genuinely stupid statements in the media about the meaning of an Obama presidency. If I could just get paid for that, well, I'd finally join the 2 measly percent in the nation that qualify for "redistribution of wealth" (i.e, taxation, or, rather, a return to the level of taxation of the pre-Bush II years) under an Obama administration. Wow! Just imagine! I, who will probably never earn that level of income in my lifetime--I'm not an aspirational plumber after all--could join the monied class and have the full attention and support of the next Republican administration!
Anyway, there have been so many examples of raging stupidity in the media, from pundit and populace alike, I am at risk of getting a repetitive motion injury, snapping my neck quickly toward the TV to see Joe Scarborough make another asinine statement. From Wednesday's MSNBC broadcast, in response to a weathercaster talking about the fine weather we're enjoying this November in certain parts of the nation: "Under an Obama presidency, you'll never be able to use a phrase like 'Indian summer' again, because things will be so PC."
Just how much does this buttwipe get paid to be so ignorant on national TV? I mean, I know he was in Congress and all that, so he's used to saying the dumbest things imaginable in as loud a voice as possible, but still, Joe, maybe it's time to rethink your career path.
Or the choking fit that is induced when I hear statements from the media that the election of Barack Obama to the presidency means "the end of racism in the United States."
Dude, give me a freakin' break. Tell me, did you go to college for a degree in journalism? Other than where Sarah Palin got her degree in journalism, I mean? Or did you just whip up the diploma in Word and print it out in color at your local FedEx Kinko's? 'Cause that is one seriously stoo-pid statement.
And if the neck-twist and choking don't get me, the carpal tunnel will from pouncing on my keyboard to respond to the latest invective from some crazy (I'm assuming), middle-aged (I'm assuming), white guy (I'm assuming), with a DSL or cable modem (I'm assuming), has posted to some blog or comment forum. (Just not this crazy, middle-aged white guy, OK?)
For example . . . this little missive was posted today on CNN's Politics website:
To all the Dems:
[H]ere is what separates Republican's [sic] (at least me) from you guys. Yes, I wanted McCain to win, but he didn't, and so, my President is Obama and I will support and pray for him. This is exactly what Elizabeth on [The] View is doing. We lost - we get over it and we move on for what is good for the country.
Instead, you left wingers are berating her for changing her opinion. She didn't change her opinion - she's moving on. Something you can never do. You'll never get over the 2000 loss and you'll always be angry hateful people.
Republicans blew it by allowing Bush to become like a Democrat and spend us into heck, but that is going be corrected in 2012. I wish Obama the best and pray he'll get good advisors [sic] and for this country. I will not wallow in anger or frustration or blame anyone - it is over. It is time to move on. It is time to get our country rolling again and at this point it doesn't matter who is at the helm. So stop with your anger and join the club. Country First.
Oh, goodness, where to begin when confronted with so much seething, oozing dumbassedness? How could I not respond to this? The poster is just crying out to be sent to a Socialist Reeducation Camp, which I'm sure will be the first order of business under a new Obama administration, being that he'll have nothing else to occupy his time, other than political correctness and uniform thought. By the way, that's a joke, right wingers.The Socialist Reeducation Camps don't open until the *second* Obama term.
And, so, here's how I responded:
Dear [Poster],
You're not angry? Or wallowing in frustration? You're moving on? Really? Jeez, you're already focusing on 2012, and President-Elect Obama hasn't even been sworn in yet. You're blaming Democrats for the Bush administration's problems and mistakes (he wasn't a real Republican, but a "secret Democrat"). That doesn't sound like calm acceptance to me.
I'm admittedly a liberal, although I wouldn't classify myself necessarily as a "left winger" or even a Democrat. I make decent money but certainly not the $250k per year that only 2 percent of the U.S. population makes, or even the $100k+ per year that maybe 20 percent makes. Still, I don't begrudge those who do--I just want my voice to be heard, my views to be as respected, and my needs to be considered as theirs have been over the last few decades.
I am very happy that Obama was elected but not because I think it redresses being "wronged" in the 2000 election. Frankly, I could care less about that at this point. I was no supporter of George Bush (l lived in Texas through both his governorships and didn't really think much of him as a leader or a visionary; a failed property tax initiative does not a leader make). While I may never have liked having him as president, I thought he handled the immediate aftermath of 9/11 quite well. I probably could have tolerated him as president throughout his terms, the will of the people and all that, except for a series of unfortunate events that occurred on his watch--namely, the war in Iraq, the 2004 election, and Hurricane Katrina.
Why those events in particular? Because his administration used soldiers and citizens as pawns in some egotistical, arrogant geopolitical maneuvering (my father was a Marine for 30 years; I'm sensitive to this); his campaign eliminated serious public discourse on the issues and problems that plague us with name-calling and fear-mongering among the electorate; his administration--and many, many people, along with the Louisiana state government (a Democratic administration at the time, not a Republican one)--allowed millions to be spent on "homeland security," yet couldn't manage to come up with an effective evacuation plan for a known death trap like New Orleans in a hurricane (or even Houston, for that matter).
So, as a liberal, I'm not bitter about the 2000 election; I'm angry about 8 years of failed public policy, of thinking that government is not for, by, and of the people, but instead for, by, and of monied interests and narrowly focused cultural groups. Heck, I'll take it a step further back--I'm anguished over years of this from both the Democratic and Republican sides. It's a sadness and a frustration that transcends time and party.
Despite my liberal leaning ways, I suspect that I'm not that far off the mark from a lot of Americans. I'm sick to death of the binary approach to life and politics in this country, the tit-for-tatting of Republican this and Democrat that. What I want to see--and why I voted for Obama--is our nation move beyond blaming each side for past grievances. Instead, I want to see someone address those grievances and get us all to get along well enough to work together to return our nation to doing our best work and being our better selves, both at home and abroad.
I do not care whether a Republican or a Democrat does this. I do not care whether it is a he or a she, a liberal or a conservative, a "tax and spend"-er or fiscally conservative, right wing or left, straight or gay, black or white or both or neither. I just want someone who will help us turn our attention back to what matters--looking out for each other and for our world.
There is no other reason to have government than to do these things for everyone we can. It doesn't mean doing the exact opposite of the last few years and creating some sort of dependency culture. (May I suggest you read The Audacity of Hope? Even Barack Obama doesn't support this.) It does mean moving things back to the center so that we encourage initiative, help us all find the tools we need to succeed, open up opportunity, and make things better for as many as possible, not just half or a quarter or 2 percent of the electorate.
Now *that* is what I call moving on . . . that’s what I call putting country first. I hope you'll join me in doing so, whether you like having Obama as president or a Democratic Congress or not.
OK, so maybe I'm not as genuine as I pretend to be. I have absolutely despised the last 28 years of mostly Republican leadership in the executive and legislative branches of American government. I think it's been nothing more than the promotion of ignorance, mean-spiritedness, selfishness, and stinginess, over any authentic attempt to address national and global problems. I do think taking some tax revenues and putting them toward social services and public initiatives is the way to go--whether the initiatives involve education, the economy, housing, transportation, poverty, the environment, healthcare, what have you.
You can call that socialism if you like, although I'm not sure I even know what that means anymore. However, I like to think of it as good, responsive government.
I do mean sincerely that I do not care who offers good, responsive government, Republican or Democrat, Green or Libertarian. If John McCain had offered that kind of campaign rhetoric, rather than the kind that focused on Obama's "difference" or "mystery" or "secret agenda" or "un-Americanness," who knows? Maybe I would have considered voting for him. I don't think the Democrats have a monopoly on good government; in fact, I have plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. I do think, however, that their presidential candidate was the only one who seriously talked about issues, plans, and a vision for the people of this country and the world at large. I also think that traditionally, between the two major parties in the U.S., the Democrats are the ones who tend to address issues of bettering society and people's lots--albeit often ineffectively. I don't consider trickle-down economics an honest attempt at social welfare and progress. Shocking, I know.
Oh, and Elizabeth Hasselbeck? I think she's just trying to save her job at this point. But I didn't go there because I didn't think it was particularly germane to my argument.
How I wish someone would pay me to tell stupid people to shut the hell up. I'd promise to start with Joe Scarborough, first, move on to Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and save Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck until I was really warmed up.
How, too, I wish I were as patient, kind, and generous of spirit as I pretend to be.
Yeah, the two wishes do kind of cancel each other out. So what's your point? You want a piece of me?! I'll take you and your little blog posting to the floor, punk!
I just don't have the words. But I think I do have the song.
And that song is "The News" by Carbon Silicon (featuring Mick Jones of the Clash and Big Audio Dynamite), sums up my feelings better than anything right now, certainly better than my own writing does.
However, the more I hear from the actual news, the pundits, the media outlets, the usual suspects, how much I gather that no one has the words right now. Or at least no one has the comprehension.
For you see, the United States did more than elect a new president; it did more than select a Democrat over a Republican. It even did more than select an African-American president, although that in and of itself is HUGE and a thing whose import I do not want to diminish. I mean, my home state of North Carolina, a former member of the Confederacy and the site of so many civil rights abuses and battles over the years, once home to both the KKK and the Black Panthers, voted 50 percent for Obama and 49 percent for McCain. That in and of itself represents a radical change.
No, what happened at about 11 pm on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, was seismic, cataclysmic. It transcends the everyday struggles of politics and race, generations and genders. It feels revolutionary, cosmic, as if we just witnessed the world change in the blink of an eye and nothing will ever be the same again.
People started calling those in power to account And people started saying, "I want my voice to count"
An overstatement? I don't think so. It just hasn't sunk in yet, what just transpired, but the same ol' same ol' can't happen again. And if it does, if anyone tries it, I think it will be recognized for what it is--inauthentic, false, a lie.
Again, I just don't have the words. But, oh, I have the feelings.
When I'm at a loss for words, I let TV do the talking for me:
All I can say is that I was so happy to wake up this morning and not find Bobby Ewing in my shower.
At the same time, it is rather nice to pull myself out of a bad dream and discover the political equivalent of a naked Patrick Duffy in my bedroom, giving me a wet hug.
I guess now there's no need for me to finish my piece, "Why I'm voting for Barack Obama; why I'm not voting for John McCain," a post that I've been working on, at least in my head, since mid-summer.
Wow. I am almost speechless. I certainly better understand the phrase "shock and awe" now. Barack Obama is projected to be the next president of the United States. Did any of us ever think we would live to see this night?
I don't say that for just the obvious reason, the one cited in heavy rotation on MSNBC at the moment, that Barack Obama, an African-American man, a biracial man, a child of at least one immigrant parent, a child of, in effect, a single mother, a man with the middle name Hussein, a man whose last name isn't English, Irish, Scottish, or ol' New York Knickerbocker(Roosevelt, Van Buren . . .), "that one," if you will, has, despite all odds and all prejudices, become president of the United States.
That in and of itself is a huge story. It's as if finally after 8 years, or maybe even 50 years, or maybe even 150 years, America has stepped into the present as well as into its own future. Welcome to the 21st century and beyond, folks. After so many delays, after so many mistakes and missteps, we are finally here, and it feels so very good.
But there's at least one more story out there that's worth telling before I head off to bed. And that is that today, the U.S. electorate, at least a good portion of it, chose intellect and reason over fear and demagoguery, something it hasn't done for a long time. No amount of bandying about terms like "terrorist," "socialist," "secret Muslim," "elitist," "real American," "Marxist," or "dictator" seemed to knock us off course from turning out the old and backward-looking and embracing the new and forward-thinking.
There's a line from the Pedro Almodóvar movie, Carne Trémula (Live Flesh), that is rather apt for this moment in time. "And that was the day the people of Spain decided they wouldn't be afraid anymore." Or something like that.
The story around Live Flesh takes place in different time periods, but one of the themes is the changes wrought in Spanish society from the repressive Franco era, to the immediate post-Franco era (kind of like our '60s excesses but with even more chemical substances, apparently), to a more moderate, contemporary time, when people make decisions based on what's best for them and those around them, rather than what they feel forced to do or are too scared not to do. I think you could show the scenes from Grant Park in Chicago tonight, or just about anywhere in America for that matter, read that line over the scene, and it would fit.
Is this that day, the day we no longer choose to be afraid? Good god, I hope so. I can't tell you how many years I've had that line in my head. I can't tell you how many times I repeated it to myself, my silent mantra, this election season.
The other thing on my mind tonight--and there are, admittedly, a zillion things running through my brain at the moment, making me wonder whether I'll be able to sleep at all tonight--the one that rises to the surface and stays afloat, is a statement made just a little while ago by political reporter David Gregory on MSNBC. (By the way, is there an island where mad scientists make boyish-looking, prematurely graying news reporters for the American networks? And do they take special orders?) He said something to the effect that he's 38 years old, that fellow commentator Rachel Maddow is even younger, and that the both of them didn't quite get the fuss over the U.S. electing its first African-American president. Or, rather, they could see it was a big deal, but they didn't feel it in the same way that perhaps their over-45-year-old colleagues did. As David Gregory put it, "We just see Obama as a qualified candidate, a man running for president."
I think that's wonderful, and I'm glad to see that has come about, even if I fall into the old guard, over-45 camp, and I will spend a few hours resenting the young whipper-snappers just a few years younger than me who are living a very different life than mine. Nonetheless, while that statement makes me feel my age, I can live with that feeling, as long as it it means those younger than me get a chance at a better world. Wow again. I must be feeling pretty hopeful and upbeat tonight if I'm well-wishing the under-40 crowd.
However, Mr. Gregory's observation makes me want to underscore one additional point, and that is this: That this under-40 worldview, that Barack Obama is just another man, a very qualified and successful one, but nonetheless, one of flesh and blood and bone like the rest of us, is a direct result of government intervention in our lives, of government working in tandem with people to make things better for all.
Government didn't always step aside and let "the market" deal with racism and inequality, at least before 1980 or so. Government didn't always shrug its shoulders and turn its attention to working out a better deal on home mortgages or let the insurance industry have a free reign in screwing people over. Government didn't always say, "Hey, it's OK to be selfish! I've got mine, and you'll have to get yours somehow by pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, and if you don't have your own bootstraps, well whose fault is that? We're all created equal, after all." Government didn't always say, "I can't deal with the economic and social problems of this country because a very squeaky, intractable, and vituperative political wheel doesn't want me to because they feel it goes against their belief system."
Well, OK, government did say those things some of the time; it did do some of those things a lot of the time. In recent history, over the years, and long ago. But it hasn't always been like this. Sometimes government actually stepped in and attempted to address the issues and redress the wrongs. It fought a war, it emancipated the slaves, it gave 40 acres and a mule, it passed civil rights legislation, it challenged segregation, it forced busing, it sent in troops, it funded public welfare programs, it supported affirmative action, and it stepped up and defended those who could not defend themselves.
It did some things good and some things bad, and we have a legacy, both good and bad, to show for it. But the point is it eventually (if not consistently or even always effectively) took action for the people. It saw the bigger picture, it understood its role, and it effected some pretty powerful changes that only now, 30, 40, 50 years later, are fully playing themselves out.
So for all of you who fear the return of "big government," a couple of pointers for survival in this new era. First, read Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, in which he talks about this very thing, making government work for the people (it's very purpose in the first place!) but not giving a totally free reign to the market or, in the reverse, creating a dependency class, hooked on entitlement programs and handouts. There's a third way in most things, a "both/and," as opposed to a rigid "either/or." We've had years of either/or, and you see how brilliantly that's turned out. Now's the time to try something new. Given some time, I think you might find that you enjoy life in the both/and zone.
Second, Barack Obama is not a secret Muslim. He's not a dictator. He's not going to suddenly drop the mask to reveal some hideous visage under his human form. The Kool-Aid isn't suddenly going to wear off, and we'll all be left dealing with a horrible hangover. Many of those who supported him didn't drink any in the first place! Instead, we saw an intelligent, motivated leader who could help us--all of us!--find our way back to being our better selves.
So stop being stupid--this isn't some bad plot twist in V, for god's sake. This is America. If you truly love it the way you say you do, you'll give us all a little credit for knowing our own minds, and you'll give this new administration, this new era, a fighting chance.
And third, stop being afraid. Of government. Of people who are different. Of life. Government can do wonders for us when properly carried out. Different people bring different perspectives to the table, often very good ones. And dammit, just get out and live life the way it should be lived--fully, unselfishly, joyously, and fearlessly.
As the ol' saying goes, the only thing we really have to fear is fear itself. And marvel at this: A populist, effective, activist political leader, who led the nation through a time of economic turmoil and social upheaval, who saw government as an agent of positive, inclusive change--of all people--was the one to say it. (Yes, yes, I know he was a Democrat, but that's not really the point.)
Maybe just maybe history is on the verge of repeating itself. In a good way. For a change.
I made no plans for Halloween this year. Not that I normally do, being costume-impaired at the best of times. When I dare to venture down that path, it's usually something too high concept/awkward (an oversized picture frame around my neck--"I'm homoerotic art") or offensive ("Bermuda shorts, brogans, dark socks, Banlon shirt, stupid haircut and mustache--imagine Hitler on the beach in Brazil circa 1946") or worse, much, much worse, as certain friends could attest.
Nonetheless, it was a more active than passive decision to skip Halloween this year. Again, too much and too many requiring my attention. I needed an escape, an outlet, not mindless escapism.
So I walked home. That's it. In and of itself, nothing out of the ordinary, which is no doubt why the doing was so enjoyable. I took the long way around from Homewood down Braddock Avenue, past Forbes, and into Regent Square, more than my usual mile or so to work. On the last evening before the end of daylight savings time, the sun was still out when I left work but sinking, sinking. The air was crisp, the sky clear, and the leaves, still on the trees--despite the snow and wind from earlier in the week--and just slightly past peak color. I needed a sweater, but I didn't have to wear a jacket, hat, scarf, or gloves. I felt unencumbered, by clothes and by life.
The sky became duskier as I made my way home. Kids in costume, accompanied by protective parents, appeared on the streets, trick-or-treating. They wandered where directed, too young to do otherwise, or maybe too addled from all the sugar.
Who knew they still did this, trick-or-treating, especially in cities, where, if one believes the old urban legends, there must be a ratio of 1 razor blade per every 10 apples. But still they do, whole orderly gangs moving from house to house, block to block, for harmless fright and safe, sweet sugar.
I greeted everyone I met, and I think everyone responded in kind, happily, friendly, not gruffly, as too often happens here. I spent last winter, I recalled, not really knowing anyone here, new in town, new to my job, and kind of hungry for someone to talk to. A year later, and I'm full up for the moment on in-depth conversation and ready, despite my general geniality, for some time to myself.
I plugged in my iPod--oops, I almost wrote Walkman--and put on rotation two albums I've been enjoying of late: My Morning Jacket'sEvil Urges and Sufjan Stevens'sIllinois. Both are fairly quiet albums, especially the latter, at least compared to the stuff I normally listen to on my iPod at the gym. Perfect for a silent, not-quite-twilight night.
* * *
Neither record is what I thought I would be listening to at this point in my life. Me, a guy who thought metrosexual-in-training Martin Fry, the lead singer of '80s New Romantic band ABC, was the epitome of modern manhood at one time, now listening to a grizzled, alt-country gang of long hairs from Kentucky,my Dad's home state. My Morning Jacket is still keeping the alt-country thang going somewhat, but the lead singer also has a fondness for Prince, an appreciation I rarely share, but for which, nonetheless, I've made an exception for this album. Jim James's reaching-for-the-lower-stratosphere falsetto in songs like "Evil Urges" and "Highly Suspicious"--apt titles for Halloween!--makes for a very fun, even kind of sexy record. However, My Morning Jacket can just as easily turn all moody and trippy, such as on tunes like "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream." Below is the video for the abbreviated version of "Touch Me," which underscores the trippy but gives something of a short shrift to the moody, in my opinion.
But, still, those fireflies . . . .
Sufjan Stevens' Illinois keeps the melancholy flowing. It is the second in his "state" series (the first focusing on his home state of Michigan) and takes a mix of musical cues from Steven Reich- and Phillip Glass-styled minimalism, along with alt-pop and traditional, on-the-banks-of-the-Mississippi-and-the-O-hi-o instrumentation. Think banjoes. Think songs with references to Andrew Jackson.Along with songs about John Wayne Gacy, Jr., and a friend who died of bone cancer.
Frightening stuff perhaps, not your standard pop fluff (and guaranteed to make me regret spending so much time, money, and effort on my Kylie Minogue collection over the years), but the album isn't morose or gruesome. At least no more so than everyday American life is--chants of "Kill him, kill him!" and "He's a socialist!" in the background. Perhaps that's part of Stevens's plan, conveying all 50 states through music and song, pride and pain, comedy and tragedy. If anything, the record feels equally joyful (how can you not chuckle over a song title like "Come on Feel the Illinoise"?) and melancholic, the exact musical need for an early autumn evening.
There's a line in his song, "Chicago," that sticks with, maybe even haunts me a little:
I drove to New York/ in the van, with my friend / we slept in parking lots/ I don't mind, I don't mind/ I was in love with the place/ in my mind, in my mind/ I made a lot of mistakes/ in my mind, in my mind.
It's the last two lines in particular, and the way they are delivered, that shakes me everytime. Such a simple lyric in a song that's about what, exactly? Runaways? It's hard to say. But the simplicity of the realization, "I made a lot of mistakes," and the painfulness of it, it's hard not to relate. Tonight or any night.
As I walk, another song comes to mind, this one not on my iPod yet and more in keeping, at least on the surface, with my dodgy tastes. It's a seemingly innocuous pop ditty called "Romeo" by Basement Jaxx:
Ignore the Bollywood shenanigans for a mo' and, instead, pay attention to the lyrics:
Cos you left me laying there/ With a broken heart/ Staring through a deep cold void/ Alone in the dark/ And I miss the warmth in the morning/ And the laughter when I can't stop yawning/ But the tears on the pillow've dried, my dear/ Gonna let it all go cos I have no fear/
Let it all go/ Let it all go/ Let it all go/
A minor classic, that one. On the surface, one of the most buoyant pop tunes of the last decade or so, I would argue. On top, it's all catchiness and cheekiness, danceable and frothy. But that lyric . . . "staring through a deep, cold void" . . . "I miss the warmth in the morning" . . . we're saved only from utter despair by the singer's admonition to "let it all go." Cry it out, maybe, or just walk away and wash your hands of it all.
All those mistakes. In my mind, in my mind.
A year of change, and, hopefully, of growth. I learned some, and I yearned for more, as well. And some I got, and some I didn't.
But for tonight, I'll heed the latter lyrics, give into the music, and do just as instructed: Let it all go.
The election is almost upon us, so let's not waste time dawdling through my verbosity, getting mired down in my overwritten prose. Let's cut to the point. Let's get to the chase.
And my point is . . .
Since when does America take instruction on political and economic theory from a man who's not even qualified to snake out your toilet in Ohio?
Socialism, bah. Joe the Plumber, et al., you wouldn't know socialism if it jumped out of the toilet water and bit you on the ass while you were straining through your morning poo.
Still, I guess if Joe is qualified to pronounce (or, as the case may be, denounce) centrist politicians as "socialists," then I'm completely justified to label him and his ignorant, spoiled, and highly opinionated ilk as "steaming piles of unholy crap."
Elizabeth Hasselbeck--Daddy's little steaming pile of unholy crap! Rush Limbaugh--a pill-popping steaming pile of unholy crap! Kelsey Grammer--an underage-sex-engaging, coke-snorting, steaming pile of unholy crap!
My list could go on and on and on, but there's only so many days until the election.
But, ahhh, I feel better already. Name-calling and fear-mongering are indeed cathartic. No wonder the American right wing doesn't bother anymore with cogent arguments or altruistic policy-making. It's much more fun to divide and conquer instead of uniting and leading. Bottoms up, citizens!
A hundred and fifty thou. Really. Golly, just how ugly is this woman anyway?
Truth be told, I don't know if I have strong feelings--or much energy--to get too worked up about this news item. I mean, yes, $150,000 on clothes, makeup, and the like is obscene and ridiculous.
As my Canadian friend Smidgen, a native of British Columbia ("I can see Alaska from my house in Vancouver"), put it, "Does this woman really need to wear this kind of clothing tramping around Alaska, of all places?" Well, Manolo Blahnik mukluks are pricey, apparently. Still, surely, Cindy McCain could lend her a few things until Sarah's allowance kicks in and she can buy some nice schmata (on discount, of course) on her own.
I can't claim, however, that I was particularly surprised by this turn of events. You want Suzanne Sugarbaker as Veep? All big-ass Holiness hair, moose-shooting, and mouth-misfiring? Then you're gonna have to expect some requests for something other than what's on sale in the Land's End catalog.
I don't like to brag too much, but I picked up on this early on--really, it all started with that image of La Diva Palin, arm extended, waving to the masses (thank you, once again, Wikipedia) at the Republican National Convention. Since then, I've had this text from the original cast recording of Evita stuck in my head:
I am only a simple woman who lives to serve Perón in his noble crusade to rescue his people! I was once as you are now! And I promise you this: We will take the riches from the oligarchs only for you--for all of you! And one day you will inherit these treasures! Descamisados! When they fire those cannons, when the crowds sing of glory, it is not just for Perón, but for all of us! All of us!
I am gay; I know my showtunes, folks.
Oh, my dear, dear shirtless ones. What hath Evita Palin wrought--other than a big line of credit at Nordstrom's?
A new Argentina--alas, the old one has gone sadly wrong.
Well, maybe at least she's pretty on the inside. All I can say is that at least my $100 donation to the Obama campaign isn't going for a beauty bailout of Joe Biden.
A couple of weeks ago, I was staring down the double barrels of the 4-lane Pennsylvania Turnpike, facing cross-state journeys for meetings on a rough-and-tumble freeway I've traveled so much--too much--over the last year-and-a-half.
This in and of itself is nothing unusual, particularly in the fall, when the academic calendar kicks in, and, as part of my job, I have conferences to attend, meetings to conduct, people to visit, and places to be, mainly along the old Main Line and its offshoots betweenPhiladelphia and Pittsburgh.I generally like this part of my job, actually--meeting people, talking up cooperative projects, seeing where colleagues work, and how people live in different parts of the region. But it does mean hours on the road and in airports, days in meeting rooms, and nights in hotels. Very little downtime. Very little me time. And all during autumn, my favorite of the four seasons.
This week was looking especially challenging and grim. As originally planned, my only activity was a conference in Cincinnati at the end of the week, returning to Pittsburgh today and back to work on Monday. But then a "vital" meeting came up in Philadelphia on Wednesday, an early-morning-and-all-day meeting, which meant, if I and everyone who had to spend time with me that day knew what was good for them, I'd have to travel over on the Tuesday before, so as not to be wrung-out and extremely crabby.
It is possible to fly from Pittsburgh to Philly for a morning meeting and back in the same day. However, given the distance of the Pittsburgh airport from home and work (a cool 25 miles through two tunnels and one downtown), the vagaries of contemporary air travel, and the luck-of-the-draw scheduling of SEPTA trains once in Philly, it can make for a very long, very fraught day. I've done it before, and I'll do it again, but if I have my druthers, I'll always fly over early for a good night's rest before the day of meet-and-greet begins.
So add Philly to the Cincy mix. And then add Harrisburg. The vital meeting in Philly was joined by an equally important meeting in the state capital--100 miles or so to the west of Philly--on Thursday. Thus, at one point this week, it was looking as though I would need to fly to Philly on Tuesday, somehow get to Harrisburg (car, plane, train?) by Thursday morning, return to Pittsburgh no latter than Thursday evening, only to head out to Cincinnati by Friday morning, returning to Pittsburgh on Sunday, and then starting it up all over again the following week. Talk about wrung-out and crabby.
I'm game, and I like to be a good little trooper in the workplace, but this just sounded insane and destined to make me (more) insane along the way.
So I canceled Cincy--even though it was the trip I was most looking forward to, as I've never been to Cincinnati before, and I have a peculiar sense of what constitutes an exotic getaway. Instead, I focused on getting from Pittsburgh to Philly to Harrisburg, then back to Philly for my plane trip back to Pittsburgh. Yes, you can fly between Philly and Harrisburg and Harrisburg and Pittsburgh--just not cheaply at the last minute ($500 or a pop, one-way). My employer is generous with travel expenses, but this seemed, morally, an airplane ticket too far. Thus my convoluted west-to-east-to-central-to-east-to-west approach was the only viable option, at least if I wanted to keep costs down and avoid driving. Or so it seemed at the moment. But then Amtrak, of all things, came to the rescue.
It's easy to make the trek from Philly to Harrisburg and back by train--there are something like 10 train trips per day, back and forth, and while the line isn't exactly the TGV, it has been greatly improved over the last couple of years, making for a faster, more reliable journey.
Getting from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh (or Pittsburgh to anywhere) by train is trickier, though, and can require more effort than one should have to put forth. Ask my friend, the Gladman, who traveled by train in August from the Baltimore-Washington area to our own Iron City, via Philadelphia ferchrissakes, at the breezy clip of 8 hours, a trip that, by car is a mere 4 to 5 hours and doesn't require a sidetrip through the City of Brotherly Love. (Not that the Gladman would have objected, if you get my drift.) Despite Harrisburg being the state capital and Pittsburgh the Commonwealth's second largest city, reliable passenger travel in the post-Pennsylvania Railroad age is difficult, with only one train per day in each direction.
Traveling cross-Commonwealth has always been a challenge, though. Turn back the clock to the early 1800s, and you'd have to go by some combination of stagecoach, foot, canal and river barge, and "portage railroad" system--basically, dragging the barges over the Allegheny Mountains, across the Eastern Continental Divide, to westward flowing rivers into Pittsburgh through a series of inclined planes. Things didn't improve greatly, even with the introduction of rail, as the Alleghenies, at least until the 1850s, proved too great an engineering and geographical conundrum to surmount. Train cars and engines still had to be dragged across the mountains to make connections westward.
In 1854, however, the Pennsylvania Railroad devised the engineering marvel that is Horseshoe Curve, west of Altoona, which created a bridge along the mountains that allowed trains enough of a low-grade path to surmount nature and make it through the Alleghenies to Pittsburgh. Travel across the Commonwealth was suddenly reduced from 1 week to 12 hours. Not only was travel across state facilitated, westward expansion in the U.S. was greatly improved. This is the modern world. And Pennsylvania says you're welcome.
The great era of American rail travel steamed forth and billowed ahead until at least the 1950s. I have heard my mother, Vivien Leigh, tell of taking the train from Eastern North Carolina to south-central Kentucky in the 1950s, to visit with my Dad's relatives while he was away fighting the Cold War fight in Korea. She didn't drive then; air travel was a luxury and not likely to be available anyhow; and rail, even in the South, was a viable form of conveyance. Imagine that--being able to get from one small corner of the U.S. to another without benefit of car or plane.
And then, in the space of twenty years or so, it all quite quickly went away. The Pennsylvania Railroad, once the largest railroad in the U.S. by traffic and revenue, once the largest publicly traded company in the world, posted for the first time a net loss in revenue in 1946. By 1970, due to changing transportation needs and financial mismanagement--as well as the withdrawal of a rescue loan by the U.S. government--the PRR declared bankruptcy, with its lines and resources divided between Conrail and Amtrak. * * * I could go all bitter Pennsylvanian on you about the failure of a unified transportation policy in this country, the slavish devotion to the auto, the dismissal of short- and long-range planning, the denial of the needs of the carless and planeless.
Why shouldn't I be able to get from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg or Philadelphia in fewer hours than it takes to drive? Why shouldn't I be able to get to Washington or Baltimore other than via Philadelphia? Why shouldn't those without cars in my town have to rely upon a shaky, constantly retrenching mass transit system that tossed out streetcars in favor of buses? Why should those who live in the suburbs have to catch the last express bus by 6 pm? Why should Pittsburgh--an old industrial giant, simutaneously sprawling and sardine-like; a ramshackle topographical map with an overlay of cities, towns, villages, and neighborhoods;an over-the-river-and-through-the-woods, you-can't-get-there-from-here metropolis, a crazy-quilt conglomeration of rivers, ravines, and rocks--be stuck in some sort of suitable-for-the-Sun Belt transportation nightmare?
But no, I won't go all bitter on you--that would just be too Socialist for Sisterdale, wouldn't it?
Instead, I'll focus on the merits of a very Pennsylvania journey. Through the impromptu taxi service provided by a colleague, I arrived at the Harrisburg station early in the afternoon. I checked the board and saw that the next train for Philly didn't leave for another two hours and would get me into 30th Street Station at 5:30 or so. If I wanted to make the 7:25 pm flight home, I'd have to cab it during rush hour to Philadelphia International Airport, something I wasn't sure I could do, especially as I was scheduled on the 8:55 pm flight, and the 7:25 is often completely booked. Thus, if I stayed on course, I'd still have to wait for the later flight and probably wouldn't get home from the airport until 11 pm or so. I'd have spent the entire day, from 6 am onward, in motion and in company. And I just didn't think I could face that.
Instead, as luck would have it, the next train out was to Pittsburgh. I had arrived just in time--if I so chose to do so--to switch my Amtrak ticket to head west. I could cancel my Southwest flight from PHL to PIT, saving the fare for another day. When I arrived in Pittsburgh, me and my luggage could take the East Busway home, arriving a little after 8 pm. The next day, I could take the bus to the airport to retrieve my car, safely stationed in long-term parking. And aboard the train, I could be alone and quiet. No sparring for space, no lugging of luggage, no jetting and jostling, being above it all and not enjoying any of it.
Normally, I'm not that spontaneous, too afraid that if I deviate from the plan, some sort of ill-defined chaos will ensue. I'll be stranded and abandoned. I'll get stuck, I'll become lost, I'll look foolish. Fear rules me more than I care to admit, but then it's never been an easy ride (so to speak) for me. Too much can go wrong--and has--and as a result, I've learned to become vigilant, hyper-vigilant, even hyper-hyper-vigilant. Self-reliant, self-possessed, and self-contained, yes, but to the detriment of taking a few risks along the way, even on something as seemingly benign as taking a different path home--in a physical, mental, or metaphysical manner.
However, this time, my need for quiet, solitude, and home, outweighed my devotion to the standard motion. For a few dollars more on Amtrak, I was able to take a slow-but-steady train home, riding the rails for just under five hours, enjoying the private time, sitting in internal if not always external silence with room to spare, despite there being a healthy ridership all aboard.
Along the way, I leafed through Pennsylvania Magazine and The New York Times. I started reading (finally) Barack Obama'sThe Audacity of Hope, a quick pick I'd made at the snacks-and-mags shop at the Harrisburg station, putting aside for now Canadian author Ann-Marie MacDonald's dense tome, The Way the Crow Flies. I was entertained by the exuberant, Germanic chatter of Amish travelers sitting around me. I savored the autumn scenery as the train surmounted the Alleghenies, the leaves almost at peak color, the sky, dramatic and intense with the coming of stormy weather. I texted a friend in England, and another in Nevada. I thought about a Mallo-Cup I'd had earlier in the week and the pierogies I'd had for my lunch that day, instead of the semi-healthy snacks I'd assembled for my travels. I saw Altoona and the Horseshoe Curve; Johnstown and its notorious flood plain, along with the inclined plane that takes you--and your car--to higher ground in Westmont;Pittsburgh and its still rumbling and smelting steel works, the Strip District, and dahntahn.
And I wished for a moment that I could stay on this train and in this mindset forever. Out of my normal time and place, above, through, and beyond the day-to-day that gets me down or stresses me out. Yet in a very Pennsylvania space, one that isn't completely lost or abandoned to age and modern foolishness. Maybe there isn't a Pennsylvania mystique, the same as there is for Texas. There is cold weather, short summers, cloudy skies. Old buildings, a creaky infrastructure, a shaky economy, and faded industrial glory. There are too many billboards, above-ground pools, trailer parks, and adult bookstores. It's tradition-bound, clannish, hardscrabble, and, yes, perhaps even bitter at times.
But there are just as many reasons for why we live here. Spring. Fall. Trees. Snow. The mountains. The rivers. Voices. Food. Culture. People. Home. Pennsylvania.
I won't stay here forever. At least I don't expect that I will. I miss Texas. I'm fond of Kansas. I love Chicago. I fantasize about California. And I still think about Canada, with or without an election looming. There's too much of the world to see, too much of life to experience, to stay in one place for a lifetime.
Be that as it may, my life is pretty good here. Maybe not what everyone would want. Maybe not entirely what I would want, if money were no object and commitments to people and duties no small thing. But good, solid, enjoyable, satisfying. But it's here and it's mine. And here is home. Why would I want to be anywhere else?
Fact: From 1995 to 2004, I lived and worked in San Antonio, Texas.
If I have any regrets about leaving Texas--and occasionally I do--they are as follows:
Only visiting Big Bend once
Not visiting Palo Duro Canyon at all
Never attending Rodeo in San Antonio
Never touring South Fork Ranch on one of the few occasions I was in Dallas and had the time to do so
There are times that I miss living in Texas. Oh, I hated (and constantly bitched about) the summer--that nine months of hot, sticky heat that resulted in the birth of a mewling, sickly autumn. Plus, that suburban Republican mindset that supported George Dubya through two governorships and now two terms of presidentin'--well, I could definitely live without ever witnessing that again.
But there is a Texas mystique, an exoticism, if you will--equal parts sexiness and sagebrush, cowboy style and country pleasures--that you just don't find in many places in the modern U.S., which seems determined to franchise and homogenize itself into submission to a capitalist master.
For me, the TV show Dallas, at least in its early years, really captured this mystique.
Sigh. Infidelity, hunky cowboys with bad perms and amazing waistlines, spousal abuse, and bitter, bitter loneliness surrounded by ranch-style opulence. They don't make 'em like that anymore, except perhaps today in the suburbs of the real Big D. Tip: Watch Cheaters sometime.
After Texas, I eventually wound up in Pennsylvania.The Keystone State indeed has its charms--a glorious, brightly decorated fall is definitely one of them, along with rowhouses, pierogies, whoopie pies, the Amish and Mennonite communities, and the leftover riches of the 19th century robber-baron class.
But a style? Exoticism? A mystique of its very own? Alas, no.
I think it's safe to conjecture that no one is ever going to make a TV show with Henry Clay Frick's Claymore Mansion in Pittsburgh as the opening shot for every fraught-with-tension family scene. No one's ever going to collapse on their bed, bitterly rueing their trap of a loveless marriage, while in the background, an announcer at the Pennsylvania State Farm Show blares, "Ladies and gentleman, the award for best cowboy goes to Joe Warhola of Altoona." No one's gonna tune in to watch the lives and lusts among the Plain People, even if the show is set in a town called Intercourse.
And ain't no one into the 21st century wondering who shot Ben Franklin. Although I'm pretty sure it wasn't Sue Ellen's baby sister Kristin.
Editor's note: What kind of name is Kristin for a Texas woman in the 1970s anyway? You knew she had to be up to no good with a Yankee name like that.
Just home from a few days in Chicago, where I spent my time wisely . . .
. . . enjoying too much food at Russian Tea Time
. . . admiring the visual masterpiece that is Seurat'sLa Grande Jatte, as well as Grant Wood'sAmerican Gothic, perhaps the quintessential American icon, both on view at the Art Institute
. . . shopping too much at the largest H&M and Filene's Basement I've been to so far
. . . wishing that so many fine examples of Louis Sullivan architecture hadn't been demolished but glad some of the stunning details have been preserved
. . . appreciating being in the land of broad shoulders, if you catch my drift
. . . cheering on Alanis Morissette at the Chicago Theater (although disappointed that she didn't perform "Hands Clean" or a few other favorites from her last three albums
. . . getting mobbed on the Red Line train at Lawrence as the crowd from the Beck and MGMT concert at the Aragon overwhelmed the station
. . . marveling at the return of stripey, peg-legged pants, and Sid Vicious haircuts, among today's youth.Thirty years later and just in time for my birthday.
To celebrate the visit, here's a musical and visual montage culled from YouTube of some of my favorite Chicago moments. Some of the clips featured were overheard around town. Some of the other images are merely popular culture reminders of the significant role Chicago plays in American history and life.
Chicago. My kind of town. And my favorite American city.
First it was Nancy Reagan, all '80s lacquered hair and makeup and that Wilma Flintstone, lop-sided, off-the-shoulder gown held in place by a boulder-sized choker. Sort of a Pasadena-meets-Bedrock version of Dynasty for the dowager empress set.
Then, after many, many years in the cosmetics-and-conditioner wilderness--Barbara Bush, Marilyn Quayle, Laura Bush, to name but three--it was Ann Coulter of all people, the Jenna Jameson of the Punditocracy, that caught the discerning, right-wing, horndog's attention. All bleached-blond hair, anorexic-ravaged body, perma-tanned countenance, and overly pneumatic "tires" as it were. I know she makes me feel tired just looking at them.
I mean, her.
But then . . . I don't know what happened. Maybe the craziness of Ann Coulter--the looks of a fast-deflating blow-up doll with the high-pitched screech to match--overstayed its welcome and the Bowtie-and-Viagraset started frothing at the mouth for a different kind of gal. No more of those one-night-stand-and-a-boiled-rabbit-in-the-morning babes like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Instead, we'll have the sloe-eyed and pouty-lipped comforts-of-home honey that is Miss Anne Archer!
So along came the hockey mom and the pit bull combined--ladies and germs, I present to you, the Guns-and-AmmoPlaymate of the Year for 1985,Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin and Tall, as it were. More like Sarah Plain and Small. Caribou Barbie (wish I'd thought of that first). The WASP version of Evita Peron, at least if the photo (thank you, Wikipedia) of her waving to the descamisados at the Republican National Convention can offer any insights into her Miss Half-Baked Alaska persona.
It has been challenging for me to fathom the appeal of Sarah Palin. Oh, I get how that tough-talking, gun-toting, Jesus-loving mother/political barracuda plays in Heartland and Hearth. (Sort of.) She's just like us! Except that her opinions are better-defined than ours! Let's follow her!
It's a wasp-waisted George "Dubya" Bush in a pencil skirt, folks. In fact, it's highly reminiscent of the I-could-have-a-beer-with-that-politician mindset, just with a gender twist, brought up-to-date with beauty queen hair and a flattering choice of discount eyewear from LensCrafters. The same mindset that led a significant segment of the population (aka, Joe Six-Pack, as Sarah likes to call them, in her patronizing, homespun way) to think that they would far rather have a beer with Dubya than, say, Al Gore or John Kerry. And realizing what a good drinking buddy Dubya would make, it stands to reason that he would also make an excellent president.
It's hard to fault that sort of logic, of course, but, hey, that reasoning didn't turn out so good, now did it?
As the saying goes, most poor souls are just dying to be told what to do, and I guess Sarah Palin is as good (relatively speaking) a person (relatively speaking) to do just that. She is, if nothing else, more palatable personality-wise (relatively speaking) than Dick Cheney, for example, or even the now soul-deadened, right-wing marionette that has overtaken John McCain's cerebral cortex and voice box. You can only go but up from there, I guess, especially if you like your strychnine candy-coated.
I've never been one, though, who enjoys being told what to do and, in fact, when done so, I often have chosen to do the exact opposite. One too many entreaties to buy a "sensible car" impelled me to buy a Mini Cooper this summer. One too many admonishments to "get with the times" makes me hang onto my vinyl disco collection. One too many recommendations to settle down, buy a house, and get a boyfriend still finds me mortgage-free and unencumbered.It's just my nature to be different, to samba to the percussive tonic of my own drummer, and I think it's served me rather well over the years.
So I question authority and conventional wisdom at all times. It may have taken me ages to invest in an iPod, it may have made me wary of jumping on the Obama bandwagon early on, but I think I'm happier, safer, and saner for it.
Nonetheless, I don't think I'll ever come around to getting Sarah Palin. I simply don't understand the fuss, at least on a deep level (assuming there is one), and I certainly don't fathom her alleged sex appeal.
Granted, I don't butter my toast on the side of the bread that rises up for Sarah Palin. We know this already--and besides I'd prefer a nice imported marmalade, if truth be told. But doing my utmost to be objective, I simply can't comprehend her alleged va-va-va-voominess, the thing that for a while there seemed to bring grown reporters and pundits to their knees--or at least prevented them from standing up from behind their desks while on camera.
These guys keep acting like Sarah Palin is Veronica when she is really more Betty. No, wait. Betty had some good sense and a serviceable wardrobe. Rather, Sarah's got Betty's looks but Veronica's steely determination to sucker Archie into going steady, whether she's expecting his baby or not. Or maybe it's that to them, Sarah is Barbie, when she is so obviously Skipper. Or, worse, Midge.(Cindy McClain is clearly Barbie. All plastic with no moving parts. Duh.)
It was all going quite out of control there for a while, and, thankfully, a few too many deer-in-headlights answers about geopolitics and the inability to name one major newspaper or magazine has allowed heads to cool, reporters to stand, and realities to be pondered.
Still, I knew we'd hit a new low in American culture when mainstream media outlets starting discussing Sarah Palin's "MILF" factor.
For those of you who don't know, MILF is an acronym made popular by that other pinnacle of contemporary culture, American Pie. That's right, folks, a movie that made famous the salving of a youthful male's sexual yearnings through intercourse with an apple crumble is giving us new ways to think about government and politics. And MILF stands for (brace yourself, gentle readers) a "Mother I'd Like to Fuck."
Charming, no? A mother one would like to fuck. But then, if she's a mother you'd like to fuck, wouldn't that make you a mother fucker?
A MILF. I don't think even at my most unbridled and horndoggiest I could ever imagine saying that to another human being--even if I were a heterosexual teen with raging hormones, Stacy's mom has got it going on and all that. Every now and again I see an attractive father out with his kids and I think to myself, hmmm, I wish you were my Daddy. But I don't mean that in a literal, parent-child way, of course, just a lascivious one. (Which I guess would make me interested in, appropriately enough, some FILF.) Nonetheless, I'm certainly not walking up to one of his kids to share that information.
However, our pundits and reporters are secure in themselves enough to share this feeling with us. We are indeed blessed!
Yet I guess the situation with Sarah is not much worse than when early on in this interminable presidential race the Pundi-tards tried to make a shirtless, frolicking-on-the-beach Barack Obama an International Male catalog pin-up. And I'm still haunted by that postcard during the 1990s of the heads of Bill Clinton and Al Gore photoshopped onto buff, surfer bods, hugging each other, and smiling brightly for the cameras, as if that tag team was about to usher in a new era of gay love--at least right before Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act.
Which begs the question, at least for me--do countries that have parliaments or dictatorships have to go through this much psycho-sexual meshugas to elect a new leader?
Is anyone north of the border working up a sweat over a photo of a tight-jeans-and-plunging-neckline-down-to-there Stephen Harper?
Did heterosexual Cambodian women and homosexual Cambodian men dream of a page 3 layout in the Phnom Penh Daily News of a six-pack-abs-bedazzled Pol Pot?
Did British men in the 1980s fantasize about a hyper-shellacked centerfold of Maggie Thatcher?
Does anyone really want to see Venezuelan bully boy Hugo Chavez posing in a cowboy hat, fringed vest, and buttless chaps? Or German prime minister Angela Merkel in full dominatrix gear?
Or is this all too much of a Maxim-um overload to consider?
Somehow I can't imagine any of this political porno happening anywhere but in our own little fair-to-middlin' republic. The land of the freak, the home of the bored, with libertines and cheap thrills for all. Oh man.
I figure it must all come down to dissipation and decadence. At least that's the only way I can explain to myself the appeal of Sarah Palin. That or there's just so much Viagra in the water supply these days that most of the country's gone blind.
These days, I don't think that I'm that easily shocked, at least not by matters sexual and sensual. One doesn't get to be almost 47 without some of the shine being rubbed off the ol' doorknocker, as it were.
Nonetheless, one thing that never ceases to give me pause--and bring a little color to my whiter-than-white cheek--is finding a used condom left unfurled on the sidewalk where anyone (and, per usual, yours truly) can stumble upon it in broad daylight.
Oh, I don't mean to go all family values on your medieval self, this being an election year and all. Still, I was surprised to discover not one but two used rubbers in flagrante near my office building today.
Granted, I don't work in Shadyside or Squirrel Hill or "dahntahn" even. It's not a neighborhood nearly as nice as other places in Pittsburgh, chiefly being a "pre-loft conversion" warehouse district stuck smack in the middle of some ol' robber-baron (rubber-baron?) mansions--Henry Clay Frick's Claymore is just around the corner, for example--and what might be generously described by a Democrat as a disadvantaged area--and by a Republican as a slum/investment opportunity.
It's a little bleak, but I've seen worse, although apparently not lived worse, if I'm taken aback by a little lust's labor's lost.
Still, the prevalence of two tugs of fun, evidence of the quickie that dare not speak its name (but does at least plan ahead and wear protection), makes me think twice about staying too late at work on a moonless night. I'd hate to round a corner in a hurry, lest I get smacked in the face by a flying prophylactic. Worse, I'd hate to slide into home (as it were) on a farflung French letter--ribbed for your protection but perhaps not intended to provide safe traction on, uh, slippery surfaces.
Spending my time making good employ of some petroleum products of my own--gas for my car, for example, to drive myself to work--is seeming like a far more attractive proposition. And better for the environment. Mine, at least.
Sometimes even *I* won't kick a dog (too hard) when it's down. After all, with all that's wrong and venal in the word, Jessica Simpson's use of invaluable natural resources to fill whatever gaping need for attention she has in her soul seems a relatively minor offense, when compared to, oh say, anyone who might proudly and unironically attend the Republican National Convention this week.
Here's hoping Jessica does for country music what she did for Robbie Williams' "Angels."
Well, so much for my vice presidential politicking and armchair dream-team quarterbacking. How could I forget that someone not born in the good ol' U.S. of A. cannot become president?
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Thus, my choice for Obama's running mate, Madeleine Albright, is about as big a public goof-up as choosing a one-term governor with a slash-and-burn management style, who only seems in favor of two things: More babies and more drilling.
See, it really does all come down to the psychosexual, doesn't it?
I've always thought that that little constitutional stipulation of "no foreigners allowed" was provincial, xenophobic, and hypocritical in the extreme, especially for a country that prides itself on being a nation of immigrants. But whoever said Americans don't have a strong sense of irony just wasn't paying close enough attention.
So Madeleine Albright--born Marie Jana Korbelová in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1937 to Czech parents, who escaped to Switzerland, Serbia, England, and finally to Colorado (a Westerner after all!)--would not be an acceptable running mate for Obama or anyone else, due to constitutional restrictions.
But look on the bright side! Now no one can try to push Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude Van Damme into the spotlight for the highest national office! Nor Pamela Anderson, William Shatner, Gerard Depardieu, Amy Winehouse, the girls from T.a.T.u., the former members of ABBA, Osama bin Laden, Charlize Theron, Charo, or Kim Jong-il.
Although I wouldn't count out the Republicans trying to change the Constitution to let one particular candidate sneak into the Oval Office. That Charo, she would be a formidable opponent, with more cuchi-cuchi than Sarah Palin could ever muster.
