I do not consider myself a political animal, except to say that Ann Coulter scares the shit out of me. I picture her eating her young. In a tight black dress. Then picking her teeth with their bones. Maybe that sounds a tad melodramatic, but weigh it against her harangue of the 9/11 widows as being grief-obsessed harpies enjoying their husbands’ deaths. My point here is it sometimes takes the outrageous to engage my interest, especially in matters political.
The former Terminator, the governor of California, shows me he now understands the long-held belief of others that his beloved state is ungovernable. Arnold is looking weary, much more so than when giant titanium-coated life forms from the future were pummeling his face. True, he was younger then, but what damage a few Propositions can do. His wife is looking tired, too, in those Come to California! commercials currently showing on TV. Their lips say “Come!” but their eyes say “Come get us out of here!”
My own state Senate’s antics have me looking for updates in the paper every morning. It’s like watching our tax dollars at work making a Marx Brothers movie instead of legislation. I’d love to cast Governor Paterson as Groucho, but he doesn’t seem to have the timing. Are New York’s senators reading the paper in between their rat pack fraternity games? Do they not realize what we now see for ourselves? It’s worse than The Emperor’s New Clothes. You don’t elect an emperor.
We didn’t elect Michael Jackson either, yet here he is in a commemorative pullout section in the paper the day after his funeral. I saved exactly two pullout sections in my life, both of them in 1969. No, not Woodstock, but I can see you have your thinking cap on. The first was in January after Joe Namath led the Jets to a gorgeous upset over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. The second was that summer when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. The King of Pop was a remarkable talent, but my bar has been set pretty high for moonwalking.
Just as remarkable to me is the platform that the Reverend Al Sharpton repeatedly assumes without restraint or rebuke. For this spectacle, he was the Eulogizer. Past spectacles have seen him as the Apologizer, demanding one for Tawana Brawley before it was revealed she fabricated her story of rape, and more recently, as the Absolutionizer when Duane “Dog” Chapman sought forgiveness after his hatefully bigoted telephone conversation was leaked.
As Eulogizer, the Reverend dismissed those who focus on the mess in Michael Jackson’s life, saying what’s more important is the message. What is that message, you ask? He taught the world how to love. He refused to let people decide his boundaries. He made it possible for Oprah to be on TV and Obama in the White House. You got the impression the Reverend was referring to Him with a capital H.
Sharpton’s most vociferous praise was for the Jackson parents, who, ironically, are no doubt the reason their son struggled with how to express love inside boundaries. For their legendarily abusive father, the Reverend said to the Jackson siblings, “There wasn’t nothing strange about your Daddy. What was strange was what your Daddy had to deal with.” Where are those titanium-coated life forms from the future when you need them?
Speaking of universal love and boundary breaking, check out the chorus from P.S. 22 on Staten Island. If these fifth-graders don’t blow you away, count yourself all alone.
P.S. 22 Chorus on SchoolTube singing Coldplay
Daughter’s Featured Fotos showcase the great, ungovernable State of California
the colors of san francisco
hidden lizard (later revealed to be dead)
a building to watch over me
fashion back then
come!