rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

I’m up at 3 am listening to Sister Nancy songs.

so in the last week, the McCain campaign has come on pretty goddamned strong. since the GOP convention, they’ve pulled even, or ahead, according to the polls I’ve seen.
this has nothing to do with the quality of the McCain/Palin ticket. in fact, Sarah Palin can eat my shit. but they’re winning.
how?
if, Jesus, if we spend the next two fucking months talking about lipstick and pigs … well, then, I’m not going to declare anything, because I know we will. so much for issues. instead, we’re gonna talk about McCain Street USA and how Palin stood up to earmarks and said “no!” to unnecessary government spending. speaking of which, did you hear about how she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere? yeah. she wanted nothing to do with that federal money. Sarah Palin doesn’t take earmarks. oh, and while we’re talking politics, did you hear that that muslim Barack Obama wants to teach kindergarteners sex ed? it’s true. would you like to watch a factual video documenting this, prepared by the McCain campaign? yeah, can you believe that shit? that’s fucking disgusting.

this shit has to stop. really. this ‘pull the campaign into the mud’ bullshit has to end. are we not better than this? does the campaign really have to be about personalities instead of issues, like McCain’s campaign manager says? really? doesn’t anyone realize how fucking awful that sounds? the economy’s in the tank and going farther south fast, the entire world hates us, we’re gonna be in Iraq well into 2009 at least, Afghanistan has turned into an utter disaster, the Russians are landing long-range bombers in Venezuela, the federal government just scrambled to pull off an unprecedented bailout of failed banks so we don’t all lose our homes, suddenly the only answer to the growing energy crisis is to immediately open up offshore drilling to INSANELY wealthy oil companies as soon as fucking possible, and McCain, a senator who has solidly supported many — no, most — of “Dim” George Bush’s policies, has usurped Obama as the candidate of “change.” the incumbent party candidate is doing this.
and how did he do this? simple! he said ”change” a bunch during his convention speech.
… what the fuck!!??
I know I’m always incredibly pessimistic about politics, about the intelligence of the average US voter, but it’s not like I want to be right. I don’t look forward to being let down.
BUT: I remember four years ago, thinking, ”there’s no fucking way this country is stupid enough to vote Bush into a second term in the White House. no way.”
and then, the campaigns, and the media, talked about nothing but flip flopping and gay marriage and swift boats, as if these buzzwords and non-issues had ANY goddamned place in the runup to the election of arguably the most important political office in the world. and then the big night came, and I had a bunch of people over to my apartment and it started off good and fun and I got drunk.
and as the night wore on I sobered up. and then Bush won Ohio after Karl Rove convinced every stupid asshole in the Buckeye state that they were on the verge of being overrun by San Francisco faggots bent on matrimony.

and viola. shitty politics work. I hate it, but it’s true. these motherfuckers will say anything to win.
presently, the McCain campaign wants an apology for lipstick on a pig.
here we go again.

3rd edit: I can’t believe I actually linked to a Andrew Sullivan article. it was right here, but I went back and read it again and read what I wrote, and then my self respect kicked in, and I deleted it. “patience and steel”? what the fuck does that mean?

2nd edit: I know I go back and forth on this constantly, just this weekend I was talking to Spencer and told him that even considering everything above, I think Obama’s going to win. he said, “a couple of months ago, you were convinced McCain is going to win.” see? I can’t plant my feet on anything these days. so I’m sticking with it: Obama is going to win.

this was the first story on the front page of the Washington Post today.

In Hunt for Bin Laden, a New Approach

I read it this morning while I ate on some pancakes and drank on some coffee. the most interesting bit I got out of it? the US government — military, intelligence, anyone — can’t even prove that he’s in Pakistan. or Afghanistan. for all they know, he could be in my goddamned attic:

Although they lack hard evidence, U.S. officials said it is only logical that bin Laden is in Pakistan, where he has roamed the mountains along the Afghan border for two decades and enjoyed the protection of Taliban leaders.
“In many ways, it’s a perfect place,” said Bruce Riedel, a former South Asia analyst for the CIA and National Security Council. “But there’s not a scintilla of evidence that we have any idea where he is.”

point: “I don’t know, man. I’m just looking for … oh, that’s fucking bullshit, I shot that motherfucker like a dozen times! this game fucking sucks, I hate it. no, I don’t hate it. but you know, I’m just looking for an excuse to call … you know?”

counterpoint: “dude, you don’t look for an excuse to call. you just make one up and you call.”

Smith drops knowledge.

I had a stupid, mindlessly fun evening that got just a little better as it went along. neat!
and during the course of the evening I learned two thingz (I will bold them):

I’m glad I’m young, and I’m gland I’m alive. which means I have endless opportunities.
and also that (an unannounced third revelation!) I want more than a simple ”I have nothing to lose” approach to life. why? because I want to achieve that, I think that I’ll probably get it.  but, I assume, it’s going to take a whole lot more pushing on my part to achieve that approach.
chance to be a person, with a history would be great. right now, I feel like I’m still in the exposition of my own story. like I’m growing up right now.
and I’m getting to a point; the part of the story where the conflict begins to reveal itself and things start to move. 
the exposition is gone, or going fast, I’m not there just yet. I could be; I just gotta keep making the moves til I get there.
or I may be wrong. I may be years away from that.
but I’m pumped, I can’t wait until I steal the reserve away for that day.

also , I met the girl who lives on the other side of the wall from me. Laura.
she seems pretty cool, very nice friends, out on the porch as I walked up. I’d like to see more of her.

I put together the front page tonight. and I’m rewatching John McCain’s speech at the Republican National Convention right now.

you know, as much as I get caught up — and I obviously get very caught up — in the media frenzy surrounding the presidential election, and as much as the Republican Party makes the bile rise in my throat, I’m really glad that John McCain is the nominee. by simple elimination. he’s not Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, or any of the other insufferable assholes who vied for the GOP nomination. McCain was the only one I didn’t despise. and whoever wins the election, McCain or Obama, will easily install a better administration than the embarassment that’s in power right now.
with that being said: the GOP and McCain trying to take the “change” mantle is ridiculous. all season, they’ve been trying to pretend that their party hasn’t held the executive since the turn of the century, and they bear no responsibility for anything that’s happened. the scandals, the judicial firings, the convoluted and retarded war in Iraq, the massive deficit, the completely tanked economy, Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, the allegations of torture, the secret prisons, “executive priveledge”, the expansion of executive power, the Patriot Act. and the audacity of that, their attempts to completely ignore all of that shit, that just makes me loathe the Republican Party more.
and past that, Mike made a good point; the Republicans need to be stomped, bad, so they’ll finally get off of this kick of appealing to their dumbfuck evangelical base. they’re like an dog that keeps shitting in the house, so it needs its nose rubbed in it. “STOP DOING THIS.”  if only they’d come with something new, that didn’t require playing strictly to people’s fears, to people’s repressed morality, they wouldn’t be so fucking dispicable. and as of recently, that wing was gone; after a second Bush administration, everyone had had enough of it’s bullshit. everyone stopped pretending gay marriage and abortion were the most pressing issues in the country.
and then, as McCain continued to slip in the polls, he made the depressing, politically motivated move of nominating a socially conservative dimwit as his vice president. it roused the sleeping dumbass bear, that is suddenly excited by the prospect of Sarah Palin as vice president. as McCain is older than dirt, there’s a pretty decent chance she could be in charge some day. and that shouldn’t, under any circumstances, be allowed to happen. not because she’s a woman. or because she’s underqualified. but because she sucks. because if you ask me, backing creationism and abstinence and not acknowledging global warming makes you a goddamned dunce.
his speech tonight, it was refreshing. just because he was, shit, he was upbeat. he was as sunny as John McCain can possibly be. he seemed genuine. for this moment, I’d even not care if he won, if his running mate wasn’t Sarah “the Iraq War was God’s will” Palin.
but she is.

so.
so fuck him. I hope he loses in a landslide.

.

there it is. the Fourth Reich. I can’t wait for her to actually have to speak to the media.

you know, McCain was losing when they were talking about the economy. so, you know, to hell with the economy. let’s talk about values. that seems to be the only thing that works for Republicans. but it always works. so they always play it. and that shit’s depressing.

you ever heard of this band, Vampire Weekend? they aren’t bad. they, I would say, are okay.

so the Republican convention is finally in full swing. I’m watching the TV here, and I’ve got MSNBC on. I feel the need to explain myself now whenever I watch this channel. I personally feel — and this feeling has been growing in me for some time — that Keith Olbermann is douchebag who shouldn’t try and pass himself off as a newsman. he’s a Bill O’Reilly, an absolute and unabashed partisan who’s made up his mind on right and wrong and is lucky enough to have a soap box large enough to reach millions. Chris Matthews is another big name, but I don’t mind him nearly as much. Matthews is a liberal, but I’m convinced that he jerks off to C-SPAN when he’s at home. I’m convinced he loves this shit, politics. and if Obama loses, he won’t bemoan the loss, he’ll be enamoured with the process. how it happened. and that’s fine with me.
with that being said, I’m watching MSNBC because I want the television to talk about politics and I a) don’t get HBO and Bill Maher b) CNN has long since cut to Larry King, who’s long since become an embarassment and c) even under the worst circumstances on MSNBC, I’m not watching Fox News unless I’ve got a bottle of strong liquor on hand. and I don’t.

Vinegar Joe Lieberman spoke tonight, who I imagine is going to have a hard time caucusing with democrats when he goes back to Washington. so, uh, good luck with that, Lieberman. I’m so glad that you’re best buds with the political power brokers in this country, that you’re so in demand among the establishment. because you fucking blew in 2000, and you’ve maintained your stellar representation until now, and you’re still around. I mean, I understand that I’m not running into every slice of American pie out there, but I’ve never met anyone who’s had anything complimentary to say about Joe Lieberman. ever even my father, who’s one of the more pragmatic political observers I’ve ever met. he’s the kind of person who talks about Olympia Snowe like she were a defensive end the Eagles drafted out of Penn State who runs a 4.4 40 and has great strength in the lower body, but no, even he doesn’t like Lieberman. so thanks a lot for this douchebag, Connecticut. at least four more years of this piece of shit, unless he gets by a bus. what a worthless state. it’s like the asshole of New England.

and President Bush; he spoke too. he’s well-loved among this crowd, which is nice. it’s nice to see that even a national leper like Bush still gets warmth from his partisans. don’t let the dream die, everybody! you got your two terms, but pretend Bush didn’t piledrive the economy and our foreign standing straight into the packed, barren earth! because, really, goddamn, but what an amazing little petri dish political conventions are. I can’t imagine getting that excited about a Democrat or a Republican. or anybody, for that matter. I mean, last week, people were actually fucking crying while Obama spoke in Denver as if Christ had descended from the god damned clouds. and tonight, George Bush II got a handful of ovations — these assholes in St. Paul actually approve of the way he’s handled his presidency.
Jesus, but I’m at a loss for an eloquent way to say this; that shit’s baffling. they’re completely okay with a dimwit legacy pledge (I love that characterization) who’s led one of the most partisan, combatative, fear-mongering administrations in the last thirty years. they seem to be happy with the way it’s turned out. 
amazing. we should be sending psychiatrists, sociologists, anthropologists to this site to record what is happening here. it needs to be remembered, so that we may prevent its happening in the future. or at least, they can make recommendations for future instances to dampen the effects of mass psychosis and its broader effect on the nation as this bullshit is broadcast out via cable network to millions of living rooms.
as a matter of fact, I’ll get the ball rolling. here’s a free one, off the hip: every delegate to a major party convention should be required to wear a clown suit. for the entire time, without changing or bathing. that way they’ll all look terrifying and foul by the end of the week; makeup running into crooked grins and skin breaking out into rashes, multi-colored wigs matted down with sweat, giant, uncomfortable shoes making them hobble, stooped, across the convention floor to collect their buttons and festive hats. all of this, representative of the slate of issues their candidates actually represent.

Fred Thompson spoke. he’s on television right now; they’re showing highlights from his speech. it’s sad they brought out Thompson. he’s a chariacture, a joke. he’d look like something from a child’s nightmare in a clown suit. he talks about how Obama is unfit to lead, and riffs extensively on abortion. “(Palin) is from a small town, with small town values, but that’s not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family.”
this is a terrifying specatcle even without the makeup. I’ve had about a dozen thoughts on how the choice of Sarah Palin is going to play out; I immediately thought it was a ridiculous pick, but then I moved on to thinking she’s an unknown. no one really has any idea how she’s gonna turn out, if she’s going to be able to carry her weight. I mean, I think she’s unspectacular, but that doesn’t mean she’s unelectable. Americans, by and large, are fucking stupid; we don’t vote for the best choice, we vote for the most tangiably appealing. and I still think that it’s true, that Palin’s an unknown. but what I didn’t believe until now, with her pick, is how much the Republicans are gonna be able to talk about social issues in the folowing days.
why? because when the national debate focuses on important shit — like how John McCain doesn’t know an economic problem from his asshole, or how, try as he might, he can’t win the argument on the war in Iraq, the GOP loses. but when you have a social conservative on your ticket then suddenly, abortion is the most important issue facing America in the last three centuries! ever! 
Sarah Palin didn’t abort her retarded baby! that makes her a fucking hero, so vote McCain! Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter did what all teens either do or want to be doing — that is, the verb, to fuck — and now Palin is awesome because that daughter is having the child. yeah. like whether or not she was marrying the dumbass teenage hockey star who humped up on her and giving birth to his spawn was even discussed.
really, imagine that conversation. imagine Palin’s teenage daughter, announcing to her socially conservative mother who just barnstormed past the political establishment in Alaska to win the title of governor, that she wasn’t going to have the child, or marry the neanderthal father. “mom, I’m not gonna do it.” blank stares.
man, that’s some tough shit. especially when you consider that the sex was almost certainly awful.

so the culture wars are back. the Republican party must be so very happy that the political debate is back on the same predictable track, covering the real problems facing the country. maybe now that social conservatives are pumped up and making a lot of noise, getting way more attention than they fucking deserve, John McCain has saved his campaign.
it’s early Wednesday morning, and that’s what I think. as noted somewhere far above, I’m sure I’ll have a change of heart on the ramifcations of the Palin pick soon. I fucking hope so. she speaks tonight.

.

“Missing in Action II” is on. Chuck Norris, looking haggard, is destroying these motherfuckers. but oh god, do they have it coming.

Neil called me last night around 4 am, which would have made it 1 am in Orange County. I haven’t talked to Neil in a surprisingly long time, but he tends to call just about everyone in his cell phone when it’s late and he’s drunk.
I should have known that, but I picked up the phone anyway and Neil said, “Matt, there’s just one thing I’ve got to say: I’M JOHNNY UTAH!”
he said this, over and over again for a solid thirty seconds, until I started talking over him and hung up. Neil called back at 7 in the morning, and I let it ring, but in his message he was sober and he said he was sorry about calling earlier, but he thought I’d appreciate the Johnny Utah thing. I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about, so I just searched for that term, and it’s either an overpriced restaurant in NYC with a southwestern motif - and a mechanical bull ring for the ladies - or the nickname a base jumper goes by.
when I talk to Neil, I’ll let you know. 

the downstairs neighbors had a BBQ today. which I hung out at for a while and ate a bunch of food and drank a lot of beer. and then, around 7 or 7:30, I went upstairs and saw that Tennessee was about to play UCLA. so I got up, went back down, made my way through the crowd of hipsters, of whom I knew no one at this point, grabbed a last hamburger and a PBR. at the spread, there was a guy with a really thin beard and tattoos and he was wearing a Pelican t-shirt. I have two Pelican albums, which are okay in small doses cause I don’t really like metal, but I’ve never met anyone who’s ever actually heard of them. I bought the albums in California, and they make me think of the desert. and I had actually been listening to one in the truck today. this song. what an odd coincidence. 
then I went back upstairs and ate the burger and passed out for a few hours. when I woke up, Tennessee had given it up in OT.

so somebody put a baby up in Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter.
I was talking about it with some dude at the BBQ, because, you know, this is what I think passes for polite conversation. and I was nearly downright giddy about it, how that because the lightweight Republican VP nominee’s daughter is pregnant, it’ll somehow manifest itself as a bane to the GOP ticket. the guy I’m talking to, he said he thinks its a non-factor. and the more I think on it, I think he’s right. this can’t be spun without backfire. hey, teen pregancy as a political issue is great for the culture war crowd (“don’t fuck before marriage, students, it says so in the Bible! class dismissed.”) but if you try and turn an individual teen’s pregnancy into a political issue, you just sound like a dick. in fact, you are a dick.