drfreex.com

Nah, I do that in my other endeavors.

No, honest to God, I had hoped this would be anything but a blogging of political screeds. There are more than enough of those, and they’re better written, to boot. But if I’m going to write about movies, I feel like it needs to be over at my other ventures, since people like, you know, read those. Far as I know, I’m still the only one reading this.

So. Two political thoughts. I hope getting these out of my head will allow me to move on to better, less irritating, more trivial things. Both of these thoughts allow me to unknot my entrails over the next four years.

First: historically, second terms suck for incumbent presidents. Nixon and Clinton both went through hell, and even the demigod Reagan (whose claim to godlike reverence still eludes me) faced increased opposition. However, since the media are apparently a bunch of cowed lap dogs at the moment (attack dogs in the case of Fox), this may only be half a straw I’m clutching. Which brings us to the second thought:

I now have four more years to achieve one of my great dreams, being the first person to punch out Bill O’Reilly or Anne Coulter on live TV.

‘Cause, you know, liberals are the party of hate.

November 13, 2004
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Well, a week of grinding deadlines at work does wonders for those post-election blues, I can tell you. Whilst dealing with script-writing duties, and even an unforeseen return to my old gig (all that was missing was a holographic message stating, “Help me Obi-Wan, you’re my only hope”), it became very easy to accept that nothing had actually changed, and the previous few months of increasingly rancorous election verbiage had just been a half-remembered nightmare, a bit of undigested potato.

During a bit of downtime, I did attempt to log on to Blogger and make myself look less cavalier about writing in this thing (though at the moment, I’m the only person reading this, so one wonders why…) . Things were a bit messed up, to say the least. I can only assume that the rest of Blogistan was writing in, either conducting their own “What Went Wrong?” post-mortems or crowing that “Jesus Speaks Through the Republicans“. As ever, the only opinion I find worth considering is that of The Rude Pundit, who basically embraces the ugliness coming our way and feels the best response is ugliness of our own.

But here I am in Blogistan, so I feel I should trot out my own blitherings – either that, or exclaim how some musician no one else has ever heard of is either “kEWl” or “teh suck” – though, as usual, all I can do is report on what’s going on inside my head.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I was so surprised at the outcome, even though surprise should be my response – after all, 51% of the popular vote is by no means a mandate, it’s more like the convicts managing to get in that last touchdown as the finishing gun goes off in The Longest Yard. No, I expected a landslide, a vast tsunami of Right Thought, shocking the neocons and telling them, “No, we’re not going to play this game anymore.”

The reason for that, of course, is that like most people, I hang with my own herd. There are not a whole lot of folks in my circle of friends who claim to be conservative (and those that do still have a lop-sided grin when they speak of “The liberal media”, so they at least know they’re spouting bullshit). On my regular reading list is the aforementioned Rude Pundit and The Smirking Chimp. Oh, yes, I was polarized, and I allowed myself to believe that most of the Nation was, too.

Trouble is, only 49% was polarized in my direction.

So I find myself in an island of stunned liberalism in a red state. My fucking representative is Tom DeLay, for God’s sake, who I have been trying almost my entire adult life – unsuccessfully – to vote out of office. I was shocked a few years back to find an article entitled “Why Everyone Hates Texas”. Why, I wondered, would anyone hate us? What did we do to deserve that? Guess I know now. Though don’t expect any rollovers from me if you want to vent your spleen in my home’s direction. You’ve got just as many idiots in your neck of the woods as mine, and I don’t hate you for that.

I guess in the coming years I’m going to be feeling more and more like a member of the French Resistance, which is okay, because that means in the movies that are eventually made about these dark times, I’ll be played by some ruggedly handsome European type, instead of an aging Jack Black, which would be closer to the truth.

November 10, 2004
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

I wish I were smarter. Then I might be able to understand why, in their interactive, self-updating map of America and her electoral votes, the Associated Press has Utah, with 0% of precincts reporting, is a lock for Bush, yet Pennsylvania, with 41% of precincts voting and showing a decisive Kerry victory, remains “undecided”.

I’m not espousing any conspiracy theories, I’d just like to know why. Cynically, I could think that it’s because CNN has predicted that Bush will take Utah, and AP doesn’t want to be left behind. However, I still want to hold onto some shred of optimism, and believe that surely someone out there is still interested in actual journalism.

I want a drink very badly, and will go to remedy this need soon. I suspect a lot of Americans feel the same way, and it’s likely to be a nation of hangover sufferers tomorrow. In fact, Big_Sexy over at Fark has posted this potentially lethal Election Drinking Game:

1. Any time a state is declared for a candidate with less than 1% of precincts reporting – 2 drinks

2. Someone says “Palm Beach,” “Dangling Chads,” or “2000 Election debacle” – 2 drinks.

3. Any report of voter fraud – 1 drink.

4. Geraldo Rivera – 3 drinks

5. Someone refers to Ralph Nader in a negative way – 1 drink.

6. Anyone mentions Michael Badnarik – 2 drinks.

7. 2 networks call a state for different candidates – 3 drinks.

8. Al Gore interviews – 2 drinks.

9. Tim Russert gets out a dry erase board – 2 drinks.

10. “Flip flop” – 1 drink.

11. Someone mentions the possibility of an electoral tie resulting in a Bush-Edwards administration – 3 drinks.

12. Someone references Michael Moore or Swift Boat Veterans For Truth – 2 drinks.

13. Karl Rove is referred to as a political genius – 3 drinks.

14. “Mekong Delta” – 2 drinks.

15. “Falafel” and “O’Reilly” come up in the same conversation – 4 drinks.

16. “Dixville Notch” – 1 drink

17. Someone refers to a poll from The Christian Science Monitor.

18. “Liberal media” – 3 drinks.

19. Gideon Yago pretends to be a real journalist – 1 drink.

20. Jon Stewart calls someone a dick – 2 drinks.

21. A swing state is called for a candidate – 3 drinks.

22. “Fair and Balanced” – 1 drink.

23. A shot of John Kerry “playing” a sport – 2 drinks.

24. A shot of George Bush wearing a cowboy hat – 2 drinks.

25. “Osama Bin Laden” or “The War on Terror” – 1 drink.

26. “The most important election in our lifetime” – 2 drinks.

27. Teresa Heinz Kerry appears to have played her own special drinking game – 1 drink.

28. “Partisan Hackery” – 2 drinks.

29. John Edwards appears with his perfect hair – 1 drink.

30. Dick Cheney appears with his lesbian daughter. Did I mention she was a lesbian? – 2 drinks.

31. “Married up” – 2 drinks.

32. Al Sharpton seems to be the voice of reason in a conversation – 1 drink.

33. Florida goes for your candidate – finish the bottle.

He then finishes with “Can’t wait for the “2004 Presidential Election Recount Drinking Game!”

Anyone playing this game was royally smashed by 8pm, just on the strength of #1, above.

I’m going to stick with the AP map, as unlike the CNN map, it allows me to mouse over the states and see the actual popular vote, and how many precincts have reported. Strange calls and all.

The desire to drink until I vomit and spend the next day feeling like the floor of a mosh pit was burned out of me in college. Instead of following Big_Sexy’s fiendish (but nonetheless perceptive) path of destruction, I think I’ll just shake myself a single martini, to ease the dismay and prompt the depression. I’ll indulge in extras olives, because dammit, I’m going to end up on the plus side of something tonight.

November 2, 2004
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Vote, dammit. I want to see democracy in action for just one day.

…

Then we can settle in for the weeks of court battles, and get all cynical again.

November 1, 2004
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment