I felt like a jaded NYer today. I don't know if that's good or bad. The famous St. Patrick's Day Parade was strolling by only steps from my place of work. It was snowing a little -- just enough to be a nuisance. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, I always eat at these hot/cold (salad) bars because you can get all the food you want (by the pound), and there's a nice variety. Wednesday and Thursday nights I work at Barnes & Noble AFTER I finished my 9-5 day job, so I'm basically constantly working from 9am to 10:30pm. It's rough, but so is poverty. Because of this, I like to eat a big lunch, since my luxurious 15-minute break at B&N doesn't allow for much time to get/cook/prepare/eat dinner.
So, I'm heading off to my preferred luncheon place when I'm headed off by the massive parade. It's happily (though frigidly) marching down 5th Avenue, the very street I need to cross! How do you cross a giant parade complete with police barricades and packs of police? Surrounded by annoying parents and children, I asked the cop how to cross. He said I had to go down another street, then go up (and make my way back), basically traveling in a giant "U." I was no particularly thrilled to hear this news and must have let it show on my face, for he grimaced sympathetically and apologized. That surprised me a bit since I didn't think I was one of those people (like you see here so often) who are not shy about showing their disapproval.
It's funny, when I first got to NYC, I was surprised at how cool NY'ers were. I thought they got a bad rap (and if you mention that to them, they enthusiastically agree). They have always been chatty, helpful, and friendly. But, the longer I live here, the more I get to see the ugly side of the beast. I keep wondering if it has more to do with my job, than with NY'ers as a whole. The "clients," at my job are very wealthy people, and as I've mentioned before, they can be demanding, rude, arrogant, and accusatory. This has left a very sour taste in my mouth, especially since I already have a chip on my shoulder from the great wealthy minority as it is.
Yet, I'm hesitant to blame the job. The rich people aren't surprising me. Some "normal" people are. Example: I get on the subway the other day, and sort of slam myself down on the seat (bench). There was a woman there, sitting about a foot or two away from me, with her large bag in between us. I had clipped her bag as I was sitting down. She turned to me and fixed me with a stony gaze for a long time. I know I could have ignored it (I had the "shield" of my book, Lady Chatterley's Lover), but I was tired, and i was sick-and-tired of rude people, so I turned to her and glared right back. She spat out, "I could have moved it!" I raised my eyebrows and said, "It's not like I hit it on purpose!" She snarled, "Then you could have said, 'Excuse me!"
EXCUSE ME!
Fuck, I really hardly touched it. It's not like it flew off the seat and crashed to the floor. And it obviously was an accident. It's not like me (or anyone else) roams through subway cars throwing their bodies up against strangers' bags.
New York is making me hard, just like them. I'm just not willing to let people push me around anymore. Bangkok is partly to blame. Being in such a difficult environment where people are trying to fuck with you ALL the time sure forces you to grow skin like a damn armadillio. Being tired from working two jobs, makes you more unwilling to put up with bullshit. Furthermore, getting older and losing some of your shyness also contributes. Finally, living in New York and facing some pretty tough characters does as well.
I'm disappointed. Though I never desired to be a doormat, neither do I aspire to be one of these typical assholes with a itchy trigger temper. I honestly want to be kind to people, and will try to continue to do so. My god, I hope I'm not cut out only for suburbia!
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Sunday, March 14, 2004
NYC – Living in a Pop Culture Bubble
“I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York…”
One of the most fun things about living in New York City, is its constant connection to pop culture. I watch a lot of TV, listen to a lot of music, and see a lot of movies. It’s in part about seeing the Empire State Building on a daily basis when you’re walking to the store or coming home from work. It’s in part about riding the city's famous subway, eating its famous pizza, hot dogs, and Chinese food, or walking through its famous neighborhoods.
My favorite show, Law & Order, of which I’m slightly obsessive about, is filmed here in Manhattan, right on the streets, just as the fabulous, but now defunct, Homicide was filmed in Baltimore. I’ve been watching Law & Order since it began 13 years ago. I own the special book and DVD put out by its producer/creator, and I think I single-handedly keep up TNT’s ratings from my endless hours watching Law & Order in consecutive episodes, sometimes at five hours at a stretch. But now, when they play that famous *DUN-DUN* sound, and then flash the black screen listing the location the scene is at, I go, “Wow, that’s like right down the street from my apartment!” And, it really is.
When I watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, they're running down streets I know. The last Apprentice show had them trotting just steps from my place of work. It's all around me.
This kind of thing happens constantly. I just recently finished the book “Any Human Heart” about the life of a semi-famous writer, and he lives part of his life in Manhattan in the fifties. Many of the things described are still around today. And like I said, I run into this all the time. It’s like every story, every song, every tv show or movie is set in your neighborhood. It’s just so intimate and interesting. It makes living here constantly fun and interesting.
Last night, I was spending a Friday night alone. My roommate had a “special” friend over for the weekend and they were needing some quality time. Since my roommate and I have not been particularly lucky in love for the past few months, I’m happy to make myself scarce for several hours to oblige him. So, I decided to finally go see Mystic River (it was amazing!) and have a bite to eat somewhere. The movie ended around 11:30pm, and though it was a bit chilly, I felt like walking home. The theater was on 34th street and I live on 14th, so it’s not a very long walk. I began walking down 8th avenue, which was surprisingly scary. You know, I’ve walked around NYC many many times in the past few months, always trying to take different routes. Like Bangkok, each street, each neighborhood is unique – its own little world. Eighth Avenue was lined with X-rated shops (I guess this is where they relocated after they were “cleaned up” from the more touristy areas). Men were standing around everywhere. I saw very few women. Men occasionally called out to me, trying to entice me. I wrapped up my face and hid my long hair. Showing my long hair seems to be an invitation at times. When wrapped up in a scarf and winter coat, the offers are much less numerous.
Then, when I got to 23rd Street, another major street (basically all subway line streets are major streets of activity), I made a left turn and began to walk along it. Suddenly, I was in Chelsea, and immediately found a different atmosphere from the dark, slightly seedy neighborhood of 8th Avenue. Suddenly, the area was younger, hipper, and more alive. Twenty-somethings were everywhere, lined up in front of places I probably wouldn’t notice during the day.
After a short time, I saw a giant, vintage-looking neon sign, vertically displaying the word “HOTEL” and horizontally, “Chelsea.” The Hotel Chelsea, or the Chelsea Hotel. That’s something so great about NYC. You can be strolling down a street, everything seems normal, and *bam* you are confronted with something from your own mind’s history. It’s like all of the sudden coming across a storybook character ambling down the road. It’s a delightful shock. Suddenly, my mind was filled with Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel #2” which is supposedly about getting blowjobs from Janis Joplin in that very hotel.
Like The Oriental hotel in Bangkok which boastfully shows off its “Author’s Lounge,” and charged hefty prices for their Author's Suites, the Chelsea Hotel also proudly displays the names of artists who have used its eccentric lodgings as a sort of residential muse. Just a few are (were) authors Nelson Algren, Sherwood Anderson, Brendan Behan, Arthur Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, William S. Burroughs, Sam Shepard, Dylan Thomas, Mark Twain, Arthur C. Clarke, Quentin Crisp, O. Henry; musicians Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Edith Piaf, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Joni Mitchell, and actors Dennis Hopper, Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Sarah Bernhardt. There must be some kind of nucleus of creative energy at the center of that place.
I peered through the window. It looked strangely decorated inside, part bohemian, part touristy. I’m sure a place like that has to push its tourist appeal in order to survive for so long. I wonder if going in, even renting a room for the night, in hopes of simply absorbing some of its artistic magic, would end up disappointing me and leaving jaded and resentful. I should just do the typical thing and have my photo taken in front of the sign with a cheesy grin on my face. I checked. A night would cost me $150-$250. That’s not so shocking for NYC standards. You can even order the “official” Hotel Chelsea t-shirts keytags! Maybe I should have gone inside, but what would I have done? Stood uncertainly in the lobby, the receptionist staff staring at me expectedly or perhaps with tired boredom of another person who thinks how cool it is just to BE here.
Anyway, I continued on my way home, and soon became intrigued when I saw a large church with a long and meandering line of these nightgoers outside. Numerous fuzzy blue lights lit up the church and I found myself wondering if there was some sort of haunted house thing going on. As I crossed the street to investigate, I realized that it was, in actuality, a nightclub! Seeing a church ablaze in blue light with so many partiers outside was jarring, even for this Atheist. I was dying of curiosity to see what it looked like inside, but I am not always as fearless as my mother thinks I am.
Soon, I reached my street (though several blocks still from home), and climbed tiredly onto a bus for the remaining length. I was reading Girl with a Pearl Earring, an entertaining book I was to start and finish in a 24 hour period. There’s something soothing about being on a warm bus late at night. It was one of those rare moments when you feel kind of content from small things. One of those moments when I love living in NYC.
"New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening..."
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York…”
One of the most fun things about living in New York City, is its constant connection to pop culture. I watch a lot of TV, listen to a lot of music, and see a lot of movies. It’s in part about seeing the Empire State Building on a daily basis when you’re walking to the store or coming home from work. It’s in part about riding the city's famous subway, eating its famous pizza, hot dogs, and Chinese food, or walking through its famous neighborhoods.
My favorite show, Law & Order, of which I’m slightly obsessive about, is filmed here in Manhattan, right on the streets, just as the fabulous, but now defunct, Homicide was filmed in Baltimore. I’ve been watching Law & Order since it began 13 years ago. I own the special book and DVD put out by its producer/creator, and I think I single-handedly keep up TNT’s ratings from my endless hours watching Law & Order in consecutive episodes, sometimes at five hours at a stretch. But now, when they play that famous *DUN-DUN* sound, and then flash the black screen listing the location the scene is at, I go, “Wow, that’s like right down the street from my apartment!” And, it really is.
When I watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, they're running down streets I know. The last Apprentice show had them trotting just steps from my place of work. It's all around me.
This kind of thing happens constantly. I just recently finished the book “Any Human Heart” about the life of a semi-famous writer, and he lives part of his life in Manhattan in the fifties. Many of the things described are still around today. And like I said, I run into this all the time. It’s like every story, every song, every tv show or movie is set in your neighborhood. It’s just so intimate and interesting. It makes living here constantly fun and interesting.
Last night, I was spending a Friday night alone. My roommate had a “special” friend over for the weekend and they were needing some quality time. Since my roommate and I have not been particularly lucky in love for the past few months, I’m happy to make myself scarce for several hours to oblige him. So, I decided to finally go see Mystic River (it was amazing!) and have a bite to eat somewhere. The movie ended around 11:30pm, and though it was a bit chilly, I felt like walking home. The theater was on 34th street and I live on 14th, so it’s not a very long walk. I began walking down 8th avenue, which was surprisingly scary. You know, I’ve walked around NYC many many times in the past few months, always trying to take different routes. Like Bangkok, each street, each neighborhood is unique – its own little world. Eighth Avenue was lined with X-rated shops (I guess this is where they relocated after they were “cleaned up” from the more touristy areas). Men were standing around everywhere. I saw very few women. Men occasionally called out to me, trying to entice me. I wrapped up my face and hid my long hair. Showing my long hair seems to be an invitation at times. When wrapped up in a scarf and winter coat, the offers are much less numerous.
Then, when I got to 23rd Street, another major street (basically all subway line streets are major streets of activity), I made a left turn and began to walk along it. Suddenly, I was in Chelsea, and immediately found a different atmosphere from the dark, slightly seedy neighborhood of 8th Avenue. Suddenly, the area was younger, hipper, and more alive. Twenty-somethings were everywhere, lined up in front of places I probably wouldn’t notice during the day.
After a short time, I saw a giant, vintage-looking neon sign, vertically displaying the word “HOTEL” and horizontally, “Chelsea.” The Hotel Chelsea, or the Chelsea Hotel. That’s something so great about NYC. You can be strolling down a street, everything seems normal, and *bam* you are confronted with something from your own mind’s history. It’s like all of the sudden coming across a storybook character ambling down the road. It’s a delightful shock. Suddenly, my mind was filled with Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel #2” which is supposedly about getting blowjobs from Janis Joplin in that very hotel.
Like The Oriental hotel in Bangkok which boastfully shows off its “Author’s Lounge,” and charged hefty prices for their Author's Suites, the Chelsea Hotel also proudly displays the names of artists who have used its eccentric lodgings as a sort of residential muse. Just a few are (were) authors Nelson Algren, Sherwood Anderson, Brendan Behan, Arthur Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, William S. Burroughs, Sam Shepard, Dylan Thomas, Mark Twain, Arthur C. Clarke, Quentin Crisp, O. Henry; musicians Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Edith Piaf, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Joni Mitchell, and actors Dennis Hopper, Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Sarah Bernhardt. There must be some kind of nucleus of creative energy at the center of that place.
I peered through the window. It looked strangely decorated inside, part bohemian, part touristy. I’m sure a place like that has to push its tourist appeal in order to survive for so long. I wonder if going in, even renting a room for the night, in hopes of simply absorbing some of its artistic magic, would end up disappointing me and leaving jaded and resentful. I should just do the typical thing and have my photo taken in front of the sign with a cheesy grin on my face. I checked. A night would cost me $150-$250. That’s not so shocking for NYC standards. You can even order the “official” Hotel Chelsea t-shirts keytags! Maybe I should have gone inside, but what would I have done? Stood uncertainly in the lobby, the receptionist staff staring at me expectedly or perhaps with tired boredom of another person who thinks how cool it is just to BE here.
Anyway, I continued on my way home, and soon became intrigued when I saw a large church with a long and meandering line of these nightgoers outside. Numerous fuzzy blue lights lit up the church and I found myself wondering if there was some sort of haunted house thing going on. As I crossed the street to investigate, I realized that it was, in actuality, a nightclub! Seeing a church ablaze in blue light with so many partiers outside was jarring, even for this Atheist. I was dying of curiosity to see what it looked like inside, but I am not always as fearless as my mother thinks I am.
Soon, I reached my street (though several blocks still from home), and climbed tiredly onto a bus for the remaining length. I was reading Girl with a Pearl Earring, an entertaining book I was to start and finish in a 24 hour period. There’s something soothing about being on a warm bus late at night. It was one of those rare moments when you feel kind of content from small things. One of those moments when I love living in NYC.
"New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening..."
Friday, March 05, 2004
The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name – Subway Love
I admit it; everyday on the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Subway Trains…I fall in love. It’s not hard to do. Whoever you are and whatever your type, they’re all there, on the subway! Every race, hundreds of countries, dozens of languages, all their within inches of your own beating heart!
Every morning and evening, I board two trains. The shiny and clean “L” which takes me crosstown on 14th Street, and the dirty and dingy, “F” or “V” (whichever comes first) that carries me uptown or downtown.
I was thinking the other day, when wedged almost comically like sardines, tin can and all, that the “train” (as real NYers call it), is a real playground for those who may want to cop-a-feel. Sometimes you are just so close, you have some stranger pressed up against you in a way that would in almost any other situation (that wasn’t carnal), be horrendously inappropriate, and would certainly produce lawsuits in some companies. I’ve had people pushed up against my butt, back, arms, etc. I try to keep my breasts somewhat shielded by a defensive arm if I can. Smells of perfume, bad cologne (why is it always bad? Good cologne is seductive, bad cologne is offensive), hair products, and general unwashed bodies are front and center to your olfactory nodes.
But I’ve come to realize that though my stomach may turn at the unwanted intimacy around me, sometimes I too take advantage of it. Just the other day, I found myself pressed up against a hottie of a guy, in his dark grey wool coat, book in hand (I love ‘em when they can read!). My face was just an inch from his strong, manly shoulder and I suddenly had this irresistible urge to lean over and press my forehead there against it. This split-second archaic mentality where you are being shielded from all the world’s troubles by a man’s comforting, expansive chest. As the train violently pushes me to-and-fro, I find myself not resisting the imbalance quite so strenuously. So what if I bump into his shoulder? Eegads! Isn’t this the same mentality others use to accidentally caress my butt during each jolt on the tracks? I am a sleazeball fondler. Just another person trying to steal some desperately-wanted closeness from a stranger on a subway.
Every morning and evening, I board two trains. The shiny and clean “L” which takes me crosstown on 14th Street, and the dirty and dingy, “F” or “V” (whichever comes first) that carries me uptown or downtown.
I was thinking the other day, when wedged almost comically like sardines, tin can and all, that the “train” (as real NYers call it), is a real playground for those who may want to cop-a-feel. Sometimes you are just so close, you have some stranger pressed up against you in a way that would in almost any other situation (that wasn’t carnal), be horrendously inappropriate, and would certainly produce lawsuits in some companies. I’ve had people pushed up against my butt, back, arms, etc. I try to keep my breasts somewhat shielded by a defensive arm if I can. Smells of perfume, bad cologne (why is it always bad? Good cologne is seductive, bad cologne is offensive), hair products, and general unwashed bodies are front and center to your olfactory nodes.
But I’ve come to realize that though my stomach may turn at the unwanted intimacy around me, sometimes I too take advantage of it. Just the other day, I found myself pressed up against a hottie of a guy, in his dark grey wool coat, book in hand (I love ‘em when they can read!). My face was just an inch from his strong, manly shoulder and I suddenly had this irresistible urge to lean over and press my forehead there against it. This split-second archaic mentality where you are being shielded from all the world’s troubles by a man’s comforting, expansive chest. As the train violently pushes me to-and-fro, I find myself not resisting the imbalance quite so strenuously. So what if I bump into his shoulder? Eegads! Isn’t this the same mentality others use to accidentally caress my butt during each jolt on the tracks? I am a sleazeball fondler. Just another person trying to steal some desperately-wanted closeness from a stranger on a subway.
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Don't Touch My Bible, Gay Boy!
“The Court’s obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate its own moral code.”
-- The Supreme Court, June 2003, in regards to Lawrence v. Texas
As usual with my writing, (as well as with my oil painting), I seem to ebb and flow in my enthusiasm. This makes me wonder how I could ever truly be a writer seeing as how the essays I do read about “how to write” always feature authors lamenting at how they must force themselves to sit in front of a computer, like a job, about eight hours a day and pound out something. I find that rather daunting myself. I could see myself writing a book in eight crazy, 18-hour days, then doing NOTHING for six months. That’s just the gal I am.
Well, my boy John Edwards, as of 4pm today, will be officially out of the race. SOB! My god, now we’re stuck with Kerry, who excites me about as much as my phone bill does. I will stand behind him, because of course, ABB! (Anybody But Bush!), but what a pathetic turn to politics. At least I could get behind Edwards with some genuine enthusiasm.
And, I’m stealing this off of Cheek’s website, but I found this great. Of course we’re all aware of the gay marriage controversy recently. I find myself totally mystified to the actions of others, even if supposedly, I am in the minority (though I seriously doubt this). Why not let people get married? How will it hurt a society? As Chris Rock joked, “Gay people can’t join the military or get married? Damn, who’s got it better than that?” But here’s the list that was linked off of Cheek’s site. It’s great.
I find myself not articulate enough to fight these “political” battles (which makes me nervous in wanting to write, period). It seems just human decency to let people love each other and not be bothered by others and their beliefs. I have always hated Europeans’ smugness on how liberal their societies are compared to ours. But in reality, they are right in they are way ahead of us in their acceptance of their fellow human beings. I remember a Dutch man I knew once saying to me, “We don’t care what anyone does as long as they’re not hurting anybody else.” At the time I thought it was kind of stupid. As an American, I like order and responsibility and a general lack of chaos. But now, nine years later, I am envious of such a general view. A view like that seems to extend to everything as well. That’s why you find Europeans more laid back about sexuality (nudity along with it), religion, etc. Some may argue that their benevolent attitudes are changing after their recent influx of refugees from not-so-Western-European countries, but I am optimistic those jerks are the minority.
Now let me quote The Economist, the magazine, though WAY TOO EXPENSIVE, is absolutely fantastic in its writing:
“So at last it’s official: George Bush is in favour of unequal rights, big-government intrusiveness and federal power rather than devolution to the states. That is the implication of his announcement this week that he will support efforts to pass a constitutional amendment in America banning gay marriage. Some have sought to explain this action away simply as cynical politics, an effort to motivate his core conservative supporters to turn out to vote for him in November or to put his likely “Massachusetts liberal” opponent, John Kerry, in an awkward spot. Yet to call for a constitutional amendment is such a difficult, drastic and draconian move that cynicism is too weak an explanation. No, it must be worse than that: Mr. Bush must actually believe in what he is doing.”
That man scares the shit out of me. It’s so awful to watch someone fuck up your country and then hope in vain your one vote will make a difference. Which reminds me, FUCKING NADER!!!!!!! I think that article (I don’t have the citation) was right when it pleaded with Nader NOT to run. That the Presidential race was quite a different breed last time, but this time, things are more desperate, more urgent. Nader will only be a “spoiler” (a term we hear a lot lately) and screw things up the way he did in Florida where his 97,000+ votes yanked the mere 1000 Gore would’ve needed to win. This time we MUST get rid of Bush and Nader and his “Corporations own America! (only I can save you with my revelations!)” speeches make me want to throw up my expensive $10 NYC lunch. I watched him that day on Tim Russert and felt a feeling of dread washed over me when he defiantly claimed he was running and that the rest of the world who was against this could piss off and die. “We need a third party, blah blah.” You know, it’s not that people DISagree with you Nader, it’s just that we can’t afford for you to be waving your self-righteous flag right now. You know that morning that Nader announced his run for the Presidency, the entire Bush administration were popping corks of champagne, throwing confetti, giving each other high-5’s, and screaming, “You’re fucked now, Kerry!”
We’re all fucked now.
-- The Supreme Court, June 2003, in regards to Lawrence v. Texas
As usual with my writing, (as well as with my oil painting), I seem to ebb and flow in my enthusiasm. This makes me wonder how I could ever truly be a writer seeing as how the essays I do read about “how to write” always feature authors lamenting at how they must force themselves to sit in front of a computer, like a job, about eight hours a day and pound out something. I find that rather daunting myself. I could see myself writing a book in eight crazy, 18-hour days, then doing NOTHING for six months. That’s just the gal I am.
Well, my boy John Edwards, as of 4pm today, will be officially out of the race. SOB! My god, now we’re stuck with Kerry, who excites me about as much as my phone bill does. I will stand behind him, because of course, ABB! (Anybody But Bush!), but what a pathetic turn to politics. At least I could get behind Edwards with some genuine enthusiasm.
And, I’m stealing this off of Cheek’s website, but I found this great. Of course we’re all aware of the gay marriage controversy recently. I find myself totally mystified to the actions of others, even if supposedly, I am in the minority (though I seriously doubt this). Why not let people get married? How will it hurt a society? As Chris Rock joked, “Gay people can’t join the military or get married? Damn, who’s got it better than that?” But here’s the list that was linked off of Cheek’s site. It’s great.
I find myself not articulate enough to fight these “political” battles (which makes me nervous in wanting to write, period). It seems just human decency to let people love each other and not be bothered by others and their beliefs. I have always hated Europeans’ smugness on how liberal their societies are compared to ours. But in reality, they are right in they are way ahead of us in their acceptance of their fellow human beings. I remember a Dutch man I knew once saying to me, “We don’t care what anyone does as long as they’re not hurting anybody else.” At the time I thought it was kind of stupid. As an American, I like order and responsibility and a general lack of chaos. But now, nine years later, I am envious of such a general view. A view like that seems to extend to everything as well. That’s why you find Europeans more laid back about sexuality (nudity along with it), religion, etc. Some may argue that their benevolent attitudes are changing after their recent influx of refugees from not-so-Western-European countries, but I am optimistic those jerks are the minority.
Now let me quote The Economist, the magazine, though WAY TOO EXPENSIVE, is absolutely fantastic in its writing:
“So at last it’s official: George Bush is in favour of unequal rights, big-government intrusiveness and federal power rather than devolution to the states. That is the implication of his announcement this week that he will support efforts to pass a constitutional amendment in America banning gay marriage. Some have sought to explain this action away simply as cynical politics, an effort to motivate his core conservative supporters to turn out to vote for him in November or to put his likely “Massachusetts liberal” opponent, John Kerry, in an awkward spot. Yet to call for a constitutional amendment is such a difficult, drastic and draconian move that cynicism is too weak an explanation. No, it must be worse than that: Mr. Bush must actually believe in what he is doing.”
That man scares the shit out of me. It’s so awful to watch someone fuck up your country and then hope in vain your one vote will make a difference. Which reminds me, FUCKING NADER!!!!!!! I think that article (I don’t have the citation) was right when it pleaded with Nader NOT to run. That the Presidential race was quite a different breed last time, but this time, things are more desperate, more urgent. Nader will only be a “spoiler” (a term we hear a lot lately) and screw things up the way he did in Florida where his 97,000+ votes yanked the mere 1000 Gore would’ve needed to win. This time we MUST get rid of Bush and Nader and his “Corporations own America! (only I can save you with my revelations!)” speeches make me want to throw up my expensive $10 NYC lunch. I watched him that day on Tim Russert and felt a feeling of dread washed over me when he defiantly claimed he was running and that the rest of the world who was against this could piss off and die. “We need a third party, blah blah.” You know, it’s not that people DISagree with you Nader, it’s just that we can’t afford for you to be waving your self-righteous flag right now. You know that morning that Nader announced his run for the Presidency, the entire Bush administration were popping corks of champagne, throwing confetti, giving each other high-5’s, and screaming, “You’re fucked now, Kerry!”
We’re all fucked now.
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