Low on piss, out of vinegar.

I thought the closer we came to the election, the more I'd have to say about it. But little things like abject fear and disillusionment have a way of washing the lather off'n my soap box. Temporarily anyway. But you know the drill choir kittens: Bush = bad. Kerry = the only hope we have for saving Democracy. Anyone who is unclear about that fact is what is known as "a fool." And I don't have it in me to suffer them right now.

I did get a election related chuckle today, though. I dug my voter registration confirmation out of the desk (we moved), to double-check the time, the location, etc. It's such a formal looking document, covered with seals and district information and instructions in four languages. Looking at it makes me feel so very American, and powerful: I vote! I can vote! I can change the world! ME! The Board Of Elections of the City Of New York has sent me confirmation that on November the second I may utilize my right as a citizen, I may cast my vote at my designated polling place...at the ah, the ah...(my eyes scanned for the location)...Swinging Sixties Senior Center!

It just seems so ridiculous. I couldn't stop laughing. Something about combining the image of a "Swinging Sixty" with a row of voting booths... I feel like on Tuesday I'm going to attend some freaky peep-show hosted by naked sexagenarians.

A degraded world.

In answer to my need of a succinct argument for my relatives who refuse to vote (and why they should vote for Kerry, I will add)-- the excerpt below, from an article written by Johathan Schell for Mother Jones:

Each country that plunges into nightmare -- whether Germany under Hitler, the Soviet Union under the Bolsheviks, Chile under Pinochet, or, for that matter, Iraq under Saddam Hussein -- travels there along its own path. The American political system -- based on free elections, the rights of citizens, and the rule of law -- is, though under the severest pressure, still available for use. If it is lost, and the full American nightmare descends, there will be many causes. They will include the militarization of foreign policy, global imperial ambition, the loss of balance among the branches of government, the erosion of civil liberties, and the overwhelming influence of corporate money and power over political life -- all present before Osama bin Laden made his appearance. But at every step of the way the skids will be greased by the national capacity, conferred by the media and exploited by politicians, to produce and consume illusion, which, though hardly an American monopoly, may be the specific form of corruption most dangerous to American democracy.

Think globally, act locally.

Despite all my hard work, lectures, daily phone calls, and threats to never speak to either one of them again (which has become incentive, I'm sure), I have two family members who refuse to vote this year. Flat out refuse.

Both are men, unrelated to one another (other than by my parents defunked marriage thirty some-odd years ago), both are intelligent and customarily engaged with and concerned about politics. However they couldn't be more wildly different in every other way--from temperament to registered party and socio-economic status--so I find it interesting (and infuriating) that their reasons for sitting out are exactly the same.

They share the opinion that "The System" and "The Government" have become irreversibly corrupted, a handful of corporations and the patrician elite run the world unchecked, and the presidency itself is a sham, a cover-up, since any candidate is ultimately beholden to the Satans with whom they were forced to lie in order to run for the fake post in the first place, and from whom they will be receiving orders when they're in office. The short form: It doesn't matter. The world will spin along as per the design of the puppet-masters, and you're fooling yourself if you think pulling a lever in a booth somewhere will have any effect over the outcome. In the least.

So you see my struggle. It's kinda hard to argue with that. The usual suspect platitudes are out the window: you can't use the If you don't vote, you can't bitch line, or a speech about voting being a right people have died to grant us. And forget about pointing out how if we're all going to Hell in a hand-basket, we should, at a minimum, give a shit about whose basket we're riding in. Even a protest vote, a Nader vote, or a write-in is useless to a person who thinks the only way it would be counted is after a civil war. The truth is, I don't disagree with their dismal assessment of things, but letting the bastards break you is not the way deal with it. I'll go so far as to say, it's what (the proverbial) THEY want.

I've tried every appeal. I'm spent.

Suggestions?

Note to my subconscious: A good ol' fashioned erotic dream would be nice once in awhile.

It's morning. I turn on the TV and on every channel a bewildered looking Al Gore is behind a podium explaining a snowball of events to reporters. He explains Rumsfeld was canned because of an investigation that was ordered after his testimony to Congress, which produced evidence that he, and other high officials, had not only known and kept secret --but had ordered the torture of the Iraqi prisoners. His termination led to an investigation of every person in the chain of command, which somehow led to Justice Scalia, an investigation of whom illuminated a conspiracy during the 2000 election and caused the impeachment of Scalia, which led to another investigation that re-opened Gore v. Bush and brought about the actual recounting of all the Florida ballots from the 2000 election, which confirmed that Gore had been our president for the last four years. Of course all of these investigations and court cases happened in the night while we were sleeping (dream-states don't know from timelines).

So Gore was standing there telling reporters that no one knew what to do next. The Supreme Court couldn't make a decision about how to proceed because they were down one judge, and no one could appoint a judge because no one was really President. A flap, let me tell you. Just before I woke, Tom Daschle was explaining to the press how--since Bush was not in fact our president and held no presidential powers--all of the bills he had signed into law, all the post appointments he'd made, and every policy he'd put into effect was as of now...null and void.

Hold on a second, that was an erotic dream.

14 days left. I start taking swings in three.

The most confounding and frustrating part of this election year if you are--I was going to say "a liberal" but I mean to say "sane"--is the utter hopelessness, the rage you experience when confronted with the reasoning of Bush supporters. For instance, last night. G and I entered the subway station behind three young (twenty-ish) women who were singing the praises of our commander-in-chief. As we all reached the turnstiles one of them brought the conversation to a close, "Well, the thing for me, I mean, the bottom line is that you know Bush is a good man. You can't say the same for Kerry." The other two nodded in gleeful assent.

There is no way to have a dialogue with that. Sure, I've tried. I've tried with idiots of all description; sexists, racists, fascists. But the bottom line, as miss young Republican put it, is anyone who would pop off such a voter-friendly baseless sound bite is a moron. A half wit whose brain is constantly engaged in a rock, paper, scissors match where dogma trumps logic, where spin beats facts, every time.

Surprising me, and himself, G let out a long, loud hiss at the girl. From behind, a lone voice said "booooo." I opened my mouth to release what I'm sure would have been one of my classy, refined responses (along the lines of "Are you fucking kidding?") but just shook my head instead.

The girl giggled, caught eyes with her friends and said, "Ooops. Are we going to get into a fight now?" and laughed again.

You know what sister? I think we are.

All hooked up.

As if I hadn't already cemented my status as a walking cliche--just another blogger with a digital camera--this weekend G and I fully attached ourselves to the teat of the 21st century by getting real-live cellular service. So now I'm just another B-burg former hipster with a blog and a digital camera who is constantly connected to buzz, the scene, via my cell phone--which is ALSO a digital camera, of course. I'm heading over to J&R Musicworld right now for my I-Pod and oversized headphones, I'll pick up the ironic t-shirt and case of PBR's en route. Text me, m'kay?

Jumping Christ. Next thing you know I'll be blogging about all the events I attend and name drop about who I met/saw/went home with. [Like CMJ Bloodshot Barbecue Saturday, the highlight of which, for me, was seeing the Meat Purveyors--whose lead singer I (and Dana and Zeebah, drop, drop) succeeded in pissing off by singing the line "...you...get offa my cloud" when she yelled "Hey", and whose bass player I did not get to know, but instead had a lovely chat with the man with whom she is currently sleeping. That covers met and saw, as far as who I had sex with afterward, well, I am a one-man woman. Although I think I might have had a chance with Dana if she'd finished that last Rheingold and hadn't received a better offer from the Waco Brothers.]

Shut...UP!

You know, if you can pretend it's not a sexual harassment lawsuit, and completely wipe any imprint of Bill O'Reilly out of your memory banks (including the sound of his annoying, nausea-inducing voice), page fifteen on?... is pretty hot.

MIA

Where've I been? On secret missions, with the ARMIES OF COMPASSION.

It's all top secret...let's just say it involves hugging lots of greasy corporate types. And laying around 'feeling' people praying for me. And killin'.

A book review, actually.

The good thing about an occasional bout of mandatory bed rest due to illness, or depression over joblessness, or some other malady/catastrophe that forces me to sit freaking still for a few seconds... is that I get a little culture. Left to my own devices I barely read; let alone attend gallery openings, concerts, parties, plays, or art films. And when I do attend such events it's only because one of the participants is a good friend. The one exception is poetry readings, in which case I don't care who you are--my mother, my lover, my kidney donor, AND there's open bar AND we're all sent home with a hundred bucks and a fabulous gift basket from Mario Badescu--I'm still not going. (Look, I love you, and I appreciate your knack for iambic pentameter, but I'd rather spend the evening helping my creepy neighbor--the one whose wardrobe consists solely of tiger striped neon sweat pants and wife-beaters--pick out a linebacker for his fantasy football team.) And the sad truth is, I don't know if I'd read at all if it weren't for the subway. Or having to sit here in this bedroom for three days.

So, despite it's prosaic tone and hackneyed first few chapters, I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code.

Cry for help.

[That's right, it's Lammy: rock and roll legend, hot pink jet-setter, lamb-about-town, confidant to the stars.]

G and I have made jokes about the need to take our dog to a doggy psychologist, but after recent events...seriously, do you have the number of one?

My dog--my 80 pound; terrify everyone away on the street due to her height and size; growl at you if you get anywhere near her food or pet her while she's napping; who has a special, supra-evil growl for noises in the hall (potential intruders) or outside on the street (ditto); mega ferocious labrador/rottweiler mix...is afraid of clean laundry.

She's terrified of it. She could care less about the pile of dirty laundry in the hamper, but the second we walk in with the bags of clean laundry she goes into this freaky victim panic that does not subside until a good half hour after each stitch of clothing has been put away. It is the most heart-wrenching, pathetic thing I (or G) have ever seen. She, huddled in the corner, shaking; eyes watering with human-like tears. Or she follows you around, swirling her sizable, quivering body around your legs so you can't walk or move, just looks up at you with a face that says "What have I done? Why must you torture me?" Last laundry day she disappeared completely, which is a feat in a tiny one bedroom NYC apartment. You can't really lose a dog the size of a person around here. I checked both rooms in the house, opened the closets, peeked behind the shower curtain; she was gone. After the laundry had been put away, she finally emerged from behind a small wicker chair we have pushed in a corner--a chair she had to defy the laws of physics to fold her girth behind.

Recently she took it one step further. I returned with the clean laundry, threw it up on the bed for folding, when she ran to the door and began to try and CLAW HER WAY OUT--literally--huge chunks of paint then wood were scraped to the floor. I shut the door to the bedroom (where the clothes lay) pet her and kissed her and let her know everything was okay, and she calmed down. I had to wait a few hours and sneak into the bedroom when she was napping before I could put anything away. I hid what I couldn't get done before she woke.

I've given many hours of thought to what in God's name could have made her afraid of clean clothes. She's never been beaten with a Downey-fresh pair of jeans. Never been smothered with a pile of towels. To my recollection, she's never had any negative contact with laundry at all, in any respect. However it's obvious she is very seriously affected by it's presence. You should see the door. It's destroyed.

Any thoughts? Furthermore, know a good doggy shrink?

While I'm on the topic...

Although they are very well done and clever, I don't know if I understand the tactic used in the current PSA campaign for gay marriage. If you haven't heard any of the TV or radio spots yet, each show a couple who are having everyday problems; from the small things (like stealing the covers), to large (potential infidelity, mother-in-laws who don't get along), followed by the tag-line: "You know what's wrong with gay marriages? The same things that are wrong with straight ones. Support gay marriage." (spot links: scroll down)

So the point is that we shouldn't support gay marriage because it's a civil right, but so gays can be as fucking miserable as everyone else? That sounds like the kind of base joke Rush Limbaugh would tell his drug dealer. You can almost hear the rationale...all those gays running around discos having freaky free-love and crawling over parade floats, while the rest of us have to sit at home and get bitched at for screwing the secretary or leaving the milk on the counter--I say let 'em get married! See how they like it!

Now that I think of it, revenge is a powerful motivator. Never mind.

Choir? *present*

A hearty right-on to my pal monk for laying out what's wrong with BOTH candidates position on gay marriage. During that portion of the veep debate, G and I let out such a long series of expletives, you'da thought we were channeling Dolemite.

Tell me lies tell me sweet little lies

Conversation with Harry, the 80+ year old owner of the local lumber store, while buying a piece of molding.

Harry: How are you today dah'ling?
Me: Good Harry, and you?
Harry: I'm good. Good. You're in again today, huh? You're always building something, always busy.
Me: I suppose so. It's a hobby.
Harry: When I was your age, I was always busy with things too. Kids have so much energy.
Me: Kids? How old do you think I am Harry?
Harry: I don't know...(stares right into my face)...young. Twenty or so.
Me: (snickering) Add fifteen years.
Harry: No...really?
Me: Yep.
Harry: Well you look beautiful dah'ling. You must take good care of yourself.
Me: Thanks Harry. You don't look so bad yourself.
Harry: (smiles--the first time in five years of buying lumber from the man) Oh, not now, but I had my day.

At which point Harry opens a drawer and pulls out a magazine from 1959. Bookmarked was an advertisement for linoleum flooring, the model/salesmen was a young Harry; five feet three, nebbish, balding, smiling.

Me: Well aren't you the handsome thing, look at you!
Harry: Well...
Me: You look like a movie star.
Harry: Oh now, you're exaggerating.
Me: I certainly am not... I look twenty, and you look like movie star.
Harry: You make a point.

Say it ain't so

If asked, I might have to say Cheney won the debate. Oh, not because he defended his and the Presidents little profiteering scheme over in Iraq, or proved their domestic policies were working, or made we the people any more clear on how--exactly--any of their plans would benefit those of us who are NOT a multi-billion dollar corporation (or a Saudi king whose castle happens to rest on a strategically attractive hill atop a fuck-load of oil). No. The winning happened waaaay before he ever sat down (what was the sitting thing about anyway? His ticker? Dude can't stand, literally, face to face with an opponent?). They won by exploiting the terror attacks and securing a throwback pre-Kennedy atmosphere; one in which the (bald, white) men who run the country know what they're doing, and you, the peons below, are to shut the hell up, not ask questions, and leave all the tricky 'governing' stuff up to the professionals.

At this point, bold-faced lying, evasion, and the robotic repetition of manufactured spin is viewed as...Strength! Competency! Dedication! Patriotism! If you question the men and their motives you're either an idiot, or a threat to national security. The look on Bush and Cheney's face during the debates... the disgust, the indignation, the arrogance. I was listening to Cheney's answers last night, and was amazed at the ease with which he is able to use hackneyed blame shifting tactics--and garden variety denial. I felt like I was watching a playlet based on the Shaggy song It wasn't me --which is a fun song and all, but not really the kind of thing we should be basing Presidential policy upon.

I'm open to more hopeful views. Love to hear them in fact: antigiest[at]earthlink[dot]net

My family? Oh, they're great. Couldn't be better thanks.

Or not.

It starts with my brother. My brother suffers from acute social anxiety disorder, we found out last year, after he checked himself into rehab to kick his addiction to the drugs and alcohol he'd been self-medicating with for twenty years. Rehab went well. While there he received much-overdue medical attention, therapy, and most importantly a diagnosis of his illness and a prescription for the anti-anxiety medicine which would make it possible for him to lead a normal life. When he left the hospital we were introduced to a man we had almost forgotten existed. He was lucid, funny, sharp, curious; had his trademark mischievous twinkle in his eye. Within a few days he hooked up with a family friend (also recovering) who ran a trucking company, and began an apprenticeship to acquire a commercial drivers license. He'd start a new career. A new life. He was assured by his psychologist that social services would help him in that endeavor.

However he was denied medicaid to pay for rehab or to cover his then current prescription costs --any public assistance help at all-- due to the fact that he owned a small parcel of essentially worthless property. A property upon which his house sat. A property that was promptly taken by the bank for the back mortgage payments and overdue taxes he accrued while in rehab. He got the news on the road, in Florida, still completely sober and weeks away from getting his license: he'd lost everything. No house, no land, no income, no medical insurance, and ten thousand dollars worth of rehab debt on top of what he owed the bank. Then his meds ran out, then his anxiety returned...then he got really, really fucking drunk. And stayed that way.

So he's homeless now. Living in a truck.

My mother, who owns a home in the same town as brother, cannot help him financially; but would give him a place to stay if her boyfriend (with whom she lives and shares a mortgage) hadn't banished him from the house. He's not one to go in for all that sympathy or empathy crap, no sir. He's all about the pulling one's self up from one's bootstraps. Even if you don't have bootstraps, because the bank took your boots.

Mom wants to leave the boyfriend, but can't. They both share the title to the property, and neither one can afford to buy the other out. He ain't leaving, he's proven. She has nowhere to go. So she sets up her own space in a back room, waits for him to pass out drunk each night, and cleans up where he's pissed on the rug and puked on the couch in the morning. Oh, and sneaks out an extra bowl of food next to the cat's behind the shed, so my brother can eat.

And that's only a fraction of the shit that's going down.

Mom and I talk on the phone every night. At some point we discovered we had run out of potential remedies for any of our familial problems, and decided all the venting and bitching wasn't helping matters-- it was only making us sick. We agreed we wouldn't say anything at all...until we had a plan, or could come up with some solution, we'd talk about the weather.

So...How's the fucking weather?

Me and you and a dog named Blue.

Well weren't G and I just the picture of coupledom and domesticity this weekend...Dusting and vacuuming and closet reorganizing, breaking for brunch with dear friends, buying the fixings for a gourmet supper, and cooking it together. We dug out all the winter clothes, put away all the summer stuff, and I hung a hook by his side of the bed--so his bathrobe would be the first thing at hand on the upcoming chilly mornings. Jeans were darned, buttons re-sewn. He bought me a bottle of fine wine, which I sipped while applying a faux-finish to a picture frame and stirring the simmering home-made soup--all to a soundtrack of 1920's Parisian songbirds and Mexican folk goddesses.

The kind of homey picture that would make me want to vomit, normally. But hey, sometimes you simply have to get your domiciliary groove on.

But nothing makes you seem more like a Thirtysomething cast member than a trip as a couple to a housewares store, which we also had to do this weekend (new bed; no sheets). There's no way around it: neither the necessity of such a trip, nor the resulting hipness-suckage. I challenge the coolest, edgiest person ever--a heyday Lou Reed--to feel like anything other than a yuppie bougie capitalist while discussing thread count with their partner at Bed Bath & Beyond.

The dynamics fascinate me while shopping in those stores. The scene is always, always the same: Couples--gay, straight, doesn't matter, nor is it gender specific--one wide-eyed and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of housey delights at hand...the other, invariably, has a look that says they'd rather birth a rhinoceros anally than be subjected to hours of deliberation over bath mats and lamp shades. You overhear lots of snippets like this:

"What do you think honey, the stainless dish rack, or the black plastic? Now I like the stainless, but it may rust, and the black one..."
"I don't care."
"What?"
"Whichever one. I don't care."
"What do you mean you don't care..."
"It's a dish rack."

"Wow! Look at these wine glasses!"
"We have wine glasses."
"But not like these."
"But we don't drink wine (receives 'the look')...put them in the cart."

"Ohhhh... throw pillows."
"Sweet Jesus no. We're on to throw pillows?"
"Aren't they beautiful, so soft..."
"I'm going out for a smoke."
"Do you like to ruin everything?"
"Allll-rightie then, I'll meet you outside."

"I just don't understand why we need to buy a liquid hand-soap dispenser when it comes in a dispenser."
"Because the bottles are ugly."
"Ugly? It comes in the same bottle you have in your hand!"
"They're not the same. The ones in the store have cheesy labels on them."
"A label? You want to pay twenty dollars for something so it doesn't have a label?"
"Yes, I do."
"That's insane! I'll scratch the labels off the ones from the store!"
"Oh, and grab a second one for the kitchen."
"The kitchen? For the...dish soap?"
"Yep."
"Because the labels on the dish soap..."
"...ugly."

Luckily G and I share a shopping phobia problem that keeps our jaunts to those places down to a minimum. Though I will admit to two things: being more in the delighted camp and he in the dear Christ can we get the fuck out of here camp, and that the last conversation was us. Verbatim.

This just in: Turns out ignorance is bliss.

The good thing about being a shut-in whose intellectual curiosity rarely leads me down the au currant path the rest of you saucy devils travel--is that I get to think a whole lotta shit was my idea. Tons of stuff. All mine.

For example, I am solely responsible for the world wide popularity of Coldplay. Oh I don't care that you hate them, or feel it necessary to prattle on about how they're the poor man's shabby knock-off of Radiohead--which they are--but who cares. The point is I discovered them and brought them to the world; for the world to love or hate as is its want.

The details: I was Napstering my little buttocks off one night (note to G: back when it was legal, stop cringing) and punched in a search for oh, I don't know, some Slow Dive tune I wanted as backdrop for a big get drunk and cry session. Included in the hits was a band I'd never heard of: Coldplay. I downloaded a song, liked it, and proceeded to hunt down every single song I could find, UK releases all. I burned tens of CD's, passed them along to everyone I knew (including actors and DJ's and record store clerks and wanna-be rock stars and an ex-boyfriend who had a very influential job at Viacom...okay, very influential is stretching it but it supports my argument), and before you knew it--BAM!! They were everywhere. Everywhere. You couldn't go into a music store, a restaurant, a corner bar... you couldn't go to a party or turn on the TV or get in an elevator or have a blessed quiet moment alone in a public bathroom without a Coldplay soundtrack. Their records flew off the shelves, their tours sold out months in advance, and they all became very rich men who got to knock up film stars. Because of me.

Well yeah they were already popular. Their course had been charted. I would have known that if I were paying attention, if I'd read a magazine or left the house once in awhile. But since I wasn't paying attention and didn't leave the house and couldn't have possibly known these things... I discovered them. See?

I've logged thousands of similar discoveries to date. Duct tape, Altoids, Ernie Kovacs. I pioneered the use of super glue for sealing minor cuts, turned garden-clippings into "mescaline greens", brought the poncho to the hipster crowd (sorry). The whole 'do-it-yourself home improvement on a dime' industry featured in the likes of Martha Stewart's Living and the Home and Garden channel? Me. Ever heard of a little thing called the I-Pod? All me. As a matter of fact, I can trace the popularity of everything from the booming homeopathic medicine market to reality television shows back to me.

It's a real esteem-booster, let me tell you. And easy. All you have to do is stop paying so much goddamn attention to everything.