Aquarian Weekly 10/18/00
REALITY CHECK

NOTES FROM THE CAMPAIGN FRINGE

Editor's Note:
Forty-eight hours before the first presidential debate of the 21st century, the author, sequestered in the Putnam Bunker compiled a series of random notes that this publication shall run with the warning that coherence is relative. Also included are a series of babbling rants during the two-hour debate to which we can only apologize in advance.

Sixteen hours ago an angry fucker by the name of Charles Dunwitty invited me to a fundraiser for George W. Bush for which I had no use and promptly threatened to revoke my debate credentials. This did not alarm me for I never received, nor applied for any credentials. Massachusetts is only romantic in the fall if caravans of desperate politicians and rabid protestors are miles South or West, not crawling around the best bars in Boston trying to wrest free rounds from yuppie derelicts.

Dunwitty is an ass, and so is his cheap fraud of an organization that runs its debate rehearsals in an Austin, Texas hotel for a man whose best attempt at formulating sentences was abandoned long ago at the fraternity kegger.

The Bush people, along with Mr. Dunwitty, see fit to ignore my many e-mails and letters instructing their candidate to begin dismantling this myth that their opponent is a champion of the poor and feeble while he rakes in millions from rich celebrities, huge pharmaceutical and tobacco corporations and laundered funds from corrupt union gangsters.

The standard Bush response: We appreciate your concern and support for the candidate. Perhaps they will appreciate being humiliated. Pennsylvania is teetering, New Jersey is falling and only a supreme being could fathom what the hell anyone in Missouri or Michigan will do until 11/1, and even then a sober prognostication will be dubious. Bush is going down, but for one key element: abrasive, caustic personal attacks.

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Over the past twenty years I could be counted on to support or attend any Ralph Nader function, but lately things have been very shaky at his headquarters. Suddenly Nader, surrounded by the Buchanan Brigade and Jerry Brown granola-head rejects, is looking like madcap comedy relief for this thing and it is unpleasant to watch. Three times in the last four weeks there have been several Independent candidate/party rallies in New York City and each one has deteriorated into a Kumbaya mess. This is what illegitimate political campaigns have wrought; anger for change traded for whining because no one worth a damn is paid off by some group to make the NY Times or even the friggin' Trentonian cover it.

I refuse to attend political funerals, especially for true warriors. This is why I rejected credentials to most of Bill Bradley's final appearances last spring and why I won't watch Nader go down in a mist of flaccid debate arguments. There is no sane reason to cover it beyond aimless rebellion, and that is for amateurs and dreamers and I will fight on the turf laid out before me or volunteer to pen another Declaration of Independence from this quagmire.

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Several meetings of the Youth Vote for Westchester in the basement of Iona University in New Rochelle with the pimply peeved and we are no closer to any solid answers to why anyone under the age of 25 is paying attention to this race.

There is a strong contingent of women, who are not going to mess with any Republican chief executive saying all the right things about Supreme Court appointees respecting constitutional rights while drunken priests ram their BMW's into abortion clinics. No one thinks much of the vice president, despite his or her fear of Bush. I tell them to ignore the news medium and make up their minds or stay the hell home.

The young men are less feisty, but want Nader or Buchanan to do anything to prove their worth. Most colleges are liberal, but this is a basin for the rich or upper-middle-class and these are the sons and daughters of Reaganites who made a killing in stocks and real estate during the 80s' when the Democrats dragged punching bags to unseat the status quo.

None of these kids understand my tattered surrender flag. This is the new generation of "Choose-Or-Lose" offspring with little idea that something like the presidency means much more than the Queen of England or the host of the Today show. History is Viet Nam and Woodstock to these people. Debates are tantamount to bad local access television staged by pompous geriatrics with no serious long-range goals. And not one of us could grasp the notion of expensive over-the-counter drugs and social security concerns when marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine are so readily available twenty feet off campus.

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The bile begins to work its way from the pit of my stomach to the tip of my throat and we're not even through Jim Leher's first question. Is this fossil going to ramble like this all night? Who has time for this monotone bullshit?

Gore is sighing and interrupting. Bush is stumbling and sniffling. Nobody wants to commit to anything. No one wants to piss anyone off, least of all each other. Polls say Americans don't want negativity in their campaign rhetoric. Yes, and we watch PBS all day and never masturbate.

What level of brain-dead mannequins are we enduring with this vat of bilge? We need puss-filled, bloody ferret fights to the death now. That is how democracy works, not some number-crunching pinheads with interchangeable personalities. Likeable sods with wet feet and dapper ties leave us with grinning charlatans from the South pampered by daddy's oil and tobacco money. This is what we deserve now. We don't want any nasty commentary. We all hate the media. We like wimps and dignitaries to run the store. Friend of mine just said he's embarrassed to be an American. I haven't wasted this much time since the Eyes Wide Shut credits started to run. Dig up Kubrik and let's try take- two.

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