Clane is Cool

So I just finished a book friend Marcy loaned me - "The Hypocrisy of Disco." I'm sure lots of folks have already read it but I'm perpetually late to every party, so let me have my moment of out-of-the-loop joy.

Pretty fuckin' amazing work. Mirrored a lot of the difficulty and starvation in my childhood. My parents were way better but the moving around, California to Nevada, living in the spaces in between - feeling insignificant and stupid and small and ugly - I'm there. Great, direct, simple writing style. There's a part in her book where she's stealing sips of liquor during a New Year's Party, Las Vegas, 1980. My God, I was doing the same thing, somewhere else in Nevada the very same night. Well, it's ironic to me, anyway.

Reading Clane's story makes me want to write my stuff more and/or hang out with her. But what really made me write this tonight is her website. Click on the title above to see.

"BA in Something Useless." Love that. "1992 - 2005 Annoying Hipster Mission District." Love that more.

I dunno. Something about the simple style of her website, the way she presented her bio, her "clog" with the notebook paper behind it. It's humble and cool. Healthy self-deprecation mixed with healthy self-love is utterly gorgeous to me, always.

Maybe I need something better than this blogspot I currently (in)operate - no offense to the blogspot Gods but boooorring! I'd love to have someplace online really great to look at and visit to put all my stuff - art, writing, whining - that really had my style stamp on it if I could figure out what that is. Maybe if it was a place I wanted to visit, I'd write more instead of feeling lost most of the time and wondering what the point of me is. Maybe I should write about feeling lost and having no apparent point and shut-up about this?

I have an art show for the my collage portraits on June 6th. Can't face the blank panels to start for some reason. I'm supposed to do four more. Ya, right. I'll be glad when the art show is over. Too much pressure to create. Pressure I put on myself. I tell myself things would be better if I could schedule when I feel like writing or painting or anything creative THEN I'd get stuff done, by golly. Truth is, it just comes when it feels like it, like water flushed through a pipe. I'm just the empty pipe, waiting to be filled. Hello? Ms. Muse? Why aren't you flushing the cosmic toilet so I can receive some more of your useless creative shit? I've got a DEADLINE, after all!!!

I feel all weird, empty, confused, tired, inspired and teary right now. Just thought I'd offer a glimpse inside.

Sweet dreams,
LH

Love and Lava

I’m running from lava and there is nowhere else to go but to the sea.

I am surefooted from years of repeated escapes but still I have to concentrate to ensure I place each step with unwavering accuracy. Dashing in a blind sprint, there is always a danger that I might forget how slippery my well-traveled routes away from the eruption may be. Even in this instant, I am carefully observing my thoughts and well as my physical agility. I must stay clear-headed – there are obstacles – large bushes, fences and inert, discarded objects from the past, abandoned in the tall grass. At this high velocity, old seemingly harmless garbage could be deadly if I inadvertently slam into it, or worse, it could stab me, sticking to my body, reattached and unintentionally gathered up again, dragged and slowing my stride. My mind must be focused only on what is ahead. It’s best not to look back at the eruption, as dazzling as it may be.

Rising before me, I see an abandoned bicycle from childhood, left where I dropped it during another magma explosion. Back in those days, a different caldera was active. A memory floats to the surface of that blast and with that knowledge, my stride becomes larger and I hurdle over the bike with ease, sailing through the air in a thrilling moment of lift off. I land again on the other side with grace neither breaking my gait nor changing my speed. The miracle of integrated memory has once again saved me from colliding with this old scar and reopening a gash. Running from each fusillade over the years, I have dropped or discarded many different items in my haste to survive, so I know there are countless randomly scattered personal land mines lying hidden in my path. I must remain on the look out, even during this all out dash for my life.

As I continue my sprint, the ground beneath my feet rumbles, moans and cracks, steam vents firing around me. I dodge these boiling plumes of vapor, as a slalom skier would, weaving with high-speed turns in my descent. I think about the other, older mountain where I used to live, its seething liquid stone erupting for years before I ever appeared, defining and revising the shape of the world to be. That’s just one of many amazing and confusing things about life here; it is all the same location, but the landscape is constantly changing. Volcanic hills, cones and vents appear and disappear – they don’t always look the same – but the molten rock beneath the surface remains constant. I can see the old precipices in the distance but they have become dormant now, my own wreckage, such as the bicycle I just jumped, scattered about as the only evidence of their past volatility. Currently, I live in the shadow of a very active ridge that’s going off, and I must return my focus and place each dazzlingly quick step gingerly. So I stop thinking in reverse and continue to draw instead upon the tools I have gained from facing the flame-driven paroxysms of the past.

I am conditioned for this environment. I was born by the grace of an exploding bluff, the mystery of a paradise existing on the surface of a destructive subterranean force the only life I’ve known. It took me years to admit that I am drawn to always return again to these sources of power, despite the potentially deadly quality of living so close to such utterly cataclysmic violence. However, I know that it’s not the mighty and powerful peaks that attract me to dwelling here; it is the heat of the chambers of fiery stone beneath the surface that pull me in, subconsciously, the proverbial troubled moth to the purifying flame.

Despite their many attempts to annihilate me, I feel tremendous compassion and even love for the turbulent hills I’ve lived among. I understand and have witnessed firsthand the tremendous pressure required to raise temperature enough for any given composition of rock to pass the solidus and melt. There are tremendously traumatic exchanges of energy rumbling in the bellies of these beasts, the radioactive decay of their own wounds liquefying the otherwise stable core stone. Any surface cracks or crevasses draw the pressure out and may lead to yet another painfully glorious explosion such as the one from which I am bolting this very moment.

The volcanoes themselves are not solely responsible for my occasional misery and vulnerability to disaster. I do keep returning by my own choice to dance with them in between detonations, happily playing in the tropical warmth life here affords. However, this alone does not determine the scope of my culpability - I am not completely innocent. The fact is, I’ve discovered something beneficial about existing in this violent environment; the soil here is rich, fertile. Each desire sewn in these slopes has grown tremendously and among the debris left in my previous escapes, I am also surrounded by the beauty of new creation, sprouting gloriously in the nurturing loam that often only a fiery, pyroclastic flow can create.

I have also been doing the unthinkable; after each flare-up and subsequent release has subsided, I’ve moved a bit higher up, settling closer to the caldera, the heart of the massive, granite creature. The further I move up the butte, the better the view and the more potent the earth beneath my feet becomes. Each time I move, I set up a new home, digging into the flesh of the hill, laying my foundation deeper and deeper still. With each of these excavations I run the risk of uncovering another fissure, a crack in the surface of the mountain never seen before and each new chasm I’ve exposed is a potential exit for the river of heated rock and pockets of scalding steam just below the surface. When this happens, I will accept my responsibility, knowing that I sometimes clear fury’s next path, drawing the mountain’s anger directly towards myself.

My volcano is aware of my presence, too. It has not been lost on me that each convulsion of damnation I survive and subsequent move further up the peak seems to calm my mountain somehow, for the eruptions are becoming fewer with longer stretches of time in between. I believe the angry hillside knows I love it and each time I return bravely after another howling discharge, the mount’s internal fury seems to settle a bit more. Each time I come back, I move closer to the heart of the turbulence. Yes, I whisper to it softly, I see the liquid, heated destruction within you and I will love you still; and yes, I know who you are and what you will do.

In times past, my fear would overcome me and if all truth is told, I have died here, something I know to be possible even though few others would believe it. Nevertheless, I must report and do so with complete integrity that I have been caught and consumed several times by flaming magma.

The raging inferno has overtaken me and I’ve tumbled along with the rivers of rock and ash as they made their way down the slope. My body has been incinerated, skin shrinking and peeling, my fat rendered, every bit of tissue destroyed. I’ve screamed as the air from my lungs was replaced by a blaze fueled by my own internal organs bursting into flame, the heat dissolving my lips as the torrent escapes my gasping mouth, the last echoes of my voice silenced by a corona of fire. I’ve suffocated in the lava, its heat igniting my skull, my eyes boiling and exploding, spitting their liquid centers skyward, instantly vaporizing in the superheated air. I’ve heard with the flesh of my burning ears the sound of my bones snapping and popping as the flames ate them, the antimatter between the molecules winning the magnetic tug of war, the atoms separating and vanishing. I’ve been turned to ash and then have disappeared, becoming one with the eruptive flow. Annihilation is terrifying; I never know if I will live again – nothing is for certain. But even when losing my body to the molten madness, I have learned to surrender, to let myself become of it. At these moments of utter abrogation, after all, there is no alternative.

Of course, when I am overcome by the holocaust, this letting go is extremely difficult. The first few moments of being burned out of existence are tenderly painful, being cremated alive the ultimate in horrendous agony. When the initial moments of torturous engulfment have passed and I am nothing but invisible particles of energy, my consciousness still resides within the savage frenzy and together we rumble toward the cooling waters below. Being scorched and removed from reality, taken down to the very essence of sentience, I once again learn that I am eternal and therefore, indestructible.

On our way to the sea, the lava and I continue our crash through the beautiful, verdant growth of the island, destroying the living matter and absorbing the life force of everything we engulf. Together as one now, we incinerate many of my discarded objects of the past, permanently removing them from the landscape.

We continue our unstoppable, flaming rage, relentlessly sliding down until, upon hitting the surface of the ocean, we burst into plumes of steam, where my quintessence becomes part of the water molecules as they explode upward, into the atmosphere. The prevailing winds will then blow me onshore and I will drift slowly back up the incline of my volcano, as a mist. As more and more of my soul locked within this liquid vapor coalesces, the droplets containing the building blocks of my new being will become heavy and a healing rain will begin to fall. I am in the water as it drops back to the surface, splashing on the fertility of the soil, which soaks me up and then, I will rest.

There is always the chance that at the moment I become water vapor, a different breeze could catch me, taking me away from my hot-blooded island. I might drift away as a helpless cloud and the drizzle of my being could ultimately fall on some other land, the new shores less volatile, to be reborn again, thousands of miles from my furious home. If that happens, I will always have the choice of remaining on the new, calm shores or taking the long and arduous journey back to my explosive partner, if the island would have me again.

Alternatively, I could leave of my own free will, perhaps signaling what appear to be rescue boats as they pass by unaware of me or the white-hot tempest that boils inside the landmass as observed from the safety of their decks; but I never do. This is all theoretical – so far, the precipitation of my released soul continues to be caught by the gusts that return me to my internally heated mountain and each time I return to saturate the familiar ground. I am the dampness in the soil, which in turn, ignites the spark of new life.
The return to being always starts with the tiniest of particles, driven by the violence of attraction, recognizing, gathering, reorganizing and joining. Atoms begin spinning, tiny galaxies of consciousness, pulling on one another, slowly forming the corporeal universe of me. As cells are formed, dividing and multiplying, I begin to notice myself again in the darkness and quiet of the cool earth. My shape begins to reset; arms, legs, torso and head, growing beneath the surface. I draw blood from the soil, the red fluid filtered to purity by the dark, coffee-colored mud. I’ll feel my body again, nearly complete and I’ll jab an arm upward, piercing the surface of the ground. I’ll grab the nearest vine or tree trunk I can touch, sometimes even pulling myself up by grasping some old discarded baggage. I burst through the earth, myself a gush of fleshy magma rebirth, an eruption of organism still steaming in the cool air, breaking through the volcano’s skin, always a bit higher up the peak and without fail, stronger than ever and thirsty for air, resurrected once again.

The current upsurge has subsided and this time, I successfully eluded the torrent of destruction to a safe location on the shores. I reclined afterward on the beach looking up at him as the ash-filled smoke around his peak dissipated. There were occasionally aftershocks that followed the initial blast, but each diminished in size as time passed. My body was shaking from my strenuous efforts and I also slowly began to become stable once again as I rested on my side. In my hurry, I was scraped a few times by some old debris and even picked some back up and then subsequently dropped it again but thankfully, nothing in my path was able to trip me up or pierce the surface - a few minor abrasions here and there, that’s all. It seems this has turned out to be a minor occurrence in comparison to the venting I’ve experienced before. Once recovered, I begin my hike back up the mountain to choose a new spot higher on the side of the slope. I feel lighter, having dropped God-knows-what in my gallop to safety.

As I walk I know with certainty that for now, I still love him - the big, roaring solid tower with the hot, flowing center. We both remain to ride his combustions together another day. He will draw healing, cooling and stabilization from the release of long, suffered pressure and I will be clarified by the barrage and less encumbered by the past each time I run temerariously through the slippery, tall grass of my passionately fertile home.

Dorothy Leaves Home

Ah, youth. At eighteen-years old, my mother, Dorothy Elise, became a freshman at the Art Center School in Pasadena. It was 1944. Elise is now eighty-three and if you ask her, she will tell you that her parents were against her attending the school - her father she describes as a strict Englishman, her mother, a superficial, egotistical and aging coquette. When I listen to her tales of that time, I keep wondering what their side of the story might be.

To her, they were punishing control freaks, suffocating her and putting her to work with constant labors around the house. As a child, she was somewhat of a tomboy, not very pretty and constantly reminded as such. However, she grew into a strikingly beautiful young woman and by the time she turned eighteen, she had many admirers.

My guess is that her family only wanted the best for her but their attempts to ensure this came across as less than supportive and sometimes cruel. I believe they were trying to protect her. To her credit, my mother is still somewhat guileless, maintaining a level of innocence in spite of a long life of troubles. I can imagine that at eighteen, she was a prime candidate for a rash decision once she obtained her first taste of freedom at art school.

Her family was encouraging her to continue her connection with a promising young doctor, someone they felt was a viable suitor for their young, gorgeous daughter. I try to remember that especially in that era, a woman's beauty was her power and her parents were undoubtedly worried that my mother would squander her promise on a boy they felt was less than acceptable. Fortunately for me, they were right. She met my father, a fellow art student, the first week of school and three weeks later, she eloped to Mexico City with him and got married. She then hid this fact for a month and had a second mock wedding for my father's family - nobody there knew that they were already married.

Because of their complete rejection of my father, my mother deserted her family, cutting off ties and starting her new life - a new life that included the upcoming birth of her first child, my eldest brother.

While her parents may be written off as brutal family totalitarians, there was another person who had shown nothing but kindness to my mother throughout her childhood, and that person was her grandfather. He was an eccentric millionaire living in Sierra Madre at a home he designed and where my mother passed many a blissful childhood day. Her grandfather was someone upon whom she could depend, who supported her in her artistic pursuits and who also had very high hopes for her. In her rebellious scramble for freedom, her grandfather also was unfortunately swept under the carpet of her former life and months went by with no word from her.

Finally, she received this bitterly sweet letter from him, dated December 7, 1945, four years to the day of the Pearl Harbor attacks. The letter is so sweet and sincere - as my mother read it to me, she cried (fifty-three years later - it's still painful!) and I felt I needed to print it:

"Darling,

Four long and sad years ago, at about this time of day at 2:30 p.m., Bob called through to us, "Have you listed to the radio?" Do you remember, dear? It's that time, I had the priceless little girl on my lap, where I would that she should be now.

You should come to me dear - if our positions were reversed, nothing could keep me away. Perhaps you fear upbraiding, or something of the sort from me, you should know me better, if you do. I have frequently disclosed to listeners that I had or have an idea that Dorothy is an independent little sort of a guy, but that as you ought to know, can be carried much too far. You can't do without others, dear, particularly those whose affections you possess. Don't even think that you can. The present is ephemeral, therefore not important. It is what we do and say in the course of ephemeral periods that are important because of their impact upon long years of life.

We have much to talk about. You know that I should know your boy. How can I? You nut!

I would have written before - I got your address yesterday.

If, for any reason, you do not wish to come here, tell me so.

Affectionately,
Grand-Dad"

Dorothy Elise was reunited with her Grand-Dad and stayed in contact until his death. His letter reaches out to me, a great-grandson he would never know, across the expanse of time, as a message to always consider those whose affections I possess and remember that they, as well, possess mine.

Future History Mantras

It must be harder to be John McCain than it is to be Barack Obama right now. Senator McCain is undoubtedly synapse-chewing his way through the hours as he meets with his staff and Sarah P., watching image downloads of Obama and Saturday Night Live, with the volume turned down, per Mrs. Palin's request. McCain certainly gives the Governor pep talks before rallies - because he's just so darn proud of her - and probably reminds her about the Gipper, ironically portrayed by a the same man who later played a President. After all, it's about winning, Sweetie. However, underneath all the tough guy glamor, McCain is more aware of what it means to lose - especially this time.

I think if one is a soldier at heart, the word "defeat" just won't do. There is no losing, in the world of Senator McCain. It is a dimension where the phrase "the surge is working" is the new battle cry of Mission Unaccomplished, a strategy we wouldn't need had the war gone as expected after it was announced as won on the deck of a battleship four years prior.

Not only can McCain not lose for himself, he can't lose for the Republicans. It he loses it means that the majority of people in this country have regained their rightful power of choice. A Republican loss - a McCain loss - will be a painful coup de grâce to the biggest slide in approval ratings since the Titanic.

A man like John McCain refuses to accept failure, despite its inherent lessons. And if he does fumble the ball just as the time clock goes off, he imagines that he will become the man he fears - the man who lost the big game - the man who lost to Barack Obama.

The man who lost to Barack Obama...the man who lost to Barack Obama...

I can't really decide if I believe in the power of manifestation or not. I was raised in a positive American bubble of a town and therefore grew up believing that if I wanted something enough...well, you know the rest. And clearly there are some things in my life that would seem to be powerful manifestations of some of my aspirations at least or is my life purely a result of choices I've made to ensure I would feel this way now? I like to stay open to the idea that it is a little of both.

So, I see it before me - a headline - and there's a big picture of John McCain taken while he is thanking his supporters for their hard work, all smiles and handshakes with the obligatory pat on the back reserved for those needing a bit extra. Despite the pleasant photo, text looms large across the top of the paper - "Obama Wins!" - and beneath John's photo it says, with a telling error - for the sake of detail, the turbo spice of visualizations - "John McCane thanks supporters."

And as the spin cycle progresses post-election, I see news programs where this very vision is discussed: The Anchor states, "John McCain has conceded the election to Barack Obama and is planning to spend some time with his family..."

I really like my world of Future History, brought about by a mysterious power, secondary to the one called "voting."

I want this version of reality because we are currently being asked to consider a ruse once again - they are doing this and spouting the most despicable fodder, revealing their shortcomings in a way that would leave David Niven speechless while presenting an Oscar. Despite the McCain campaign's best efforts, we know there is not much difference between McCain and Bush, no matter how much they squawk about their "Maveric," a term eerily similar to the "Cowboy" moniker of W.

Perhaps the "real" American voters only like "real" American heroes who do not lose. Heroes in the classic style - Cowboys, Soldiers - Gippers - the toy surprise in every all-American Happy Meal.

But I have a different fantasy. Or is it a manifestation? Or is it a choice? Whatever it is, in my future world, McCain is the man who lost to Barack Obama...the man who lost to Barack Obama...the man who lost to Barack Obama...

Hard, Dark Things

The hard, dark things always seemed to make us feel better. Take, for example, when Bob ate Dotty’s nose. There we were in their kitchen, watching from our dream state, taking it all in, sipping our Cocktails-in-a-Can. I was enjoying a way-too-strong Tom Collins and you were slurping down a margarita. I think you always drank margaritas because they made you feel like you were on vacation in Mexico or something.

Warm golden light coming through yellow and baby-caca ocre vinyl spring loaded pull shades with a cartoon flower pattern fills the kitchen with light while we’re watching as Bob takes the plate and places it neatly in the center of the table. He tucks a napkin into the collar of his pink Izod LaCoste polo shirt that makes him feel athletic every time he wears it, even though it’s pink and he’s no athlete. Bob looks down at the nose on the plate in front of him. There is a carrot coming out of each nostril. It seems to Bob that toaster ovens have one major flaw: they can’t toast for shit. The edges of Dotty’s nose where it was excised are crusty and a bit burned. Edges become more defined as they harden. Hard dark nose hair – poor ugly fucking woman.

Bob lived with one simple rule: Never fuck until you’re fucked with. Someone had left the box open in the cupboard and the crackers were stale. Probably Dotty. Inconsiderate bitch.

Bob and Dotty Chrisman owned the Chef’s Inn, a smelly diner near the exit of a strip mall. Your stupid, junky boyfriend worked there as the Chef, although I’m not sure whether or not what he did could be called cooking. Still, we ate there often, you and I, feeling somehow more important than the rest because you were fucking the cook and all of our meals were free. Plus, there was the cabin in the hills that for some reason Bob and Dotty believed you deserved to live in without having to pay rent. I thought about this often as I watched you and the junky snort cocaine in your cabin’s gratis bathroom.

I will not forget the Chrisman’s narrow shouldered, flat, melba-toast daughter, Patty, who was continually hoisted into my face in the hopes that I would want to mate with her. Humorless, vague and with an aura of disaster, she could not have been more unattractive to me. No, I didn’t want to dance with her nor did I want her putting suntan oil on my back at the beach. I could feel it in my loins that I never wanted to sow my seeds in her field. On some deep, genetic level, my being could sense the darkness surrounding Patty and I recoiled from her on every approach, visibly, my autonomic nervous system taking over when my mind lost control.

We mulled them over, the Chrismans, your erstwhile benefactors. Little did they know the contempt with which you referred to them, not only biting the hands that fed you, but filleting and serving those hands with a sauce of venomous sarcasm. There, on the floor, flat on your back, slipping your fingers into the crevasses of the brown high-low carpet and sipping your canned Mexican vacation, you’d play your game, the junky slumped against the cabin’s wood paneling across from you, dirty dishes around him while he snored and drooled. I’d crawl onto the mattress folded in two under the big mirror, curled up with a pillow between my legs and listen while you’d define the game of the moment.

It was often time to think of the worst possible, hard, dark things that we could. It was the only way to feel power in a world that had no place for us. The Chrisman’s were an easy target – they seemed to have the security we lacked: nice home, nice business, enough money to help you. Perhaps it was your shame that made you play the game. Who knows? So we’d picture Bob eating Dotty’s nose so that the horror in their lives would somehow match our own.

Of course no one could have foreseen what would transpire. As usual, the dry-bread daughter had been thrown in my face for a dance at the Chrisman’s holiday party. I only agreed to go get ice with her so I wouldn’t have to dance. And yes, she seemed small behind the wheel of her brother’s Corvette. You’re right – I felt scared as we rocketed down the twisty, mountain road, her inability to control the giant, rumbling beast apparent as we neared the intersection at high speed. And finally, I admit to my disbelief as the car fishtailed and I saw Patty's hands lift from the wheel as the tops of the pine trees were flooded by the headlights. Sure, there was a moment of exhilarating horripilation as the Corvette lifted-off, sailing for three seconds through the air, until it came crashing to the ground with a horrible, metallic shatter. I’m so sorry she died.

We don’t play the game anymore. No more noses, no more kitchens. The hard, dark things have stopped making us laugh.

McTurity Level

Is it me or is John McCain creepy? Watching last night's final presidential debate, I wanted to focus on what the candidates put forth as their policies. Instead, I became distracted by the body language and mannerisms of the Republican on stage.

Not only was he strangely emotional during the debate, he seemed to be ready to explode at any moment, nervously glancing around the room often as if he were desperately looking for support in the crowd. Occasionally while Senator Obama spoke, McCain would interrupt with laughter, snorts or heavy sighs. I watched the debate on CNN, one of the networks employing a split-screen format. This is where it really became interesting - McCain, twice by my account, actually slid back into second grade behavior and rolled his eyes. Was he unaware that we were watching his reactions to Obama's answers?

Lets be fair - Obama is a politician. He didn't sell me on many of his answers. No politician seems to answer questions directly - maybe here and there - but in general, the Illinois Senator is hard pressed when asked to be specific about his policies. In reality, no politician can be specific because they all know, as do we, that there is no way to tell if their policies or plans will work until they are tested in real time.

The system and its problems have become so complex, anyone who tells you they know anything for sure is lying - and this is what John McCain does. He constantly says that he can fix it - he can win the war - he can find Osama Bin Laden - he can do it all - but never tells us how. His twitchy aggression and rhetoric, with a dash of the occasional reptilian-like darting of his pointy tongue - illustrate a larger problem that is rarely addressed in the press - is John McCain mentally stable? Or is his lack of maturity a separate red flag that the American people should heed?

My message to John McCain is this - I agree with some of your plans and I would say I even prefer some to Senator Obama's. However, Sir, your failing is not so much in your record (although Obama does have an excellent point about your decidedly un-maveric voting in line with President Bush over the last eight years), but more in the very un-presidential way in which your present yourself. You seemed irritated and emotional last night, you were rude and immature and made untrue accusations (a nice way of saying, "You lied"). Given the frightening state of the union, I am afraid we need a steadier hand.

Is Dumb the New Sexy (Again)?

I am sure the topic has been blogged-to-death but I can't help pondering the appeal of Sarah Palin. It is undeniable to me that she is what she promotes herself to be - Hockey Mom, Jane Sixpack, a woman who would blow a moose away given the right set of circumstances. Sarah's bloodthirsty in the most adorable way.

Watching Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live command attention with her spot-on impersonation is, without a doubt, the humor highlight of the campaign season. While I appreciate Tina Fey's talent, the truth is, it is the same old "dumb blond" routine we've all seen year after year. It's a schtick we all know and love; Frank Zappa's Valley Girl, Marilyn Monroe's undying persona, the Chrissy Snow character on the '70's sitcom Three's Company...the list goes on an on. But why is dumb so sexy to so many? Is this quality, sans the blond, whether real or cunning and strategic, a liability or the true appeal of Sarah Palin?

Check this out - SNL writers don't need to struggle too hard for a script - Sarah writes it for them:



The question I keep asking myself is how can anyone - Republican, Conservative, Evangelical, Independent or Undecided - seriously contemplate electing Governor Palin into the office of Vice President of the United States? This is a woman who believes, and stated on national t.v., that geographical proximity to Canada (and don't forget those pesky Russians!) qualifies her as a foreign policy advisor to the President. I am truly frightened that this Inflatable Sex Doll Vice President would be so close to the Presidency. Judging by the way John McCain acted during the last Presidential debate, he's liable to just wander off one day, leaving us with the new President Palin. Will she be winking and saying (over her backyard fence, one would presume) "You betcha!" to Vladimir Putin one day?

Perhaps subconsciously we all want her in the spotlight to guarantee our ringside seat for the next silly thing she says - it's truly entertaining - and we might call this quality the "Dan Quayle Effect." We're all so busy rubbernecking at every brain-dead comment and its ensuing hilarity, we may fail to recognize that the sinister truth is these simpleminded politicians have, or will have, incredible power and influence. Former President George H. W. Bush eventually admitted that he "blew it" by choosing Dan Quayle. Here's the proof:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E7DC133DF936A35753C1A961958260&fta=y

And some evidence to support his belief:



Will we have to wait until after the election for John McCain to admit he "blew it," too?

And I have a question for Senator Joe Biden - why were you so congenial with Governor Palin during the Vice Presidential debate? You're known for your loose lips - why so controlled? Fools need to be called out - it's the only way to possibly awaken the voters. Instead, we risk the chance that she may actually be elected. Although ultimately not effective, something along these lines would have been, at the very least, a moment of relief for those of us who see the danger of a dolt in office:



Governor Palin, whether acting stupid or actually dim (I think a combination of both) is attempting to appeal to, as she sees us, the salt-of-the-earth folks out there, saying she is one of us and an "outsider." Personally, I am insulted - why do these slippery politicians equate low to middle income, simple living and anonymity - the trappings of the commoners - to a lack of intelligence? Is Sarah Palin really 'speakin' our language' when she drops the "g" off of every verb in the present continuous tense? Why does Sarah Palin and the GOP believe that by presenting her this way, she will appeal to the majority of Americans?

And if we are truly as stupid as they want us to believe we are, then my question to the common electorate is this - given the current crisis situations here at home and abroad - do you really want someone just like you in the White House - or do you want someone smarter?