The Winter of Our Discontent

Sorry for that little delay. I got back from Vegas a couple of days ago and am just now getting back to normal. Since the cliched rule of Vegas is you don't talk about what happens there, I'll have to focus on other things. I'll only say that it was a bit quieter there in terms of population than I've experienced in the past. That Las Vegas has been hit pretty hard by the recession is no surprise given that most people prefer to spend their money on rent and food than gamble it away at the blackjack table. We stayed at the Bellagio, and it was far from empty, but I can't say that it was as filled and boisterous as I've seen in the past. Many tables were empty and it easy to get around.

A quiet Vegas, however, is symbolic of how bad things have gotten in this country, as the U.S. economy limps along like a wounded coyote on a parched desert road. Two days ago, the Dow traipsed below 7000 for the first time since 1997. How far it's fallen. People are walking around scared and a bit shellshocked. Everyone's nervous. We all want to know where the bottom is. How bad this is going to get. The ranks at my law firm have quietly thinned. For many of the survivors, salaries have been frozen and cut. It's the same or worse at other firms. And you know it's bad when lawyers, the plankton of the economy, are disappearing like deer during hunting season. Last month 2000 lawyers were laid off. And today, I heard one firm alone is going to cut 300 by itself.

Now, I know no one feels bad for lawyers, but I only bring this up because I am one and for me, it's personal and raises a larger issue about the negative mass psychology driving everything right now. If you believe as I do that to a large extent our thoughts and beliefs drive our reality -- literally -- then we are in a world of doo-doo and it's not going to end any time soon. In the late 90s, when the market was going gangbusters and everyone was talking about a "New Economy" like we were entering a new age, with fresh opportunities to generate huge wealth not seen since the mid-1800s, the mass mentality was, in Alan Greenspan's words, one of "irrational exuberance." People were happy because everyone was making money. All you needed to do was invest in something other than pork bellies and chances are you were going to earn a profit in a short amount of time. The Dow broke 10,000; NASDAQ broke 5,000. Retirees and pseudo-retirees were investing in tech stocks, sometimes at the urging of pushy brokers, but often, more often in my book, at the urging of their friends, family, and their own egos. Ten percent returns? Why am I ONLY getting 10% when my neighbor, brother, rabbi, nephew, son-in-law, and shoe-shine guy are getting 20 or 30%? Put it all in AOL and ENRON! NOW MOTHERFUCKER!

It was insane. It was momentum investing. It was ignorance. And when the bubble burst in March 2000 people were genuinely surprised that the good times were over. Actually, people didn't become fully aware that the good times were over until late 2000 to early 2001, and by then it was too late to get out. It was as if no one saw it coming. Because no one did. Well, a few people did. But no one listened to them, because an irrational, optimistic psychology was driving everything. A mass psychology. Back then it was the opposite of now: everyone was bullish, everyone thought things would just keep going up and up and they'd get out at the right time. People were chasing the rabbit and the rabbit was fast. And when the party ended, as all bull markets do, the fall was a long one.

It's interesting to look back and consider that time because now, after the bursting of yet another bubble -- the housing market -- it seems as if the collective psychology has swung waaaaaay over, to the opposite pole. Now, instead of irrational exuberance, it seems that everyone is suffering from irrational pessimism. The negativity floating around is palpable. To be sure, it's hard not to feel pessimistic when friends and family are getting laid off and jobs are disappearing faster than an African lake. The market is tanking on a daily basis and nobody knows where the bottom is. You turn on the television and it's fear, fear, fear 24/7. The media is doing what the media does. When the times are good, it pushes people to throw their money at the stock market or into real estate investing. And now that the economy's in the shitter, all you see on television is this self-righteous analysis of what capitalist, overextended pigs Americans were for so long and how it's good that we're all forced to save now. As if the media -- magazines, newspapers, and television -- weren't pushing materialism on us like a bunch of heroin dealers for the past 30 years. Now all they have is special reports about saving pennies, clipping coupons and surviving on Ramen Noodles and Spam. Yes, Spam is back. Finally.

That's when they're not trying to scare the piss out of us. As maniacally loud as the Jim Cramers of the world were back in 1999, urging people to invest and ride the wave, now it's a funeral dirge, all wailing and gnashing of teeth. The media would have us believe that The Economy is this living, breathing manic-depressive, up one day, down the next, and we're all fucked if it goes down, the world will end. It's absurd. People are freaking out and it's all because a bunch of politicians and economists have told us, repeat after me, This is the WORST economy since the GREAT DEPRESSION.

HOLY POOP ON A STICK, BATMAN! GET THE BUNKER READY BILLY BOB, IT'S THE END TIMES!

Time Magazine's cover this week shows a hand gripping a thick rope that's frayed and about to snap. The title? "Holding on for Dear Life." That about covers it. Hmmmm, do you think maybe that the corporate beast, weakened though he is, is trying to PROFIT off of this fear by building it up? Do you think that maybe there's something in that big fucking stimulus bill that's benefiting someone? This is America. Even when times are shitty, you can bet that there's some asshole who's profiting off of it. Ask Halliburton. Ask Blackwater. Ask all those Bush cronies who revolved in and out of positions of regulatory power and are now back heading the corporate boards and lobby firms of companies they once regulated. Wait, let me put that word in quotes: "Regulated." There.

I say, fear not, oh Blog Reader. For though yea, this is the winter of our discontent, verily, things are not as bad as they seem. They can't be. For all the people who have been laid off, there are millions more who are still working. For all those whose homes are being foreclosed on, there are far more people who still have their homes and are in no danger of losing them. This isn't to discount people's suffering, because many people are suffering. This is a bad recession, to be sure. My only point is, the sky is not falling. The world is not ending. So let's all get a grip, shall we? Just as it was easy to get caught up in the insanity of a climbing economy built on mirrors, balsa wood and paper clips, it's even easier to look around now, see the shitstorm smacking at the windows, and feel afraid.

But that self-fulling prophecy isn't going to help anyone, not me, not you. The worse we think things are, the worse they'll get. And right now, everyone's funereal mood is contributing to the problem. We need to remember that the market was due for a correction. It was only a matter of time before things went the other way and a bunch of greedy motherfuckers screwed things up for everyone. That's capitalism. That's the risk we take when we decide we don't want a communist economy where a bunch of government bureaucrats dictate who buys and sells what and at what price. If communism's downside is lack of innovation and motivation, then capitalism's downside is human greed. Regulatory oversight is supposed to prevent what's happening now, but it didn't work this time. Too many important people were making too much money to put the brakes on. No one wanted to be the bad guy and turn on the lights.

Mark my words: the economy is going to turn around within the next year or two. You'll see. I'll even go out on a limb and say the market will jump 1000 points the first day that Obama unveils a coherent plan on how to handle those troubled bank assets that are preventing banks from lending money right now. I'll go out on another limb and say that the smart people are investing right now. Buying stocks at bargain basement prices. The smart people are long term investors and they are not selling into a diving market. They are not panicking.

Not an easy task, keeping a cool head in this, the winter of our discontent. But someone's gotta do it because the alternative is far, far worse.

A Brand New Day

Well there's a lot to say and I haven't had much time to say it cuz I've been a busy beaver lately. It's a brand new day alright. New President, new administration, new policies, new priorities. It's weird being on this side of things, to actually be rooting for the person who's in power, rather than against him. It goes against my contrarian nature, so I shouldn't be too surprised that I already feel my critical tendencies kicking in.

On the plus side, the Inauguration was nice. Certainly historical, and, at times, hysterical, i.e., the way Roberts butchered the oath. I mean what was it, thirty-five words? He couldn't get that out? Just goes to show that you can have one of the best legal minds in the country, you can have a Yale law degree, you can be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and even with all that pedigree, you can still fuck something up. And they actually did it over again last night, lest some asshat from Fox News claim that Obama really wasn't President because the oath didn't go exactly right. Believe it or not, I saw a clip of Chris Wallace doing exactly that.

The speech wasn't Obama's best, but when you're as good as he is, the bar is set pretty high. I think the speech he gave on race relations last June was the best one he's given. His Convention speech was good too. This one sounded a bit dour, a bit negativo for my taste. I know that he was trying to lower expectations, which couldn't be any higher than if you loaded them onto an Apollo rocket and shot them at the sun. Have so many people ever expected so much from one person? It's absurd. So he needed to do a little Scared Straight, but I think he could have balanced it out with some more Happy Days. Still, I liked what he had to say about putting down childish things and reaching out with an open hand if others are willing to unclench their fist. That was some good imagery.

So he's President, now what? Two days in and he's erasing a bunch of bad shit that Bush did. I read today that he signed an Executive Order saying that no one is entitled to rely on any legal memo concerning interrogation of enemy combatants that was drafted between 1999 and January 20, 2009. That's pretty comprehensive, and just so happens to cover the Bush years. Not bad. To Bush's credit, he didn't pardon Scooter Libby OR Roger Clemens. I would have been more pissed about the second one. And he also didn't leave the White House in the crappy shape that Clinton's people did. Let the record show that Bush left the White House with more class than he demonstrated with the policies he adopted when he occupied it.

We're closing Guantanamo, which is good. People are wondering where we're going to put those bad guys now, as if America didn't have thousands of jails already built all over the country. Not in my backyard! you say. I don't want any o' dem TAY-RO-RISTS in MY backyard! Yeah, why the fuck not? If you already have a jail standing in your backyard, why can't some of them go there? Do you mean to tell me that a hardened terrorist from Guantanamo is more dangerous, more crafty, more creepy than a serial killer? Or a gang member? Or some a sociopathic rapist or pedophile who's rotting in an American jail as I write this? Of course they're not! So be not afraid NIMBYITES, for evildoers already occupy your backyard! Besides, prisoners of war should be treated as mandated by the Geneva Convention. Otherwise, give them due process and let's be done with it already. This isn't the Middle Ages. Captured soldiers need to be treated humanely and given some kind of trial. Shit, even the Nazis had Nuremberg. Are they saying Al Qaeda is worse than the Nazis? Seriously? Let me predict this: Guantanamo is going to go down in American history as a modern day version of the Japanese internment camps we had here during World War II. Nothing short of an historical embarrassment.

All that said, I hope Obama's not getting too light in the loafers too quickly here. The world's a dangerous place. We're not going to torture, okay that's fine. That's what I wanted. It doesn't work anyway. But is he really going to criminalize CIA tactics that push the envelope a bit? Not torture, but what about the threat of torture, or the threat of physical harm? That's going to be outlawed too? I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't think it's in our national interest to make it a crime to THREATEN that you're going to make a captured terrorist's life miserable if he doesn't cooperate. Unless they can show that kindness works better than threats, I think that has to stay on the table. We'll see where this goes. My point is, Obama better remember we're living in the real world, and there are some real sadistic assholes around. Principles are nice, but let's keep our eye on the ball at the same time and try and get a decent balance between our morals and values and common sense ways of handling proven killers.

I think the biggest positive change though is going to be in the State Department. I really like what he's done with the place already. George Mitchell and Richard (I actually wrote "Hal" first) Holbrooke are talented and respected people with great track records. Hillary, love her or hate her, is incredibly smart and stubborn as a mule, so she's perfect for dealing with foreign leaders. And Biden will probably have a thing or two to say about a thing or two. Much better than the mousey State that Condi was running before she left. Diplomacy can't get any worse than it's been the last eight years.

As for the economy, well.... have you ever watched a swirling toilet drain? I guess the first bank stimulus didn't work too well and now they're considering nationalizing American banks. Do you know how insane that is? No one better blame Obama for this country becoming socialist because that started well before he arrived. Nationalized American banks. That's something you see in Brazil and Chile, not the United States. We're going to have to start calling ourselves Los Estados Unidos, just so we'll fit in with all the other Third World economies. My quasicommunist college poli sci professor must be laughing her ass off, wherever she is.

I'll end this by saying something nice. For the first time in my life, I honestly feel that there's an average guy in the White House. A normal guy. A guy with a wife, kids, and even a mother in law living in there. He's not poor, but he sure as hell isn't rich either. He hasn't forgotten his roots. And he genuinely seems to care about doing the right thing and not his own future political ambitions. There was a moment at the Inauguration, before Obama was being introduced to the crowd, when he was walking down a hallway and about to step outside, when I looked at his face and it said "Holy fuck, what the hell did I get myself into?" Right then, everything seemed to hit home for him. "This is real. I'm responsible for all of these people, for the safety of the entire country. I'm the one who's supposed to get us through all of these rocky passes. How the FUCK am I supposed to do all that?" That's what his face said to me. And it was right then that I thought: this guy is a real person, an everyday guy, not some exalted, multimillionaire, insincere politician, who's practiced every action and reaction 1000 times, but a normal, funny, extremely intelligent guy who fist bumps his wife and who just got elected to be the most powerful person in the world.

Um, yeah... but didn't they say some of that about Bush too?

Thanks for Nothing

I'm sitting in a car dealership in southern New Hampshire, waiting for my replacement all-weather tires, so I can drive in bad weather without worrying about a repeat of this experience. Thanksgiving was okay this year, nothing out of the ordinary, but any joy I could take at having a few days off and spending time with family was tempered by the sickening news out of Mumbai, which reminded me, once again, of the sad and dangerous world we're living in. When I was a kid, nuclear war was the thing we worried about, news of ICBMs launched from the Soviet Union and landing in Omaha, Boston and Houston, and wiping whole populations in a flash of light and fire. The disturbingly real t.v. movie The Day After, which depicted the aftermath of a nuclear strike on a Midwestern town brought it home by showing people vaporized in an instant, their skeleton shadows cast against concrete buildings. I had nightmares for a week. I couldn't get the image of Jason Robards out of my head, him stumbling around, delirious from radiation, waving a rifle at hungry, hair-depleted scavengers who were threatening to loot his house for food.

When the Cold War ended, I thought my fear of falling victim to an indiscriminate violent death was in the past. I should have known that's not how human history works. There's a horrific, karmic symmetry to the way human beings keep repeating their mistakes and, in some ways, making them worse. Napoleon invades Russia in winter and ultimately loses the war. Hitler does the same. The Roman Empire over-extends and bankrupts itself. The British Empire does the same. And the American Empire is doing it again right now. An oppressive wall finally goes down in Berlin, signaling freedom and the removal of ideological separation. Two decades later, two walls go up in Israel and the southern United States, signaling separation and failure. The United States funds and supports Islamic fundamentalists to help defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Two decades later, the same Islamists attack New York and Washington D.C. and kill 2700 Americans. We drop two nuclear bombs on Japan and... well, let's leave that one alone for now.

Living in New York, it's perfectly fair, indeed realistic, to assume that in my lifetime, perhaps sooner than I'd like to believe, we'll see another Mumbai or Madrid-style attack, possibly on the very subway and building (Grand Central) I travel to each day for work. It's scary to think about, but let's be real, for determined psychopaths with access to deadly ammunition, a massacre is impossible to stop without turning this country into a police state and bringing transportation to a standstill. The stories out of Mumbai were excruciating to watch, the blood in the hotel lobby, the beautiful Taj hotel going up in flames, the remorseless killing of women and children, purely for the body count. Each lifeless body is a tiny notch on the terrorist hatebelt. It makes me wonder, is there any honor among terrorists? Was there ever one? Sound like stupid questions, yes, but at one point, didn't terrorists have rules about who they killed and why?

If they ever had rules, they're gone now. In this age of the devaluing of human life, of Grand Theft Auto, planes flying into buildings, of Virginia Tech and Columbine, AK-47s and bunkerbusters, Daisy Cutters and serial killers, human trafficking, Saw IV, Hostel II, and torture porn, and smart bombs and Predator drones, the headlines go to the biggest, flashiest, and bloodiest massacres. The more audacious the attack, the bigger and more diverse the body count, the larger and more dramatic the stage, the more the world pays attention. The longer the world pays attention, the greater the glory of the perpetrators of these acts. They want something, they always do, but now, their political goals seem far less important than their egotistical narcissism, their deep-seated desire to do in death what they couldn't do in life: Be important. Make a headline. Just for a day. These nobodies have a political ideology, but it's their goal to BE SOMEBODY that takes precedence, that leads them into death themselves. Their own lives are expendable. Glory and bringing "honor" to their name is all that matters. It's damaged egos run amok. It's Virginia Tech and Columbine on a much larger scale. There are no rules. There is no mercy. There's just blood on the floor.

It's hard to feel good, living in a world like this. I drive around New Hampshire, which is small and peaceful and clean, and I can't shake the feeling that places like this aren't living in the real world. They're removed from things and the bad stuff they see on television is happening somewhere else (it is). By contrast, people living in cities like New York and Tokyo and Mumbai and London and Tel Aviv and Madrid and Beirut and Kabul are fighting a quiet, personal war each day: a war against fear. A war against the desire to run away, to move, to get out, to withdraw, to go somewhere safe. A war against statistics and probabilities. I work in place X, I take Y train, it's a Tuesday before a holiday, it's the 11th or the 7th or the 15th, it's 8:30 a.m., the military guys in green fatigues and holding machine guns are not paying attention, they're flirting with cute tourists. Is this the day? What will I hear first? Will I see something or hear something first? Will it take me out for good, will I just see black, or will I be maimed or burned horribly for the rest of my life? Will I be in my office, or on the ground floor going up the escalator? Will I run? Will there be a stampede, or will people just stand there like blinded deer?

Not every day. I don't calculate the probabilities every day. But at least once a week it runs through my head. And not in any freaked out kind of way, either. It's more like a rational, clear, dispassionate kind of analysis What if? It's like trying to decide which highway to take, or which cereal to buy. Deep down you convince yourself that by thinking about it, it won't happen, that you're inoculating bad luck with your paranoid thoughts. The reality is, it could happen if you live in the wrong place (I do), and happen to cross karmic paths with the wrong people on the wrong day.

Someone asked me the other day if I'd ever thought of leaving New York, if I ever get tired of the threats and warnings, like the one we got last week about the subways and trains being targets. Sure I have. Most people who live in New York have at least thought about leaving, especially after 9/11. There's a bullseye on this city and it's going to get hit again, it's just a matter of time. New York symbolizes the best and worst of the United States. That's why it's a target. That and there are a lot of people here. So why the hell stay and live in a danger zone? For me, it's pretty simple. I love it here, and I don't want to leave. Why the fuck should I? Apart from the fact that I love the city, turning tail and altering my life path based on fear is not the way I want to approach whatever days I have left. I just couldn't do it. If I ever do leave, it'll be for reasons that I choose (a family, more space), not because fear and a bunch of cowardly and sad fanatics forced me out. Either that, or I'll go down with whatever may be coming here. Of course I hope it doesn't happen, or that I'm somewhere safe if it does, but if it does happen, then it was meant to happen, and if I were living somewhere else, somewhere safe, I probably would have choked to death on a Ritz cracker that day. You can't worry about these things, you just have to live your life. Some things are worth dying for, and the freedom to live where I choose and experience this place each day is one of them.

So... it wasn't a great Thanksgiving this time. The human race, which is capable of great things when it operates for good, just showed us, once again, what it can do when it dedicates itself to the opposite, to death and destruction. We're amazingly good at the latter. Too good for our own good. It's now up to the world to swing the pendulum back the other way and keep it there for awhile. Then we'll have something to be thankful for.

FF - Vet Me From Hell to Breakfast

Those of us who supported Barack Obama in the recent election are seriously considering applying for jobs in the new administration. What an amazing thing it would be to work on behalf of our first black President and bring real change to America. The catch? There's a vetting process. You remember vetting, that thing that McCain didn't do with Sarah Palin? Vetting is necessary so that the candidate and his administration don't become embarrassed by any revelations about you or me that may come out later. Obama's a master of The Vetting and they're saying that his employment application is the most detailed, the most deep-cutting in history. I've heard there's even a body cavity search involved.

Here, Stephen Colbert shows us the vetting ropes, so we know what to expect:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Stephen's Vetting Process - Cliff Sloan Pt. 2

Ron Paul Interview
Bob Barr Interview

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Things I'm Thinking On November 9, 2008

Been working my ass off lately and this is the first weekend I've had to myself in awhile, so it's time to catch up on a few post-election thoughts.

1. We have a black President-elect. Days later, I'm still dumbfounded. Part of it is shock that in four years, American voters have gone from re-electing a man like George Bush to electing a man like Barack Obama. It's positively schizophrenic. The other part of it is, I can't believe we're actually going to have our first black President. Say that a few times. The last black candidate to be remotely viable (and he wasn't really viable) was Jesse Jackson. That was in 1988. A few days ago we saw him crying tears of joy during Obama's victory speech. The irony is that a few months ago, JJ was criticizing Obama for talking down to African-Americans. What a difference victory makes.

I don't want to get all Revelations here, but it almost seemed like this election was preordained, like events were conspiring to propel him into power. Every time McCain seemed to be making headway, something would get in the way. There was the hurricane during the Republican Convention, which reminded everyone of the fuckups during Hurricane Katrina. Then the Palin pick, which at first seemed so genius -- she was practically deified at the RNC -- in time, proved to be disastrous. Then the economic freefall that McCain reacted to like a human pinball, demonstrating his knee-jerk approach. It's amazing how much went wrong for them.

That said, Obama is a phenomenon, no two ways about it. They're making t-shirts with his face on them, and already he's become a cultural icon like Che Guevara, JFK, Malcolm X, and MLK. And he did it largely because he excels at that lost art of public speaking. He inspires people with his voice and words. In this country, we've forgotten what it's like to be moved by a political leader. Who was the last President to inspire people? Reagan? JFK? We had MLK and RFK as well, people who moved others through their words, deeds, and what they stood for. Obama's doing it again. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Obama's Cult of Personality Never have I seen national, nay, GLOBAL adulation at the result of a Presidential election. Kids all over the world -- Indonesia, Kenya, Detroit -- holding up pictures of Obama, a spontaneous street party in front of the White House, tears of joy, spontaneous relief. A great deal of it had to do with the historical significance of Obama's victory and a huuuuuge exhale that the Bush Administration, with its advocacy of torture, domestic eavesdropping, warmongering, and go-it-alone foreign policy, is on its way out. Rationality and diplomacy are making a comeback.

But... the elephant in the room, the thing that few people are talking about (yet), is that Obama is a blank slate on which everyone is unrealistically painting their unique hopes and dreams. Everyone thinks he's a savior, that he's going to solve everyone's problems like a Magic Man, a Fixer, a Messiah. Many will be sorely disappointed. At the end of the day, he's just a man, a smart, competent, intellectually curious man, but just a man who is inheriting a colossal mess. He's going to face the same kinds of hurdles and challenges that every previous administration has faced, and if people are expecting miracles or a wave of quick-fixes, they're living in a dream world. The best we can hope for is a reasoned, careful consideration of our problems and an intelligent approach to solving them. For all his inspiration, Obama is not a miracle worker. Not everyone is going to like what he does. There is major potential for a letdown in some circles. I can already hear the criticism coming that he didn't fulfill his promises and compromised too much. Personally, I'm hoping he accomplishes a few of his domestic goals and changes the way the world sees us. For me, that will be huge progress.

3. Writing fiction is harder than anything I've ever done. I don't even know why I bother. I shut myself in my apartment or a cafe and bang my head all day to get a paragraph out and then I read a flawless short story by T.C. Boyle or Raymond Carver or Hannah Tinti, and I want to slit my wrists.

4. I saw my first Christmas commercial three days ago. Why don't they just start pulling them out on the Fourth of July? They're not even waiting for Thanksgiving anymore. Ridiculous.

5. I made the mistake of drinking coffee at 7 pm last night and ended up watching the Justin Timberlake movie Alpha Dog until almost four in the morning. Don't ask.

6. A few more words on the election: Funny how all that nonsense about Bill Ayers and socialism and Reverend Wright went out the window after Obama won. Nary a mention of it in McCain's consolation speech (which was excellent, in my view). Kudos to the American people for not believing that horseshit this time around. Political campaigns are sales jobs, nothing more, nothing less.

Hey Rudy 9/11: The Commmmunity Orrrrrganizer won!!! Now fuck you.

Last but not least, can we leave Sarah Palin alone now? Jesus. The election's over. They both lost. And it wasn't all her fault. So why doesn't everyone get off her back? She can't be blamed for McCain's bad judgment in picking someone with no national experience that he only met twice. I don't blame her for being tantalized by power and reaching beyond her capabilities. I blame McCain's group for not figuring out all the problems ahead of time. (Really, how hard was it? Katie Couric figured it out in a 60 minute interview.) Now they're trying to make her the fall lady here, and I don't think it's fair. Shit, I think I'm starting to feel sorry for her. So please. Stop.

7. Guns, guns, guns! Is it funny or scary to hear stories of people stockpiling firearms the day after Obama won? I'm going with scary. Have you ever seen a more paranoid group of people than gun owners? Will you people please fucking relax? No one is going to take your guns away. This country will be and remain the violent and gun-obsessed Wild West that it's always been, so don't worry your precious, gun-toting hearts about it. You may not have Charlton Heston to press your case no mo', but the Second Amendment isn't going anywhere, so you'll still be able to shoot squirrels, Campbell soup cans, deer, moose, crocodiles, beer bottles, Stop signs, skeet, ducks, geese, loons, and, on occasion, human beings, whenever you like. Don't be afraid, Obama won't hurt you. He's got bigger fish to fry. But you may want to start supporting that health care plan of his because as popular as guns have become in the good ol' U.S. of A., you, or some high school or college student you love, may need affordable health care one day.

8. True Blood. I read three of the Anne Rice books and loved the movie The Lost Boys, but I've always found the notion of vampires a little hokey. I keep thinking of how silly Gary Oldman looked and sounded in Dracula. That said, the new HBO show True Blood is pretty damn good. Soap opera good. Lots of interesting characters, conflict, and cliffhangers. I've even started preempting Dexter to watch it. Choices, choices.

9. Could I date someone who didn't like television? Nope. Do I watch too much television? Yup.

10. Little kids have been staring at me a lot lately. Not in a scared or mean way, but in a curious, friendly way. I'm talking toddlers. The other day a lady was getting out of an elevator in a building I was in and she pushed a stroller by me that bore a cute little boy -- I think it was a boy -- with curly blonde hair and blue eyes. She was halfway down the hallway and I happened to look at him before I got in the elevator and I saw the kid looking back and smiling at me. So I waved. It happened again on the subway the other day, and then again tonight in the elevator up to my apartment. They look at me like I'm some kind of friendly alien or something. Like I'm a Teletubby with facial hair. I guess it's better to be noticed than ignored, eh?

Twas The Night Before Christmas....

So what is there to say on this, the eve of a history-making election, that hasn't been said already? Probably nothing. And just this...

It's been a long, exhausting two years of politics. It actually feels like this campaign started the second the 2004 one ended. We're tired. We're sick of seeing the same people on t.v. night after night. We're gagged by the personal attacks. We're tired of hearing the same, boring words over and over: change, maverick, my friends, socialist, redistributionist, Joe the Plumber, George Bush, 90% of the time, tax cuts, 250,000, health care, Iraq, community organizer. We're tired of McCain's forced smirky smile, of Biden's tangential rants, of Palin's chopping off the "g" in a present participle, of Obama's teachery, preachery explanations. We want it to be over already. We want a break. We want to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas in peace. It's hard to keep fighting, keep debating for one candidate, one party over another for so, so long. I, for one, am burnt out.

It should be said that for many of us, The Liberals, the anti's, it's been eight years of political misery. We simply could not believe the results of the 2000 election that elevated George Bush to the Presidency. That was tough enough. Then his surprising reelection in 2004. We knew Kerry was a tightass with no sense of humor but still, we couldn't believe people went back to drink from the dirty Ganges a second time. So we suffered, yelled often, and endured. But now, with Bush as a lame duck, it seems that most people finally understand that the election and reelection of a man who was not intellectually curious, who relied on the counsel of others out of insecurity, who preferred "yes" men and women to an opposing point of view, and who allowed cronyism and unfettered loyalty to infect his administration like a swarm of termites, rotting it from the inside out, has brought the United States to its knees.

9/11 was a bitchslap to the face, a shock to our system. George Bush did not cause it, obviously, but he certainly is responsible for how he chose to use our military to respond to it. Everything that's happened since has been on his watch. A war that he started under false pretenses, on the basis of what history will one day show was an intentional lie to the American people. A war that's lasted five years and counting, cost us $600 billion and counting, and shows no sign of abating. A war with no apparent military objective in sight that's created more terrorists (or terrorist sympathizers) than existed before Shock & Awe and opened the floodgates of influence for Iran, our competitor in the region and a thorn in our collective American ass for almost three decades now. A war that's being fought every day while most of us don't see and don't care what's going on over there. It's happening in a different world that doesn't exist for most of us. Because the Bush Administration doesn't want us to see it for ourselves or think about it too much. So we don't.

Afghanistan, where all of our military resources should have been devoted, is a war that we're losing. Now they're talking about negotiating with the Taliban to finally resolve the conflict. The Taliban! So let me get this straight. We overthrow Saddam Hussein, who didn't attack us, who was Iran's sworn enemy, who was contained in a no-fly zone, but who we didn't like for a variety of reasons (in 2003, not 1988 when we supported him), and now, five years later, we're considering signing a peace treaty with the people who protected and collaborated with Osama Bin Laden on 9/11? The people who gave him, and are likely still giving him, safe haven? As Kevin Costner said in the movie JFK: "We're through the looking glass, people. White is black. Black is white." Could our foreign policy be more fucked up?

On Bush's watch, Hurricane Katrina embarrassed us and made us look like a Third World country. Floods and floating corpses. Normally you'd see that in places like Bangladesh. Nope. Happens here too. Hugo Chavez offered us relief supplies. That was nice of him. A couple of years after that, our runaway, debt-based capitalist system, the one that helped us all run up our credit cards so we can enjoy our toys NOW, finished the job, by delivering a deathblow to our soft, capitalist nether regions, where the credit chickens finally came home to roost. Massive, iconic corporations like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stears, Merrill Lynch, companies who'd been around a long time and whose names were as American as the Super Bowl, went under. Others, like AIG, we saved with the biggest public bailout in U.S. history. Now they're all standing in line with open palms waiting for their (our) money, so they can squander it again. The biggest irony of ironies, however, is that Bush, the oil man, the capitalist, The Decider, the fiscal conservative, has overseen and promoted the greatest American experiment with socialism since FDR's New Deal. You can't write this shit.

In short, the man nearly half of this country voted for twice because they thought he had a better personality than Al Gore and John Kerry (he does) has fucked this country up royally and set his own party back at least 8 years, maybe more. He has the lowest approval rating at this point in office of anyone since they've been measuring it. I think it's below 20%. No one, including McCain and virtually every Republican running for elected office, will be seen with him. Now, maybe you think Bush is not responsible for all this, I do for most of it, but maybe you don't. Hopefully you'll at least agree that he's fairly incompetent and has some atrocious luck. George Bush is the Presidential Cooler. (See The Cooler, starring Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy, and Maria Bello).

What can be said on this eve of a history-making election is that Americans across the board despise a lot of things Bush and Cheney et al. have done in office. We are ready to take another, more peaceful and pragmatic path towards our future. We want to talk to our enemies. We want to get rid of the orange jumpsuits and close Guantanamo. We want to stop allowing our intelligence agencies to torture prisoners. We want to end these wars sensibly. We want to take the lead in an energy economy and create the industries that are going to lead the world in the next century. We want to show the world we can still do some pretty kick ass things besides blow shit up with state of the art stealth bombers and laser guided missiles. It's not just Liberals who feel this way. Many conservatives do too. Really, it's not that hard when you look at the sorry state we're in right now and how low we've sunk.

And after all of this, this clusterfuck, this total mess we're in, we're going to elect a black man as President. I don't think people understand how improbable what's about to happen really is. A black man as President in THIS country, with its history of slavery, the KKK, the civil rights movement, racial incidents from lynching to the L.A. Riots, to the O.J. trial(s). I can honestly say I never thought it would happen in my lifetime. I thought we'd see a woman as President, maybe. Not this. But it's about to happen. And that blows my mind. If you think of it purely in racial terms, it's pretty shocking. When you look at the man though, it really isn't. He's the smartest, the most savvy, the most inspiring, and the most unlikely candidate out there. He attracted white voters, young voters, new voters. He gave Chris Matthews goosebumps. He reminded the Kennedys of Kennedy. He beat the Clinton machine. He survived the Republican Swift Boat. And he did it all with a Muslim name, two parts of which echo the names of two of our greatest foes in the past twenty years.

Barack Hussein Obama. Fucking unreal.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even an excited and extremely motivated electorate.

FF - McCain the Socialist

Obama's been getting hammered by McCain lately for supposedly being a "socialist" because he supports a progressive income tax, where the wealthy pay a higher share of taxes than those who make less (the system we have now). Apparently an earlier version of McCain -- it's hard to keep track of them all -- agreed with Obama. Check out his answer to a young college student whose daddy, a Doctor, is forced to pay more taxes than those greedy, lower income people. Oh, the humanity! It's just not fair!!!



Not necessarily funny, okay, maybe only to me. I like the old McCain better. He should have stuck with that version.

The Rubber Mallet Awards

I've been feeling lousy lately. Rundown, tired, and sick. I think I picked up a cold during my Montana travels. Then the Red Sox lost last weekend, after an amazing comeback in the series against Tampa Bay, and that took away what little air was left in my balloon. So, crabby as I am, I think it's a good time to trot out an idea that's been germinating in my mind for well over a year: The Rubber Mallet Awards.

The Rubber Mallet Awards are given to the person or group of persons who engage in behavior so annoying, so inappropriate, so unnecessary and just plain stupid, that they deserve a hard-swung, carefully calibrated rubber mallet to the forehead. Or back of the head. Depends on where they happen to be standing when they offend me. The RMAs stand for the concept that if there were no repercussions, if I couldn't be arrested for assault, or, in some cases, murder, for swinging my rubber mallet so hard that it killed the deserving victim, I would rubber mallet these offenders into oblivion. I want to knock these fuckers OUT, O-U-T, OUT!! Because, for reasons that should soon be clear, they deserve it.

So here we go.


THE CLOTHING CATEGORY

We're going to start off small. These would probably be little taps to the noggin because the transgressions are fairly trivial, and due more to ignorance and lack of taste than to a serious personality disorder. The first group of Rubber Mallet Awards goes to:

Men who don't match the color of their belts and shoes. This isn't that fucking hard, guys. Get with the program. Mismatched shoes and belts are the clearest sign that you don't give a shit about how you look. You just grabbed the first thing and threw it on. If you're color-blind, and can't tell the difference between black and brown, see a doctor and organize your shoes and belts so you know which is which.

Men who wear white socks with dress shoes. Just. Plain. Dumb. Unless you're over the age of 55, you have no excuse.

Men who wear leather sandals. Two mallets if you wear dark socks under them. Three mallets if you wear white socks under them. Same grandfather clause as above applies.

Men who wear tank-tops in public. I don't care if you're ripped like LL Cool J. You look white-trashy stupid.

Women who wear flip-flops to higher-end events that call for shoes. Flip-flops, while comfortable and a fun way to get around, are not suitable for weddings, birthday parties, meeting the President, or first dates, unless you're going to the beach. They're also not appropriate for the subway, where every conceivable strain of bacterium resides. This fad has gotten a bit out of hand.

Women who wear those pointy, roach-killer shoes. I hate those things. Not flattering to the feet, and they make you look like a witch. If you have a witchy personality, then fine. For everyone else, wear something else. I realize I just pissed off two-thirds of the female population of Manhattan. Two mallets.


THE DRIVING CATEGORY

Now that I have a car, I have an opportunity to hand out RMAs to every asshole I encounter on the highways and byways of this great country of ours. The second group of Rubber Mallet Awards goes to:

People who cut me off, obvs.

People who don't use their fucking blinker. This is a major pet peeve of mine. I'll even overlook the first one if you at least use a blinker. It means that you half-thought there was someone behind you who might have to slam on his brakes due to your "me first" attitude.

Passengers who WON'T. SHUT. THE FUCK. UP. A little convo is nice, but seriously, unless I'm responding in kind, take the damn hint, please. I'll come around when the coffee kicks in or I think of something interesting to say. Otherwise, just sit back and listen to the music, or better yet, meditate in your head like me, mmmmkay? Two mallets.

Three mallets if I'm driving in a blinding snowstorm and you're Scottish.

Cops who give me speeding tickets. It's really not necessary, officer. I know you're just doing your job, but most of you do it with a condescending attitude. Yes, I know how fast I was driving, that was the whole point. Yes, I am in a hurry, or was, until I got pulled over. Now I'm going to be late. Just give me my damn ticket, Nazi! Two mallets.

Traffic weavers. Usually young kids who think they're invincible. They weave in and out of traffic, usually without using a blinker (see above), and act like they're the most important person on the road. I'd like to put a rubber mallet right through their windshield. That might slow them down.


THE POLITICAL CATEGORY

Fairly self-explanatory, and where it isn't, I'll explain.

Sean Hannity - Five mallets
Chris Matthews - Six mallets.
Bill O'Reilly - Seven mallets
Rush Limbaugh - Eight mallets

Sarah Palin - Seven mallets. Three for incompetence, five for hubris, and I'll deduct one because you're spunky and you've got that hot librarian thing going.

Barack Obama - Five mallets. I gave to your campaign and now you won't leave me the fuck alone! I get ten letters a week from you, Hillary, your wife, Joe Biden, and your campaign manager. Multiply that by three and that's how many emails I get. For crying out loud, when I was in Montana, I even got a cell phone call from someone in Pennsylvania or somewheres, asking for more money. You've got three times as much money left as Gramps over there, and you want more from me? Back the hell off, man! You'd better not pull this shit with your social programs once you get elected or we're going to have problems, you and me.

McCain - No mallets. Don't get me wrong, there are P-L-E-N-T-Y of reasons to whack this mole, but on the off chance that he comes back and wins this election, I can't risk malleting him unconscious or we'll end up getting you-know-who as President. That wouldn't be good for anybody.


THE GYM CATEGORY

We're upping the ante here to a moderately hard mallet swing because now we're dealing with sheer stupidity rather than simple, misguided ignorance. The third group of RMAs goes to:

The chromosome-splitting, knuckledraggers who grunt like they just shit themselves when they lift anything over 20 pounds. I've been known to mock these a-holes with some fake grunts of my own. One mallet (to the throat).

The sweaty pigs who think we all enjoy seeing their hairy man-boobs peaking out from the thin, stringy piece of cloth around their neck, which they apparently believe qualifies as proper gym attire. These are always the wettest, smelliest, and most oblivious jerks in any gym. And they NEVER wipe anything down afterwards. Four mallets.

Asshats who want to "work in" with me on a machine when the gym is nearly empty. Go use another one until I'm done, you douche! Two mallets.

Women who dress in too-tight leotards, often with a neon thongpiece worn outside. I ask why? Two mallets. None if she's hot.

Attractive women who refuse to acknowledge my inappropriate staring while they're using the hip flexor machine. Seriously, what would it cost you to throw a little smile my way? Or one of those Sarah Palin winks? Two mallets.

Men who walk around the locker room totally naked for twenty minutes while I'm trying to shower. These exhibitionists are too comfortable with their bodies and a little too happy to look at mine. They blowdry their hair (and sometimes their bodies) naked, before they get dressed. And they congregate in places where you HAVE to walk by them: in the corridor on the way to the shower, in the shower area, where they're either toweling themselves off, or "waiting" to use one of the seven empty showers, in front of your locker, where they take an egregious amount of time to get dressed, while they bend, flex, and stretch. Naked. Ugh. Five mallets. Two to the head, three to the balls.


GENERAL STUPID BEHAVIOR WARRANTING MULTIPLE MALLET BEATINGS CATEGORY

This category is the top of the heap. I likely would kill these people with a rubber mallet if I wouldn't go to jail and feel bad about it later.

C.A.C.A. Enough said.

Nextel cell phone users, whose every conversation is on a speakerphone and preceded by those nails-on-a-chalkboard BEEP BEEPs. Making matters worse is the fact that the calls are typically unintelligible to the user because they're always saying, WHAT?? and they have to repeat themselves 1000 times. For some reason, these violators tend to be loud-talking minorities dressed in gang colors. I'm just sayin'. I've never seen a white person with one of these phones. If you're out there, shoot me an email and I'll publish a retraction.

Seven mallets.

Pretentious, clueless assholes waiting in line at a soup place or ice cream parlor who want to "sample" thirty-five flavors of the merchandise before buying something. "Can I try a little of the ________, please?" Then they take the little soup cup or wooden stick with ice cream in their obnoxious hand and dab their tongues at it like they're tasting a fine pinot noir in a Napa Valley vineyard. They're totally oblivious to the people waiting behind them. They couldn't care less. The Sampler is all about ME and GETTING THE BEST FOR MYSELF. To The Sampler, the Sample is precious, it's ambrosia, it's Frodo's Ring, because the success of The Sampling is going to dictate how pleasurable their soup or ice cream experience is going to be. And it's crucially important for this type of person to have every experience in life be as pleasurable, as meaningful, as possible. The Sampler, who tends to be well-dressed and have a heavy wallet, is used to having the best. Nothing less will do. So while the rest of us jerks stand behind these self-anointed kings and queens, they just keep sampling until they finally, FINALLY reach the Promised Land and have that magical, elusive flavor they've been searching for their whole lives swirling around their aardvark tongues.

I want to rubber mallet these arrogant, clueless pricks in the back of the head until they regurgitate their samples on the floor. Eight mallets.

Blackberry or cell phone users who, within seconds of leaving their office, are scanning and/or texting on their handhelds in elevator banks, on escalators, down stairs, on a busy sidewalk, in the middle of Grand Central Station, anywhere they'll cause maximum inconvenience to those around them. These fucktards are easy to spot because they're always looking down and not watching where they're going. I make it a point to try to run into them on purpose just to see if they'll look up.

If one of them happens to be in front of you, you'll know they're looking at a Blackberry because they'll suddenly start walking like they're 98 years old and suffering from an attack of rigor mortis. I'll realize it all of a sudden and then walk by wishing to God I could knock that piece of plastic out of their hands without starting a fistfight. I ran into a lady the other day. She was talking on her cell phone -- technically not the same thing as this category, but whatever -- and walked in a diagonal right across my path. I didn't stop, and I sort of brushed by her, so we barely touched. Maybe our jackets did, but that's it. She had a satisfying conniption anyway. She started yelling at me right there on the sidewalk. I had my headphones in, so I ignored her and just kept walking. I was happy to end it there. But she wasn't. She caught up to me at the next corner because I didn't have the light and couldn't cross, and she started giving me the jibberjabber, calling me a piece of shit and this and that. I explained to her in a loud voice that just because she's talking on a cellphone she doesn't have the right to walk wherever she pleases. Then she tried to say she was walking straight and I laughed in her face. Then she called me more names, whereupon I told her repeatedly to go fuck herself. Felt pretty good, too, but not something I want to do every day.

These cell phone users, Blackberry users, Nextel beepers all need to realize: You're not that fucking important, okay? Seriously. President Bush isn't emailing you. It's not N.A.S.A. calling to say they need you by the rocket-launcher asap. You're no more important than anyone else. So use your fucking heads when you're walking around. Either pay attention where you're walking or pick a place out of people's way to do your boring personal business.

Jesus, I want to club these people senseless. Ten mallets.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE WINNERS!

Confessions of a Political Junkie

It's time I came clean. I can't quit, man. I didn't want this blog to be all about politics, but that's what's happened lately. I know that writing about politics is a dead-end street. I know it has no future. There are plenty of political blogs out there. People don't want to hear me rant about my personal political views. I know that I'm either (a) preaching to the converted, or (b) making the sound of a tree falling in the forest with no one around to listen. Do I still make a sound? Hell if I know. So why, why, why do I do it? Because I just can't stop. I can't stop writing about politics, political shenanigans, the abuse of power and the unbridled hypocrisy that goes with it. I've got the fev-ah, man and it won't leave! It won't go! I want more, I need more. More news. More sound bites. More personal attacks on character. More slurry from the bottom of the privacy barrel to feed my appetite. I gots ta have it!

So... dear reader, more likely than not, you'll be enduring more politically-themed entries than you'd like until November 4th. For I admit it. I have a problem. I am a political junkie and I cannot -- I WILL NOT -- stop. I know you're sick and tired. So am I. I can't stand myself. I want this election to be over already, you have no idea. I want to get on with my life, writing about metrosexual crapola, why murses and men go well together, the angst of the single life, all the usual important stuff. But the political season keeps getting in my way. We're about to elect a very powerful group of people to run our country, and it's the first time in four years that we, Americans, have a chance to rectify our past wrongs in twice electing an idiot for President, and I have to let it out, I have to let it ALLLLLL out.

What's addicting about this election is the people running: Obama, Biden, McCain, Palin. Each is compelling in his or her own own way. Each has a story to tell, and it's not a boring story. McCain the Prisoner-of-War, the post-Charles Keating mea culpa reformed politician; Biden, the gaffe-prone plagiarist, the aneurysm-survivor who lost his first wife in a car accident; Palin, the small-town girl from Wasilla with Big World dreams but no passport stamps; and Obama, the smooth operator who has Tefloned his way to the precipice of becoming the first black President. It's easily the most compelling Presidential election I've ever witnessed. There are fantastic story arcs here and we're about to reach the climax. How will it end? How??

But it's not just the stories. It's the psychology of the campaign that interests me. The tactics of persuasion both sides are using to convince people to vote their way. Lying about the other side as a political tactic is nothing new. It's existed since John Adams ran against Thomas Jefferson back in the 1800s. But since the 1980s, when Republican operative Lee Atwater worked Michael Dukakis over with Willie Horton ads and hilarious replays of him riding around in a tank like a 6 year-old with a new toy, it's been elevated to an art form. Since Dukakis, the powerful strategy of "going negative" and destroying an opponent by any means necessary has greased the path to political victory. Rumors of George Bush Sr. having an affair, John McCain fathering a black baby out of wedlock, the Swift Boating of John Kerry, all stepping stones to new power.

Yes, we are living in an era of political character assassination. Why do they do it? Because it works. Human nature dictates that when people hear enough bad things about someone and they're repeated often enough, people will believe them, regardless of whether the statements are true or not. It seems ludicrous now, but back in 2000, people actually believed that John McCain may have fathered a black baby out of wedlock. (The black baby is the sine qua non of political arrows. No one, it seems, can withstand the dreaded black baby rumor.) The truth, which no one cared about, was that he and his wife had ADOPTED a baby from another part of the world. I think she's on her way to college now. Anyway, after besting Bush in New Hampshire, McCain lost the South Carolina Primary and his Presidential campaign was over soon after that. And we got Bush as the Republican nominee (and later President) as a result.

I bring this up because we are less than 30 days away from the election and McCain is losing. He wants to change the subject from the economy, something he's admitted he knows little about and whose fundamentals he believed a few months ago were "sound." So he's getting desperate and has said the gloves are coming off. You can bet your sweet patootie, therefore, that things are going to get U-G-L-Y (with no alibi) over the next three weeks. Even worse than they've already been. Early indications are that they're going to work the "guilt by association" angle with Obama. You can expect to hear more about Reverend Jeremiah Wright and some guy named Bill Ayres, who apparently was a "domestic terrorist" back in the 1960s when Obama was eight years old. But Obama considered Wright family and attended a fundraiser with Ayres, so it's guilt by association.

Personally, I think this strategy will blow up in McCain's face, just like his recent kabuki theater with the recent economic meltdown, where he made a big show of suspending his campaign (he didn't, really). The results of his dramatic, but ultimately fruitless, efforts were made embarrassingly clear when the bill didn't pass, due primarily to his Republican colleagues' refusal to get on board. If McCain goes the guilt-by-association route, it'll be a rocky road, because he's living in a glass mansion and Obama's shown that he's not afraid to throw a few rocks of his own. All he needs to do is bring up the Keating Scandal and McCain's going to be dealing with a bunch of shit that he's put behind him and would be better off leaving there. And I read today that McCain used to be a member of an anticommunist organization who were knee-deep in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and whose members included more than a few Nazi sympathizers. Nice. See how nasty it gets when you can't, or won't, talk about the real issues facing people? But McCain's a gambler and he's desperate, so if he keeps slipping in the polls, I think he's going to say fuck it and unleash the dogs of war. Hope he's got some armor on. He's going to need it.

Finally, a word about the VP debate. Palin certainly performed better than expected, I have to say that. Of course, I've never seen lower expectations going into a debate, so that's not saying too much. For someone who easily could be President of this country, and Commandress-in-Chief, it's daunting to think that people actually thought she might freeze up, cry, vomit, or run off the stage last week, and anything above that was a "victory." Is this how low we've sunk in our expectations of our leaders? Sad. But she handled herself well, even if she didn't answer any questions and basically gave a stump speech the entire night. It's like back when I was in college and I was taking a class I didn't like very much and so, two days before the final, I had to cram my ass off to remember as much as possible before the test. When it was over and I took home a "C," I was relieved. That doesn't change the fact that I had no business taking the class in the first place. Lack of interest breeds mediocre performance.

I find Palin distasteful for other reasons though. Putting aside her obvious lack of readiness for the most powerful job in the world, my grievance with her is she pretends to be sincere and real -- in fact, she's staking her entire personality on being "one of you" -- when she's as fake as they come. She showed it at the debate. Two examples. First, at the beginning of the debate, she asked Biden if she could call him "Joe." Biden, nice guy that he is, said "Sure." It soon became clear why she asked. Twice, she tried to use pre-crafted "zingers" against Biden that made use of his first name: Joe. In response to a question that Biden answered (unlike Ms. Lipstick, he actually tried to answer questions during the debate), Palin said "Say it isn't so, Joe." Another time she said, "There you go again, Joe," in a pathetic attempt to imitate President Reagan's similar retort to President Carter in 1980. Fake, fake, fake.

The other example came when Biden got choked up as he was describing the near-death of his son in the car accident that killed his first wife. After listening to this emotional moment, Palin, mother of five, is it? including a baby with Down's Syndrome that she carts around like a Saks Fifth Avenue bag before handing the poor child off to one of her daughters, didn't acknowledge Biden's moment at all, or even his humanity as a father. What she did instead was fly right back into her stump speech, as if nothing had happened. If you don't believe me, go watch it on YouTube. Sure, she comes off as a down-home, simple person. But she's a calculating politician, just like any other. Who are they kidding?

And they're trying to slip this bill of goods past voters by severely limiting her interviews and not allowing her to hold a single press conference before this election. It's unconscionable. McCain handpicks this woman and they won't let anyone see how smart or dumb she is, how she handles herself under pressure, how she answers legitimate questions from the populace about their plans for the country and what she's all about? What are they hiding? I'll tell you: her incompetence and remarkable lack of knowledge about the economy, foreign policy, and the world in general. Shit, even Bush gives press conferences, give the man credit. And he's no scholar. Is it "putting country first" to hide this potential-President behind two handcrafted national stump speeches (one at the RNC, one at the VP debate) and three one-on-one interviews, one of which doesn't count because it was with that right-wing hack Sean Hannity, who fed her softballs the entire time? It's totally irresponsible.

McCain gambled with her, and she paid early dividends. Now they're trying to cash out their chips before we find out that the Emperor has no clothes. Too late. I don't care what anyone says, the real Sarah Palin is the one who couldn't handle Katie Couric -- Katie fucking Couric -- without Daddy McCain by her side. And the real McCain doesn't put country first, he puts himself first by hiring the same a-holes who were responsible for starting the false rumors that he'd fathered a black child back in 2000. Why? Because he wants to win. Badly. It all comes back to psychology. Just like George W., who invaded Iraq when he didn't need to in order to avenge his father and exceed his accomplishments by taking over Iraq when his father would not, McCain wants to surpass his father's (and grandfather's) military successes by becoming President of the United States. That's all we're dealing with here. Daddy complexes. I'm sure Obama has a few of his own. After all, he grew up without a father.

Oh shit. I did it again. I started off writing about my political addiction and rather than face it head-on, I went off on another disagreeable tangent. Another bender. I feel so ashamed. I just wanted to dabble, wet my beak a little, and look what happened? I went on and on. I've got a serious problem. That's the first step, isn't it, admitting it? I need to dry out somewhere. Maybe shuffle off to Montana for a few days. How many days left now? Twenty-eight? Oh, I don't think I can wait that long for another political entry. Ooooh, there's another debate tonight, right? And one more in a week? Mmmmmm, yessss. Daddy like.

FF - Voter Abstinence

I know you're all hankerin' to know what I thought of last night's debate. Unfortunately, due to other commitments, I wasn't able to do a liveblog for that one. But I'll get to it this weekend. In the meantime, let's keep the Friday Funnies streak going. Here's a parody of those "Teen Talk" abstinence videos you may remember from high school, the ones where they tell young girls to stay away from sex until they're ready. This time, it's John McCain urging young people who are supporting Barack Obama in huge numbers that it's okay to LIKE a candidate, but you don't necessarily have to VOTE for him. (Be patient, Colbert does a little schtick first.)



Glad she was able to stand up to that peer pressure.

Why I Love Barney Frank (Metaphorically)

As this economic mess continues spiraling out of control (the market was only down 777 points yesterday!), and both parties, predictably, point fingers at who is to blame for the failed bailout vote, let me just state for the record that I am a huge fan of Barney Frank, Democratic Representative from the State of Massachusetts. Barney has been a House Rep since 1981, he's openly gay (one of only two in Congress), tough as nails, and sarcastic as hell. No one shouts him down and he doesn't take guff from anyone. As the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, he's one of the most powerful members of the House and has been deeply involved in trying to get a deal done to bail out the financial industry and keep our 401(k) and bank balances from tumbling off a cliff.

Barney's political career was nearly derailed in 1990, when it was revealed that he had befriended a male escort named Steve Gobie, who claimed to have conducted an escort service from Frank's apartment when he wasn't home. The House Ethics Committee ultimately found no evidence that Frank had known or been involved with the alleged illegal activity, and recommended that Frank only receive a reprimand. Other reps, headed by -- oh, this is just priceless, then-representative, later Idaho Senator LARRY CRAIG -- tried to get him expelled from the House for his misdeeds. The effort failed.

That's all ancient history now. The best part about Barney Frank is his sense of humor, which is cutting indeed. In 1995, then-Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a total douche, referred to Frank as "Barney Fag" in an interview. Armey later apologized and said it was "a slip of the tongue". Frank wouldn't take the apology and responded: "I turned to my own expert, my mother, who reports that in 59 years of marriage, no one ever introduced her as Elsie Fag."

Here are some other gems from his Wikipedia page:

On Mitt Romney: "The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsoever. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics."

On the Starr Report re: President Bill Clinton, Barney complained that it was "too much reading about heterosexual sex". Who says shit like this?

Now, at this time of high anxiety, Frank is at the center of the financial shitstorm and back on television defending his party from the Republicans' absurd effort to blame the Democrats for the bailout bill's failure yesterday. 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans voted in favor of the bill. 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans voted against it. The backstory is that 12 of the 133 Nay Republicans were set to vote in favor of the bill, which would have led to its passage, until that Demonatrix House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out and gave a stupidly partisan speech right before the vote, which blamed Bush and his deregulation policies for the financial system's catastrophic failure. For Pelosi to give a partisan speech like that, at that important moment for the country, was idiotic. You'll hear no argument from me on that -- I actually don't think she's a very good leader (and neither is Harry Reid while we're at it). I'd rather see someone like Rahm Emmanuel up there. But for the Republicans to say that her "hurtful" words caused 12 Republicans to change their vote from Yea to Nay is beyond ridiculous. I smell a rat.

And so did Barney:



That's what I'm talking about. And people wonder why nothing gets done in this country.

Debate Liveblog

What's the likelihood of another 9/11?

McCain, who finally has to go first, said it's less likely than it was 7 years ago. No one is going to touch that one. We need to make sure that we have good interrogators so we don't torture people ever again, we have to work more closely with out allies, but America is safer today. We have a long way to go.

Obama: we're safer in some ways, airport security, securing targets, but we still have a long way to go. We need to harden chemical sites, ports. The biggest threat we have is nuclear weapons coming in on a suitcase. Republicans and Independents agree. He's doing well on this. Al Qaeda is operating in 60 countries. The root cause is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is important for us to understand that the way we are perceived in the world makes a difference in rooting out terrorism and getting help. We are less respected now than we were 8 years ago. Gives props to McCain on the torture issue. We have a lot of work to do to restore that sense that America is that shining beacon on a hill. He hit this out of the park with all three parties.

McCain: Senator Obama doesn't understand that if we fail in Iraq, we will lose to the terrorists, they will establish a base. Even Republicans are not jumping on this. Not a good line for McCain.

Obama: Over the last 8 years, this administration and McCain have been solely focused on Iraq. Al Qaeda is resurgent, bin Laden is still out there, China is taking over, and we have weakened our ability to project power in the world because of this war. All three parties are buying this. Now he's talking about what we can do with $10 billion a month. We haven't funded veterans' care, health care, we have put all chips in Iraq, and no one is talking about losing this war, but the next President has to have a broader strategic vision about all the challenges we face. Nicely done.

McCain: playing the experience card. He's saying that Obama doesn't have the knowledge or experience. Wow, really putting it out there. Time to talk about Palin, Barack. McCain knows that he'll take care of the veterans. He loves them. He'll take care of them. Well, why haven't you led on this in the past 26 years then, John? He doesn't need on the job training.

Obama: is talking about his narrative. Not sure this is the best way to go. But it's resonating with the audience. He didn't respond to the experience point though. He really needs to do that.

Debate Liveblog

Finally, Iraq.

More McCain platitudes about Iraq. He's acting like the war is over. Consequences of defeat would have been increased Iranian influence, a wider war, etc. Um, isn't that what's happening now? Iran has never had more influence in Iraq than now.

Obama's saying he opposed the war in the first place because we hadn't finished the war in Afghanistan. This is resonating with the Independents on the graph. We took our eye off the ball. And we're still spending $10 billion a month there when they have a $79 million surplus. Or was it billion? We should never hesitate to use military force but we have to use our military wisely in Iraq.

Now McCain's talking about the surge. He's blaming him for not going to Iraq. To this day he's never had a hearing on Afghanistan. Hard shots.

Obama's saying that the violence is down but the surge was a tactic to deal with the mess that started in 2003. And McCain said when the war started it was going to be quick and easy, that we would be greeted as liberators. Oooh some big smacking going on. McCain's trying to smile but it looks like a pissed off twitch.

McCain's answer: talking about the troops. More bullshit about people who reenlisted and said "Let us win." Wonder if all troops agree with that. Like the ones who are being called back 4 times. Why doesn't Obama say that violence is only down because we're paying off Sunnis not to shoot at our soldiers.

This is a good line for Obama; he's holding his own and more.

McCain's smirking is silly and condescending. It reminds me of Gore's sighing against Bush in 2000,

Filling the Gap

Bloggy Dearest, sometimes I'm inspired to write, sometimes I'm not. This is one of those "not" weeks. So we're going stream of consciousness.

Boy are people pissed about this bailout. Finally, something we can all agree on, Democrats and Republicans. Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The American taxpayer is getting screwed by Wall Street! Open up the cliche box. It's Main Street v. Wall Street. Joe Six-Pack, Joe Lunchbox, Joe Smith is getting robbed blind by those smarmy, Armani suit-wearing CEOs with their golden parachutes and multimillion dollar payouts. They run their companies into the ground and expect us to pay for it. I vented a little while ago, so I'll only make one observation here, and that is, I think it's pretty interesting how this economic turmoil has deflated the Sarah Palin balloon. Her 15 minutes are up. People are finally getting back to reality. Wonder how long that will last?

Speaking of bad decisions, this political ploy of John McCain -- trying use the current economic crisis as a pretext to postpone Friday night's debate -- is going to blow up in his face. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that not even George Bush, our current President, ran a more cynical political campaign than John McCain is running right now. Every single thing he's doing, from picking Palin to coopting the change mantra to trying to delay this debate has an obvious political purpose. I don't mind the political part, I just think he's really bad at making blatantly political decisions look honest and sincere. He should study Bill Clinton. He was really good at it.

Who is David Blaine? What does he want? Last night, I watched him catch a .22 bullet in his mouth. A friend of his, another magician, lined up a shotgun from a few yards away, teed it up, and shot a bullet directly at Blaine's pie-hole. Now Blaine didn't catch the bullet with his teeth, mind you. I think that's impossible. He caught it with a small steel cup. Still. You could lose an eye doing that. Or some teeth. Or uh, your life. And that was just the warm-up. The main event was him jumping from a metal scaffold after hanging upside down for 60 hours. Like most of his stunts, I didn't really understand this one. He didn't sleep for several days, okay, I get it. But what's the big deal about jumping four stories? Regular people do more daring things, bungee jumping, skydiving, what have you. What makes him so special? He does the weirdest stunts too. Lived in ice for a month or something. Then he did something on London Bridge that one time. Who remembers? Okay, so he jumped, they rolled the cable back up, and.... He supposedly disappeared. Except I couldn't see it from the stupid camera angle they used. I'll just take their word that it was amazing. Yawn.

What is up with cops and Tasers? If you so much as look at them with a crooked eye these days, they're bringing out the electricity and zapping your ass. I thought Tasers were only supposed to be used in dangerous situations when someone refused arrest and they couldn't be subdued. Yesterday the NYPD killed a man who was standing 10 feet above a sidewalk, naked and obviously troubled. Without waiting for an inflatable bag to catch his fall, or taking any other precautions, they Tased him for no apparent reason instead of waiting him out. The man died when the electric shock propelled him off the ledge and he cracked his head open on the sidewalk. What is wrong with these people? Were they in a hurry to get home for dinner? Did they think it would be fun? My view is that any punishment they receive should involve them being Tased at the same elevation as the poor man they killed. Naked too. Let's see if their skulls are any more durable. Then we can put the whole thing on YouTube.

Facebook is starting to get on my nerves. Do people who live thousands of miles away seriously expect to maintain a pseudo relationship via email and Skype when there is like a 1% chance we're ever going to meet? Shit, I've wasted most of the past ten years playing games like that, and I'm tired of jerking myself around with online bullshit. If you're not in a five (okay, ten) mile radius of me, chill the hell out. I'll write when I feel like it and won't when I don't, which is most of the time. I get two days off a week if I'm lucky and the last thing I feel like doing during my furlough from jail is planting my ass in front of a computer for hours and doing the happy dance. Jesus.

I had a dream last night that I was playing football for the New York Jets. I caught a touchdown pass from Brett Favre by holding the football against my helmet, just like that Giants player who beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl last year. I was wearing the number 12, my favorite number growing up. Then I was trying to impress this girl I went out with a couple of times over a year ago by showing her my amazing catch, which I somehow had recorded on my iPod Touch. She was nonplussed. Dreams are wacky, aren't they? I don't even like the Jets.

I'm in an ornery mood. I got some really bad news two weeks ago about someone I care about (which I can't go into at the moment) and it's got me out of sorts. Depressed, even. And I still have depositions to take, crotchety opposing counsel to deal with, and a personal life to create out of paper clips and Scotch tape. I manage to get it out of my head a lot of the time, but when the lights are off and there's no one around, there's no getting away from reality. Fucking sucks. We're all living on borrowed time, people. Then one day the tape measure runs out. Sometimes it's quick, sometimes it's slow. I'm not sure which is worse.

Tina & Amy

In case you missed it, here are two of my favorite female comedians, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, doing Sarah and Hillary last night. Nicely done, ladies.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

T. here, reporting live from the floor of the Republican National Convention. I'd like to share with you a few of my favorite moments from the kum-ba-ya fest that's going on here in St. Paul:

1. Governor Sarah Palin's speech. Ooooh, red meat. I love's me the red meat. What better way to deflect attention away from your inexperience and lack of a plan for the economy than by attacking the "liberal elite" and mocking the man who more than half of the country is currently supporting. Give 'em hell, Sarah! She sounded like someone running for school board president, not Vice President of the country. But I hear she's getting high praise for her speech. Some are calling it reminiscent of Ronald Reagan. Oh me, oh my, the spin, the SPIN!!! We'll see how she does during the VP debate when she'll be flying without a teleprompter.

2. Rudy 9/11. Man, this guy gets nastier and nastier every time I hear him speak. For him, a guy who based his entire presidential campaign and post-political career on profiting from one of this country's greatest tragedies, to criticize ANYONE for pursuing political office for selfish reasons, is laughable. I actually used to respect the guy, but now, the sight of him gives me dry heaves. He is insincerity personified. To his credit, he did wait until 2/3 of the way through his speech to bring up 9/11. As he stood in front of a beautiful New York backdrop during sunset. Of course, it wasn't midtown they showed. It was downtown, so you could see the empty space where the Twin Towers used to be. Nice touch. Real subtle-like.

3. The Hottest Governor From The Coolest State. Delegates were actually wearing pins that said this. Sexist much? Dang that Palin is making HUGE strides for women. Here's to you, ladies! When's the swimsuit competition?

4. Drill, Baby! Drill! Yes, I heard Republicans chanting this on the convention floor. They want us to drill for oil, environment be damned! Drill in Alaska! Drill off the coast of Florida! Drill in your backyard! Drill in mine! Gasoline costs are through the roof and they want us to keep injecting the oil needle into our thick, blue vein. They sound like drug dealers cajoling us into another hit. "Just one more, baby, c'mon! You know you like it! Drill, Baby, Drill!" You think this party is going to get us off of foreign oil? Riiiiight. We'll be wearing oxygen tanks first.

5. Mitt's speech. Mitt Romney gave a great speech tonight. For 1984. Liberal this, tax that, America's the greatest country in the world. Annnnnd, that's a wrap! I thought I fell into a time warp for a second there. I also think he forgot that the Republicans have controlled the Presidency for the last eight years and Congress for six of the last eight. So WTF are you talking about? I'm quite pleased we don't have to hear from Guy Smiley for another 4 years, at least.

6. They've got nothing to say. Nothing on the economy. Nothing on foreign policy. Nothing for the future. They have no plans, no new ideas, no goals for this country. It's more of the same. So what do they do? They mock and tear down the other side. When the Democrats do it, they're called "The Angry Left." When Republicans do it, it's perfectly fine.

7. Speaking of The Angry Left... Georgie called us out last night, called us the "Angry Left." Fuck yeah, we're angry. Angry about an incompetent President, a senseless war, billions of wasted tax dollars and dead Americans and Iraqis, lobbyists controlling power in this country, an energy policy that's driving us to extinction, and a fucked up health care system. Most of all, we're angry about a political leadership that is doing NOTHING to fix these problems because they're too busy playing whack-a-mole with each other. So yes, we're angry.

But not as angry as Rudy Guiliani. Someone give that dude a lollipop. Or better yet, a high colonic. Get all that bile out.

8. I have now memorized every second of John McCain's captivity in Vietnam. Give it to the Republicans, not a single speaker in the past two days left the stage without walking us through "John's Story." I actually heard Fred "boop boop" (that's the sound from Law & Order) Thompson talk about how the Vietnamese knocked out McCain's teeth "at the gums." McCain's a hero, okay, I get it. John Kerry had three purple hearts and was running against a man who DODGED service (unless you count ten minutes of working on planes on U.S. soil "service"), and no one gave a fuck. Actually, it was worse than that. The right wing tried its best to turn those purple hearts into a deceitful lie. Now we're supposed to award McCain the Presidency because of his service? Idontthinkso. He's a perfectly decent Senator. That's reward enough.

9. Lieberman. Et tu, Joe? Two years ago (when he was trying to get re-elected), he was singing Obama's praises. Now, Obama's not fit to lead. What a difference two years makes. Just ask Sarah Palin.

I'm glad these conventions are over. I've gotta start writing about something else.