Friday, October 29, 2004

Here’s a sincere request to everyone who has been bombarding my mailbox with campaign ads:

Please cut the shit. Now.

Oh, sure, I’m resigned to the fact that in the next four mail days before the election, I’m going to get another daily pile of freshly killed trees all covered in gloss trying to get me to vote for this and that. Unfortunately, all of you muthaphukas are wasting your time. I’ve already made up my mind on the candidates and initiatives.

There is nothing in terms of the sheer volume of mailers that has even come close to the race for Sacramento City Unified School District, which at a modest estimate must have taken up about 75% of my campaign mail so far.

Jay Schenirer, you are the most obnoxious mail bomber of all. I must have received at least 30 fuckin’ pieces of cardboard with your name, your name sent as an endorsement by someone else, or your name included on a list of school board candidates. All this tells me is that you have way too much money and are too entrenched in Establishment associations to have any grip on the realities and challenges facing today’s schools and the kids and teachers in them.

And Kevin Johnson, you just plain creep me out. On the same day that a letter with your name and no return address is in my mail, you leave a message on my answering machine. Hey, man, I loved watching you play in the NBA but at this point a restraining order may not be out of the question.

Fuck it. I’m voting for Jerry Houseman because he’s a retired teacher and principal and he hasn’t been filling my box with shit. The rest of you aren’t even getting marked.

And Arnold… what the fuck are YOU thinking? Are you that self- centered to believe that, if a majority of people were stupid enough to elect you as governor that they’d be sheeplike enough to just go and vote for the initiatives as you dictate? Nice of you to go against the party line on stem-cell research with Proposition 71, but as far as most of the other stuff, too bad you had to waste all of that postage. Yuh, right, I’m gonna vote against Proposition 72 just cuz you told me to. For starters, when’s the last time you had to have a health plan, Arnie? And although it’s sad to see Gray Davis come in as your bitch in the P.R. stunt… Whoops, I mean political campaign against Proposition 66, the fact is that making violent crimes a third strike and not sending people up for 25 years to life over a shoplifting charge just makes common sense and is rather American in nature. This isn’t Singapore, as much as you’d probably wish it could be. Especially since your films have plenty of violence and hardly any sex, you wouldn’t have any problems.

Anyway, all of you parties involved, if you would, please chill the fuck out with the junk mail. I have a ballot waiting for me, which means that I’m armed with an inalienable right to freedom of choice and I intend to use it. Thanks.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Here’s my take on what happened this week in baseball:

God was sitting around bored out of His skull on Tuesday night. So he grabbed the remote and started mindlessly flipping channels, and settled upon the sixth game of the American League Championship Series. Sure, He had certain issues with Rupert Murdoch and the Fox Network, but what the Hell, they still had “The Simpsons” on the schedule. Anyway, He was taking in the atmosphere at Yankee Stadium, the crowd riled up and anticipating a final victory over the Red Sox, when some time during the third or fourth inning, Fox cut to a quick shot of a fan holding a sign which read, “GOD IS A YANKEE FAN.”

This pissed God off to no end. At that point, He declared, “Let the team with the most dirt of the Earth and the most humiliated to this day persevere”, or something really Godlike and similar to that.And that’s how my Sox pulled off four wins in a row and took it from the Yanks.

But although I’m not religious, a funny thing happened before the seventh and deciding game. I was walking to work and had what was not so much a prayer as a wishful thought about the evening’s outcome. It went something like, “We need a victory tonight so painful and obvious that every Bronx Bomber and their smug fuckin’ legion of fans will cry like pussies straight until next April.” Or something like that.

Sure enough, the Sox spank them 10-3.

So, God, on the off chance that You are really listening to what I’m hoping for, and I’ve still got Your ear, here’s a few more requests:

I’d like, of course, to see the Sox sweep the Cardinals, although what just happened was so fuckin’ cool that I almost don’t care whether they win the Series or not. I also would like to see Kerry win in a landslide, the troops get out of Iraq ASAP, affordable health care for all, food, housing, education and meaningful work for all who want it, and a good price on a DVD recorder.

Ok. That’s it. Thanks for Your time.

Friday, October 01, 2004

Let see. What impressed me the most about last night’s debate?

Was it how Kerry came across as knowledgeable, intelligent, confident, and well, darn right presidential, while Dubya looked and sounded like a beleaguered old codger in the defendant’s box on “Judge Judy?”

Was it the part where Kerry called out the Appointed Chief Executive on his assertion that we had to go to war in Iraq because “the enemy attacked us, Jim…” by pointing out that, uh duh, al Qaeda and not Saddam had actually done the attacking? (In all honesty I’m sort of disappointed that Kerry didn’t also include the fact that we were attacked by mostly a bunch of inbred Saudis financed and egged on by a member of a family who’re buddies with the Bushes, but then again, he really didn’t need to at that point.)

Or perhaps, was it the fact that the Bush campaign predicted a virtual slam dunk of Kerry in this debate on foreign policy when in fact, Kerry clearly and unequivocally punked Dubya’s ass?

No, my favorite thing to remember will be the time right after the debate, when viewers were jamming C-Span’s lines with their opinions. Not one, but two of the Bush supporters referred to the Senator from Massachusetts as “President Kerry.”

To coin a possible future Bushism, now that goes beyond Freudiast slippage. It’s apparent even his supporters know that they’re pushing the wrong guy for the job.