rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

I read some horrible shit today about the immolation death of a homeless man in LA. somebody just lit him on fire.

I got an email

And I want to add that there’s no stranger experience than sitting in an airport in Dakar, Senegal, at 3 a.m. GMT-1, watching a rerun of Everyone Loves Raymond.

look who got a tattoo

.
dude, I … I don’t even know what to say. fuck it, fine. it looks cool.
but this changes nothing. you’re still a son of a bitch.

it is 1:23 AM. about five minutes ago, I heard what sounded like a lot of gunshots, and then I waited for sirens.
Charlottesville’s version of a hood is about five blocks from here. I would say it’s not bad, but there are a lot more poor people in this town than this nice, wealthy, suburban, liberal town would like to admit. and the neighborhoods they live in are quite insulated and segregated.
I turned my TV off to listen, and listen to the traffic going by my window: at this time of night it is pretty sparse, save for the occasional car every other minute. you can tell it’s a cop about 15 seconds before it passes. cops charge over the bridge and the engines are humming. then, I heard some sirens a few minutes ago, and I thought, well, I’m not overreacting, and I decided to write on it, and then the sirens kicked out. false alarm.

my brother and I talked over lunch about politics. and college football, and about work, and about foul shit you can see on HBO. and we talked, briefly, about the racist bullshit that people have been screaming at McCain/Palin rallies. I saw a video of some dumb asshole telling the candidate that he’s scared of raising his kids in Barack Obama America. McCain responded that Obama’s “a decent, man, citizen” that you don’t need to be afraid of. this drew boos.
later, some crazy-looking old lady told him she doesn’t trust Obama and has read “he’s an Arab.” which drew (thankfully) incredulous laughter and a McCain nervous sidestep.
I’ve also read the headline “McCain/Palin playing with fire” over the race issue. 
this is how I see it: I don’t think McCain is a racist. at all. and I don’t think Sarah Palin is, either. I just think she’s completely unqualified/crazy. they’ve been pressing on the aggressive political attacks, recently, and bringing up desperate shit, real stretches, about Obama’s ties to some Weather Underground asshole. and the worst parts of the GOP base — the oft-socially conservative, racist types — are using it as a queue to air their greivances: chief among them, Obama isn’t white.
that makes a pretty-good addition to why I don’t want McCain to win. foremost, I don’t want McCain to win because of his policies. I want Iraq to be done with, I think his health care plan is laughable, and he’s demonstrably inept at addressing the economy.
that’s why I’m not voting for him. but any reason more, is he’s a Republican. no, I know. they aren’t all bad. but the modern, national GOP’s political well includes the unabashed racists – the same kind of people who turn up in the nets of border-fence supporters, socially-conservative church groups and nationalist rallies – the people the GOP doesn’t want to acknowledge, but still appeals to. and that kind of voter, that kind of voter needs to get stomped the fuck out, as far as I’m concerned.
so to that voter, I want this election to say: you are done. you’ll never really go away, but for right now, everyone is tired of listening to your bullshit. so fuck you. the country is moving on without you.

also, put the word out, I am looking for work. find me a job, and come back and tell me about it.

I got off work early last night. it was almost storybook (a triumph or a tragedy depending on who you were pulling for) watching Derek Lowe meltdown in the 6th inning against the Phillies. he looked completely lost at the end. like, he needed an hour in the dark and quiet.

I got a message

Matt, you are a dirty cocksucker. and I got your message today and I’m fucking, calling back, and … why the fuck aren’t you picking up?
I know why. cause you’re doing one of two things:
you’re either at work and you dont want the bossman to see you pick up your phone, or you have your cock in your hands and you’re stroking it.
so I hope it’s the latter, to tell you the truth, Matt.

my aunt has West Nile virus (?)

I was hanging out at my brother’s house, and mom called, so I picked up. mom starts telling me about the price of groceries and gas in Indiana, as she is known to do, and I politely say, “no kidding. Mike was telling me about groceries here the other day. here, he wants to talk to you.” and I toss the phone to my brother.
so two hours later, he has my phone. he dials a number, waits for mom to pick up, and drops the waiting phone on my chest. fuck!
mom tells me about the garden and how the mums are coming on, and then she says, “and Aunt Flo may have West Nile virus.”
I don’t even blink. Aunt Flo, god bless her, is very dramatic and a bit of a hypochondriac. her joints have been aching, off and on, and she went to a doctor. and of course, from there, Aunt Flo has West Nile. this is all filtered through my mother and grandmother, which is like playing the telephone game. god knows they can barely hear each other on the phone anyway.
but even with the fact that everyone’s deaf being taken into consideration, whatever my aunt originally told them, I can guarantee it was melodramatic and ridiculous. she might tell you she has the goddamned bubonic plague if she wakes up with a sore throat. or malaria. if my aunt came down with malaria, I don’t think I’d be that surprised. 
but anyway: mom tells me she’ll find out more later, and she’ll call me back with the details.

I get off the phone and turn to Mike, and as soon as I start explaining it to him, it dawns on me how funny this is, and I start laughing. and then he starts laughing. of course she has West Nile virus. so when my sister in law walks up and asks what’s so funny, I’m hyperventilating and it takes me a few times to explain it to her.
“you know, if she really does have West Nile virus, you two won’t think it’s so funny then,” Va. says.
one of us says, “oh that’s bullshit, she doesn’t have it.” while the other says, ”I’m gonna think it’s funny.”

two hours later, mom calls back. Aunt Flo has been diagnosed with West Nile virus. or with having recently had it. 
damn it.
I ask what that actually means, and apparently, there’s no cure for it; it just runs its course, and it can kill you. but mom will probably Google “west nile virus” at work tomorrow, and fill me in on the details.
I hang up and tell my brother and Va. she says, “see?”

but then:
the next day, mom calls me again and says “Aunt Flo went back to the doctor and they say she doesn’t have West Nile.” which is kind of what I expected.
so the verdict is still out. stay tuned.

I startled a skunk when I was coming into my apartment tonight. generally, startling a skunk is a pretty bad idea. I was holding a sandwich I had picked up on the way home and singing to myself, a song about the sandwich. “this sandwich is gonna beee delisshusss …” in C. and then, there was the skunk, right in the middle of the goddamned walk. it scattered underneath the front stoop.
I couldn’t tell, though, if it had bailed any farther than the steps, so I stood there talking to it: “please don’t spray me, skunk. I’m just gonna walk by, skunk.” and jangled my keys. but every time I took a step, I heard it rustle in there.
so I walked around the house the other way. fuck you, skunk.

then I caught the end of the ALDS game. in the 9th, I watched Boston’s catcher chase down a base runner in a pickle at 3rd base. and then in the bottom of the inning, the Red Sox got a guy on 2nd and won on a base hit to right. good baseball. I hate the goddamned Red Sox.

tomorrow I’m going up to DC to watch the debate with your man Spencer. it will get live.

there’s an ad on TV right now called “post-e-vac”. it’s a Sexual Performance Aid, but I think it’s just a penis pump. that knid of sounds terrifying. putting a vacuum on your junk, I mean.

the week following, I’m taking the train up to NYC to see a friend from college, name of Phil, some of you may know him. I’m taking the train; smartest move I’ll have ever made. the train runs out of here right down the street, which I means I get on, sleep, and wake up in midtown Manhattan about six hours later. it’s gonna be great, man, really. we’re gonna watch the last debate. I will take my camera. I will take many heavy pictures. and I will take many heavy notes.
it’s kind of fucked up that a good chunk of my social life is built around the presidential debates. or maybe it’s just telling. whatever. it’s the truth.

wake up, Maggie, I believe I got something to say to you.

I haven’t read up on politics at all tonight, and it’s 1:30 in the morning. and big news I’ve got that I want to record? I’m going to sleep.
I’m punting. I’m trying again tomorrow. I hope while I sleep, I find the sand to do something productive. hit my targets. apply myself. apply.

I’m waking up and getting the paper and eating a decent fucking breakfast for once, and starting again. it’ll be a full Monday. but tonight, I’m punting.

.
oh god, here it comes.
it is 11:28 pm as of right … now, on the eastern seaboard. I had to work tonight, like an asshole, and now, the vice presidential debate is about to reair on C-SPAN at 11:30.
and I’m going to “live blog” it. the reairing, I mean. oh boy!
I’ve read nothing on it up to this point, even though I sat in a newsroom all evening. so I’m going cold, motherfuckers. I’m going cold.

it begins:

Hello, Gwen Ifill! she lays out the ground rules. 90 seconds for each questions, then two minutes for grabbag/rebuttal. and no one in the audience can talk at all. so to you reading along: shut up, shh.
here they come. Sarah Palin says to Joe Biden, “can I call you ‘Joe’?”

alright, it’s on. Biden goes first. the question is on the bailout bill. 
Ifill: ”was this the worst of Washington, or the worst of Washington that America saw this week?” she’s talking about the 15 days of bickering on Capitol Hill.

Biden: says yes and no. blah, blah, thanks for having me, Gwen. Barack Obama has laid out four points to get us through this mess. Biden is wearing his serious face. “the fundamental disagreement” between the two camps, he says, is he and Obama are gonna focus on the middle class. so, that means, McCain/Palin won’t.
Palin: wanna know how the economy’s doing? go to a kids’ soccer game and talk to some parents about that, and she’ll “betcha” you hear some fear about it. “betcha”: she said it with emphasis. thank god, she says, that McCain sounded the warning bell two years ago about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. also: he’s bipartisan. and unless you didn’t know this, John McCain solved this crisis. god, John McCain is fucking awesome.

Ifill: how are you gonna solve this bipartisan bickering in Washington?

Biden: he stopped violence against women and thinks genocide is a damn shame, and that’s on record. but John McCain? that asshole doesn’t know what he’s talking about with the economy.
Palin: when McCain said ‘the fundmantals of our economy are strong,’ he was referring to the American worker. right. but anyway, Palin’s tired of the old politics of usual. and she’s on a team of mavericks.

Ifill: says, “governor, senator, neither of you really answered” that last question. so Ifill says that she’s gonna come back to it. but anyway: the subprime meltdown. who is at fault?

Palin: predatory lenders. gotta stop greed and corruption on Wall Street. she and John McCain? yeah, they’ll stop that shit. and now, she’s giving us a lecture on home economics. says “we have an opportunities to learn a heckuva a lot of lessons from this.” she emphasizes “heckuva.”
Biden: Obama saw the meltdown coming. Biden says the Wall Street Journal says he’s all about regulation. McCain isn’t, he says, and cites the article in McCain’s name that calls for the deregulation of the health care industry. also, he slips in ‘McCain raises taxes’ in there, somewhere.

Palin: “darn right we need tax relief in America …” empahsizes “darn.” Obama, apparently, if you raise taxes, you’re not on the people’s side. “government’s gonna have to learn to live with less and be more efficient …”
Biden: takes a piece out her ass. calls her on the tax vote, which was a procedural vote. points out that Palin didn’t have any rebuttal for the deregulation thing.
Palin: no, I’m still talking about taxes. goes off on tangent until Ifill cuts her off.

I missed the next question, but they’re still talking about taxes, and it’s all kinds of bullshit. Biden says McCain will get almost everything to the superwealthy and corporations, and Obama will worry about the middle class. Palin says Obama’s gonna fuck over small businesses with his tax plan. wants the government to get out of the way of the private sector so families and businesses can grow and thrive. this is just noise. there’s really nothing to be gained from that exchange, no one will ever refer to what they say here or hold them accountable for it; when they go back and watch this particular moment on video in 50 years in the library of congress, the audio will cut out to static, or you’ll just hear a continuous “duhhh”.

Ifill: you wanna talk about health care packages, Palin?

Palin: McCain’s health care plan is “budget neutral”. everybody gets a $5,000 tax credit for health care. says Obama’s health care plan is some kind of government-run program. she says that like she’s poking a universal health care plan with a stick.
Biden: you wanna know how McCain’s gonna give everyone five grand? he’s gonna tax your private health care plan. blah blah blah, “I call (McCain’s plan) the ultimate ‘Bridge to Nowhere’.”

Ifill: as your running mates decided not to answer this question, what programs your campaigns have promised will you have to abandon?

Biden: commitments to foreign interests. existing Bush tax cuts for the Big Oil andn the wealthy, and McCain supports that shit. the $100 billion tax dodge that lets you hide your huge cash offshore is “unpatriotic”.
Palin: back in Alaska she took on the oil companies that Obama empowered with tax breaks with the ’05 energy bill. because she’s for The People of Alaska. she had to fix that shit. thanks a lot, Barack Obama, you fucking dick.

Ifill: so, uh, Palin, are you going to answer the original question?

Palin: the only thing she’ll say is … nothing. bullshit. John McCain keeps all of his promises.
Biden: refers to some obscure tax credit for oil companies McCain has added to his campaign statement. he and Obama are for a windfall tax on Big Oil. like the one Palin just said she supported in Alaska, so he’ll give her credit for that.

Ifill: do you support legislation to help homeowners facing bankruptcy?

Palin: well, uh, well … John McCain will fix this crisis. “it’s a toxic mess on Wall Street that Main Street has to clean up”. so, what she means to say is, no, she doesn’t.
Biden: blah blah, blah … “but here’s the deal: Barack Obama pointed out …” this means ‘no’ too. but wait … he’s saying we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to readjust your mortgage rates and the principle you own on your house, he says. yes. he agrees. we should. he thinks McCain and Palin don’t support this.

Ifill: Palin, is that so?

Palin: no, it’s not. but she wants to talk about energy. we need to be energy independent. translated, that means her ticket doesn’t support giving bankruptcy courts the authority to do that shit Biden talks about.

note: Palin’s dispicable. but I’d fuck her. and that’s the whiskey talking.

Ifill: “what is true and what is false” about climate change?

Palin: says: she’s the governor of Arcitic state, so she knows about this shit. so yeah, there’s some realness to climate change, but how are we gonna get to “positively affect the impact” climate change? this is a lot of bullshit because she’s been caught on record as having not believed in this global warming, because she’s a stupid hillbilly. and now she’s blaming foreign countries’ pollution standards.
Biden: “I think it’s man-made. I think it’s clearly man-made.” “if you don’t know what the cause is, it’s virtuallly impossible to come up with the solution. we (the Obama campaign) know what the problem is. we know the problem is man-made.” John McCain doesn’t vote for clean energy, he says. says McCain is deflecting the issue with this push for offshore drilling, which won’t get us any goddamn oil for like a decade, and then barely even a drop.
Palin: Obama and Biden haven’t ever supported home-based energy production.

Ifill: do you support caps on carbon emissions, Palin? Palin says yes.
Ifill: do you support clean-coal technologies, Biden? Biden does too. but John McCain voted 20 times against green energy technologies.

Ifill: does Biden support benefits for same-sex couples?

Biden: fuck yes he does. “absolutely, absolutely.” he’s still talking, but I can’t fucking wait for Palin’s answer.
Palin: no, not if it goes to redefine traditional marriage between one man and one woman. but she’s got no problems with gays, really. really. she’s got lots of diverse friends. so yes, and most definitely, she’s not gonna support gay civil unions. but a McCain/Palin administration is not going to … stop them from getting hitched? what?

Ifill: you two are about as noncommittal as a pack of Swedes. avoid the nuances. Biden, you dirty motherfucker, are you for gay marriage?

Biden: no. no change in its definition.
Palin. nope.

Ifill: fine. moving on. so what’s your exit strategy for Iraq?

Palin: the surge is fucking great! Obama didn’t support the surge, the pansy! points out that during the Democratic primary, Biden called Obama’s vote against it a political move. haw, haw, Biden, now you on the spot.
“it would be a travesty if we quit now in Iraq”, Palin says, now that we’re so close to victory.
Biden: “with all due respect, I didn’t hear a plan.” nice. Obama’s for the drawdown, as is Biden. he points out Iraq’s budget surplus. because, his point is, what the fuck is up with that? that’s some bullshit. “fundamental difference: We will end this war.”
Palin: (this is seriously verbatim) ”uh …. your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq … (long pause) and that’s not what our troops need to hear today.” calls Petraeus an American hero, or somesuch nonsense.
basically, she says the Obama’s unfit to be commander-in-chief, and that Biden …. wait, she’s talking directly about Biden’s son, who’s going to Iraq with the Delaware National Guard … nope. she says nothing offensive.
Biden: “John McCain voted against funding for our troops. Let me say that again ….” puts McCain’s name in the same sentence as Dick Cheney. “as my mother would say, ‘god love him,’ but (McCain’s) been dead wrong.”

Ifill: who’s a greater threat: a nuclear Iran or Pakistan?

Biden: Pakistan. but ”they’re both very dangerous, they’d both be game-changers.” attacks McCain. al-Qaida’s in Pakistan, and we need to help establish a stable government in that country, and John McCain doesn’t do this.
Palin: “both are extremely dangerous.” but Iran can’t get a nuke, period. way to take a stand there. says Ahmadinejad’s name a couple of times, without saying it incorrectly and giggling, like McCain did last week. says Obama’s statement that he’d meet with leaders from adversarial nations is “downright dangerous.”

Ifill: yeah, but all sorts of former diplomatic types (mentions Henry Kissinger) say you should talk to your adversaries. beause, you mouth-breathing cretin, you can just kill everything you don’t like. 

Palin: yeah, Kissinger is dreamy, but these people “hate America! they hate our freedoms!” diplomacy is serious, but “you gotta have yer friends back you up there.” donchaknow.
Biden: makes a case for diplomacy. John McCain said he wouldn’t sit down with NATO ally Spain, Biden says. note: that’s actually true, but it’s because Univision, I think, was interviewing McCain, and he got confused because they were speaking some disgusting pig latin (spanish). and that excuse is still just as scary as if he really meant what he orginially said.

Ifill: what has Bush administration done right regarding Israel?

Palin: McCain/Palin administration would support a two-state solution.
Biden: “no one in the Senate has been a better friend to Israel than Joe Biden.” says the administration’s Israel policy has been an “abject failure.” Hezbollah is running wild in Lebanon!!!
Palin: “I’m so encouraged to know that we both support Israel.”  but the American people are getting tired of the blame game. for a ticket that talks about change … there’s just too much pointing fingers.” talks about partisanship. John McCain is a maverick. she respects Biden for respecting John McCain — awesome — “but change is comin’”.
Biden: she’s not answering any of these questions. cause he wants to know: how is John McCain’s policies be any different than George Bush’s? he says their names together about a dozen times.

Ifill: how should nuclear weapons be used?

Palin: can’t let weapons “proliferate.” she makes “proliferate” sound like it’s a euphamism for fucking, but that’s the whiskey and half-bowl talking. and now Palin’s talking about Afghanistan, and how Obama doesn’t know what’s going on about that shit. “we’re fighting terrorists and building democracy.”
Biden: the surge principle in Iraq Will Not Work in Afghanistan (he emphasizes each word). “three weeks in Iraq = six 1/2 years in Afhganistan.” that’s how much we’re spending on each, he says. John McCain … doesn’t support anything that’s good. etc.
Obama and Dick Lugar from Indy got together to stop nuclear proliferation, he says. this is true, actually. remember when they got held up at the airport in the Russian steppe? I do.
Palin: the surge will work in Afghanistan. she speaks on this for about 15 seconds, and then promptly cedes the floor back to Biden. as an observational note, that was stupid …

…. because now, Biden’s talking about how smart Obama’s been on Afghanistan policy. she could have spent these precious seconds bullshitting through half-truths, but she left it to her foe.

Ifill: Will Americans support sending troops to Darfur?

Biden: he talks about Bosnia. going into Iraq, tries to explain his authorization Iraq war vote back in 2003. and now, “I don’t have the stomach for genocide when it comes Darfur.” “we should rally the world to act, and we should demonstrate it by our own movement …”
Palin: “it’ so obvious that I’m a Washington outsider …” and tries to bring up the whole ’04 bullshit of ‘voted for it before you were against it’. I almost threw a beer bottle at the TV. she thinks Darfur is a bad thing, and now she’s talking about how much money she’s made Alaska because she knows about energy. under her watch, Alaska had no business dealings with the Sudanese government. translation: blah blah blah, no direct action. she responded to Biden, then gave a lengthy non-answer.
and I just looked up at the television, and I’ve noticed that Palin’s been smiling the entire time. what the fuck is up with that?
Biden: talks about how McCain’s Iraq strategies have been wrong. (note: how the fuck did we get on this subject?)
Palin: “there ya go again,” Palin says, in her folksy patois. blah blah blah, McCain knows how to win a war. (note: I disagree. last war he participated in, he got his ass shot down and we left in defeat in ’75.)

Ifill: how do your policies differ from your running mates? this is basically a free statement allowed to the both of them.

Biden: gives campaign speech, and says ”this is the most important election any of you have voted in since 1932.”
Palin: she and Mcain are a team of Mavericks, so of course they’re gonna disagree, donchaknow. she says she’s gonna keep pushing him on ANWAR, but then they’re gonna work together on combating Greed and Corruption on Wall Street. namedrops Wasilla. says government needs to get out of the way. because, as is obvious to any asshole who hasn’t read a newspaper in the last two weeks, deregulation is a good thing.
Biden: “can I respond?” namedrops some dump in Wilmington called Katie’s Restaruant and says he spends a lot of at Home Depot. this makes me laugh out loud.
Biden continues: McCain doesn’t get these, these general ‘middle class’ concerns, but Barack Obama will bring change. or somesuch nonsense. 
Palin: “say it ain’t so, Joe, now, they’re you go again.” Biden laughs at this planned line.
you’re pointing fingers, she says. says of Biden’s wife, because she’s a teacher, “her reward will be in heaven.” talks about how awesome education is. gives a shout out to 3rd graders in Wasilla. apparently, loves No Child Left behind.

Ifill: what’s the vice president’s role?

Palin: she’s talked with McCain about “where she would lead”, and apparently, she’d be in charge of energy and families with children special needs. so she’d be in charge of whateverthe term ’energy policy’ entails, and retards. sure. why not? 
Biden: the reason No Child Left Behind don’t work is because the money was Left Behind. he has a history of getting shit done in the Senate, he says. “every major decision he’d be making, I’ll be in the room … giving him my best advice.”
Palin: rebuts something. says nothing noteworthy. no, really. nothing. trust me, I’m listening for anything worth writing down.

Ifill: Vice President Cheney’s interpretation of the role?

Biden: Vice President Cheney has probably been the most dangerous vice president in the history of the United States. he rails on this for a while.

Ifill: “let’s talk conventional wisdom for a moment.” Palin, everyone says you got no experience. Biden, you put your goddamned foot in your mouth constantly. respond.

Palin: she’s a governor, and a mother with a son in Iraq and a retard baby. she shares McCain’s view that we’re “a nation on exceptionalism”. exceptionalism. is that a word? also, she and McCain “are a good team, a good ticket.”
Biden: talks about his record. calls himself the catalyst for change on the vote on Bosnia. mentions how his wife died and his kids were fucked up in a car accident. acknowledges that he’s “much better off now” than most Americans. says he understands peoples’ worries. says “they’re looking for change.”
Palin: wisely doesn’t go on offense after Biden mumbles about his dead wife and nearly-crippled children. talks up herself and McCain again, points out how McCain’s a maverick, unless you haven’t heard her the last dozen times.
Biden: apparently, now he’s gonna take exception to Palin calling McCain a ‘maverick’ all night. launches off on something he must have practiced. “a Maverick he is not.”

Ifill: last question. can you think of a single position you’ve had to change your strong opinion on, based on circumstances?

Biden: the American people have a right to know about the earlier positions of federally-appointed judges. he must’ve supported them not knowing at some point.
Palin: she fucking loves cuttin’ taxes. but on the major issues, she’s never have to compromise on anything, beause in Alaska, she works in a bipartisan manner. aww, Palin just must’ve come right down from Heaven!

Ifill: how do you change the tone in Washington? (that’s kind of broad, Ifill. you’ve been pretty solid all night, but what the fuck does that question mean?)

Biden: I can work across the aisle. talks about Mike Mansfield, who told Biden that Jesse Helms adopted a kid with braces! how multicultural that was of Jesse Helms. because of this, Biden wouldn’t question people’s motives.
Palin: she don’t talk the talk, she walks the walk. if you want a ticket that supports energy independence and new jobs, then vote McCain/Palin. “clear choices on November 4.”

Ifill: closing statements.

Palin: this debate was great! Biden, it was so nice to meet you! thanks to you too, Gwen! Palin wishes she could do this more often, instead of letting the “mainstream media” ask her unprompted questions and maker her look like a fucking dunce. she and McCain, they’re gonna fight for middle-class American families, just like the middle-class family Palin has. she’s a fighter for freedom, and now she quotes Ronald Reagan. then, she talks about some terrifying dystopia where we’ll have to tell our children what freedom was like, because freedom will be long gone. do you want to avoid this, America? if so, vote McCain/Palin.
Biden: it was a pleasure to meet you too, Governor. Barack Obama and I … blah, blah blah. “you know, the neighborhood I grew up in … we were taught that” we can be anything we believe we can be.  and his dad used to say, “champ, when you get knocked down, get up.” he must mean our economy and our standing in the world. I’m sure.

and that’s the Biden and Palin families coming up on stage, and everybody makes nice.

oh jesus christ, am I drunk.

okay. I watched (and more importantly) listened intently to the entire debate. verdict? Biden won, and Palin was mediocre. no huge gaffes, just like I said. fuck you, Ashley, what did I say?

vice presidential debate’s tomorrow night.
I’m trying not to let my expectations get too high. by all indications, your girl Sarah Palin is out of her league, but there’s no way, really, there’s no way she gets steamrolled. she managed to get elected governor of a state — a backwater not within the continental US, fine — but they have teevees and electricity and the internet up there, too. so she can’t be a total idiot. that’s not to say she hasn’t the slightest idea how to fix the national economy or that she isn’t severely lacking in her understanding of the wider world, but she’ll have enough rote memorization under her belt by tomorrow night that she’ll just look mediocre. not like a jackass.

your boys and girls in the Senate passed the bailout plan.
at this point, I’m not going to even try and have an opinion over it. I generally believe it’s necessary, but I also believe we’re all getting fucked in the process. and if I had my way, I’d put a goddamn torch to the whatever physical representation of Wall Street I could find. the fuckers. those two words, Wall Street, strike the same populist tone in me that it hits in everyone else. and just like everyone else, I don’t know where to focus my anger. Wall Street may be a place, but there is no individual, or group of individuals, that can be directly blamed for this catastrophe, and whatever other horrors are to come. because this was groupthink that lead us here. everyone’s responsible, some more than others. and all of us will pay for it, again, some more than others.

I haven’t paid a lot of attention to politics in the last couple of days, except that I heard that the House Republicans (or at least their leadership) cited Nancy Pelosi’s pre-vote speech as one of the reasons they didn’t vote for the bailout plan. and you can call me a bigot, but that’s just the gayest thing I’ve ever heard of. I’m trying to think of a better way to describe it, but I feel the need to revert to 8th grade name-calling, where gay = lame. but please understand me: this is less an indictment of their failure to act decisively in the face of a possible economic collapse or a presumption of anyone’s sexual orientation, and more a demonstration of the fact that I fucking hate the Republican party – nearly in its entirety.
yep, there it is: I segued right into political bigotry, in the same paragraph.

anyway. while I was in Indiana, I read up a little on this failure in the local newspaper, which ran a story on a bunch of rubes standing on a busy corner in Lake County with signs that said ‘no bailout’. the ‘I’m responsible and pay my taxes, so why should I be paying for these assholes?’ defense was used. this argument, even still, is proving remarkably airtight. later in the article, one of them suggested that we stop listening to the government’s shrinks and look into what a handful of Austrian economists – whose musings have shaped Ron Paul’s suggested economic policies — have to say. 
think about that. just for fun, entertain that thought for a minute: in northwest Indiana on Monday, some moron said we should listen to the Austrian economists that Ron Paul subscribes to in order to get the nation’s financial system back on track.
it’s statements like that, the ones you stumble across while you’re half-awake and your mom is making you Jimmy Dean sausages and poached eggs and the dog is alseep on top of your feet underneath the breakfast nook, that make community newspapers worth reading. 

more from the paper: a profile on the local congressman’s — Visclosky’s — reaction to the failure. Visclosky, a labor democrat, voted against it. he said it would reward the wrong institutions, foreign banks, and he hasn’t been convinced of its necessity. he also cited the government’s failure to act when a bunch of local steel mills went under and a lot of people lost their jobs. also, and he didn’t say this, but he’s running for reelection in about five weeks, and no one in his district wants him to vote for it. so he didn’t. omg, obv.
many of our elected officials appear to be too dense to appreciate this, but no one wants the bailout, because they don’t trust the bailout, because they don’t understand the bailout. so, as painful as it may be, the government should be taking great steps to explain macro-economics to the stupid, stupid American taxpayer. fuck, I barely get it, and unlike many people, I’ve been trying to get it. and even then, everything I’ve read says that this plan’s success is entirely speculative. and I can only conclude that we’re all fucked.

but enough about politics. what did I do, what did I experience this weekend?

YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS SHIT:

7:30 pm, Saturday, Chicago. green curry. ‘Doom’ at Josh’s apartment.

10:00 pm, Saturday - 2:30 am, Sunday. more or less, a haze.

2:45 am, Sunday. karaoke with Josh at a lesbian bar. song? ‘I want to break free’ by Queen. the bartender thought I was great. Josh later says: “she wanted your box, dude.”

7:45 pm, Sunday, Indiana. my uncle’s house. I notice, sitting on top of his TV, ‘Ass Blasters Vol. 3′. that means there’s at least two other volumes of ass blasting out there, as of this writing.

10:45 pm, Sunday. Chicago beats the Eagles. mostly because the Eagles suck.

2:30 pm, Monday. me and mom go to a bunch of garden centers, and then I take a picture of mom standing in the cornfield across the way from the parking lot.

.

11:15 am, Tuesday. arts and crafts in the kitchen with mom.

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11:45 am, Tuesday. grandma watches cable news while most of congress goes home to observe Rosh Hashanah. yes.

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2:00 pm, Tuesday. I pet the dog before leaving.

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3:30 pm, Tuesday. we stop and eat at White Castle on the way to the airport.

10:30 pm, Tuesday, somewhere between Charlotte, NC and Charlottesville. as a direct result of the delicious White Castle, I have wicked gas on the airplane next to the middle-aged suit reading Sports Illsutrated.

there’s lots more of these little vignettes that you love so much. but I didn’t take any pictures of Josh and his girlfriend, because they’re horrible people.
ha ha, hilarious, I kid. through and through, it was a good four days.