Electorial Dysfunction

      AND

A few observations as this never-ending story known as Election 2008 heads to an exciting thrill-packed conclusion...

Does Sarah Palin give you an Anita Bryant vibe? Those of you young uns who don't know to whom I refer, Anita was a former beauty queen who was vehemently anti-gay back in the mid-1970s, campaigning against anti discrimination in Florida's Dade County. Back then, she was pretty much the poster child for intolerance. She also used to to be the spokes person for Florida Orange Juice until a well-organized boycott got her ass handed to her. I dunno. It's a just a gut feeling I have, but then again, it might be gas.

What's the deal with Joe? Not Biden, as insignificant as ever, but all these references to Joe Sixpack and now Joe the Plumber. The candidates might want to back away from this new incarnation of Joe. After all, plumbers didn't do Dick Nixon any good.

Speaking of Joe, have you noticed that in all the Obama campaign material (posters, bumper stickers, etc.) that Biden's name is smaller than Obama's (who, after all is the main man) and sometimes in a different font altogether while McCain and Palin are the same size on theirs? I wouldn't be surprised if Palin's name was bigger. How much more dominant is Palin than McCain at this point? Kinda harkens back to 2000 when folks said, " I don't like Bush. I'm voting for Dick Cheney." Now try to get the image of a dominant Sarah Palin out of your head. "Gosh, Todd sure likes it when I use the whip!"

How about a tag team debate between between both tickets? I would have loved to see Obama vs Palin or Biden vs McCain. In this corner...Obiden! And to my left...McCalin! And falls count anywhere! (yes, everything's a wrestling metaphor to me)

Consider this: If Obama is elected, Oprah wins. There'll be no way to stop her...ever.

As for poor ol' Johnny McCain, he just seems tired. He's been fighting an uphill battle since he began, but he seems about to snap. All this William Ayers crap has been for naught. No one really cares, John. Where's it all leading? This has been like a sub-plot on a TV show that goes nowhere. It's just trolling in the gutter. The thirst for power is driving him mad. When he loses, watch the Republicans start kicking at him like an old sick dog. It's a sad time for a man who has given so much to crash and burn in slow motion like this. Palin will walk from this wreck away unscathed while McCain is going to be demonized by those were against him from the very start. When he tried to embrace them as their new champion, their thumbs were already point downward with smiles on their faces, knowing full well who to blame when it all comes crashing down around them. Poor delusional son of a bitch.

This thing's about over except for the shouting...who am I kidding, they've been shouting for almost two goddamn years now...at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars spent on...what? Both sides do nothing but blather on the sad state of the economy while they literally piss away money like it's going out of style, which it apparently is, gang. Yeesh.

If you're not sick of all this crap by now, here are a couple of recommendations for an election box set:

Michael Ritchie's THE CANDIDATE with an Oscar winning screenplay from Jeremy Larner stars Robert Redford in the title role running for a California senate seat in the early 1970s, a sharp political satire that has not lost its bite. Co-starring Peter Boyle as a political strategist who gave me one of my catch phrases, "That's just ducky!"

Robert Altman and Garry Trudeau's HBO mini-series TANNER follows a presidential campaign, filmed during the 1988 primary season and starring Michael Murphy, Pamela Reed with a cameo by Michael Dukakis. It's compelling viewing, though the follow-up TANNER ON TANNER is noteworthy only if you've seen the original.

Then there's Alexander Payne's ELECTION starring Reese Witherspoon as the one and only Tracy Flick and PRIMARY COLORS with John Travolta as a not-so-subtle Bill Clinton-like candidate.

As for me, I'm just going to pop my VHS copy of DUCK SOUP into my VCR and revel in The Marx Brothers as the world begins to burn.

What else am I supposed to do?

I don't play the fiddle.

Juno, Alaska

"Sarah, Sarah, storms are brewin' in your eyes
Sarah, Sarah, no time is a good time for goodbyes"
\Yeah, I know the old Starship song is SARA, not SARAH, but come on, the picture on the left is definitely the apple of Mickey Thomas' eye. And the one on the right? The twinkle in every good Republican's. Oh, that Johnny McCain! He sure picked a peach, didn't he? Everyone is saying how she resembles Tina Fey. Not me. I see a little Julia Louis-Dreyfuss...or a younger, hotter Sharon Osbourne.

In the words of the late great Jerry Reed:
"When you're hot, you're hot!
When you're not, you're not!"

And as for her knocked-up unwed underage daughter? Well, let's put it this way, shall we? Her baby's daddy is named Levi. (Who'd you expect...Michael Cera?)

WELCOME TO POLITICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY!

Who cares about the issues? Let's just cut to the chase...who would you like to have a beer with? Who's purtier? What are they wearin'...boxers or briefs...or, best of all, which candidate is all thonged up? Yee-ha! It's all a distraction. Look over here! It's a shiny object! No, it's Sarah Palin!

"On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate John McCain's running mate?"

Hyuk! Hyuk! We're living in a world of mooks.

In this day and age, there's no time for substance. We have no patience for it. Let's just make a snap judgement so we can go back to texting our friends and geeking about the new 90210 or THE DARK KNIGHT. We have the attention spans of gnats.

Mark my words, we're going to see a continuation of the Hillary/Obama feud with Palin. Sexism vs racism. Don't say anything bad about either one of them for fear being called out for your embedded prejudices. Don't say McCain's too old or you'll be branded an ageist? As for Biden, you'll dragged through the mud by the folliclely challenged. (Donald Trump laughs at Joe's hair)

I guess the other thing that fries my chimichanga is that all this is further legitimizing the National Enquirer and TMZ. These people are not journalists. They are proctologists. Those that believe otherwise, well, you're assholes.

All I want to know is..

WHEN IS THIS FUCKING THING GOING TO BE OVER?

Dog Days (and Nights)

Sliding into home base of Summer 2008. So little to say. So much time to blog it all down.

(Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you.)

First off, a hail and farewell to two more greats that we lost this year, Bernie Mac and Issac Hayes. We're worse off without you, but better off to have known you at all. You made the world a better place.

History has been made with Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. If the the Demos fuck this one up, they should be disbanded.

Anything's possible. After all, GW was not only elected (thank you, Mr. Gore) but RE-elected
(thank you, Mr. Kerry). Still, other than his choice for VP (Joe Biden? Really?) We should be getting used to saying President Obama real soon.

At the beginning of the summer, did anyone other than me think that Obama was going to pick John Edwards to fill out the other side of this ticket? The Wacko Conspiracy Theorist in me has a feeling that was the case until the DNC found out about Edwards' little bastard bundle o' joy and they were the ones who tipped off the National Enquirer. Even if it's not true, not a bad little story, huh?

As for John McCain, he picked Sarah Palin as a running mate. (Who?) If she's not related to Michael, then I've never heard of her. Still, you gotta hand it to him for going after the Hillary vote. (By the way, don't the Hillary supporters remind you of the Ellen Jamesians from John Irving's THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP?) Another way McCain can pick up support at the Republican convention is to appear onstage with GW, raise the President's arm in the air with his left and then clothesline him across the throat with his right, WWE style. When he tries to get up to his feet, a DDT, slamming his head straight to the stage. I still wouldn't vote for him, but I would shake the man's hand after that.

Next order of business:

RED ASPHALT is now available for download on the one and only Amazon Kindle.

What's a Kindle? I'm glad you asked. The Kindle is the wireless reading device sold exclusively by Amazon. You can download books, newspapers and magazines at a fraction of their newstand or bookstore price. In fact, RED ASPHALT, normally $17.50 in paperback, carries a Kindle price of just FIVE BUCKS. But, if you act now, Amazon will take 20% off which means you can read RED ASPHALT right this minute for just $4.oo. Holy smokes! In the immortal words of Crazy Eddie, "Their prices are...

IIIIIIINNNNNSSSSSAAAANNNNNEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It always warms my heart when another of my Pollardville bretheren surface and make this nimrod proud. I couldn't have been more pleased than see an article about my old friend, Artis "A.J." Joyce in last week's Stockton Record.

There is to your left, the master of the bass guitar and one of the sweetest souls who ever walked the planet, looking a little grayer, a little wiser and a little like he's about to tear it up on that bass he's peeking behind. A.J. taught me the significance of the bassline in music and how to listen for it. He made me appreciate how the pieces are fit together and putting it all in perspective. What A.J. teaches me now is that he, like

so many of my friends, make me proud because there's still out there getting it done, fighting the good fight and making the world a better place. Yep. He's the Man.

Check out this article about A.J. on Recordnet.com

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080821/A_ENTERTAIN/808210318/0/A_ENTERTAIN03

I highly recommend the French thriller TELL NO ONE, written and directed by Guillaume Canet from the Harlan Coben novel. As densely complex as any mystery I've ever seen, TELL NO ONE tells the tale of a doctor who is falsely accused of his wife's murder eight years after the fact when new evidence surfaces. A classic Hitchcock-like scenario, this has something the Master often lacked and that was a deep emotional involvement, thanks mostly to the extraordinary performance of Francois Cluzet as the doctor. While TELL NO ONE has a few too many red herrings, it pays off like no other film so far this year.

One of my favorite moments of this summer was after the screening (which I took in after my MILES AROUND interview-that's me all over). I was walking to my car, following a married couple as the husband tried to explain every little twist and turn of the movie to his wife, a difficult feat indeed since the story requires a lot from its audience. DAMN good film.

And finally, if you've already read RED ASPHALT (which I know is a lie since I've checked the sales figures) and you need something to feast your eyes upon, please check out the website of a better writer than me, Chris Kuhn. Okay, I'm partial because he is my son-in-law, but the fact of the matter is the boy is talented. Do me a favor and visit his site at:

http://www.chriskuhn.net/

He's posted some of his work there, including the sensational stories IMPALA and CROCODILE TEARS. After you read his stuff, I'm sure you'll agree with me. In fact, what would you want to return here to read this drivel?

WHAT AM I SAYING?

ABANDON SHIP!

HAPPY LABOR DAY!

EJECT!