...Where The Good Lord Split You

Malaria. Mumps. Mauling By A Bear. All Things We Will Miss More Than You.

When the “end” came for Senator Joe Lieberman (I-“only-give-a-fuck-about-me”—CT), it was hoped for by many here on the left that there would be more to it than what we got a week or so ago. More smoke. More fire. A bruising primary battle that he would again lose and again spit on the process with another third party run that would end this time with an exhausting loss and a bicuspid-loosening, lachrymose speech to end all bicuspid-loosening, lachrymose speeches.

Instead, we got the unexpected, punk-assed bow-out before the predicted knock-out…and a pretty damned lachrymose speech anyways.

We will take it.

You see, when you get a bow out like that, it means that said candidate's internal polling in-state is not merely on the negative end of things. It means that it is abysmal to the point where it can not be centrifugally spun to even neutral.

This final Senatorial term and his craven shenanigans during it soiled his reputation in Connecticut to the point where the number of those who'd backed him for the last twenty years, “just 'cuz”, was swamped by the number of those who'd begun to find themselves pissed off by him as far back as the 2000 Presidential election when he patty-caked with his direct opponent Dick Cheney(!), and the steadily increasing number of middle-grounders who found his post-September 11th hawk-fuck behavior growing more reprehensible by the month.

It would have been schadenfreudilly-icious fun to see it end for him all Santorum-like on a balloon and confetti-free stage with a small band of broken-hearted nutmegger supporters and a doddering, stiff-lipped John McCain by his side as the TV talking heads all went on about the sadness of it all / warrior carried out on his shield / “he was his own man” yada-yada they reflexively spew out of their mouths. “Just 'cuz”.

But instead, with his typical courage…Joe ran away rather than get run out. We'll never know just how awful the internals actually were, but let's just say that the numbers were not based on some random “it just happened”, shrug your shoulders “Wha?” anomaly. In politics, things happen for a reason. And Joe Lieberman started seeding the ground early for his abandonment by the Connecticut electorate.

In 1998, he let it be known to the generation of Democratic politicos that came after him and ascended to power without his king-making-thank-you-very-much! that he would not be ignored, when he came out as the one Dem to most obviously hop a cheap-ass hobo-ride on the right wing's “Get Bill Clinton Express” during the impeachment hearings. This was one of the first times I remember hearing about Lieberman's oh-so-convenient “moral” (pronounced by Joe in that annoying as hell, cloying “moooooaaaaaawww-raaawwwwllll” intonation) nature. It would sadly, not be the fucking last.

Two years later in 2000, having ridden the wave of fame from his standing alone against Bill Clinton's penis or something like that, we found Joe again on the national stage, having been chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate by then veep Al Gore in a stupidly misguided attempt to curry favor with the mewling, chicken-necked scolds of the voter base. Lieberman not only brought us all the new word for the opposite of voter excitement (“Joe-mentum”), but also let everyone know who his friends truly were when he he rhetorically gelded himself and handed over on the world's smallest silver platter said separated goods to his opponent, the famously venomous Dick Cheney during their lone Vice Presidential debate that season. His relationship with Cheney that night was like that of a sozzled patrician reveler at a dinner party in Georgetown who realizes upon grabbing the last canapé off the hors d'œuvres tray that a fellow “Villager” has grabbed the other end of it—where they laughingly break the fucking thing in half, each wolf it down and then cut some cushy deal two weeks later as they hack the 18th hole at Swan Point to bits because “Hey, guys like us…we have to get along, right?”.

Wrong.

Throw in his droopy-jowled capitulation to Bush, Cheney and the Brooks Brothers Rioters during the later 2000 recount fight, totally undermining the top-of-the-ticket push to count every vote and his passive / aggressive pattern became clear to all. Albeit a bit too clear for ol' Joe, though…

As the year 2004 bought him back into the limelight. That is, if you consider “the limelight” the bare periphery of the goddamned political stage where you could just make out his silhouette where the haze of the spotlight ends and stagehand-hiding darkness begins. He was ten things beyond an afterthought in the 2004 Democratic Presidential primaries and that universal opinion evidently bent what was left of the needle of his wildly spinning internal moral compass for fucking good. Sure, it's doubtful that his almost metronomic fellating of George Bush's divisive Iraq War in the face of its bullshitteousness (which as said bullshitteousness increased, so oddly did his support for it) didn't have a thing to do with Dems running from him on the national stage like he had the disease-of-the-day SARS shooting out of his pores at them, huh?. He took offense that Dems took offense over his playing doormat to the GOP's shit-covered shoes whenever possible and never looked back after that should-have-been-ruinous political season. Should-have-been-ruinous. Alas.

Shoot ahead to 2006 when even Nutmeg State Dems found him distastefully bitter and chose another Democrat, Ned Lamont to be their standard bearer for the party. Joe went to the mattresses at this point, invoking his alter ego Droopy Dog's mantra “You know what? That makes me mad.” and effectively laid waste to what was left of his Democratic bona fides with his third party run for the slot. It was going to be a win / win for him. If he won, he'd thumb his nose at the party he'd screwed into despising him, and even if he lost he'd split the vote so the “ungrateful” Dems couldn't possibly win, thus handing the seat over to his canapé-sharing palsie-walsies in the G.O.P. Scenario Number One came to pass, and from that point forward, he would be led only by his aforementioned (cue the heroic-but-dated Frank Capra movie music) “moooooaaaaaawww-raaawwwwllll nature”.

Which meant nad-kicking anyone and any policy that he simply disliked because it originated from or benefited the party he'd been abandoning since his supposedly canny shanking of Bill Clinton in '98. Hell, as far back as his first term really, since he giddily backed George Bush the Senior's initial Gulf War in 1991. People forget about that little shot across the bow.

It was all downhill and ugly on big, square wheels after that for ol' Joey “Shanks”. From his unctuous, drama-queeny dithering on who to caucus with in the Senate and playing the Dems for chumps (not that hard of a thing, really) by invoking his magical, key Senate vote in return for attendance at key leadership meetings, only to run back to Mitch McConnell and crew with the “Ooh, Ooh! Here's what they're gonna do!” dirt, to his dude-who-will-not-leave-the-party-even-though-the-host's-gotta-go-to-work-the-next-day level of continued support for the war in Iraq after everyone else saw it for the debacle it was, to his bilious backing of Connecticut's Catholic-run Hospitals refusing to administer the morning after pill on the religious whims of their owners to rape victims (Yes…rape…VICTIMS!), which prompted his infamous “It's only a short ride to another hospital” callous-speak, his descent was like un-unwatchable blurry footage of a wild car crash from some cheesy “You Gotta See This!” late night reality video show. He'd campaign with his comrade-in-hypocrisy John McCain during the latter's 2008 stumble for President and then…then give a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2008 that showed us all the bold difference between “Country Crazy” (Zell Miller) and “DINO Diabolical” (Lieberman himself). After President Obama's election and the Dems increasing their Senate numbers to where Lieberman's passive-aggresive pussy-footing meant even less, he was reduced to the occasional “moooooaaaaaawww-raaawwwwllll” pontification on whatever vote it was that would move him to be that ineffectual old man yelling at clouds in the sky.

Until now. Those bad internal polls and a little bird's tale of less-than-good responses from potential donors on an initial reach-out for a 2012 run were enough to squelch his hopes of torturing us with six more years of deeply felt moaning from that tom turkey neck of his.

Of course, just 48 hours ago, he let loose a spew of pride-bandaging nonsense about how he 'could have won if he chose to run' as political reporters' angle on him was shifting to how his once-considerable constituency had evaporated. His statement only went to prove the point that a self-aggrandizing, toothless leopard never really can change its spots. But just before all that and his retirement announcement, he desperately tried to pull one of the oldest and most transparent tricks in ye olde book of con-artistry. And that was his flexing what little power he had left in getting “Don't Ask—Don't Tell” repealed when he did and the way he did.

Take yourself back to high school, junior going into senior year—pretty much the stretch run of things and you'll probably remember this scenario either happening to you or saw it happen to any number of people: Kids who spent the last few chapters of their time there fucking off everything worth a damn—ditching every class they had, smoking in the stairwells, and acting like utterly self-centered tools to anyone who dared call them on these transgressions while simultaneously compounding the school's delinquency problem . All of a sudden as the end nears, they get it in their heads to come back to class, make up a few homework assignments and maybe slap together a project they should have been working on throughout and then expect that final, furtive burst of psuedo-conscientious activity to be the thing their entire student career is to be graded upon. “Pay no attention to my long legacy of assholery…how's about this fine poster board triptych and still-drying papier-mâché presentation on the life-cycle of the multitude-feeding, mother-fucking corn plant, huh?”

“I mean…I get a science medal for this, right?”

No.You. Do. Not.

Joe Lieberman was that dorkwad student for the entire second half of his Senate career, siding with the delinquents and thugs and being a general miscreant and pain-in-the-ass to everyone who expected better of him and let him know that they did. He comes to the obvious end of things and then, only then—did he suddenly figure it was finally okay to do a “gasp!” decent thing for some Americans who really needed it in the last session of Congress where he could really use some of that alleged capital he'd sat his wrinkled ass on for years. He is that asshole kid you will remember forever for overflowing all the toilets during lunch—when you were on one of them. He is the dude who thought it would be fun to mix the science class' magnesium flakes into the pottery class clay, thus blowing up the kiln and contaminating the gym with fumes for three months. During the winter. That dude…who wants you to instead remember for him for that excellent goddamned corn plant display he roughed off in the last three weeks of school. DADT repeal was great. But hey, it was the only decent thing to do…and special points are not awarded for doing what you are supposed to do, especially when in retrospect it is one of the only things you were supposed to do that you actually went out and did.

In a prizefight, you don't win 'cause you put together a pretty flurry in the last thirty seconds of each round after shambling about and tanking the first two minutes and thirty seconds of those rounds, because it never really fools the judges.

Only dive-taking bums do that. And Joe Lieberman…is a dive-taking bum.

I will not miss him, and neither will you. His bogus “moooooaaaaaawww-raaawwwwllll” nature will be an afterthought after countless afterthoughts before it. That passive-aggressive backstabbiness and craven ransom holding of votes that should have been simple-human-decency-based will not be thought of as ironic or crafty politicking, but rather as what they were—underhanded and self-serving. His migraine-inducing plays for integrity when confronted with his misdeeds, trotting out the sad, soggy old card of neo-cons everywhere—“I marched with Dr. King”—will absolutely not be missed. Real warriors of that time never have to bring that shit up out of context. Only post-mid-life-crisis ideological flip-floppers looking to cover their naked asses from rightful criticism work that mawkish angle out of the blue.

So, Joe…it ends…as bad things like root canals, IRS audits and weekend-long diarrheic bouts with Indian food poisoning always do. With the sufferer pained and worse for wear, but happier than a cat in a “Deadliest Catch” fish hold that the bad times are at long last over. Toodle-oooo, Joey, and I hope your future career at Fox is so quickly negotiated that when the Senate door swings shut to hit you where the Good Lord split you that it can only strike the vapor of whatever final legislative fart on the way out I know you'll decide to grace that august chamber with.

Here's a song to scoot out to. And please enjoy Oran's spoken word love poem at the 2:23 mark.

There's more...

Here we go, kids...

Sit Down Fer A Spell. Kick Yer Shoes Off. Blog A Little...

Yes, it's me...and...we're here!

We hot-footed it out of New York 'round about 1 a.m., accessing good ol' I-95 with a quick slash onto the N.J. Turnpike off the Lincoln Tunnel's Garden State outlet. Fueled with Sunoco, (after a bout with a shy-as-hell gas cap lock button—putting the button under a floor mat..really?) and fine home-made brownies whipped up by a delightful last-minute passenger from “the gig” (Thank you, Ms. B.B.!), we ate up the miles quickly before ending the trek in Arlington where we're headquartering ourselves. We got our Brownie-Baking Beauty to her destination, than motored over to the credentials site, got those (with tea and oatmeal for my Miles Davis-meets-broken-glass-and-razor-wire voice) and then made excellent time in getting to the Hilton Washington Hotel for the Emily's List luncheon celebrating Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, Speaker of the House Pelosi, and Labor Secretary-designate Hilda Solis.

It's quite heady when you step back for a minute and realize that in a matter of hours literally, “our long national nightmare will be over”. The Mayflower van will back its green and gold ass up to 1600 Pennsylvania and depart with the accumulated personal detritus of an eight-year-long series of kidney punches to America'a prestige and psyche.

Rolling into town there were the peaceful sights of a butter golden-lit U.S. Capitol looming off to our left in the pre-dawn sky, the Washington Monument's spire poking above trees and every short thing that seemed to try to occlude it from view.

And then, there was the silent standing army of thousands of Port-A-Potties almost “guarding” massive swaths of the National Mall area. I didn't catch myself in mid-sentence quickly enough before saying aloud, “Well...that's a shit-load a' Port-A-Potties!!”...but hey...there they were.

It was eerie on the drive down. Very few cars and no traffic..but that could be the result of many holding off travel until today—which should be a simply awful prospect when you consider the millions who will descend upon—and in too many cases, condescend to this amazingly complicated city. In New York it was all “push-push / shove-shove”...but the lettered and numbered streets of D.C. were typically early-Sunday mornin' empty.

“This is a Southern town still.” Jesse noted as we drove. “Folks are either at Church, or at home reading the paper.”, when our passenger asked why there weren't people camping out early—as New Yorkers surely would.

Me? I'm burnt. Dog tired. It's why you haven't heard from me since Thanksgiving. My work schedule has been abysmal, yet if you can believe it—oddly rewarding, especially since I consider myself one lucky Black duck to even have a job, what with the hemhorraging of jobs everywhere around us. Beat? Whupped. Yeah. I suppose I am. But then, I could be working—or rather, NOT working for Circuit City. You'll hear from me again this Inaugural weekend and beyond, as my crazed life does its post-holiday re-stabilizing.

I'm just glad to be back. With eyes open, and senses all a' jangle as I sit, stand, walk, cheer and am struck agog by the event I never thought I'd live to see, playing out before me in real time. Months ago I called the spectacle of what would transpire when millions of folk would just sort of impromptu “drop in” on this place. And I can see it now.

My sisters are here.

Friends have cadged and cajoled tickets for this and that from any relative with a chit to cash in.

A bevy of co-workers “got the day” and are holed up with friends, family and ex-es down here to be close by when the roof is torn off the sucker down here in Chocolate City.

The “Be-In” is on, folks...and we “be-in” it. Color me tall, dark, and stunned.

Somebody needs to pinch me. Sara, do the honors.

There's more...

The Effigy In Chief

Definitely NOT The “Burning Bush” Moses Had In Mind...

So here we are, post-Campaign '08, standing on the verge of getting it on as America never has before—with a president unlike any other who has preceded him waiting in the wings to take office, or, as my mother said, “We're at the 'licking the batter out of the bowl' stage...it ain't 'cake' until it's outta the oven on January 20th”. In that interim, we get our final looks at the miserable failure of a president of the last eight crapper-swirling years.

One George W. Bush.

We look at what is, and what will be, and they are quite different indeed. We said this about the exiting resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a few months ago:

For all of the positives Senator Obama brings to the table, and those positives are indeed mighty ones, when I look at America's long, and unresolved history of racism—right down to last year's “noose-a-palooza”—his present nearness to the levers of power still reads as an anomaly to me and many others you would think would be turning cartwheels of joy. What could move this country to this strange precipice we stand at today?

Say hello to the forty-third President of The United States, George W. Bush.

Should Barack Obama pull this thing off, down the road, the most diamond-hard of hard-core American racists will burn effigies of Dubya's figure, as they will blame him, with some truth behind it—for the country's electing its first Black president. Bush has so trashed the country—its reputation, its infrastructure, its economy, the military, the right to privacy, the Justice Department—just about every element of any piece of government that his “King Midas In Reverse” hand has touched, that he has moved America to the point where for many more than ever before, race will not matter as much in their choice of president, and said people are seriously willing to consider the polar opposite image of the executive branch awfulness they've endured for eight years.

Commander In Chief can't speak? Let's get one who can, huh?

Commander In Chief is an absolute idiot? Can we get one who's got an above-average intelligence, please?

Commander In Chief has the diplomatic skill of an F-5 hurricane? Howsabout someone who will talk to people and exhaust negotiation before more hasty, destructive considerations?

Commander In Chief is everything people have come to utterly despise in the typical, privileged class of leadership for over two hundred years? Okay, fuck it. we will at this point actually consider someone for the job who does not even look remotely like the dude who has fucked this place to Kingdom-Goddamn-Come.

And yes...even if it means said person is a Black dude who can trace his bloodline all the way back to the Motherland in so few steps, Alex Haley's grave is probably trembling from inner centrifugal forces as we speak.

The Bushian legacy may be akin to the fabled volcanic one of the Hawaii of Barack Obama's youth. The destructive power of a earth-shattering volcanic eruption rains down boiling lava and a thick ash—burning away and fossilizing the past in so many ways. And from that hell-spawned lava, mineral-rich ash and debris, the soil becomes hyper-fertilized to the point that what grows from it...can often be spectacular.

And as I said at the top, “here we are”. Note in the passage I wrote before, this line,

“...the most diamond-hard of hard-core American racists will burn effigies of Dubya's figure, as they will blame him, with some truth behind it—for the country's electing its first Black president.“

We've already seen the pundits and pretenders cast that blame Bush-ward in the days leading up to the GOP's taking those electoral brass knuckles in the grille on the fourth. The talk of how Obama and many downticket candidates had successfully hitched the square-wheeled wagon of Bushdom to their republican opponents was a daily moan for those hoping for wingnut success. Sarah Palin—that paragon of bottom-o'-the-ticket loyalty—didn't throw Bush under the bus. She effectively got off the bus and via remote-control blew the damn thing into carbonized shrapnel “Speed”-style with Bush still on board, and peering out the window with that classic look of mock-concern furrowing his brow. And as I said, when the history of this time is written, many will caption President Bush's picture with the line, “The guy who fucked it all up for the GOP”. In our newfound seas of post-partisan positivity, there are jagged islets of bitterness. And George W. Bush's shipwreck of a presidency lays beached upon them.

The last thing this little bantam rooster had to phlegmatically crow about was his precious economy—and his “King Midas In Reverse” touch (to forever be dubbed here as “The Fickle Fecal Finger of Fate™”) has now wrecked even that nearly beyond repair. And now that everything... everything lay in sad ruins on the estate of “The House Of Bush”, you will find the usual few who will down the road a piece deny they ever said a kind word about the man they fellated till their tongues muscled up enough to do “pose-downs”. Anecdotes will unfurl, detailing the awful behind-the-scenes skullduggery, and soft-skulled stupid that went down in Bush's cipher of closed-minded certainty. His middle name might as well be “macadam” for all the bus traffic that'll go over him.

And yet...there will be a another group...those who for all their degrees (albeit from Grade-Z universities...) and title-age would appear to know better—who will defend against the coming immolation of “their” president—inflicted by progressives and their conservative brethren alike. These sad people will rush to Bush's defense like flies to a hot mound of shit, because they have spent the last eight years totally invested in propping up this tin-horn punk, and spinning him as some Brundle-machine-spawned amalgam of Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and John Wayne—a thankless task, made all the more difficult by its exposure by the historical record at hand. To own up to Bush's captaincy of his eight-year cruise on the S.S. Failboat would be to own up to their own part in stoking its boilers below-decks for the whole damned time. Tied into that ass-covering is the attempt to get out in front of history's avalanche of facts. It is an effort to hit the reset button on the Bushian legacy to make everyone forget about all the awful blue-screens, freezes and crashes that have come to identify it. So, rather than allow the natural “Nixonizing”™ of George W. Bush, and themselves (these sycophants) being tarred with that gooey brush as enablers they are actively working the usual channels to nip reality in the bud.

They would be funny...if they weren't so orphanage fire sad.

This almost-immediately-after-the-election piece in the Bull Shit Wall Street Journal (owned along with Dow Jones Co. by Rupert Murdoch) makes you want to just pull an “Old Yeller” on the poor, suffering beasts...

Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush. The proposition is only one example of the classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president. According to recent Gallup polls, the president's average approval rating is below 30% -- down from his 90% approval in the wake of 9/11. Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right.

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, “Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.”

Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.

You know...I'm truly sorry I missed all those “bipartisan efforts”...you see, I was busy getting my ribs kicked in by all those kind “Bushies” extending a jackbooted foot helping hand.

This is the same rotgut grade of spin deployed by wingnut command and control during the campaign season—which is to say that its quality resides somewhere between dreadful and abysmal. And as the old saying goes, “A fish rots from the head down” with this crowd, because that same message “command and control” bedshit is manifesting itself in their sub-JV propaganda arm—the right-tard blogosphere. When I first saw this next turdbit tidbit of truth-twsiting, I immediately went to the Minneapolis Star website, fearing that I'd missed the news that the piece's “author” had been waylaid somewhere on Election Day, beaten about the head with a lead pipe and severely brain damaged.

But this is but a Photoshop. An “alternate universe” headline. The actual piece was real, and its author...just that out of his Goddamned mind.

(GNB Ed. Note: JOHN HINDERAKER—The Artist Formerly Known As Hindrocket:)

“Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.”

You know...it'd be so much fun to tear ol' Hindrocket limb from limb, like a barn cat whaling on a poison-addled mouse. And just as easy. There are countless devastating attacks one could end his ass with after a mad cow-spawned bleat like that one. And of course, this other all-time hit of his:

“It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.”

But you know what...let's just go back to Hindy's latest little bit of “salad shooting” shall we?

JOHN HINDERAKER—The Artist Formerly Known As Hindrocket: “Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.”

Let it hang there in the air...like a big, treat-swollen pînata, and the whole world with a nail-studded bat. Only two words are needed...two measly fucking words and one image to kick Hinderaker's silly ass up between his shoulder blades on this canard.

“Mission Accomplished”

These charlatans were as oversold as the nuthin' stocks that buoyed the Bush-era stock market. Remember those infamous breakfasts Bush had with his cyber-stenographers in talk radio and the wingnut blogosphere to stroke their frail, basement-pallored egos and let them know in no uncertain terms that they were on his team? In the end, he needn't have wasted the danish, coffee and nappy-time cajoling these losers. They'd been in the tank since day one, and have so heavily invested what few shreds of integrity they were lucky to have as capital in backing Bush's EVERY SORDID MISDEED, that to dare cite his failures without false equivocation would be to highlight their sad, toadying support of these miscarriages of office.

The effigying of their beloved boss has begun...but these “not-so-secret-service” men are offering up their “bodies”—their reputations (I'll wait for you to stop stifle-spittling you computer screen over that expenditure of nothing.) to pre-defend against that deserved and inevitable onslaught.

And those defenses are as ineffective as if they'd thrown a gallon of high-test onto their now-burning Bush to put him out. They are as tied to him as the various politicos who went down in defeat during the last two election cycles—the '06 midterms and now this last awful, possibly generation-killing whopper for the GOP. It wasn't that long ago when PowerLine was deemed “Blog of The Year” by Time Magazine, and Bush was still able to score cheap, macho points for his branch-moving / tumbleweed-kicking Crawford photo-ops.

Those days are long gone, as the president himself—it's been a while since anyone's given so much as a tinker's damn about him—has been swamped in his own morass of failures and the recriminations of many who blindly supported him while ceding what common sense they may have had.

Some, like Christopher “Hiccup!” Hitchens and his friend one elbow away at the “No Hope Bar”, Ms. Peggy Noonan, as well as their one-time Kool-Aid™ addicted pal Andrew Sulivan managed to walk away just as the effigy flames went from smoldering ember to dancing orange curls. They were singed. Maybe lost an eyebrow or got first degrees on their hands and face. Reddened, but politically “alive”.

The likes of Hinderaker and the reality-denying fools at the WSJ (They never did run the Obama election victory notice on the Times Square Dow Jones news “Zipper”.) are in a worse way. Blistered. Charred. “Crispy Crittered” on their own accord. Instead of simply dancing around the “Burning Man” in appreciation, their single-mined cultishness moves them to run up and embrace the roiling fire—not to extinguish it, but rather, to validate it. And burn it will, for quite some time. Immediately after January 20th when the reality and ultimately American History-making of Bush's gaffe-fastic tenure sinks in, the torches of anger and blame will alight at their most most bright from many on the right, eager to assign a reason...a living, breathing reason for this—for them—cataclysm. And many of them will be right. But those who will continue to defend? To futilely attempt to spin even when there is no solid ground beneath them, only the soft, mushy terrain of failure? As Thanksgiving nears, I think of turkeys...sometimes too stupid to not look up in the pouring rain and drown, or pile into a corner en masse when startled—unthinkingly crushing their poor brethren at the bottom.

Silly. Stupid. And senseless. Dumb as flightless, pen-raised birds. But these...are human beings. And dumb as they may be on the common sense tip and basic book learnin', you would think these Glossolaliacs with all of their fervent yammering would maybe have remembered a thing or two from church. Even if it's just a song.

It’s gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
you better get ready and bear this in mind.
God showed Noah by the rainbow sign,
no more water, but fire next time.

And if they're just fakin' it in church, a secular song is still more than enough to jog the ol' senses.



“Got me burnin', got me burnin...”

There's more...

“The Happening”

Photo by Lower Manhattanite—Times Square, Election Night—2008

An Election Day 2008 Diary

It had been a tough three days before, with work and familial doings avalanching down onto me. I was buried. A court date. Some stern talkings to with a couple of the kids, and the job getting ridiculously busy and weird all at once.

But Election Day was here...and there I was, up at six a.m.—jumpy as a caffeinated cat in a rocking chair factory—while also oddly numb. A mix of excitement and a tempered calm all at once. The horrific President George W. Bush was going to be “out” regardless of the day's events. The issue was, would his exit usher in a person who is clearly, and thankfully against damn near everything this venal man holds close to his icy little heart, or would it open the door to a dangerously flawed individual who had traded his integrity, common sense, and very soul to the devil and the dummy he was replacing, just to have a chance at the office?

The day was long. And littered with events of significance, and some were just...things that happened—but also holding a bit of meaning themselves. Not quite “chaos theory”, but important in their own odd ways...

9:25 A.M. FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN:
Strolling to my polling place, thinking “Eh. This'll go quick. This is a “blue” state. People are excited, but hey—this one's safe. I should be outta here in about 35 minutes.

Tacking east in Dekalb Avenue, I figured I'd have an hour or so after voting to quietly enjoy a cup of coffee at Tillie's down the block, but rounding the corner to the school I vote at, I was disabused of that notion. The line out of the building was at least seventy people long, hugging the wrought iron fence. Every other person read a newspaper or was texting / phoning someone. One would-be voter's rather animated conversation jumped out at me in particular...

BIRACIAL LOOKING WALL STREET GUY IN RALPH LAUREN PURPLE LABEL / DUNHILL SUIT:

“Yeah. I thought this'd be short—but sheee-it! I'm gonna be here at least an hour.”

(BEAT)

“Fuck, are you kidding? I'll get there when I get there! I'm not getting off the line! Later.”

It was like that as the line trundled forward slowly, full of old people, young people, just-got-heres, and been-here-forevers. Black, White and the aforementioned mix between. Pratt kids, a few of the “Trustafarian” set and of course, the young local artistes the world has taken to calling “BoHos” and (yeccch!) “Blipsters”. I liked the fact that there were so many elderly folk representin' so hard. There was a gentlemen about ten places up ahead of me who kept opening, reading and then closing a book on Marcus Garvey as we puttered forward to the big, red levered booths awaiting us. Every time he cracked that book open and read a little, he seemed to “charge up” a little more. His initial hunching over was replaced with a ramrod-straight stance after a few passages were read. Damned if he didn't seem a little “bigger” as well, puffing out his chest just enough to be noticed now. Interesting.

I was on line for fifty-five minutes. It was steamy hot in the hallway leading to the lunchroom where the machines sat, all municipal gray and green with their stiff. leaden curtains. Did my duty, pulling that huge lever hard as I voted down the GOP and all attached to it. “Ker-whluuuuunnnnk!”

I could not help but feel as if I was activating a big, heavy guillotine. Ending some evil shit once and for all. “Ker-whluuuuunnnnk!” And not a Goddamned tear shed I as I did my little bit to help kill the last eight awful years deader than dead.

Happy voting and Good riddance.

I left the booth with a bit of swagger. Like some hit man having neatly dispatched not just a target...but a really loathsome and probably deserving target. I wished to God I'd had some neat-ass leather gloves to pull off purposefully, one finger at a time. I wasn't alone in the swaggering. More than a few others had the “bop” as we walked out the door. A gentlemen slowed down walking next to me and hopped on his cell phone.

“Yeah. Where the hell were you? Well, I've been down here since a quarter after. Uh-uh. I don't wanna hear that. Get your ass down here. Now. You're gonna do this. I'll be outside. Serious. You're gonna do this.”

I grabbed my coffee and didn't sit down to drink it. Errands to run. Electricity in the air. A palpable, unnerving electricity. My swagger melted under the charge. I didn't enjoy the coffee as my stomach was unsettled. Not from fear...just from a feeling like I imagine animals get when they sense an earthquake is coming.

Turns out one was.

1:40 P.M. CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN:
Made it to the bank and dropped off some things at a friend's house. People are walking hard and purposefully towards the train station and they're almost ALL talking about either having voted or being on the way TO voting. The bootleg Obama memorabilia vendors were doing brisk business on the corner of Utica Avenue. The black XXXL sweatshirt with the bronze metallic graphics of Obama's face and a bold, old english “Yes We Can!” blew in the damp, pre-rain breeze on it's hanger from a shopping cart-mounted broom.

And then as I got close to the subway station, there was a crowd forming near the park bench outside it. Was it someone laying on the ground, post-fight? Five-O rousting a fare-beater roughly? No. It was this fella...

Photo by Lower Manhattanite—Utica Avenue Station, November 4th, 2008

The literal “Big Dog” supporting Barack Obama.

People were stopping and whipping out their camera phones and the like to snap away at the big bruiser, who was so well trained that when you got down close to him, he'd raise his massive left paw to shake with you. The big, glad-handing son-of-a-bitch had politician savvy to spare. As I clicked away, a woman chuckled at the dog, saying “Um. Yeah. The hell with 'please'—that dog is demanding you vote for Obama!”

“Put some lipstick on that mother fucker, and you'll draw back a nub!”, said one man snapping a cell phone pic.

And he broke everybody the hell up.

5:15 P.M—10:45 P.M. MIDTOWN MANHATTAN:
From the moment I walk in, there's that weird tension again. The place isn't crowded—odd for this time of day, and it seems folks are all elsewhere—either voting or waiting with bated breath for the results of said voting. To a person, every co-worker asks everyone “Did you vote?”. At the gig itself, everyone's been given a two-hour extension on “in” time or on breaks to go do that civic duty we maybe haven't done so well in the past. “Terrorist” fist bumps (the usual greeting at work) are now done every time folks cross paths, instead of on the initial “Hey, what's up?” The evening wears on and the place empties out considerably. I go for dinner and detour to Daffy's for a tuxedo shirt (for a black tie event later that night—“either a celebration or a wake” as the party-thrower described it) as I realize I've left mine home. The usually closing-time packed place is a veritable ghost town.

I can hear my feet echoing hard as I make my way down the escalator, it's so damned quiet in the usually bustling store.

There's a security guard at the base of the stairs. I note aloud to her, “Place is empty, ain't it?”

“Good.”, she says—me thinking she's happy to have a light night work-wise. Until she completes her statement...

“Folks are out doin' the right thing. Or they're getting ready to celebrate the right thing. What're you here for?”

“A tux shirt.”

“For tonight?” I nod affirmatively. “There you go!”, she says while pointing at me. “There you go!

Back at work, everybody's on a computer—and amazingly, not on Facebook™ for fucking once. They're clocking the returns. Sighs of concern go up as McCain takes Kentucky—big whoop to those who know better, and eventually a rhythm develops, we mill about and check in with each other quietly with the tallies, and it's clear things are going well. The spread is widening. My buddy “S” sidles up and giddily whispers “It's the death blow. Obama just got Pennsylvania.”

“Oh, shit.” I say. “But you know, he was pretty much gonna have that anyway.”

“Yeah, but McCain needed it, and he didn't get it. Not even close.”

Not long after that, “S” comes back with an update, but this one in song. He's humming “Turn Out The Lights...the Party's Over” while trying to look nonchalant.

“I know...Pennsylvania.”, I snark.

“Uh-uh.” he smiles. “Riddle me this Bat-boy...what do...Kent State, The Cleveland Indians...annnnnnnnnnd...LeBron James, all have in common.”

Sweet God but I hate riddles...especially just-made-up ones with no context. And then, and answer hits me.

“Ohio?”

“Ohio.” he says. “Death blow my ass. That's embalming fluid right there.”

And oh, he was right. people began crowding around the computer with the biggest screen while still trying—and failing to look nonchalant. One person on a smaller computer walked away from it and said in total deadpan...“It's over. he got the numbers.” A bevy of folks ran over to the abandoned computer and looked at it quizzically. “S” fairly hissed at the early election-caller, “You Goddamn dyslexic! It's at 207! He needs 270! Learn to read!”

It was now 10:45 and the place was virtually empty save for the few of us out front, and our own people in back. Ghost Town Re-dux I was done for the night, fully aware that 11 P.M. was going to be the ass-kick. California's fifty-five electoral votes were coming in and I and everybody on the planet knew how that was going to go. Florida was a narrow lead for the side of “good” and that surprised me. It was just a matter of time. But somehow, I hedged inside...still not quite believing what was coming.

But here was eleven P.M., rolling in like a wave and a gang of us stood huddled around the big screen in back—and then...

Bombastic music, 3-D columns, flying graphics and a slow zoom on the commentators desk. Talking heads go all sonorous and quaver-y, and then the announcement with the close of the western polls.

Barack Obama was the President-Elect...the 44th President of The United States. The “kids” I work with—all in their twenties, were whooping and hollering. There was no confetti, but I'll be damned if it didn't seem like there was. Jumping, hugging, and more than a bit of HR-worrying kissing. I leaned back against the wall and felt the whole damned world coming apart around me. My body felt like I'd been dropped from a plane or something—in free-fall with nothing touching me at all. Excitement, fear, confusion and disorientation swept over me all at once.

Did what they said just happened, just happen?

Apparently, it had.

Eldridge Cleaver's old line came to me. “Where was my mind at? Blown.”

I was frankly, stunned. “Why?”, you may ask? Baggage. Great big, old, ol' school carts full of it—festooned with tattered tags from some places familiar, and others I'd never been near, but had seen a million times.

“Money Mississippi”, “Memphis, Tennsessee”, “Birmingham, Alabama”, “Cicero, Illinois”, “Bensonhurst, Brooklyn”. Meridian. Selma. Jackson. Boston 1974, Lower Manhattan 1993. Like some dark, pained version of the ditty “I've Been Everywhere”, except the namechecks aren't clever. They're wounds that many Black folk of a certain age haven't ever really healed from. We get around, yes. But when the air is damp with reminders of bigotry past, we feel those aches...bone deep below every old bruise.

I guess, when you're of a certain age in America—Black and of a certain age—It's as hard as hell to get past a history of pain.

I sat there, with my Pavlovian trepidation for his (Obama's) security being subsumed by what could only be called awe, as my very soul seemed to be re-arranging itself, like a computer's hard drive after a necessary, diagnostic de-fragmenting. Not to sell anything short, but I'm frankly astounded at where Barack Obama stands right now. And the hell with the complacent “Hey, I'm just glad to be here” mantra. “Here” is actually one hell of an amazing place when you look at it.

-------------------------------------------------

I didn't watch much more TV. I made myself a drink. A Pimms and Seven, and sloshed it about the glass and ice to chill it as I padded downstairs to the front steps. I sipped it slow, and looked up every now and then at the stars and frankly wondered to myself, “How?”

And though I knew “how”, as I'm decent with math and strategy, I still had to ask, in the face of where I live and what history has taught me.

I could hear my phone ringing upstairs. My wife called down. “It's your mother!”

I took the call. She was ecstatic. And she was angry, too. Where was the concession?

“Ma,” I said. “The hell with a concession. Do you realize what happened tonight?”

And she seemed to hyperventilate for a moment as a string of vowels and consonants came out of her mouth tumbling like a mess from “Fibber McGee's Closet”, but at the end of it all, she took a breath and I made out the words “Not in my lifetime”.

“Not in my lifetime” applied to me too. Maybe too many of us, sadly.

But here it was. And a hundred hours later or so, that concession and endorsement would come too. Classy and painful all at once. Bittersweet, yet full of vigor.

In my lifetime.

You ask “Is this possible?” as the possible unspools before your eyes. I know I did. And frankly, I was in a trance as I high-fived, low-fived, fist-bumped, bro-hugged and “you the man” finger-pointed my way back to the office where my tux hung awaiting me.

I dressed in silence, save for the roaring loop in my head, going “Did this really just happen?” I kept dropping my shirt studs out of nervousness. I was an absolute fumble-fingers. And after I was dressed, I sat down for a minute, Rodin's “Thinker” style and then, yes...actually pinched myself on the neck to make sure what I was experiencing was real.

It sho' nuff' was.

Walking through the back offices and eventually to the front of house, my attire was greeted with “woooo-hoooos!” and “That's what I'm talkin' bouts!”. Black man, Black tie, Black President was a little bit too much for some people that night. There was a faint misting in the air as I broke outside. I paused for a minute and called my wife, snuggled up at home and under the weather for days...but well enough to “Woooo-hoooo!” herself. I called my mother, who was in tears.

“You don't understand, son...he may take North Carolina, too.” she said with the awe of a little girl—going on sixty-seven. North Carolina voted for a Black person over a White person for statewide, no...PRESIDENT? I don't know what to think, I swear. Down is up, baby. Down...is...up!”

“I was in such a hurry to get out, I didn't even realize that.” I replied. “I'm just...I can't believe this happened in my lifetime. I never woulda thunk it.”

“Well...” she countered, “Think of how I feel. Me and your Daddy grew up there when it was segregated. I saw those 'Colored' and 'White' signs every day, and had to live with that. Your Daddy had to jump off the curb if he saw 'Miss Lady' comin'. We LIVED through that. 'Gal' this, and 'Boy' that. That's how we lived. Couldn't get too smart or reach too far. They'd kill us for that. Your uncles ran away from there as soon as they could after Emmitt Till, and they weren't alone. So yeah, I know you have trouble believing tonight, but think of how my generation feels. We had it so bad, we couldn't even dream of something like tonight...

...But here we are.”

And I heard her sigh. Then sniffle. And she said. “This is too much. I gotta go. Call me in the morning...there's too much to talk about right now.”

I stood there for a minute looking up at the rain-flecks coming down and listening to the quiet of West 57th Street. The “clop-clop” of a Hansom carriage echoed about, and someone fairly screamed a loud “Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-aaaaaaaah!” from the rim of the park. It would not be the last loud exhortation I'd hear as the night was just beginning. Off I walked.

12:15—1:45 A.M. MIDTOWN MANHATTAN:

I put in my appearance at the soiree. Champagne flowed, along with some tears of joy and relief. Me? I hardly knew anyone there save for the kind-of-connected couple who invited me. It was a chance to get dap and have some good food, pretty much. The shrimp (or “scrimp” as my clump of Black folks near the bookcase “round the way” dubbed them) cocktail was exquisite. The hors d'oeuvres sublime. I can't front—the baby lamb chops with that mint sauce had everyone kind of twisted out. We saw the server trying to hide and gather her nerve near the kitchen door with a fresh plate, as she knew she was going to be descended upon like desert carrion by us lamb-crazed vultures. She got three feet from the door before the plate was picked bare. One of us actually buzzard “scrawked” as we bored in. That was about as “fun” as things got at the little soireé. (Save for one other incident) There was lots of watching CNN's Candy Crowley grumping and Brit Hume's already long face growing ever more Easter Island-ish as the night's reality kicked that pole of dyspepsia deeper up his ass. Obama's speech was mesmerizing. Commanding. Striking the definite note of “Yeah people. It's real. I got this. And you'd best believe I'm doing something with it.” At one point, a fellow chocolatized reveler in my group watching the speech whispered, “Am I crazy, or is everyone looking at us for some reason?”

She wasn't crazy. I cut a slick, quick look and realized we actually were for a moment, all “under the microscope”, or In the ant farm or something like that.

“No, you're not crazy.”, I said. “I feel like we should do...something though, just to call attention to that shit.”

“A musical number would be nice.”, she hilariously deadpanned. I immediately started humming “Brand New Day” from The Wiz:

“Everybody's glad,
Because our silent fear and dread is gone.
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully.
Just look about!
You owe it to yourself to check it out!
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?”

I threw in a subtle shoulder shake. She nearly spit her Veuve Clicquot all over the rug. Ooops. It wound up that I could really only eat but so much dinner party finger food, and the crowd was a little bit on the antiseptic tip quite frankly. Plus, the lamb chops were done—so I bid the assembled adieu and ventured out into the night.

That mist was still a' falling as I made my way west on 57th, when I saw a pair of squad cars blocking off Seventh Avenue to vehicular traffic. The cops looked glum—no...pissed, actually. Traffic south of them on 7th was nil, and a downtown bus was being re-routed onto 57th going east with the driver gesturing “What the fuck?” at the dour group of officers flagging them away. I assumed it was a safety issue of some sort, maybe a bomb threat or something, so as I passed by I asked simply “Everything okay? What's going on?”

“None of your business.”, hissed one who looked down at his cell phone.

And his tone—more “Fuck you.”, than “We can't say as it would jeopardize your safety.” told me everything I needed to know.

Whatever was pissing him off was something that'd make me happy.

So, I turned south on Seventh and started walking down, and a few blocks down off to my right, a block west I could hear loud horn honking and cheering. I looked down towards the lights of Times Square and I could hear and see that spot was the nexus of the cacophony. The neon and huge LCD spectaculars above ground were one thing, but the roars and constellations of flashbulb pops at ground level were a whole other smoke entirely. As Dave Chappelle's Rick James would say, “It's a celebration, bitches!“ I saw former NY1 and current CW11 reporter Arthur Chi'en as I neared the whoop-de-doo.

“What's going on down there?”, I asked.

He shook his head in surprise and laughed “It's like New Year's Eve. One big party!”

And that it was. The only way to describe it is to say that it was a wall of people on both sides of Broadway, behind hastily placed police barricades cheering wildly as the NBC and CNN monster screens overlooking the square played those stations post voctory broadcasts in real time. No one seemed to want to waste a minute traveling home—they wanted to see the effective “End of Bush” and “Beginning of Something Else” right then and there, and celebrate that “regime change” right there as well—at the renowned “Crossroads Of The World”. A parade of cars honked madly as they glided down the wide street, with people leaning out of the windows waving “Obama / Biden '08” placards. Folks pounded their cars outer doors in rhythmic exultation. Some rode high on the back seats of open convertibles like it was the Tournament of Roses Parade, waving and hooting with glee.

This was not expected. I had my camera with me so, to capture the amazing moments, I started snapping away.

Revelers fill the sidewalks and ride the streets. Note the motorcyclist giving the high sign to the crowd and the fellow waving the flag crossing Broadway.


Photo by LowerManhattanite, Times Square, Election Night—2008

Where did everyone get those “Obama / Biden” signs they brandished? Had they been saving them for the night's revelry?


Photo by LowerManhattanite, Times Square, Election Night—2008

The flags, too, seemed to appear from nowhere. Folks had been planning in advance. I of course evidently didn't get the mass e-mail with the instructions.


Photo by LowerManhattanite, Times Square, Election Night—2008

You'd feel a flash of light, hear a roar from the crowd, and then look to what caused those things...a history-changing display of the night's news on one of the many “Spectaculars” ringing the square.


Photo by LowerManhattanite, Times Square, Election Night—2008

Happy faces abounded...and folks weren't shy about their glee...


Photos by LowerManhattanite, Times Square, Election Night—2008

A CHUCKLE-WORTHY MOMENT:
Three very well dressed Black men stood at the barricade looking on at the unfolding scene...

MAN #1: Hol-eee shit! Was this planned?

MAN #2: I didn't hear a damn thing on the news about it. People just...showed out. Straight up impromptu.

MAN #3: (PEERING ABOVE THE CROWD) Lookit! It goes all the way up into the fifties! It's like New Year's! (LAUGHS) Watch ya pockets, people!

MAN #2: Bet it goes all the way up to Harlem—

MAN #3: Oh man...I know they're doin' the do up there—

MAN #1: It's gotta be off the chain uptown. We gotta get up there. I gotta see this—

MAN #3: Well, let's get to steppin' then. (Points like George Washington crossing the Delaware) Gentlemen, let's advance!

MAN #1: I think...we've done a bit of that already tonight.

Two fire engines rolled crosstown / westbound with the firemen hanging out the windows, beating on the sides of the ladder truck as the drivers hammered out a rhythmic “Yes We Can!” pattern on the ear-blasting horns—“Blaaaawwwmp! Blaaaawwwmp! Blaaaawwwmp!—Blaaaawwwmp! Blaaaawwwmp! Blaaaawwwmp!” A massive “Whoooooooooooo!” went up from the crowd at this spectacle. However, not all of NYC's municipal employees were as pleased with the night's outcome.

A CREEPY-EVIL MOMENT:
A city bus driver motored his bus down Broadway, his door wide open and blasting his horn as he clapped along.


Photo by LowerManhattanite, Times Square, Election Night—2008

A pair of seething NYPD officers looked on at “The Magic Bus”, grousing aloud...

COP #1: (Glaring at the reveling driver) What the fuck is this shit? This clown...

COP #2: It's a disgrace. On city time. He needs to get “rung up”. Fucking embarrassment. I hope to God they ring him up...

Five-O, a.k.a. Rudy's bigoted “base” in town was openly, and decidedly unhappy with the night's results and events. Pissed to the highest of pisstivity. Like when David Dinkins won the mayoral election years ago over Giuliani as the city's first (and only) Black mayor...but deeper this time, as this is a guy they can't touch. This guy is so over their heads power-wise, he can't even feel them. And that reality set these haters' teeth on a serrated edge. They were coarse in their handling of the crowds and the crowds didn't seem to give a rat's ass how pissed they were—they just kept celebrating and enjoying. Which galled these “bitter” bullies to no end. I snapped a picture and the flash fired over an officer's left shoulder. He looked back disgustedly and saw a Black dude in a tuxedo—me—and I snapped again at something going by in the street, this time with the flash catching him full in the eyes.

I did not give a damn.

He knew it.

And he turned away, shaking his head as his jaw muscles clenched and unclenched.

I figured I'd grab a shot of the fabled Times Square news zipper. Seeing the night's news play across that would be sweet. Classic. Just a nice image to have for posterity. But it was not to be. The “zipper” you see, is now owned by Dow Jones Inc.

Which was purchased along with The Wall Street Journal by Fox News' Rupert Murdoch a little over a year ago.

And I stood there for over an hour and that zipper never so much as mentioned the election results once. Not once. Hockey scores galore. International news up the yin-yang. But the edict had evidently come down from Rupe...There will be no pictures of my Goddamned news zipper running that news...period. Yes, I didn't get the historical snap I wanted...but knowing why it didn't happen brought a great, big 'ol smile to my face. To thine self be true Rupert...to thine hateful self...be true.

There were a million other billboards to look at, and even if Fox wasn't going to report it, there was no shortage of others who would.

It wasn't just in Times Square apparently. Two young women standing near me were talking about what they'd seen up on 125th Street—a mass of people in the streets, dancing, drumming, and singing “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now” in unison.

“It was thousands of people singin' it all together...IT WAS CRAZY!”

God but I wished I could have made my way up there.

A HEART-RENDING MOMENT:
A Black man in a business suit stood at the curb with an American flag tucked under one arm, while looking down and dialing his Blackberry™. Topping his conservative ensemble off was a huge sequined, silly “Cat In The Hat” sized Uncle Sam hat. He caught me looking at his odd combo...

UNCLE SAM HAT MAN: (Looks up for a moment) Callin' my boy in Kuwait. Texted me sayin' “Is this really happening? Fuck textin' him. I'm tellin' him. This shit is real. This shit is real.

He continued dialing the long number, muttering “This shit is real. This shit is real.” And tears began running down his face. I gave him his moment and walked away.

In Chicago, in D.C., Atlanta, Harlem, Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and everywhere it seemed, people were celebrating in the streets. My friend Patrick e-mailed me a pic he snapped on his iPhone from the corner of Bedford Avenue and North 6th Street that night.


Photo by Patrick Enzor, Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn Election Night—2008

I made my way down into the subway as I was spent emotionally. But as I walked down I was not alone. A brother in a sweatsuit descended with me, noting...

SWEATSUIT BROTHER: Man...you don't see people celebratin' like that in this country over an election. That's the shit people be doin' where they overthrow a dictator and whatnot. I've seen that on the news a million times...paradin'. We ain't never had that here, right?

ME: Not as long as I've been alive. And man...I'm old.

SWEATSUIT BROTHER: (Laughs) That shit ain't never happened here before! Much as motherfuckers loved Reagan, they never did nothin' like this. This is crazy!

We sit down.

SWEATSUIT BROTHER: (Picks up a discarded “Obama / Biden” placard and looks at it) I called my moms when he won. She was buggin'. She said she'd never thought she'd se this day. I wish my pops was here to see this, man. Serious. I'm a bring my little man down to D.C. in January to see when they swear him in. He needs to see that.

I thought for a minute about his words, about how people celebrated / released. It really was as if a horrible despot had been overthrown and the people “were free” as it were. We've seen those celebrations on our cable news a million times indeed.

Dancing in the streets and the waving of placards. I saw folks who didn't know each other re-playing the classic Times Square V-J Day hug and kiss all over the streets above us.

How awful have the Bush years been when Americans spontaneously take to the streets to celebrate the end of his reign and non-continuance of his party's controlling the White House? I know he's a sociopathic, narcissistic, deluded fool, but there's no way in holy hell that seeing the coverage of these celebrations didn't kick his swollen ego hard in the dangly bits.

No sympathy here—just noting the deliciously, delightfully obvious.


2:00 A.M. MIDTOWN MANHATTAN SUBWAY PLATFORM:

We sat there as the station platform filled up, as did the seats on the bench we shared. A beautiful bespectacled redhead sat between us, sporting an Obama-Biden sticker on her shawl as a possibly inebriated brother walked the platform from north to south, carrying a huge campaign sign, and preaching / musing aloud to no one in particular...

PLATFORM BROTHER: They tried it. They tried it! Tried to call the man a terrorist—America said 'Fuck that!' Tried to say he wasn't ready—America said 'Fuck that!' He ain't ready, and John McCain runs Sarah Palin's ass out there. Don't read shit. Don't know shit. But swore she was the shit.

Got to go back to Alaska, Miss Sarah. Go back and fuck with them polar bears! Instigatin' shit. We seen that! We seen the pictures! America knew what that was about, yo! We don't need to speak on it! We know what you tried to do, McCain. You didn't fool nobody! God is gonna get you for that shit! Karma, motherfucker! Karma!

Runnin' that 'Joe The Plumber' ying-yang! Joe the Plumber this—Joe the Plumber that! America said 'Joe the Plumber can get these!” (Grabs at his crotch, hard) America said 'Fuck Joe the Plumber!'

REDHEADED BEAUTY: (Piping up) And now 'Joe the Plumber' is irrelevent!

An orange-vested MTA hard-hat chimed in...

TRANSIT WORKER: And he wasn't in the union, either! He's a rat!

PLATFORM BROTHER: America has spoken, Joe! You're irrelevant! A big, irrelevant, bald-headed rat! Get on your plunger and ride home, cuz. And take John McCain with you. Make yourselves useful—go clear the toilet in Sarah's igloo. It's fulla shit!

Everyone on the platform cracked up. And then he got serious.

PLATFORM BROTHER: It's a big night. It's history, people! THIS IS HISTORY! We need to acknowledge that! And we need to remember everybody who didn't live to see this. Your mothers. Your fathers. People that laid it down for this. No need to mention no names. We know who they are. They know who they are. Send 'em some love, people. We need to do that.

And with that, he settled down onto a bench a ways down the platform and spoke no more.

My train rolled in soon and I got on. I suppose it was just a cumulative exhaustion from the whole campaign season's having finally...finally come to an end, because before we were out of the 23rd Street station, I was out cold asleep. When I awoke, I was deep in Brooklyn, having ridden at least forty-five minutes and one mere stop from home. There were perhaps twenty people in the train car...and fifteen of 'em were wearing Obama / Biden buttons or stickers, and clutching little American flags.

Where they got 'em, I have no clue. Folks were just ready, I guess.

Folks...were just ready, I guess.

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Still Waters Run Deep

A little bit of “me” died this past weekend when I heard about the passing of Levi Stubbs, the fearsomely talented lead singer of Motown's “The Four Tops”.

There are what you call “sense” memories. And one of my deepest sense memories is the piercing, emotional baritone (reaching tenor notes!) of Levi Stubbs singing at his peak powers. The beginning of my retentive memories starts at three years old—The Summer of 1966—and the voice of Levi Stubbs was not only ubiquitous, but hitting on all cylinders that year, thanks to his growing talent and to the rapidly maturing songwriting craft of Eddie and Brian Holland, and Lamont Dozier, Motown Records' hitmaking tunesmiths par excellence. The songs “Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over)”, “Seven Rooms Of Gloom”, “Standing In The Shadows Of Love”, the driving single “Bernadette”, and lastly, but not least, “Reach Out”—that ominous, pleading paean to devotion were all major mega-hits in that first year of memories for me.

Stubbs' voice leapt from curbside and window-silled speakers all over Harlem in 1966-'67, knifing through the oft-times murky Motown mono mixes he sang over. He was, one of the five best Soul singers of the 1960's (The other four being The Temptations' David Ruffin, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, and The Dells' Marvin Junior), capable of soft balladeering and the rough-and-tumble shout—sometimes within the same song. He had a pleading, cajoling tone, and was at his best amidst a swirling maelstrom of sound, his voice fighting through the wind if you will, especially on songs like the aforementioned “Standing In The Shadows Of Love“ “Bernadette” (with that almost screamed “Bernadette!” solo blast at the song's 7/8 mark) and the magnum opus “Reach Out”.

That last song stays with me to this day, with Stubbs embattled vocal declaring his faithfulness to the end—how no one, or no thing would stop him from being there for “you”. It was gruff and heroic, yet shot through with an almost “yelp” of human vulnerability. He powered through the tune's swirling sonics with that mighty, and near-inimitable voice of his (only “The Chairmen Of The Board's” General Johnson could come close stylistically—listen to their “Give Me Just A Little More Time”—a post-Motown Holland-Dozier-Holland gem sporting a decent Stubbs impersonation) and cemented it as a sixties musical landmark, epitomizing “The Motown Sound” with perfection.

His rich voice and deft handling of the challenging song (Stubbs' could do show tunes and soft-pop covers as well as the raspy R&B shouters and while he was a baritone, his Motown hits were written in tenor range, giving his sound a more insistent, edgy timbre) made it an automatic classic, but it was twenty-some-odd years later when hearing that song would give me chills all over again. Henry Hampton used it in a segment of his brilliant “Eyes On The Prize” documentary. I watched that segment, Chapter 7: The Time Has Come in rapt attention, but it was the climax of the “March Against Fear” footage in it when The Four Tops' “Reach Out” rises ominously in the audio mix. The song takes on a whole different meaning, almost anthemic in its sound and message.

Listen from the 1:40 point to 3:05 here:



It wasn't the first song of its time to serve “double duty” as pop tune and protest song, but it was one of the rare semi-unintentional ones (along with Martha & The Vandellas' “Dancin' In The Streets”). I asked a few people who were older than I about this song and to a letter, they noted it as a theme for the time, a couple of them citing Stubbs' indomitable sound as a near marching order.

But in spite of all the stupendous talent within him, Levi fought off the thing that claimed virtually every one of his contemporaries who led a major vocal group—namely the siren song of record company execs warbling tunes of solo stardom. As one of the best singers working, Stubbs was tempted numerous times to leave his fellow “Tops”. How could he NOT be? His sound was so distinctive, and a proven hit-machine—the Billboard™ Pop numbers show it unequivocally.

But he never did. Stubbs stayed with the group from its inception as “The Four Aims” in 1954 until 2000 when illness from cancer and a series of strokes would effectively silence his mighty sound. The lone surviving original member of the Tops, Duke Fakir had this to say about his old friend and groupmate.

“He had such power,” Fakir said. “He had a baritone voice and a tenor range. He could do anything with his voice. He could take you anywhere with it. He could take you to a love scene. He could take you dancing. He could take a great old standard and make you feel like you're right there in that song. Just an amazing voice, an amazing interpreter, an amazing man.”

Even more importantly, Fakir noted, Stubbs “was dedicated to us. He had many chances and many offers to be lured away into his own solo world, but he never wanted that. He said, 'Man, all I really want to do is sing and take care of my family, and that's what I'm doing, so all is well. Everything else that doesn't include you guys, it doesn't mean a thing to me.' That kind of character and commitment is really hard to find these days.”

He was as loyal as could be. Perhaps he could have done better had he gone solo, but Stubbs was an old-school group singer. I have a special respect for that. My dad was in a seminal R&B singing group so I know a bit about the pressures and dealings those folks go through based on my father's sharing about those numerous perks and pitfalls.

I think of how good Levi Stubbs was—a true, “no-drama” professional at his craft. He stood with very few others atop the pinnacle of greatness in the undeniable “Golden Age” of soul singers. A peer of both “Marvins”, gutbucket Otis and the mercurial Ruffin, and just a tick above the Smokeys, Curtises, “Wicked Picketts” and Jerry Butlers of his time. He would with The Tops continue to chart after that “peak” with one of my favorites, the now-rarely heard “I'm In A Different World” from the “Yesterday's Dreams” album (one of the coolest Soul album covers of my youth), the incandescent “Still Water (Love)”, “Ain't No Woman Like The One I've Got” (the first big post-Motown hit for The Tops and Stubbs), all the way up to 1982's “I Believe In You And Me”.

His voice was a rare blend of power, vulnerability, joy and yearning. It was a signpost for an era, and a deep and heartfelt sense memory for me. I know I'm not alone in missing him as he belonged a little bit to all of us who enjoyed his work, but Dammit...it pains me deeply as I see one by one, these icons of my youth fading out.

It hurts.

But again, thankfully, we have their performances preserved in the amber of video on YouTube. Forever young and vital, swaying and clapping, and moving the crowd.

Levi...baby, we'll miss your singing. Godspeed.

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Paul, Belatedly.

The Picture I Dreaded Running


It was, the worst kept secret in the entertainment community for the last three months.

There was nothing more that the doctors could do for Paul Newman. His cancer had spread and he was going home from the hospital to die.

My face stung and my eyes watered up just tapping out that rough truth.

News had leaked from the hospital he'd been at, battling that internal scourge. For all the confidentiality of medical records, those places leak like sieves when something goes on in them that's attention-getting. And the legendary Newman's sad diagnosis would certainly be categorized as just that.

There was a picture of Paul being wheelchair pushed down a leafy path near the hospital near the day of his release. When I saw it, I choked up. The man who bounced about the ring effortlessly as Rocky Graziano in “Somebody Up There Likes Me”, and peacock-strutted in Texas-macho glory in “Hud”, and yes, rode a bike balanced on one foot in “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid” was now so frail that it made my own knees weak. He was pale, and drawn and small. I cried looking at that shot. Even with seeing in that rushing infirmity still, a hovering image of his smirking, boundless spirit above the small physical form.

The reports were grim. A “friend” of the family leaked the news supposedly. Newman's camp denied it—he was in spite of his ubiquity and place in Hollywood's firmament still a private man. There were whispers from “people who knew” that he'd quietly been giving away treasured things to true friends in recent months. Simplifying. Paring back. Making peace. The day after it was confirmed to me, I began assembling some photos of him for this inevitable post. Shots of him young and vital, grown and radiant, mature and in full flower, then aging well like wine.

And I felt guilty for this preparation. I felt like I was putting him in his grave while breath still came. I put the assembled written bits and pictures aside in a folder on the computer and tucked it away, maybe hoping against hope that his spokesman's “non-denial denial” could be true when I knew it was not.

I went into my own denial, I suppose.

You probably think it odd of me to have such feelings for a person I never met, who admittedly worked in an industry full of shallowness and artifice. But if you have read this blog beyond the political things I write, you'll know that I'm a film buff of the highest order. And a talent like Paul Newman's is a thing you cherish and then miss when it is no longer active.

Paul Newman is one of the last of his generation of strong and deep-charactered Hollywood leading men. Pretty much the last two of his time remaining are Robert Redford and James Garner. (Bob Wagner and Shatner were always more television animals, Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis were more true “pretty boys” and Eastwood while a bona-fide “star never quite had the depth and complication of Newman. Plus, he wasn't a “character-lead” like Jason Robards, Jim Coburn or Lee Marvin) The ones who've gone on from his class? Dean. McQueen. Lemmon. Brando. A veritable “Murderer's Row” of the male stars who bridged the gap between the studio system and the auteur / artiste's way of that second glorious “Golden Age” of American filmmaking.

Newman was of course, achingly handsome—yet, guilelessly so. The sparkling eyes and tousled hair, oh yes—and that smile that could widen from rueful to impish, to full-on ten-thousand watts of klieg-lit power was a helluva package. And is spite of all that, he wore those looks as comfortably as an old sweatshirt.

He had “it”. And so what? His pal Robert Redford, for all his own talent could sometimes be a prisoner of his chiseled and almost caricaturish beauty. He sometimes seems to almost be fighting against it for gravitas. Newman however simply bent with the force of his looks, and in that “bending” could exude an everyman's depth that few could match. George Clooney's taking that tack these days, bending with the force of those roguish good looks to reveal more at the root, but for the better part of fifty years folks... Newman has been Clooney before Clooney was Clooney.

Effortless seeming and complicated all at on once—the actor's holy grail. And Paul Newman appeared able to dash that off as easily as an autograph. But we all know that the doing it is a lot harder than it appears.

It helped that Newman didn't “agonize” as many of his method acting contemporaries often did, tearing at himself to validate the depth of a performance. Oh, he was deep. Well-deep. But he never bought into what I call the “making the elephant disappear off the stage” school of acting, where the hugeness of the trick / actorly athleticism of the performance left you gasping in wonder and in awe of the “magic”—as opposed to just enjoying the story and what this character you believe in does and why. He didn't so much transform, as he conveyed.

Two things made Newman “work” so well for film-lovers across the board.

One: He came across on- screen as “just a guy”. Those casually devastating good looks and his unpretentious personal nature never distanced him from the viewer. Newman was the guy women loved and guys wanted to hang out with. Not be, themselves as he made them comfortable in their own skin—but wanted to have as a friend...a pal.

Redford was almost so damned perfectly pretty at his peak that it was hard to picture yourself hanging with him. Those kinds of looks call for a crowd as beautiful as he is surrounding him. And again, he often appeared to fight those God-given (before the distressing botox) looks so hard to fit in that he commanded a sort of bubble around him to go to war in. A bubble viewers could not enter.

McQueen however, was the guy you wanted to be, as he fairly shot cool from his pores. But with that cool came a detached-ness, which precluded befriending by others. You wanted to be him. Not be with him. He was a loner—a cool loner—but a loner nonetheless. Notoriously prickly to his peers, as well as (I'm saying this about one of my favorite actors of all time here) famously prick-ish to boot. Paul Newman didn''t have broad physical range as a performer—although he was easily athletic and at home in his body on screen and off. He didn't buy into the school of altering one's self physically, but he could run the complex characters he played through his externally pleasing, but deep, emotional internal self. His characters oozed backstory without exposiition. I discovered this when I first saw his Oscar™-worthy turn in “Cool Hand Luke”. Without any exposition, I watched Newman's ol' “Lucas Jackson” early on in the film (my first time in my early twenties) and just gathered from little nuances in the performance that this character's father was just not there for him, and that his Mama was maybe a little bit overwhelmed. So when Jo Van Fleet showed up borne by that “near-death” wagon to see Luke that one last time, and those truths came out. I was kind of astonished. Paul's above-the-rim skill put that across for me. He fairly sweated a character's history while going through said person's daily paces, like real people do while living their lives. That's acting, folks. At its best.

The second thing that made Paul Newman so damned good was his ability and willingness to play characters with deep contradictions and oft-times moral ambiguities, but play them subtly and without the showy histrionics a lesser actor would fall back on. He could play scalawags and compromised men better than pretty much anyone of his generation, and did so with an honest realism that even if it didn't make you like these people, at least gave them a context—and thus an anchor for a viewer to believe them in.

His turns as the lout-ish, grasping Eddie Felson in “The Hustler”, the avaricious, boozy loser “Reggie Dunlop” in “Slap Shot”, and the cheating and con-crazy Henry Gondorff in “The Sting” were such compromised men. But human, too—with feelings and an ability to every once in a while, do right, and make you believe their reasons for doing so. And then,you get to two of my favorite Newman performances—in “Cool Hand Luke”, and of course, “Hud”

Newman's Luke was a jerk. A little bit a-moral, and yes, an unrepentant fuck-up. He played Luke as our selfish “id”—what we are when you strip away hope and dreams. A just-here blob of humanity trying to get by and stay a little bit happy doing it. But his severely compromised Luke—he was no saint for sure, and we catch him stupidly breaking the law in the first scene—still had that certain little spark of humanity in him. Enough to if not save himself, to at least inspire others. And for all of his fuck-ups, Luke's driving force was that of not letting the tyranny of authority steal his joy and break his soul. Yes, he was a Goddamned knuckle-head, but he was also about keeping the spark of life alive inside you—even when the darkness and weight of cruelty threatens to smother it like a flicker under a blanket. That smile and eye-twinkle of his throughout the movie, even as he's being carted off that last climactic time could have in the hands of less talented actors come off as smarmy. But Newman projected 'Yeah...I'm a fuck-up, but I'm just one little ol' man. Ya'll however represent a system that fucks individuals up. And I ain't gonna let you do that to me. No way, no how.' with that life-affirming grin.

His turn as “Hud” in the eponymous film was something else again. Hud was a classic example of what it is like when the devil is among us, and of us, and how we live and love one another in spite of that. His Hud...was a cold-hearted bastard. A cold-hearted, selfish bastard you couldn't look away from or ignore as God in his infinite wisdom made him just as seductive as he was morally damaged. He was a proudly “unprincipled man” as evidenced in these defining scenes where Hud, his nephew and father have discovered their herd of cattle may have the dreaded hoof and mouth disease.





“Well, I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner...and that's what I try to do, Sometimes I lean to one side of it, sometimes I lean to the other.”—“Hud” Bannon

Newman's Hud was the capper on a trifecta of Hollywood portraits of what happens when misplaced Texas macho meets the lust for money—the other two portrayals being James Dean's Jett Rink in “Giant” and Bob Stack's wastrel oil scion in “Written On The Wind”. A spiritual Godfather to George W. Bush if ever there was one. And he played this heel for all he was worth. There was no redeeming feature in the character. In the movie he tries to rape Patricia Neal's Alma—a brutal, simple power-grab that is thwarted by his worshipful nephew Lon (as played by Brandon DeWilde), a move that effectively kills the hero-worship Lon has for in spite of his evil, magnetic (like a moth to the flame) Hud. What you do gather from Newman's swaggeringly blunt performance is that he's been on a hell-driven run for years. His venality is not new. His damage is deep. And he will not change. He is alone in himself and will ultimately end up that way. Yet...you'll still want to look in on him, because as said above:

“God in his infinite wisdom made him just as seductive as he was morally damaged.”

Newman plays both to a “T” here. No mean feat, either.

I love him in “Hud” and “Luke” and “The Hustler”. But his performances in his breakthrough “Somebody Up There Likes Me” as a marble-mouthed Graziano, “The Sting” as the sozzled Gondorff (He could play the hell out of booze-addled guys fighting back—as in “Slap Shot” and “The Verdict” as well) and his Butch Cassidy stay with me too. Even little gems, like 1960's “From The Terrace” wher he subtly plays a Cheever-esque young businessman disillusioned with his life is a wonder to behold. And as he aged, and wizened—that face acquiring craggy character and his voice a bit of rumble, you could see the actor in him that much more almost, as his nimble physicality waned. His twisted but sympathetic portrayal (“The Hud in Winter’ if you will) of mobster John Rooney in 2002's underrated “Road To Perdition” is an amazing one and was his last great screen role.

I loved watching him work. In his youth, I picked up on an actorly little tic of his—“The Newman Brood” I called it, where he'd mull over a line or a moment or two with his head downcast and a pronounced pout and blinks. (McQueen's tic was a blank “I'm giving you nothing while internally giving you everything” dead-eyed stare and mouth-shift, and Redford's was sudden eyebrow leaps from melancholy.) It was done un-self-consciously. That funny sort of face a person makes when they think no one is looking.

But we all were looking, weren't we?

He was also a devoted family man, and according to many anecdotes from just plain folks, a kind soul. Jesse summed him up as a man, nicely:

In well over 50 years, I am certain it was the journey and the people met along the way which were most valued, not the awards earned. Which is not to say that the awards were not valued, I am certain they were. At the time, I remember how much the Oscar for The Color of Money meant to Mr. Newman, to finally win a competitive Academy Award after so many nominations. He had even refused to show up -- politely of course, sending word he still hoped to win one in person -- when he was honored with an honorary Oscar. It took a while... a LONG while... but a number of nominations later, Mr. Newman had his very own, competitive Oscar. *smiles* And even nominations to follow.

Still, what I remember most about Mr. Newman is not his movies or his Oscars. Or even his timeless marriage, which, even with its ups and downs, clearly put family first and without question, women were equal in THAT home, long before they were in the rest of the country.

What I remember most about Mr. Newman is how gracious he always was. It did not matter to him if someone was a star, a day player, a grip, a star-struck fan, a waitress or waiter, or simply an ordinary woman or man trying to earn a living. Mr. Newman was kind and warm to everyone. He especially loved children.

What I hate about writing this is, it sounds like the kind of crap one writes in a hagiography, as if I am in the bag for Newman.

1. There are worse people to be in the bag for, than Paul Newman. And
2. Every word of this is the Gods' straight truth.

I am in the bag for Paul Newman. Proudly. I watched Turner Classic Movies this weekend as host Robert Osborne hosted a special memorial night of Newman's best film work. I saw “Hud”, “Cool Hand Luke”, “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof”and even his delicate directorial bow “Rachel, Rachel” starring his wife Joanne Woodward and reveled in all of that talent. What a night!

I never met Mr. Newman. I came close twice. I used to house-sit for a ridiculously well-off co-worker some years ago in Westport, Connecticut where he lived for the last forty years or so. Missed him as he peeled out of a gas station I was pulling in to in a trail of exhaust and the sound of canvas-ripping horsepower. I apparently also missed him at the Coffee an' Donut Shop up there, arriving a few minutes after he did for a cruller and a cup of joe. It would have been grand, and I would have been of course, a mess before such a mega-talent. I would have liked to have seen him in person and experienced those flashing blue eyes. Maybe even a handshake. He was an unabashed political animal too, and a friend of the left for many years. I remember his coming out for Ned Lamont against the execrable Joe Lieberman in 2006. Just one more reason to love him. I'll miss him, as we all will. Why?

Let George Kennedy's “Dragline” from “Cool Hand Luke” sum it up.

“He was smiling... That's right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn't know it 'fore, they could tell right then that they weren't a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he's a natural-born world-shaker.”

Yes indeed he was. Rest in peace, Paul.

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