Orlando Tragic

I woke up today thinking I would go downstairs and make coffee and watch "This Week" and "Meet the Press" and while the kids were still asleep maybe type out a quick blog suggesting that Hillary could do worse than select Elizabeth Warren as her vice-presidential running mate. Quiet the lingering, edging toward pitiful Berners out there, who, like Japanese soldiers holed up in a cave on an isolated island years after the war is over, keep the fight coming.

For the sake of their mental health, I thought, and so I don't have to look at their ongoing delusions on Facebook (I love you, too, Dave!), why not come out with a ringing endorsement of the estimable firebrand that the Berners wanted before they wanted Bernie—Elizabeth Warren—as our country's next vice-president?

After all, it only makes sense for the centrist and politically less talented Hillary to pick the person who would have been the first choice of that faction of the Democratic Party who can't stand her.

I know. Who's delusional now? But seriously, why not throw it out there? She's going to win anyway. Why not try and make everyone happy?

Who's your Mamma? Well, now you got two ...

America's Got Two Mommies!

Why not? It's had two Daddies going back to George Washington. I'm not suggesting the mommies would do any better, just that they likely wouldn't do any worse, and it might in some small way break the tedium of the next four or five months. Anyway, I think it would be a nice touch, a brilliant touch, a cool, if not radical touch, since the country's mostly women anyway, but still—

Clinton/Warren, the Motherload, here to straighten all your man shit out. Oh, what fun!

I also think Donald Trump should pick Megyn Kelly for his Veep, and not necessarily because she knows the issues better than him, which I'm sure she does ... I just think picking Megyn Kelly would, in its own way, be as brilliant and beguiling of a choice as Hillary Clinton picking Elizabeth Warren. Of course, Trump would still lose, and Hillary would still win, but at least we'd have something more than a fait accompli to look forward to over the next four to five months—which is to say, almost a half a year still.

Anyway, that's what was going through my head. And I thought I'd try to whip it all into some kind of coherent shape in a single sitting like I sometimes do on a Sunday, when I turned on the television and saw, instead, another Special Report about another shooting. 20 people killed, at a gay nightclub ... until they discovered the number was more like 50, with 53 more injured. That would be 103 casualties if this were a war.

And maybe it is.

At the very least it's a new record for firearm slaughter in this country. At least since the Civil War.

A guy who was born in New York, who in one older picture is wearing an NYPD T-shirt, who moved to Florida, beat his ex-wife, saw two guys kissing in Miami and apparently that was all it took for him to say Enough! and go to one of any of a number of places where a citizen, a security guard, no less, can get an AR-15-style assault rifle legally in this country, load up on some ammo and magazines and drive two hours to Orlando, to a place where lots of homosexuals were drinking and dancing and otherwise not bothering anyone, and shoot the place up!

Oh, and before he did, he apparently called 911 and declared his allegiance to IS Radicals. Which is just great. "Yes. Hello? 911? I have a prepared statement. Do you have a moment? I know I shouldn't be doing this while I'm driving and trying to load my brand new assault rifle, but ..."

Being the appreciative, one good turn deserves another sorts that they are, ISIS, through their own media outlet, made the former wife-beating security guard with a gun permit and everything an Honorary Jihadist! Of course by then he was shot dead, as often happens, by the police. No big-breasted bombshells waiting to motorboat him in Heaven. A sad end, you might think, and yet, until next time, he'll be the latest martyr in the cause of Bigotry and Intolerance and Other Not Very Nice Things God Tells Me ideology pulled from the Interwebs.

Forgive my sarcasm, but I can already imagine the feckless political debate that will follow and it already tires me.

Two men kissing. Fifty years ago it might have been a white woman holding a black man's hand.

It Takes a Shrink

So I've been missing in action since Mother's Day. Sorry. Feel terrible about it.

So let's get caught up:

Trump is going to get crowned the Republican nominee in Cleveland this summer, and Hillary, after she squeaks out a win in California on Tuesday, will be crowned the Democratic nominee. In November, she will become the first woman president of the United States. Given that the majority of voters in this country are women who have had the vote for nearly a century now, one wonders why such a first has taken so long to happen, given that not all the men of the last century have been stellar.

All to say, nothing has much changed since I last wrote, and that the narrative for this year's presidential election is not going to wrap with a headline such as this one: NATION ELECTS FIRST REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER/REALITY SHOW HOST PRESIDENT OF THE FREE WORLD!!!! [subheading] —A FUCKING FREAK, GRANTED, BUT AT LEAST HE ISN'T A WOMAN WHO SHOUTS AND DOESN'T ENTERTAIN US AS WELL AS SAM KINISON USED TO WHEN HE SHOUTED, BUT OF COURSE SAM KINISON WASN'T A WOMAN—

A pretty long, improbable headline for any number of reasons, but you get the idea.

Also unlikely is the likelihood of news coming out of Philadelphia this summer that the Democratic crown will, after much hand-wringing and deliberation and a final burst of triumphant ecstasy, be handed to the soon-to-be-crowned woman's most excellent sparring partner, the old Jewish Socialist from Brooklyn with the steady left jab, who, unlike the woman, would scold the banks and the military industrial complex into playing ball like it is imagined they do in Denmark, and we'd all get Medicare and free college and everyone who was making shitloads of bank on the old way we did things back before Bernie got tough would just say, Fuck! Why didn't someone ask me sooner? Happy to do my part! Would it help if I sent you some of the money I got stashed in the Caymans??

The future of the Democratic Party will look more like Bernie's world than Hillary's world, just not yet. Hillary is going to get her shot. And she is going to bitch slap Trump in a way no one has in his entire silly fucking life.

After which we can all hope that after a quarter century on the main stage of politics, during which she endured no end of attacks and accusations, some justified, most not, after sticking tough in a marriage to a man more popular and likeable and politically talented than her, who, to complicate matters, had a very public thing for chasing skirt, she isn't going to be overly quick—quicker than her predecessor, who has been criticized for not leading, for not being as quick to lead as, say, his more headlong predecessor—to lead us into another grinding and fruitless shedding of blood in faraway lands for the ostensible sake of those who by and large hate us and who otherwise aren't much interested in sharing the profits that can flow, good and hard in some cases, to the nimble and ambitious and well-capitalized during times of protracted chaos. Folks who, until recently, had generally, though not always, voted Republican, but now, as with the banking class, given the Republicans' hard turn toward nativism and its cowardly if crestfallen embrace by the likes of the Speaker of the House, perhaps we will witness a sea change in voting alliances of the sort that civil rights brought to Democratic fortunes in the South.

Arching over the top of that worrisome storyline is the story of the economy, which continues to be the most hale and robust of all the late-arc shufflers in the nursing home.

And now, to see if you're still with me ...

A big reason that I've been AWOL from my post these last few weeks is that we've listed our house here in Louisville, Colorado, and plan to move back to Halifax, Nova Scotia, by the end of summer.

I hired one of those big Dumpsters and spent the better part of two weeks filling it with all kinds of stuff that, shall we say, accrued over the years. It occurs to me that this is a good metaphor for the state of the western economies. A lot accrues over the years and there comes a point when it has to go. Depending on one's politics, what is seen as needing to go differs, but, in short, it is easier to buy shit than it is to get rid of shit. Occasionally this process gets helped along by a flood or a fire—the equivalent of war or plague in this metaphor—but more likely in these our less dramatic times (despite what the media tells us), it is a more banal occurrence: divorce, job loss, job gain, having more kids (which is how we got in this big house in the first place), or simply deciding that, for a variety of reasons, not least of which my wife misses her home, and we miss the ocean ... it is time perhaps to refresh the system. Get rid of shit. Live smaller. Spend less, drive less, get out more, haul less freight. That sort of thing.

Easier said than done. Especially for a country.

But we're not a country. We're a family. And it's time. Tearfully so, but time.

Happy Mother's Day!

Take the day to be kind to the person who brought you into this world, the person who raised you, who helped raise you, who was there for you when a lot of others had other things going on, who loved you even though you were someone who for a moment, a day, a month, a year, most all of your life, only a mother could love. Be kind to your mother, to her memory, even if she wasn't perfect and johnny-on-the-spot like all the mothers on television in the 60s and 70s that you later read had drug and alcohol problems that may well have been brought on by playing characters that don't exist in real life. Be kind even if you are too young still, or still too stupid, to realize that you are far from perfectly easy on the nerves yourself. Understand that as lame as it may sound, she, Mom, probably did the best she could given who she was, the forces animating her, and what she'd lived through, what she was sorting out at the time, the things going on inside her while you at the same time had things going on inside you that blinded you to the things that were going on inside her, and so you can be certain that for much of that time you were driving her nuts with things that you now understand, or will soon, or may one day, we all hope, were thoughtless and inconsiderate and at the very least no less maddening for being understandable, because you were young, you didn't know any better, you were doing the best you could, which is how you, we, all of us, cut ourselves slack for all the heartbreak and crazy and totally unnecessary we visited on our mothers' nerves and so today and every day forward we do the same for them, as best we can and are able, given everything that is going on, inside and out, given imperfections, character-flaws, a disturbing number of which are probably genetic, but still, be kind, show compassion, show the love.

Happy Mother's Day! 

A Lament for Ted

I'm beginning to feel sorry for Ted Cruz. At least I feel like I should be. After all, I felt sorry for Jeb Bush almost immediately, seconds into the first time I saw him speaking on television, back when a lot of smart people still thought he was going to be the GOP nominee and all I could think was, No he's not! Look at the poor guy—

I feel sorry for Hillary now and then. Being married to Bill and putting up with all his indiscretions and then having him be the one everyone likes and you being the brittle, shouting, disciplined, ambitious bitch who is only going to win because the Republicans are going to nominate a real estate developer most of the party can't stand (though they like him better than Ted), as if this were a city council race. Anyway, everyone loves Bernie, no one loves Hillary, which is sad, except that compared to Ted, she's lovable, which is really sad, for Ted, and you'd think no one could be that unlovable, and that there'd be pathos there, but I'm dead inside for Ted, this while fully aware—and you might find this surprising—that I felt sorry for Richard Nixon after Pat died. Seeing him break down like he did at the funeral, sprawled over her casket crying like a baby. It wasn't the kind of thing you saw too often anymore, a former president, someone other than John Boehner, crying his eyes out. Never mind Vietnam, Cambodia, Kent State, Watergate, the Checkers Speech, I felt the pathos of that moment.

No pathos, yet, with Ted. And it's weird. Because you hear kind things said about all kinds of people who are generally considered horrible. Hitler, for instance. You hear it said that Hitler was kind to his dog, that his dog in all likelihood would have had a very high opinion of him had he been allowed to express it. Had Hitler and his dog been together a half century later, you can easily imagine some enterprising ghost writer penning a memoir from the dog's point of view, and you can bet the dog would have had more than a few nice things to say about the Fuhrer.

Stalin, for example. Franklin Roosevelt, of all people—not a Russian, granted, a goddamned commie-friendly liberal from New York, but still—purportedly said after Yalta, "I kind of like Old Joe."

There were people who probably thought Pol Pot was great.

On the other hand, you don't hear anyone, not a soul, coming out and saying, Oh now, I've known Ted Cruz for years, and he may get a little carried away from time to time with that Libertarian nonsense of his, all that Lord Jesus Christ stuff coming out his mouth every third sentence, even us Christians get tired of hearing a fellow go on like that, but really, you shouldn't take all that stuff his old college roommate at Princeton says too seriously, or John Boehner, calling him the most miserable son of a bitch he's ever worked with—what the hell does John Boehner, a government insider who smokes and cries over the goddamnest bullshit, know about anything?

Not one kind word, by anyone. Maybe his wife, if she wasn't so busy at Goldman Sachs. Which by itself is suspect. Don't get me started. I wonder if she's so inside she got to hear Hillary's speech? I wonder if she even told Ted about it. If she had, wouldn't he be talking about it? Or did she start to tell him and he just went La la la la la!!

Maybe his kids want to say nice things but aren't allowed. Maybe he's being kind, taking a tip from Obama, the cool guy all the comics like, the Kennedy to his Nixon, he imagines, though he's not even as likable as Nixon. Nixon's daughters liked him, loved their dad. Anyway, I'm pretty sure they did, that I heard or read it somewhere. And there was his buddy Bebe Rebozo. The staffers on that day he resigned, the speech he gave—a pretty decent speech, really, considering the day he was having—the tears welling in many of their eyes before he did that windshield wiper like wave to all of them and got in the helicopter and flew off to San Clemente or wherever it was they took him.

Maybe Ted needs to be president first. Which, someone please tell him, isn't going to happen. Even though he picked a running mate this week. A failed CEO who understands government, he says—rather bizarre for someone who this morning, on "This Week," said that the problem with Trump and Clinton and Obama is that they believe in government. Which is a little like saying the problem with the current Chief of Surgery and the two candidates with the best chance of becoming the next chief is that they believe in surgery. Which would be a ridiculous thing to say even if you weren't hoping to become the next Chief of Surgery yourself. If you didn't believe in surgery, why spend two years of your life campaigning to become lead surgeon? You'd have to be a self-aggrandizing prick who just liked the idea of being in charge no matter what you thought of the enterprise, which, possibly, answers a lot of questions, and wouldn't make him all that unlike a lot of other politicians, and yet it still is unseemly.

What Trump understands and Ted possibly—tragically, if anyone gave a shit or had a kind thought about him—doesn't understand: the base doesn't really much give a shit anymore about conservative government and/or principles.

They're just really upset.

A lot of people are really upset, and don't believe so much anymore, rightly or wrongly, that the answer to all their problems is less government, that government is the problem, that it is bad, that it needs to be done away with, that the beast must be starved, after which a golden age will begin and we'll all be happy again like the kids in Lord of the Flies.

Ted, who wants to be the head of a government he doesn't believe in, says that a majority of Republicans don't want Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee for president. What the brilliant debater from Princeton, the US Senator from Texas, doesn't seem to get, or want to admit, is that even fewer—a lot fewer—want Ted Cruz to be the Republican nominee for president.

The GOP, the ones who courted these angry disenfranchised people but aren't that angry or disenfranchised themselves, can't believe they're caught in such a pickle. It's goddamned unbelievable. Still, given a big boss man who's kind of funny, and a miserable son of a bitch who isn't, they're going with the first guy, count on it. Better that Trump hang out to dry in November as have to kiss that miserable son of a bitch Ted Cruz's ass for one second.

April in Halifax, or I'll Remember April

What? Where ... is that? And why are you there? What, exactly, will you remember?

Oh, but I didn't say I was here, or there. Or that I liked or did not like Green Eggs and Poutine. I'm not sure where I am. And it's only a title. As well one as another, as Molly Bloom hinted; as well that title as the more loquacious Senator Cruz or Lying Ted? Which One Is It? And Wby Not Just Call Him One of The Greatest Assholes of All-Time, Bigger Even than I Am, Though Not as Funny, Not as Entertaining, Not as Rich, So What's the Point?

Or the slightly tidier, Prince: How to Become and Remain a Great Artist Rather than a Stinking Celebrity

Or, going the other way, the more fulsome, TLC: Trump Loses to Clinton. Better to Realize It Now and Not Waste the Next Six Months As You Might Have Most of the Last Year 

If you enjoy the machinations of politics and its sensationally dramatic packaging by much of the media, if you are thankful, moreover, that it isn't all whipped up and finished within 45-60 days like it is in so many other countries—Canada, for instance—and are further thankful that there is plenty of private fortune to fund the extended-play, director's cut version, thereby keeping the better-looking, more telegenic and predictable journalists busy, economies in places like my home state of Iowa, and also New Hampshire, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, more flush than they otherwise would be, then by all means play on—

But if, like many, you find yourself saying, My God, I am so done with this, just tell me what I need to know to stay informed, so I can get back to working more, training more, reading Proust, monographs, motions, corporate reports, entertaining Craig, cooking wonderful meals for him, making sure he has coffee in the morning with a glass of water when he wakes up, rum or port to sip with his cigar, a television to watch sports on when he's done with his reading, his writing, his running around, well then by all means read the following, and be 100% guaranteed—assured—that come Wednesday of the first full week of November of this year, you'll look back and say, Wow, if only I'd bet my uncle Cecil $100 on each of these points (below), I'd be in so much better shape going into the all-important holiday season ...

Point #1: Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president. Don't be surprised if he gets over the delegate hump with his win in California in June. Don't be surprised if the July convention ends up confirming the disaster, even if it ends up less exciting than many television series' finales. Don't blame Trump, blame the rest of them, and the wheat the GOP has sewed for a generation. Jeb was a schlub, Rubio a twerp, Carson better suited to inspiring sales for natural laxatives, Kasich won Ohio but remains alone, and kind of a bobblehead, and Rand Paul must have known that thriftiness across the board has never been popular with voters, half of whom at a minimum need to believe they're getting something for their contribution.

Point #2: Hillary is going to be the Democrat(ic) nominee for president. Sorry, all you impassioned Bernie supporters. You're going to have to take consolation in knowing that your guy was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to her rather than imagine what would have happened if the first Jewish Socialist from Brooklyn would have busted up the banks and made Manhattan affordable again. Maybe Hillary will pick Elizabeth Warren to be her running mate. Or maybe she'll pick her husband, and they'll be like Claire and Frank in "House of Cards," which everyone knows is about them anyway.

Point #3: Hillary Clinton isn't going to be brought down by the FBI or anyone else, not for her emails, not for Vincent Foster's death, not for the scandal the special prosecutor looked into and found nothing except that her husband had gotten a blowjob in the White House, not the cattle thing, not Iraq, or Libya, or screwing up the health care thing over twenty years ago now, none of it. She's going to win. But not until the 2016 General Election becomes more fun than "Celebrity Apprentice" on lots of Colorado dope. Needless to say, afterwards something like 40% of the country are going to be mad as hatters, which is understandable after eight years of the Muslim guy from Kenya whose name rhymes with The Terrorist Formerly Known as Osama.

Come November, you're going to say, Not bad for a guy who thought the Cubs were headed to the World Series back in 1969. Who figured the jury would convict OJ regardless of the glove. Who figured they'd find at least one or two weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Who thought AC/DC sucked back when he was a kid and still thinks they suck ...

And then there was Prince.

Cream shaboogie bop ...

Another deal entirely.

RIP

Peeing There

I was up early, around 5:00 AM, watching it snow and working on my novel and wondering who I would REALLY NOT WANT IN THE SAME ROOM WITH ME WHILE I'M PEEING ...

I counted the same number of people who, in my opinion, threaten my marriage with their questionable activities and life-style choices.

Still, I decided, after weighing out the pros and cons, the privacy issues, that if Caitlin (formerly Bruce, the two-time Olympic Decathlon Gold Medalist) Jenner wanted to pee in the urinal next to me even if she was in heels and a dress and I could glance over and sneak a look at her cleavage—which I wouldn't do, by the way, anymore than I would look down to check out her retained from former days "cash and prizes," as someone close to me once said—it would be okay. I'd be fine if Caitlin wanted to hold on and have an old school comfort pee beside me like she might have back when she was Bruce.

I would also be fine if Caitlin wanted to have a seat in a stall next to where my wife was peeing, if she was peeing, in a public facility where this is done, even if she, Caitlin, still had her original equipment, her cash and prizes, as it were, it would be okay—

All I'd want to ask Caitlin if she were peeing beside me was if, now that she had breasts, all she did was play with them all day. Did she? Because that's what most of us guys who haven't made that life-style choice imagine we'd do if we actually had our own tits to play with: that we'd do nothing but play with our tits all day.

I'm sorry, I know that's coarse, but that's what we call them when women aren't around to hear us. Imagine making a life-style choice where you go one day from being someone who says tits to someone who says boobs, from being disgusting and coarse and kind of okay with it to being, well—

Which is why I'd probably say boobs or breasts to Caitlin if I was peeing next to her and asking her that question, because my guess is, having made that life-style choice, she would probably prefer boobs and breasts to tits. It's only polite, her deciding to have a pee in the men's room, where all us coarse and disgusting fuckers gather, notwithstanding. Who knows, maybe she decided to come in and pee in the men's room because she didn't feel all that comfortable in the women's room. At least not yet. Frankly, it's not a stretch to imagine she'd be a little uncomfortable in both. Which makes you wonder why she made that life-style choice. Why after winning two gold medals and marrying the Kardashian girl with the ... well, that he had to go and complicate things.

People sure are funny ...

But honestly, my wife and I, we don't care. We don't care either way. We don't care who we relieve ourselves next to or who does the same next to us. Maybe because we're weird and aren't adequately fearful of the threat to our privacy, though it seems to us that maybe those of us who haven't made that life-style choice are a bigger threat to the privacy of those who have made that life-style choice. Which I know sounds crazy, and you're thinking, That can't be! It has to be the other way around!

But we figured if we ever pee'd in the same room with Caitlin, we'd probably—shit, who are we kidding, we'd absolutely—be talking about it with everyone we knew for days, maybe even weeks. And everyone else who pee'd in the same room as her that day and every day to come—I mean for a long time, at least until people quit thinking it was such a big deal—would be telling everyone, too!

It wouldn't be that different than not so long ago being that gay couple dancing at a wedding and having everyone at the wedding that hadn't ever seen anything like that before telling everyone they saw for weeks to come that they saw two queers dancing at a wedding ...

Earl, get out your IPhone, I just saw a tranny go into the toilet to pee ...

I know, things like that don't happen anymore. Hardly ever. And they'd happen even less if certain people didn't just decide to throw their life away and be weird in their life-style choices, and make it uncomfortable for those of us (not me, of course, or my wife, or my children) who are already pretty comfortable, but is it too much to ask to be more comfortable still?

For instance, what possessed Paul Ryan to grow that beard when he was hunting deer last year and then decide to be weird and make people uncomfortable by not shaving it off when he got back to Washington and being a respectable Speaker of the House? Who did he think he was, Abraham Lincoln? What kind of asshole does shit like that?

And Hillary. What are we supposed to call her husband once she becomes president? Did she think about this when she decided to, I don't know, become the first woman president? What if he decides, now that he's vegan, that for the sake of propriety and tradition, he's going to make another big life-style choice? Who's going to stop him? His Secret Service detail? Who is going to stop him if he decides he wants to be a full-on FLOTUS?

Named Billie.

"What's Billie the FLOTUS doing, Mrs. President?"

"He's playing with his tits. Which, just let it go, is better than a lot of other things he could be doing."

There are still three months until the middle of July, and the GOP Convention that's supposed to be such fun. Paul Ryan has categorically said that he doesn't want, and won't accept, the nomination, since (give him credit) he didn't run for the job. Privately, my sources tell me that if they push him he's going to grow a hipster beard and put his hair up in a man-bun. Which would show them.

So, we have that to look forward to.

One way or another it'll be a nightmare for about 40% of the land.

See you next Sunday!

Pissed Off Nation

I got a note from an old friend this morning wondering how I could resist opining on this year's General Election. Especially, he said, after all the smart and funny and highly entertaining stuff I wrote back in 2012. And 2008, for that matter.

It's a mystery. But, here are a couple of possibilities:

1) No one is paying me. Of course, no one was paying me back then, either. Perhaps the idea of not getting paid just irritates me more now that I'm older and haven't made as much money in the stock market as I'd hoped back when I sold my shares of Cisco for $77 back in early 2000. Also, I still haven't found anyone to buy my first novel, which is to say I haven't gotten paid to write that either, or the one I'm writing now, and by now you're probably thinking, well, he's probably just bitter and angry and depressed about all that, like a lot of us are bitter and angry and depressed about our own shit, and that could be.

2) I already know who is going to win. Hillary is going to win. I know, I know, at this point you're either saying A) thank you! Of course she is! or B) Fuck you! Fuck YOU!!! If she ends up being the next president I'm fucking moving ... I have friends in both categories. In fact, on a visceral level, I pretty much feel the same way about Donald Trump and (especially) Ted Cruz. But they aren't going to win. Hillary is going to win. And here is more or less how that is going to play out: She is going to win New York on the 19th, as she sure as fuck should, given that she was a senator for the state, during which time she cast a Yes vote, along with John Kerry and that weasel no one hears about anymore, John Edwards, along with virtually every Republican you can think of who was in office back then, to go to war in Iraq back in 2003—arguably the biggest foreign policy disaster in the history of our nation—but, you know, the people who don't flat out hate her for that and other reasons, many (though not all) irrational, would argue that she did her penance for that rather egregious sin back in 2008, which is why Barack Obama is president and she's still waiting. Anyway, Bernie Sanders, as James Carville, then the mastermind of Bill Clinton's campaign, said of the late Paul Tsongas back in 1992, after his victory in New Hampshire, [he] isn't going to win shit. That said, he's put the screws to Hillary in a way no one thought anyone would during this our extraordinarily long economic stimulus package we call our primary season. In effect, he's been a first-rate sparing partner for her—and she needed one, since she might be smart and more qualified on a positions held basis than anyone who's ever run for the office, but unfortunately she's not a very good politician. It doesn't come naturally to her like it does, say, her husband, or Barack Obama, or, if you prefer, Ronald Reagan. Fortunately for her, however, she is going to be running against one of the following: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or Paul Ryan. This after the Republicans proceed deeper into their already relentlessly dissected (if poorly medicated) nervous breakdown, after their quite possibly "contested" convention in July (no party in modern times has ever emerged well, or won a General Election, after going through a sideshow-style convention, not in 1976, not in 1968, not in 1924), out of which nothing good, only further clarified disaster in November, is going to come. This despite their running against a Democratic candidate with "high negatives," who (finally) could barely get past a Democratic Socialist Independent Senator from Vermont, who, by the way, would also win against any of the three possible Republican candidates, Trump still being the most likely, though he isn't a Republican anymore than Sanders is a Democrat, which would make for an interesting set-up going into the fall, but, regardless, not going to happen, and Hillary is going to win. And to my mind, when something is so obviously a foregone conclusion, it's hardly worth writing about for free. So there's that.

Still, assuming I haven't alienated you completely already, I'm a writer with an out-sized ego or why the hell would I persist in something so obviously quixotic and (economically, at least) disastrous? And to have one of my oldest friends, a very smart friend, petition me to write my thoughts out here on my blog, well, it's hard for someone who craves approval as much as I do to say no ...

However, the glow of seeming approval was dimished when I went back to look at some of my admittedly smart and funny posts from back then (you should check them out, too, cuz I mean, Wow), I saw on many of them ZERO comments. Which isn't to say that nobody read them, or nobody found them interesting, only that it seemed to me that nobody was either reading them or found them as interesting as, say, "The Walking Dead" that night. And you might say, well, I was reading them, I just didn't want my name associated with your foul language and outlandish sentiments, or, if I did, I didn't want anyone to know I agreed with you, or I was too squeamish to tell you to go fuck yourself, or, frankly, I don't want my name out there for Google and Facebook and the Chinese to exploit, better that you do that on your own, Craig, Mr. Rattle & Hum Guy, on your own, and for free, you fucking dumb ass.

It's a lot to sort out, as you can imagine.

Anyway, given the season (and to see that you all read this far), I'm going to conduct a little poll and then take it under advisement, as the lawyers say ...

To the question, Should Rattle & Hum and its author consider a return to form, if no more than once a week, now that the General Election may as well be upon us, even though the author already knows who is going to win?

Please select one of the following:

I. Sure. What the fuck else is he going to do? Write another novel? Give me a fucking break!

II. Fuck that, and fuck him! If he thinks Hillary is going to be the next POTUS he must be insane, and belongs getting a job like a normal person, and then maybe he wouldn't have such fucked up ideas.

III. It doesn't matter, I'm supporting Bernie Sanders.

Post answers either as a comment here, or on FB, or on Twitter,  as a secret handshake, telling nod, when you see me, I really don't care where or how so long as you all tell me what you think I should do.

And don't worry, I promise not to share your address with anyone trying to get at your money.

Don't wait, do it now ...

Best—R&H