[The editors may or may not disagree in re: the efficacy of voting, but that won't stop us from publishing this or from strapping on our dancing shoes. - Eds]
I’m dancing with my arms in the air. My shirt is off, and my hairy belly is bouncing in rhythm with some shit-kicker music I’m listening to that is streaming over an internet radio station. Maybe it’s The Blasters. I don’t exactly know who‘s singing. I really don’t care. Eventually the airwaves will be owned by thieves. People owning air, it seems unspeakable, doesn’t it? But there are those who will control the very air which surrounds me.
I have never voted in a Presidential election. I will be 49 years old in November, and I have never voted, not once in my entire life. I am dancing half naked in the privacy of an old hotel room which I call home. I’m wearing work boots with laces tied in knots because the laces broke long ago, and I’m alive during a time in which the economy of my country has driven our privileged class to frantically rush toward insane solutions as if they were crazy housewives calling Psychics on a pay by minute telephone line looking for a plan they hope will stop their financial lives from crumbling like a flaky pie crust at the touch of an infant’s finger.
I am lunatic happy. Too bad I don’t drink anymore, this would be fun. What the hell, maybe I’ll start again?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not happy that the landed gentry are going insane with worry. No, no. That’s not it. Not it at all. No, I am not happy that my fellow Americans are losing everything they have. I’m simply happy. I’m happy because I have no other choice left for me. I have no choice as to where to work. There is no place to work. I have no choice as to where to live. Without money, there are no places to live.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was in the news today trumpeting this news:
"Given the financial damage to date, I cannot see how we can avoid a significant rise in layoffs and unemployment" – Alan Greenspan
I don’t know what paper you read, but the facts are in, unemployment is up in America 44% over last year. But not to worry, Ladies and Gentlemen, according to the experts it’s only going to get worse. Alan Greenspan has declared a depression. Ah well, easy dot com, easy dot go. Let me turn the music up just a bit.
So, then how will we live? Where will we live? Family homes are being brushed away like so many crumbs off the lapel of a fat man’s dark business suit. Ah, but the streets are open, aren’t they? The streets are always open. The streets are open twenty four hours a day. If you don’t believe there is vacancy on the streets of America, take a stroll through downtown Los Angeles. Hell, it doesn’t even need to be Los Angeles. It doesn’t need to be downtown! Former New York City Mayor John Lindsay called the crimes of the homeless and poverty stricken in this country a slow motion riot. Well, disaster is headed for your front door, Amos. Like dead zombies walking with their arms out in front of them, wanting to eat your brains. Slowly they creep, step, by step . . . inch by inch. . .
So where do the homeless live? Well, that’s just it. They’re homeless. They don’t have anywhere to live. Maybe they’ll shit on your front lawn while you are bathing your children, or look in the restaurant window as you leisurely eat, and pick their nose. Maybe they’ll steal your new car, and kidnap your children. Not likely, however. Besides not having any money for fuel, the poor truth is that you may very well have bought your car from these homeless people. Maybe you also bought your home from them. Maybe John McCain or Barack Obama may come by to ask you if you have any odd jobs, so they might have shelter for the night.
Does this sound farfetched: Political candidates with “Will Work for Food” signs? Well, think about it. It’s not exactly that wild, now is it? It’s precisely what is being asked of us at this very moment.
Vote for me, and put me in The White House.
John Steinbeck’s Tom Joad, in Grapes of Wrath, during the depths of a depression, never stooped to such lickspittle measures. Grapes of Wrath told about hard working, depression dust bowl people looking for an honest day’s work. Yet our country’s highest Politicians engage in cockamamie posturing, ridiculous charades, and manipulative crap slinging every four years. One of these lying bastards will end up with the most powerful position on the planet. Goons; Smear Pundits; Deviants, Pick Pockets, all of them vying for the same thing: The Office of President of The United States. If you miss it, the festive parade repeats itself every four years. Hitch a ride, hayseed. It’s all in fun. We’re going to Fresno to look for work! Hoorah!
Oh, quite a stretch from Grapes of Wrath, Father Luke. Well, not really. But, it crosses my imagination that Tom Joad, with a car full of weary and hungry family members, was more honest than any of these manipulative bastards. Ha Haw! Has it really been four years?
BOHICA, Buster: Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.
Servant of the American People
Of The People, By The People, and For The People, that’s the paradigm. And this new collection of power hungry manipulators will have become the trusted public servants held on high, and put forth to preserve the American Dream; servants who will again have been elected on their word, and who will again double cross the American public. I’m certain of it. It’s the torch they carry. Like the Summer Olympics, the shenanigans happen regularly every four years. It’s nice work if you can get it. But please note: The official in charge of building Beijing's Olympic Games venues worth about $55 billion was recently sentenced to death for taking $1.45 million in bribes. If we were moths, you would see us flying into the lights bulbs above the heads of these screwballs each time they come up with another harebrained idea during the dark night of our depression. America’s Presidential Candidates are gumball machines dispensing stupid every four years at the twist of a wrist, and we chew it up like the sugar craving idiot children we have become.
What is the meaning of this?
So, where does this all end? Where do all roads lead? What is the meaning of this? What am I talking about? I don’t even vote, and so by all rights I don’t even get any say in the matter. The truth is that nearly 5 million, or 1 in 43 Americans, are not entitled to vote. So why don’t I just shut up? Well, as I dance in my little hotel room to music which moves me to smile my lopsided smile, I have full knowledge that Now More Than Ever, and Four More Years is still only four more years, and that this is still the only moment there is, and the only choice I have is for happiness. Happiness is at a premium in a world gone foamy mouthed rabid with money sickness, in a world grown weary of Political lies which are increasingly more confusing than the Religious beliefs we turn to in our places of worship during our times of soul sickness.
Happiness is wisdom. Wisdom comes with a price. It’s paid with a grinding, and gnashing of teeth when the things we want aren’t the things we get, and the chasm between the upset of what we have is balanced with the expectations of that which we didn’t get. Happiness does not depend upon a political outcome. Happiness does not depend upon a Religious belief. Happiness depends entirely upon whether we choose to be happy. Come Election Day, I will be happy. I’m practicing my dance steps for the inaugural ball. As AC/DC said:
We’ve got the biggest balls of them all!
We do! We put up with this horse shit every four years. Let’s ask the poor how to be happy. They’ve had lots of practice, and they’ve suffered the storms of injustice we are only now beginning to prepare for. Let’s go find them, and ask them to dance.
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