rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

‘A New Hope’ is on. this movie is the shit.

I took the train up to see Phil the other day.
the train station is about a ten minute walk from here, so I set my alarm to a point where I’d be able to hit snooze a couple of times, which I did. got up, packed, showered, left, went out of my way to get the newspaper, and walked into the train station as the train pulled up. cause I’m that. slick.
the train, while more comfortable than an airplane would have been, was still not that comfortable. I’d still take a train any day of the week rather than fly, travel is travel.
but it’s pretty amazing, nonetheless, that I can get on a train ten minutes from my house and get off it six hours later in midtown Manhattan. here it is:

.
this spot in New York City I know better than any others. when I was 16, my brother did two weeks at New York’s CNN bureau. I went up and stayed for a couple of days just for kicks, and the CNN bureau was right there. so that was kind of “the hub”.
so Phil met me, and then we proceeded to fuck around for a few hours. with beer and walking about and bitching about the government. we went through Columbus Circle. the south end of Central Park. saw the Plaza. walked down, Madison Ave. past all of the fuckin’ banks, to what is it, to Rockefeller Center. etc.

took the train from the site of the WTC under the river to Jersey City, where Phil lives with the girlfriend he’s had forever. who is cool.
ordered pizza, got sprinkle cones from the Mr. Softee who drove by. that was some cool shit, I wish I had an ice cream guy who came by with precise regularity. really, think: a motherfucker drives by your house, with a bunch of delicious ice cream, and he’ll hook you up for $1.50. that’s genius. I could make a killing.
we watched the debate. I thought McCain jumped out to an early lead — not because of his stronger policy proposals, but because he was aggressive, talking well and in a groove, and Obama was not. and then he started with the Joe the Plumber bullshit, and that was that: everything just became ridiculous.

but that seems like decades-old news. the only news is that the debate was a draw, and McCain did nothing to slow Obama’s continuous march to the presidency. today’s news was your boy Colin Powell; a once-proud man who it appears was used by the Bush administration so it could get its goddamned war, he endorsed Obama. this article is great, too. you should read it.
that’s some fucking news. you know, endorsements can only go so far — Scarlett Johansson publicly supports Obama, and that’s not newsworthy — but, really. an endorsment from a legitimate voice, one roundly respected by all? the kind of guy who can get himself booked on ‘Meet the Press’ by picking up the phone two weeks before the election and saying “I have an announcement to make”? that’s news.
I think it says something raw and fundamental about what the Republican party has become when a national political figure I always kind of thought of as a staple Republican endorses the other candidate. 
but I’m not gonna go to the wounded animal analogy again. no: it’s like the GOP has got a fever, and in a few months its body is going to forcibly eject neoconservatism from its orifices. projectile vomiting and diarrhea. and in that bloody wake, it’s gonna crush the Dick Cheneys and Paul Wolfowitzes and Rumsfelds and Richard Pearles under its boot. then a week or two in bed (or, relatively speaking, a couple of presidential cycles) and then it’ll be back, healthy, once more in the ring.

so the next morning we went and got breakfast and then took a train back into town. we fucked about in the financial sector. saw Alexander Hamilton’s grave. saw a Ralph Nader rally on the steps of Federal Hall. the New York Stock Exchange. watched tourists cup the anatomically correct bull statue’s balls.
took the Subway back up to Penn Station, smoked a cigarette, high-fived it, and bam. back on the train.
on the way back, I almost read through ‘Hey Rube’ by Hunter S Thompson. key word is almost. I have about fifty pages to go. they’ll go quick, when I get around to it.

some pictures to follow.

Rockefeller Center. I think of that Peanuts made-for-TV Christmas movie.

Grand Central Terminal.

Phil unenthusiastically joining the protest.