All right. So it's officially going to be Obama versus McCain. Quite frankly, I could give a damn. Not only do I know little if anything about the democratic process, I'm beyond uninterested. People, especially people in Los Angeles, give me a lot of flak for this. They say it's my duty. I'm sorry, but I just don't feel comfortable going into a booth and pressing a button based on who I dislike less.
The above is only the tip of the iceberg for the reasons that I'm probably not going to vote in November. Another is the fact that I am registered to vote in New York, but currently reside in LA. But I would probably not vote even if I was back in New York. The place I'm registered to vote is a senior citizen home that always smells of Polident and urine. The booths are operated by women generally between the ages of 80 and 100, many with clearly visible catheter bags (hence the urine smell).
Whenever I mention to someone that I'm not going to vote, they always give me hell. Political people love to throw around that "Vote or Die" crap. I like when they do this, because then I get to tell them that "Vote or Die" was coined by Benjamin Franklin during the revolutionary war. Circumstances were a little different back then. People had to vote for a strong new country, or they may face certain death at the hands of the British. I'm not sure how I know this, but I rarely ever get to seem like I read anything other than Buffy The Vampire Slayer comics.
If I was going to vote, I guess I'd vote for Obama. That's what Hollywood tells me to do. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a country where we can't look up to movie stars for sociopolitical guidance. They, along with Obama's legions of upper-middle class white liberal college students, talk about him as if he's the second coming. Is anything really going to change if he is elected? He is still at the mercy of the of Lobby Groups, Congress, and the ruling elite of corporate CEOs. Plus, he's financially in debt to the donors who got him there, who ironically, are other corporate CEOs.
I love talking to crazy old racists who think Obama's election will trigger the black uprising. Sure they're crazy, but their theories are so damn entertaining. One old man told me that when Obama is giving his victory speech, he's going to utter a phrase that signals the start of the rebellion. Kind of like that scene in Hotel Rwanda, where a radio DJ says "It is time to cut down the tall trees", and everyone grabs their machetes.
Since I'm ranting on politics, I thought you should know my qualifications. I minored in American History at a city college where I maintained a solid 2.5 GPA. I regularly follow such reliable news sources as The New York Post, Access Hollywood, and old Doonesbury comic strips.
As progressive as I like to think myself to be, there is a part of me that wants to vote for John McCain. Don't get me wrong, another eight years of a republican in the White House would most probably trigger the Apocalypse. Who wouldn't love to be in the afterlife and be able to say they died in the Apocalypse? Nothing else would come close.
Surviving in the post-apocalyptal is even more alluring, because then we'd all be living in The Road Warrior. There isn't a guy in this country, I don't care how liberal they claim to be, that can't say that that prospect isn't kind of cool.
I also think McCain being president gives us great potential for entertainment. It's well known that he spent years as a POW in Vietnam. But we don't know the extent of what he endured there, or whether or not it had any lasting effects. How funny would it be if he started having flashbacks during the White House Easter egg hunt, goes all Rambo and starts snapping necks? I don't wish harm to anyone, but that sight would be worth it all.
But like I said, I'm not planning on voting. Besides all of my previous statements, I also don't believe a single word of what either of these men say. Not one. Honesty is a foreign concept in American politics. To quote the recently deceased George Carlin "If honesty was suddenly introduced into American Democracy, the entire f@#king system would collapse".
So this started me thinking. Who was the last politician, of any nation or era, that truly lived up to the promises made on the campaign trail? Right off the bat, I knew it wasn't going to be an American. After a lot of reading and soul-searching, I believe I found the answer.
Now stay with me on this...Hitler. Adolf Hitler.
I'll acknowledge that Hitler was the embodiment of pure evil and hate, a dictator who had to be stopped at all costs. But people forget that he became Chancellor of Germany in a legal, democratic election. And he did it with the revolutionary campaign platform "If I'm in charge, I'll get rid of the Jews.
No one can say that the guy didn't keep his word. He probably would have finished the job if the war went on another year or two. He was halfway there. When the war started there were approximately 12 million Jews worldwide. The Third Reich took out 6. That's half of the Jews on earth in six years. And they didn't get the camps running effectively until '42, so that cuts it down to three years. I'll once again acknowledge his evil, but he kept to his campaign promises with amazing, if ruthless, efficiency.
I was in Germany a few months ago. While en-route to Amsterdam I spent an afternoon in Frankfort. All I did was wander around looking for people old enough to have been former Nazis. Then I just stared them down. I wasn't looking for an excuse or apology or anything, it just felt good making them uncomfortable.
Amsterdam, by the way, is amazing. The entire city is like that bunker in Platoon where they were smoking pot out of shotguns. You wander the streets at night,and you know that everyone there is out for either drugs or hookers. I wasn't therefor hookers. I don't look down upon or judge anyone who pays for sex. It's simply just not my thing.
But having a healthy sense of perversion, I decided to check out a peep show. I grew up in New York during the Giuliani years, so I missed out on seedy Manhattan. The peep shows in Amsterdam are in the round. A dozen or so small booths around a rotating bed where a girl pretends that what she's doing isn't making her dead relatives weep.
For starters, the entire place smelled like bleach. That should have been my red flag. I opened up an empty booth and was treated to the sight of a paper towel dispenser and wastebasket. That's where I checked out. I had reached my perversion limit. And this is coming from a guy who gratified himself four times a day for much of his youth, even when I was sick. I'd be lying in bed with a fever and hallucinations, but I'd be working it. By that fourth time it basically a wet rope. I'd have to stretch it out with one hand and stroke with the other.
The drugs in Amsterdam are glorious. Forget the pot and hash, that's kiddie stuff. Mushrooms were legal. They're sold in stores like they're oranges. There were about a dozen different varieties, and I was determined to try them all. My only freak-out came at the wax museum. I lost it and ran back to my tiny hotel room, where I spent three hours pulling up the carpet looking for microphones. It was the 2nd worst psychedelic experience of my life. The 1st involved acid and a midnight double-feature of The Thing and An American Werewolf in London.
Holy crap, how did I segue from politics into stories I swore no one would ever know? I need sleep.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Posts
