New Deal

Hey!, I didn't get my ass kicked this year! It was by no means an easy year, but the low was never as low as taking cold showers in the dark. How was that possible?

• January- No great promise coming out of the gate. I spend the month "networking", which is shorthand for; documenting my calls to friends who have jobs for my weekly unemployment claim.
• February- Halfway through the month one of these calls pays off- I am hired on a film in the Boston area. Myself and seven other local artists leave our families in the lurch to work on a Martin Scorcese film over three hundred miles away. It is the beginning of three and a half months of re-furnishing my life. A week after I show up I am assigned to run the scenic shop for the set dressing department. The film is set in the 40s and 50s so this involves refinishing old furniture to look new, rendering hundreds of historically 'plausible' documents in media specific to the era, aging everything from desk blotters and lampshades to jars of pickles, and altering high-ticket rentals and museum loans (with reversible processes) to suit the aesthetic of my larger-than-life bosses; Dante Ferretti and Franchesca LoSciovo. For the uninitiated, they (husband and wife) ONLY designed settings for a slew of Fellini films ('Satyricon' among them), all of the Pasolini films, and lord knows how many beautiful films up to and including "Sweeny Todd", for which they won an Oscar the night before I started working for them. These are the "nobodies who are somebodies to the rest of the nobodies" in the credits rolling by at the end of a film to which I referred in my post last Easter. Franchesca is a tiny woman in Converse sneakers who breezes through the storage space at the end of a work day pointing out a dozen furniture choices to be made ready for their close-up by the following day. I nonchalantly struggle to keep my ear in front of her mouth so I have half a chance at sorting through the flurry of rolled 'r's and long 'e's that tax my comprehension. She interprets my vigilance as that thing where Italians get in each others faces and I'm golden with her. Ninety-nine percent of the time the upshot was "Paint it brown". Do I want to be the scenic artist on Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space" ,watching the film years later and saying " I kinda believe that spaceship is not two pie plates on a string"? Surely not. I love working on something I'm good at. This balances out the frustration of trying to run a modest suburban home with two kids and a dog.
• March- I'm finished with primaries, hating Hillary by now. I ward off sickness with my new invention; the 'Emergence-C' martini. Replacing Vermouth with a high dose of Citric Acid (favoring the Raspberry flavor), I avoid the 'sick' that takes my more sober workmates down. I've refitted my hotel room with, among other amenities, my own watercolors taped on over the existing "artwork", and an entirely new lighting plot and furniture scheme. (I do the same for my Phila. friends). I've seen those 'black light' hotel room exposes- I contrive a path of hygienic carpet samples from the toilet to the bed. I assiduously wash and/or Fabreeze everything- I have a lot of free time on my hands. My plan, however, fails to render me immune to speed traps.
• April- Franchesca rewards me with this line; "Ohh Peeetarrr, Yoo arr soo clos tooo meee." I get homesick, reassuring Michael nightly that I am not ditching him to follow my Italian hot-shots back to Europe- that through it all I am a grounded family man. The Quaker meeting here is more 'mega-church" than it is 'silent refuge'. On odd days off I visit museums, exploit New Hampshire for cheap cigarettes and Staffordshire figurines. The busloads of Belgian soccer teams that punctuate life in a Marriott parking lot in the wee hours add to my further ungrasp of reality. I return home now and again to a household that looks like it is running better without me.
• May- I am charged with planning a party for the Art Department, which with my assistant we do fabulously well; an in-shop affair, employing a warehouse of priceless antiques and 200 latex corpses from the "Dachau" scene. It is worthy of inclusion in "101 Days Of Salo". (Dante pops in). I get upgraded to a Hilton where I learn that my mattress at home is shit.
• June- I return home. Immediately I go to work on a restaurant decor on Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. (High tone) The last people to realize that the decor is contrived to look like a century-old Paris bistro are the carpenters watching me assault their newly fitted mahogany cabinetry with chains and purposefully administered cigarette burns. The destruction of freshness is an easy fit, but I'm horrified to learn that the rest of the world doesn't operate with a twenty million dollar budget.
• July- My brain is apparently emptied of everything I ever thought was true, and I design for dinner theater again. (see; Feb. 07) Yeston & Somebodies "Phantom" this time. Nothing more challenging than creating six or more scenes in and around the Paris opera house on a thirty foot stage (with about ten feet of wing space). It didn't totally suck this time- except maybe for the part where the producer yelled at me for not being five extra people with two extra weeks. Otherwise, a beautiful production... and if it didn't sell, blame Yeston or Weber or fickle summer seniors- I did my job!
• August- I design and paint elements for a fund-raising gala for the Delaware Symphony. It pays well , the work is fun, but the event itself is a total perk. Michael and I eat tons of oeuvres, drink deeply from the open bar, accept accolades, and pal around with a dozen hard-bodied 'Circ' performers whose antics in front of my barely lit scenery give us both a bit of a rise in our finely pressed trousers.
• September- I start work on a film, in Philadelphia this time. I render hundreds of animal hides to look more like animal hides (a movie thing)- this entails unpackaging and painting a 'dead zoo' of ten or more species of animal skins that comprise the roofs of fiberglass igloos. Painted-on frost clinches the illusion.
• October- I'm laid off from ice-capades and move to a Carnival Cruise commercial featuring the World's Largest Pinata (click on photo to view). A 62' burro, now in the Guinness Book of World Records. It snow-balls into a PR fiasco when the highly attended event involving the dropping of four tons of candy from the pinata's belly is postponed by the Philadelphia police (wisely supposing that young children would be trampled to death in the crowd of +3,000).
• November- I get fresh hope for the political future of the country for my birthday. I eagerly respond to working on more commercials. Big budgets- not one foot in reality. Among other cinchy tasks, I paint the tiny luggage of an hydraulically animated groundhog pink. 'Cause it's what I do.
• December-Some 'Bollywood' movie painted the column tops in a subway station red (it's a movie thing). I painted them orange again. Now- nothing but time off. Mom-mom died this month. When she did, I hear, she sat up, opened her eyes to something beyond the room in which she lay, and reached out. What do you think of that!

tina

My would-be mother-in-law. That beige thing in the coffin only reminded me of her. She didn't have a phone to her ear, didn't beg for a kiss. She sometimes fought cancer, sometimes didn't. We have a strange mix of seasonal cards ..and sympathy cards, flowers and baskets. She was a nut about Christmas, it's hard to do another one without her. She enforced the 'all occasions captured on film'. Who steps up to be that obnoxious? She had a tough childhood, widowed at an early age , two kids to rear. Not easy. Tina rocked [once you got a few Bartel&James in her]. She wanted to be loved, maybe not realizing how many people did. A lot of criers at the wake, just what I'd want. God bless Tina.

what are you doing right now?

Smack Dab is drinking beer in his underwear. Smack Dab is in his underwear, drinking beer. Smack Dab is blogging about nothing, feel free to ignore. Smack Dab is listening to old vinyl; Sparks/ "Indiscreet" at the moment. Smack Dab is wondering where his neighbors are going all gussied up like the Botswanian royal family. Smack Dab is wondering how to 'send a chrysanthemum', and why he would do that. Smack Dab is new to 'facebook' but totally sucked in. Smack Dab is wondering how his friend Kelly has over a hundred friends while he only has twenty-five. Smack Dab is not a 26 yr. old gorgeous blond female, that's why. Smack Dab is watching his kids play Wii games- out of context they appear severely autistic. Smack Dab is hoping his rosemary plant survives the winter. Smack Dab is musing over the term 'picture window'. Smack Dab is imagining the heightened paranoia officially pardoned turkeys are feeling right now. Smack Dab is tuning out you-wouldn't-believe-what-kind-of-racket. Smack Dab is impressed by how Tori Amos got away with stealing Kate Bush's act. Smack Dab is wondering if Thanksgiving in an Indian casino is any fun. Smack Dab is staying away from the kitchen today. Smack Dab is staying off the highway today. Smack Dab is almost finished posting. Smack Dab is watching another neighbor with a leaf-blower- out of context he too appears severely autistic. Smack Dab is almost ready to stand up and "dance this mess around". Smack Dab is wondering what '44' is doing right now. Smack Dab is contemplating drinking beer in a pair of pants. Smack Dab is contemplating putting on a pair of pants. Smack Dab is pushing 'SAVE'.

letter to the editor

Have faith, "...losing respect.."(Nov.15). You are witnessing yet another "revision of American history"- this one not as intent on glorifying narratives from the past as it is on creating new ones which all may be privileged to participate in, comment on, and hold up as an example of ourselves for the future. Without dismissing your perception, nor confirming or denying the truth of what is written as history, I point to the last administration as a clear example of greed, secrecy, and unchecked power attempting to present- as history- a narrative of wealth and opportunity few of us have realized. I have as deep a regard for the Presidents you have mentioned- their role in shaping the freedoms we enjoy cannot be understated. Felled cherry trees and log cabin bunk-mates aside, many of these freedoms have come at the expense of peoples of other nations as well as of our own. To ignore suffering and injustice where and how ever it occurs for the sake of national pride is a "glorious history" I do not celebrate. The feeling of the country right now (!) as we face economic and global uncertainty is that, with this new President, we are offered a chance to acknowledge our failures and move forward. Maybe we do this as a collection of fractured self-interests, as sniping partisans of one party or another, as people who resent other people for their language and culture, but I have greater hopes for our nation than that. We are constantly in the process of determining one just law to place ahead of the last to ensure that failures from the past are not perpetuated or revisited on citizens of this country whose advantages, despite the language of our founding documents, are fewer probably than your own. There's a lot of glorious history out there. Much of it from civilizations at points similar to our own who could never have predicted their own demise. But I remain hopeful that given this new opportunity, with the transparency in government we need in order to participate fully, with an understanding of other nations as people not so unlike our own, and with an earnest regard for the planet that supports us all, we will succeed.

joe the DemoIndePublican

As I predicted (see May 2007;"Buzzed"), he is just not funny anymore.

anthem

from a band (pair of brothers, Ron and Russell Mael) that have been around for years (factually, since they were born). I've been a 'Sparks' fan since the early seventies, then disinterested during the eighties when they went on some weird kind of Giorgio Moroder/Belinda Carlisle thing- virtually missing in action through the nineties, to emerge as THE new music of the millenium (the first decade of it anyway). Their last three albums; 'Hello Young Lovers', from whence this anthem comes, is all killer/no filler. Don't miss any of the videos on You Tube; the previous 'Lil' Beethoven', which forged the new sound (their third or fourth) cemented them as the purest cross-over of Gilbert & Sullivan to Alternative, and 'Plagerism'- this new treatment applied to other songs in their vast catalogue ( & featuring guest vocalists). Enjoy.

12 missed calls

As was the case during most of the game-changing events in my life, I slept... through a fire; my parents still tell the story of firemen trapezing through the [hotel] room; me dead to the world... college exams; zzzzzzz... through free tickets to the sold-out King Tut exhibit... I've even been dumped in my sleep; the flashy new boyfriend wanting me to walk him to an early train; "If you can't get your ass out of bed...!". I didn't catch the rest of it. Even my 'how we met' story requires inclusion of how excited I was waiting for Michael to call that I kept the phone right next to me- in bed. Of course I fell asleep and knocked it off the hook (remember hooks?). On his end; busy...busy...busy, "Oh, what an asshole!!". I sat on the front stoop of my apt. building [where I first met him] for two days until he walked by again- to [alas] convincingly deliver the lamest story in the history of 'call me tomorrow'. Yet still... there he is picturing me passed out in a gutter with a missing kidney every time I'm out of town and sleep through his calls. '12 missed calls' should be etched on my tombstone. It inspired this haiku; No good thing happens, and the gods plot against me, when I am sleeping. This morning I popped up at 5: something in a gut-churning panic. Sweet Lord, what year is it! It can't happen- I'm allergic to foreclosure! Blearily, I found the right button on the remote..."Barack Obama Elected 44th President". Exhale. It was game-changing in a new way. For the first time in my life something good actually happened while I was surrendered into the arms of Morpheus. I mean it, I thought it was a curse that would follow me past the job a hundred miles away I'm supposed to show up to at 6am tomorrow, through both of my children's weddings to their future first ex-wives, through my Tony acceptance speech (hope springs eternal), to the day when I keep Jesus and my Grandmother standing there tapping their wrist watches in the beautifully lit passage to the hereafter. Jesus:"Does he know how tight my schedule is?". Things I had lost sleep over; North Carolina, Nevada didn't even matter. The grayness of every November 5th in my memory this day seemed 'cheerfully' gray. The last thing I remember is texting a friend in South Carolina to gloat over his state being on the wrong side of history- all the sweeter after being there so many times myself. In the re-telling , I know where I was and what I was doing- even if I can't actually remember it happening.

more olio

• Loathe as I am to inspire partisanship, I have to align myself with Governor Ed Rendell this evening; to paraphrase- I want to crush them!
• Swallowing hard for a purchase sure to go the way of my 'brother' electric typewriter, probably before I finish this sentence, I now have the capacity to assign acres of vinyl to the giga-goblins. The guy who checks out your receipt on the way out the door says; "What's with vinyl comin' back" From his lips to God's ears.
• Today Delaware made it so easy to cast a vote for Joe Biden. Pithiest lawn signs ever; "Delaware's Joe Biden".
• I had an interesting job last week; painting a 62' high burro for a Carnival Cruise commercial. Thousands of Philadelphia children gathered for an event culminating in the not breaking open of the [Guinness Book of World Records certified] World's Largest Pinata (sorry, can't locate tilde). This time not required to sign a confidentiality agreement I'll disclose; they're sending it back to L.A. to re-shoot. Philly Police put on the brakes- lives would have been lost in the rabid grab, I feared for my own. My observation was that more than just a handful of that crowd needed an introduction to Mr. Green Vegetable. The crowd's disappointment at being turned away after waiting for four hours to get in the gate [but after the helicopter shot was in the can] was probably best expressed by a nine-year-old girl carrying a 'Hannah Montana' purse; "BURN IT DOWN!!!"
• Who else senses an abnormally high populous of disingenuous lesbians on FOXNews?
• Responding on-air to a collegue, [ingenious] Rachel Maddow says "he [Barrack Obama] complimented my pants." I can think of three ways to take that.
• To anyone who thinks my post, 'drapes', was too persnickety- don't make me come to your house, drink too much bourbon, and re-arrange your furniture. It's happened. (Okay, it happens often)
• Sports analogies- please stop. As hard as Chris Matthews is to stomach when he latches on to some obscure film analogy for political events, so too is any reference to a situation in a game I do not follow- and that would be almost everything outside of Men's Diving. If there is something to be said about political risk-taking, please do not employ a 'Sports vis a vis Catholic' description like "Hail Mary" phrase to say it- you lose me.
• Two years in, Undecided = contempt for pollsters, unless they prefer "addle-brained".
• My 50th birthday is two days off. My wish list includes; international food packaging with homoerotic inferences, i.e. Cock Soup, a 'Laverne & Shirley' lunch box, Arizona quarters, a replacement 'Alf' coffee mug, sugar-free candied ginger (good luck), a 'Last Supper' belt buckle, and melon-ballers of every size. No rush, I stay 49 until this list is realized.

B

Uh...unsophisticated (possibly dyslexic) cutter? To quote from 'Mame', "when you're from Pittsburg, you have to do something!"

drapes

It's a matter of syntax not too small to interrupt my sleep. For all it's invested meaning, "Measuring the drapes" accomplishes only one thing; you confirm the length of your predecessors drapes. Measuring width [in order to determine 'fullness'] would certainly take inquisitiveness to a point well beyond the ridiculous. One hundred percent (twice the width of the window) is standard. What I'm almost sure the Republicans are endeavoring to articulate is "measuring the windows for new drapes". In any case, the interior design process should most certainly begin with determining the dimensions of the room. Changing only the drapes marries you to your predecessors choice of carpeting, and after that, suitable upholstery fabric- the wrong way around. Really, for people with money to burn (my favorite client only when they are willing to concede every matter of their own personal style to me), they seem all too eager to flaunt their ignorance. Well appointed rooms don't just happen. Relegating the Presidential emblem to the foyer [where it belongs] may fly too heavily in the face of tradition, but come November, no one (with the possible exception of the ghost of Jacqueline Kennedy) will be happier than I to see western-themed oil paintings missing from the Oval office.

looking ahead

It's a whole lot worse than "More of the same", a mantra I'm already bored with because it is in danger of being applied to the Obama campaign. From the moment most people realized that 'compassionate conservatism' was as oxymoronic as 'moral majority', Democrats have bent over for the pummeling their bait-taking asses deserve. Houses are dropping, but they're not landing on the people who need to be woken up. Speaking for many of us who have watched our jobs, paychecks, home values, retirement funds, and savings disappear- it's too soon to be turning our noses up at that 'fat' Social Security check. Watching McCain/ Palin run a successful campaign against their own Party's record by suggesting that we just haven't privatized, deregulated, cow-towed to the evangelical community, or prosecuted a failed military initiative far enough has me wondering, well..., what country I'll be living in in a few months hence. I'm looking for something sub-tropical, hopefully English speaking, where the barter system still flourishes. (Spain is still on the short list, though). Since the equity in my home is exceeded by it's value as a pile of smothering ashes, and adjusted by the amount I'll end up owing on my 401K account in administration fees after the principal evaporates- I figure, a few good yard sales and we'll be 'squatting pretty' in a studio apartment in some picturesque fishing village. And since I don't fish, I imagine my future- painting clouds on the nursery ceilings of my fellow ex-patriots. Or just maybe, some percentage of the Republicans and Independants who aren't looking for candidates to have hypothetical beers with will see through this 'McCon job'. Let's apply an equally superficial measure to our candidates, one many of us are already comfortable using to pre-judge. The true measure of a great President- who would look best on our currency! It's been a long time since we've had a really 'hot' President. I don't mean 'not gross' like Bill Clinton, but drop-your-petticoats HOT, like Thomas Jefferson. Conceding that everyone comes off better in an engraving (and a wig), can you imagine the lumpy sort of thumbprint John McCain's mug would taint our bills with? Or on a coin- would you even know you weren't looking at another commemoration of the moon landing! I love my friend Doug Cluff to death. I've spent hours in bars with him. The fact that he doesn't drink only endears him to me further. And he'd make a great President. But for Lord's sake NO to the Doug Cluff dollar. (Great legs, though, DC). Barrack may not even drink beer (Scotch would be my guess, or maybe only silly Rum drinks... on vacation), but if led to imagine my grandchildren's pockets stuffed with cash, I'd have to pray as hard that they wouldn't have to wince every time they made change for a parking meter. Experience may account for a lot. And I need my next President to be a maverick. But let's be honest- looks ARE everything. Be honest now, they are. Visualize. Just where is the potential for greatness?

riddle

Q: What's the difference between Sarah Palin and George Bush?
A: Lipstick

columbia? (scratch, scratch)

Let's call Washington D.C. what it is; a city in Maryland. Glance at a map, it is incongruous to suggest that it is part of Virginia- appearing as it would, a wart, and a bite out of Maryland's belly (Is that too close to being a metaphor?). Designating it as a District was a whack idea to begin with- like the license plate says; that's taxation without representation, man! Statehood?, never going to happen!- thanks but no thanks to more Senators. Why not let the State Of Maryland, the Department Of Transportation, and the National Park Service hash through it for a while and see how they slice it up. More pork, more tolls, more memorials- something for everyone! Sure, someone will grumble, but let's just get some more Maryland voters out there- and a Congress(wo)man with an actual vote.

klondike sal

My, what a tangle of latched-onto opportunities this Republican platform has turned out to be. What I saw [at the convention] was; an exclamation of surprise from the (P)resident that his lawless rein of misrepresented initiatives has angered the left (forgetting, momentarily I suppose, that about half of his own Party are echoing their sentiments); a photo-op with the ghost of the twin towers; snide dismissals of community service, conservation, and diplomacy; selectively fluffed biographies; and the introduction of a self-described pit bull in lipstick (which I am ready to believe). I saw a self-emaciated trophy heiress in a $300,000. dress use her adopted daughter to nominate herself as the great white hope of brown little girls the world over (Mother Teresa owes her bigtime), a promise as smug as it was hollow that "Special Needs children" would have friends in high places, and perhaps the most scurrilous charge of misogynistic muck-raking Us magazine has ever known. I was taking it all in stride until... the woman who looks like she stepped out of a Lens Crafters ad took a swipe at set designers with her belittling comment about Styro-Foam columns. Just where does she think that is going to get her? It is not with a great amount of pride that I report that one of the few reliable sources of income I've had in the past eight years has been filling Republican convention halls, inaugurals and after-parties with...what? Scenery- the staging of every conceivable fantasy from a simple evening in "Margaritaville" to the full-out ensconcement of George II on a neo-Roman dais at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. The day I spent gluing red glitter to a nine foot cut-out of the State of Texas to read; "Bush Country", was surely a concession to putting Froot Loops on my table that has stained my very soul. If that woman hasn't paused to imagine the life-sized foam moose that is undoubtedly waiting for her at some $1000. a plate "McCain raisin' " event, then her expectations just aren't high enough, yet. There are bound not to be many surprises from her in the coming weeks- until the scrappy little maverick has had time to integrate more of the Party planks into her comedy routine. In place of a candid reaction to pressing issues we can expect only the replay button to be pressed on the "Palin-drone" we saw at the Convention. I may have to agree with her surrogates- she and her family are undeserving of space in the tabloids...for red-necks, they are quite unremarkable. But what DO you buy your sister for Mother's Day?

5-7-5

Who has time to sit around filling ashtrays and channeling thoughts into typewritten words when there is so much else to be done? Actual things that need actual doing! Tomatoes to transplant, stamps to buy, ...blood to wash off the vinyl siding. There's a quick story about that last one. Lulu, our great Dane, had the bad luck to be wagging her tail in too close proximity to a slamming car door. She lost about three inches in all- I know this because about a month later I found her laying in the driveway, licking the amputated bit of tail which had escaped us. She's healed up nicely though, and doesn't seem to have been put off tail wagging. Thoughts about my three and a half months working in Massachussetts were recorded (in haiku form) in an illustrated journal and I've been keeping up with friends (in haiku form) with text messages. The once all important blog has been pushed aside to make time for [mouthing syllables as I count on my fingers]. Once constructed they are dashed onto a tiny keypad with the corner of my right thumb and sent, sometimes for annoying or harrassing purposes, to select contacts. I am proud to report that a good percentage of the replys are also haiku. This is not to suggest that I have abandoned the blog (or the illustrated journal) as creative outlets. Surely moments still come when I can't be brief. But if I am slow to post as I have been, please understand:
I've run on some time, in sentences that dizzy. Let's all get some sun.

delegation

I pin my every last hope for this nation on Senator Obama.

he Is Risen

I'm enjoying an extended working stay in Boston, removed from the assault of screaming children and political analysis that would otherwise consume me, and hoping to add my name to the whirling list of nobodys (amidst those who are somebodys to the nobodys) at the end of an Oscar winning motion picture. My hopes are usually pinned to shakier prospects than this, so it's a big deal. My holiday has lasted only long enough to lay flooring for my parents and mediate a battle over who's spitting on who's chocolate bunny. I'll have to miss the heavily salted ham and gray bean casserole for an overpriced chicken sandwich at the Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike en route to my lonely hotel room [decorated by someone who deserves to be smacked around {that from a Quaker}]. I'm working on affording the technology [and discipline] that would allow me to more regularly post. Upcoming for sure is a diatribe on the MA driver (Masshole; since when is the shoulder a lane?). I'm having a taste of power as a 'gang boss' over a crew of furniture restorers though the job title suggests we're picking up litter on the highway. My travel day commences in about fifteen minutes so here's my loftiest introspection. Even an atheist would have to revisit the idea of an afterlife if one has managed to survive a 6:30 am merge onto I-95 at exit 15B. Peace.

today in washington

It's not always all about politics. But this month, between loading laundry, I'm getting more than my fill and just can't seem to shut up. One of the very few differences between last night's State of the Union speech and any other is that his usual "The state of the Union is strong!" [delusional] assertion came not up front but rather, snuck in the back door at the end of the speech with 'blah blah blah"...to keep the state of our Union strong". This President, with more than his share of unintended laugh lines has finally developed , if nothing else in the past seven years, a sense of comedic timing- although he did seem to be taken off guard by a bit of spirited mid-sentence applause for an [otherwise hollow] invocation of the Constitution. Timing aside, he may never 'get' irony. The Democratic spokesperson's rebuttal was so stumpy that it came as no surprise to me in the following forty minute news cycle whom she was expected to endorse today. The "join us, Mr. President" chorus left me with the impression that 1. A Democratic Governor of a formerly red state might as well be a Sudanese warlord before getting the attention of this President; and 2. Competent political speech writers must be honoring the strike. It was an interesting news day. Twixt this coverage and the 'Liberal Lion's endorsement of Barrack was the story of a man apparently standing outside of the north fence around the White House shouting 'threats'. I imagine these might have included "If you don't get us out of this damn war, no one will be safe anywhere" and "If you manage to finish out your term I'm gonna be a pauper!". This development was important enough to secure the area against the unknown contents of his duffel bag but apparently not important enough for a follow-up report- even by end of the next day. I'm confused. In the main-stream media the absence of bombs, or bombs thwarted by the administration's vigilance is usually big news. I'm guessing the bag contained instead pictures of Laura, since they have to be somewhere. Remember, they fell in love when he was still a party animal. I have to say, I was most impressed by how Senator Ted was able to balance himself on a spindly Ikea bar stool for fifteen minutes of accolades without toppling off into the young A.U. student's laps. Noting the invariable fate of inflatable front lawn snowmen, it was something of an inevitability. Later at the SOTU, he displayed a palpable relief at having no reason under the sun to stand up again for the rest of the day. He delivered a rather withered expression to something Senator Obama whispered in his ear- which I lip-read to have been, "There's Hillary, pretend we're making out." Sour-faced Hillary, sitting between Senators Carper and Biden must have hoped she was invisible- (no one would ever think of looking for a primary candidate in Delaware). I won't even comment on the Florida Republican primary other than to marvel at the alacrity with which they've gone from too much paper trail to none at all. And did I hear Mitt Romney use the phrase "...in countries like Asia and India."?? But I'll shut up now.

mlk

Couldn't we have at least one day out of the year not spent evoking the legacy of Dr. King? I kind of knew where we were headed when clues to the long answers in this mornings crossword puzzle were; King of Hollywood, King of the Wild Frontier, King of Swing, and King of the links (kind of an extension of Saturday's puzzle where the answers were; Dr. Kildare, Dr. Feelgood, Dr. Zhivago, and Dr. Who[ever]- and VBIRHZ CSRWOI FHZM, KI. made the cryptogram no challenge at all). But the capper was listening to Wolf Blitzer hypothetically dragging him from the grave for one of the Democratic candidates to claim his endorsement (and I thought that the Frederick Douglass quote used earlier by Ms. Clinton to define her battle to fulfill Dr. King's legacy was going to be the gallsiest moment of my day). But why not dig up Thurgood Marshall, and for that matter Malcolm X, to beg their endorsement? Perhaps American history searches only among the pacifistic bids for black empowerment to define the civil rights movement; hoping that the memory of black militancy will just go away and skipping over Justice Marshall's legacy, who as Chief Council for the NAACP won 29 of the 32 cases which he argued in front of his predecessors on the Supreme Court. (Look up "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka", then tell me your best lawyer joke.) I'll save my most savory question to the long-dead to ask Justice Marshall for his musings on Clarence Thomas. Not to take anything away from the dreamers; the Republicans have had a free hand at making theirs come true for some time now. Lest my wandering commentary not point clearly enough to the idiotic Blitzer as the cynosure of my sarcasm, be assured that even were he not an on-air personality with an abundance of facial hair AND despite his unfortunate given name, AND the combination of the two, I could not let such a question enter the public dialog uncommented on. (Luckily, only Edwards took the bait). If Dr. King were to come back to weigh in on anything at all, I would expect he would have surfaced years ago to protest the right-wing takeover of Southern Baptist theological seminaries, an issue perhaps closer to home than even the secular brand of hypocrisy- though I'm not convinced that the one isn't inextricably tied to the other. As long as 'folks' are trying on the idea of a [non-white male] President, couldn't we adopt an idea promoted this past month in the funny papers? Let's install a "Shut Up Zone" around the poor Doctor, and let our candidates march the last couple of miles on their own.

change

There we have it. Republicans, Democrats, and Close-mouthed-On-The-Cut-Of-Their-Political-Jibs alike- Iowans went with 'change'. For the Democrats- job well done; not only for pulling record numbers away from Ugly Betty and out into the cold, but for distilling the mind-boogling array of substantive issues into a cogent snipe-fest worthy of year-long MSM coverage. How many news cycles did we spend hashing through the "Hussein" quandary (would he be able to shake the nefarious implication in a general)? Will our next Commander-In-Chief be sporting pearls or diamonds? Myrtle Gooch, the retired key punch operator from Fleasburg, South Dakota-with an un-insured bi-polar boyfriend sharing her 'double-wide' trailer and an arsonist son carrying out the remainder of his house arrest in Iraq, has QVC on the line: she needs to know NOW. And wasn't that $400. invoice for a 'haircut' just bookkeeper code for 'Botox'? Some could argue that our greatest hope for the future is that there will be one (asking for anything greater would be audacious), but in the end Mo got Eeny and Meeny good! Miney never stood a chance. For the Republicans- likewise; running a low budget campaign in the Bible Basket against the seductive influence of a handsome corporate millionaire from New England who is rumoured to believe that Jesus was Satan's brother couldn't have been easy. Spelling Huckabee is in itself a feat (it's 'hucka...' without the '...alzabub'). I'll bet there was a whole lot of "kneeling before God" going on it those living rooms. This message of change has lifted us all. As a Democrat I am happy that we are all spared the many decades of experience my own state's candidate might have muddled the debate with (droning on the way he does about this warring faction and that belligerent government agency- save it for Larry King), and relieved that my vote for substance over buzz words has been pre-empted by a process that to this outsider sounds for all the world like a politically charged quilting bee. Thank you, Iowa. Now, if I'm lucky, I won't have to wait for the convention to find out which sparkling speechifyer we go into battle with. Which vision will America embrace?; change with experience, change with hope, change with not a whole lot of change, change of wives, or change without evolutionary change.