Prom Night in DC

The inaugural balls in DC were doubtlessly populated by people who never even went to their own high school proms.
Geeks, policy nerds, science geeks and the occasional vice student council speaker were instead there in swarms. NY and LA no doubt had a good laugh as the uncool kids celebrated the inauguration as someone way out of their bureaucratic social league took power.
David Brooks has said that society could be explained by the table one ate at in their high school cafeteria. Geeks, nerds, jocks, gearheads, stoners, skaters etc.
But then there is revenge. In a recent (and terrible) movie it is the nerds who are at the top of the social pile.
A wealthy alum has donated a Spanish-style mansion for them, complete with pool and jacuzzi. The girls flock to them, knowing that the guys will be obscenely rich after graduation. It truly is Revenge of the Nerds.
But for DC, it is a short vacation from the demands of their world. What so shocked Thomas Frank, from Kansas and Chicago, was Washington's permanent wealth. Four of the 10 wealthiest counties in the nation are around DC. It is white-collar to the bone, never having had a manufacturing sector and never having even a real large port.
Instead it has expensive lobbyist steak houses. Enjoy your dinner, Mr. Obama.

The Real Show Begins

After a two-year campaign and endless coverage of his Cabinet picks, Obama has to take the most drastic of measures: governing.
The media could not be more dissapointed. Covering the election was fun, what with lighting up blue and red states on the screen, traveling all over the nation, and listening in and opining on Obama's soaring speeches.
Governing and making policy, on the other hand, are a drag. It's that whole legislative branch thing that's always getting in the way. Obama at least has a Democratic majority on the Hill. But that doesn't mean they'll rubber stamp every initiative coming from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
There's a famous quote from Bismark. Making policy is like making sausage: you don't want to see how it's done.

Of the Cardinal Staff

There was, I admit, a certain panache in writing for the Daily Cardinal, even for myself, a sometime contributor.
My Poly Sci professor asked me, in front of the class, whether he should await more "fiery editorials." from me. The Wisconsin-type local in the same class said he thought it was "cool" that I wrote for it, with no east coast sarcasm implied. I got most praise when I attacked the 60s baby boomers for their supercilious attitude; always telling us (in the late 1980s) how much better and socially concerned they were than we were.
But the 60s ended, and the 70s seemed to be little more than a totally baked pot party.
Now, apparently, the Badger Herald is the dominant paper (Wisconsin is the only major campus with two newspapers), having been established in the late 1960s, it is the most-read paper (If papers have any readership on campuses at all).
The Cardinal actually folded in the 1990s because of lack of advertising. It re-emerged later that decade.
So who cares? If you look through the Wikipedia entree, you will find far more news industry names than the Herald. Anthony Shadid, the editor-in-chief while I was there, is now a Washington Post reporter who has received numerous awards for his coverage of the middle east, and has written two books on the subject.
Sarah Kershaw is a New York Times reporter. Scott Sherman is a contributor to the Nation. Nathan Bracket is now an editor at Rolling Stone. Tom Vanderbilt has written three books, the last the critically acclaimed (first page of the NY Times book review) book "Traffic."
But the Cardinal, the more left-wing of the papers, became notorious for its endorsement of radical campus uprising. It even approved of the bombing of Sterling Hall, where a post-doc researcher was working and killed in the summer of 1970. Many people, including advertisers, thought that that action (the target was the Army Math Research Center) was beyond radicalism and forgiveness.
So, in the age of Obama, we'll see what happens to possibility of two dueling campus papers in an age in which few people bother to read them or any other publication.

White Niggers of Europe

The title is from a 1960s' book, which argued that the Irish were backwards and historically paralyzed by their long servitude to England. And still today we wonder how the British Empire was able to repress half of the known world. The descriptions of the starving to this day are horrifying, as entire families would beg others for food and drink, just enough to get through the day and night.
It clung to its heroes, who defeated the English at sea. During what was called the Irish Uprising of 1641, it threw heart and soul to Owen Roe O'Neill. "The Liberator" they called him., until he was killed in 1846. The Irish poets always put it best.

"We're sheep without a shepherd
When the snow shuts out the sky
Oh! Why did you leave us,
Owen? Why did you die?"

Disgusting Fear Mongering on E-Mail

On the top left hand side of the screen is a little girl. She is pictured above my incoming messages.
Then there is the message: "Daddy, what would me and Mommy do if you ...died."
It is, of course, an ad for a life insurance agency. I know it is a recession, but is it really necessary to stoop this low.?

Winter Light

Reaching up toward the pale light
Branches grasping it
Is perfect
Bridges the whiteness
Between ground and air
earth and sky, unified
It is a child's picture of a tree
Painted by a master artist
When the leaves come
They are lush and full
For now it is asleep
Its towering majesty undiminished
It yearns to the sky
stripped to the bones
and for a moment,
brings my eye to heaven high

To Carry History's Burden

Obama definitely soft-pedaled his message in his inaugural address. There was little of the soaring rhetoric of his campaign speeches. More on the nation and economy he is inheriting. As The Onion wrote, "Black Man to Inherit Nation's Worst Job."
There was a euphoria that was different from Clinton's 1993 takeover. The man is the message and the message is the man.
Hard to watch as Obama walked outside the bullet-proof (and other proof) car on Penn. Ave.
You could see the tension in the secret service men, ready for a shot, a bang, a boom.
"You may become a prophet, but prophets get killed," a black leader told Bobby Kennedy in 1968.
My worst nightmare (except for those involving me) is Obama killed in office. Newark has never recovered from its riots in 1968. Detroit is still trying, despite a body count in the '67 riots that was finally surpassed by LA in 1992.
But the most interesting clip I saw was of a black 14-year-old. He said that before Obama he thought that rap and pro basketball were the only way out of the 'hood. Now, he said, he thought that he could become president.
Caution for liberals. Philadelphia mayor Nutter (who supported Clinton) essentially said that very few people in the ghetto are going to go to Columbia and Harvard Law. He touted more attention for the public schools.
Let's begin again, to something that has never been accomplished in the history of man: a republic and a democracy that excludes no one.
Greece and Rome had their slaves. The British had the largest empire on earth. The American south had, again, slaves.
So the question remains: can we have a great civilization which is great at no ones expense?

The Scary Man

What exactly is that giant football-player robot-thing in the corner of the screen on Fox's games? All I can think of is that it's preparing us for the day when human players are replaced by pre-programmed automatically controlled machines.
These weird transformer-performers are so bizarre than whenever my cousin's toddler sees one of them appear on the tube she calls it "the scary man."
And that, of course, is probably what Fox wants. In the future, even huge 320 pound linemen will be crushed by these mutants. And the crowd roars on.

Scum Have to Go Somewhere

The immortal title of this post comes from the Rambler. It seems our prolific friend actually opposed the Times Square clean-up. His reason? "Scum have to go somewhere."
Now no matter what you think of a Disneyfied Times Square, it is a million times better than it used to be, for most people.
Sure I miss the thrill of being led into an illegal netherworld. Me and friends fake license quest ended up with numerous colorful people all offering to kick our suburban asses when we didn't buy their, uh, product.
Rambler's thesis about urban scum was hilariously brought to light when the whole of 42nd St. between 7th and 8th Avenue became Hiaku Boulevard. That is, their lurid marquees had now been transformed by installing weird sayings on the signs. It was hoped that somehow these messages would somehow discombobulate the dirtbags.
It did seem to work, for some reason.
Where can scum find shelter, suckers, and sanctuary, plus runaway teenage hookers in today's NY? Wall Street? Maybe the plaza in front of Murdoch's News Corporation? It makes a good fit.
All right then, get a new Travis Bickle to clear out Times Square, because some day a real rain's gonna come.

Saved by Zero

From what I've been scrawling here in January, I am seemingly read by no one. As a former daily reporter, this is tough. I worked at a regional paper, the Trenton Times, which are most at risk in this recession. People get their news from the big papers or wire services. If they want local, they turn to the uber-local newspaper, which can tell you the flounder prices at the local seafood place.
Then there's the publication by article, piece work as it were. You're living from their 0K or their rejection. Disposable; anyone else can work by piece and not by salary.
Tell that to the landlord. You can either wed into wealth or do what the entertainment magazines offer.
I could give one flying fuck about Jennifer Anniston. Yet there has been a cute-fest with her and Marley the dog which has proven boffo box office. The question is who is more cute, the dog or the actress.
Yet I'm seriously thinking about LA as a place to make a living and time to write. There are over 100 tour agencies in the area, and its a place of high turnover. New Orleans is screwed because of their rule that you have lived in the metro area for six months or more, plus a test.
Maybe I'll start by reading Entertainment Weekly, and try not to barf.

I Beat the Breathalizer

There are two bumper stickers on my car. One says "I Beat the Breathalizer - NY, NJ, PA, and MD." The other one says "Blow on This, Cop." I have another that says "Drunk Driving King," but I haven't decided where to put it.
I take my car out onto the turnpike, drive very carefully at the speed limit, and hope that I get pulled over, since I haven't had a drink in days or weeks.
When I do get picked off, I slur my speech as much as possible, and say "bring on the bretlizer, pig."
When I blow a 0.00, they really get pissed. Usually they'll say something like, "This is not a game! In the time we've wasted on you, we could have pulled over someone who might kill someone else."
Yeah, yeah, we've heard it before. Some kid on a tricycle is going to be plowed over by the drunk driving menace.
What I usually say is, "look at it this way Some guy who might have blown a 0.09 is back in bed with his wife and family, instead of being in the lockup so you can increase municipal revenue in whatever ugly-ass Jersey town we're in."
This, I'll admit it, is risky. They'll pull whatever law was passed in 1820 to try to nail you. Disorderly conduct, interfering with police business, impersonating a drunkard.
Usually I'll be let go after the usual threats: if I catch you driving fast or drunk I'll have you sent to the gas chamber, that kind of thing.
Then I'll roar off, within the speed limit. I fight the urge to throw the empty beer cans I've got hidden in a secret hatch out the window.
My work is done for the night.

You'll never catch me,
The Drunk-Driving Avenger

To the Faraway Town

Ex-lovers in London have, I hope, stopped writing me. I only lose the letter,or someone else loses it, or I won't respond if my life is too much of a mess, which is all the time.
Nancy, my girlfriend sophomore year at Tulane, became convinced that I was the love of her life. She wrote me heart-rending letters asking me to respond. I've looked all over the place for the letters and return address in London. No luck.
But she is in love with a ghost. When we dated, I was young, strong, and not so terribly fearful all the time, the way I am now.
It is difficult to imagine that a woman pictures me in her mind. Imagining us together. Imagining sex, love, closeness, a soulmate and everything else.
When I was in high school, I of course fantasized that if only I could get "that girl,"then my life would be perfect. "That girl," of course, would not give me the time of day.
Inadvertently, I broke a heart on the other side of the ocean. All she wanted was a response. All I could offer was my pain. I didn't want a Florence Nightingdale. She was too much a relic from the time without suffering.
I ran and hid, like an endangered animal. I couldn't let her see what I had become: pathetic, living at home, becoming fat, with little libido and even less joy.
Last year it was Angelee. She had been a girl with serious psychiatric problems. Like me. In and out of treatment facilities. When I was gone for Christmas she began seeing a little English guy named Keith.
Keith asked to marry her. she accepted. I was relieved. The British health plans would take better care than me.
Anyway, she wrote a surprise letter here last Christmas. I don't know what it said, since I had to leave. I just hope she's satisfied with Keith outside London.
Here's the message:
If you value your sanity, stay away. If you value your sex and emotional life, run away. If you want happiness and joy, try Radio City Music Hall.
I could just say that I havn't got it in me anymore. But the truth is that my heart and soul are buried beneath years of pain. And I don't want to lay that down on anyone, because it is heavier than anyone can imagine.