Cowboy Confessional

Bush’s State of the Union speech was such an intellectual masturbatory affair that I’m surprised he got applause and not money shots.

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According to the Chinese, 2008 is the year of the rat. And by this time Hillary Clinton is smelling one.

It is not shaping up to be a good month for the Hill-Billy Klan. Aside from getting an old fashioned ass-whumpin’ down south (you know, that area she once lived), it appears that every major patriarch, matriarch, and court jester of the Democrat party is endorsing Barack “Don’t Check My Record” Obama.

Those individuals not important enough for their endorsement to count — and by this I mean John Kerry — are spending their time being Barack’s pit bulls (I wonder if Obama and Michael Vick share any ancestry?)

Now the Kennedy’s — the rum running Democrat dynasty — are coming out like bootleggers at a frat party to back Barack, proving once again that their misogyny trumps their bigotry … on most days.

On Sunday, Caroline Kennedy wrote in Hillary’s new home town paper that Obama is inspiring in the same way her father was. We’ll ignore what a put-down to JFK this is given that John had a spine (broken though it was), had fought in a war, and had a voting record in congress that presented a trackable baseline for his policy positions. Obama has none of the above. For weak minded mavens like Caroline, inspiration trumps freedom, constitution, and substance any day.

Normally I would leave Special Olympic wannabes like Caroline Kennedy alone, but she presents too wonderful of a target to ignore (was that poor judgement on my part to use the words “Kennedy” and “target” in the same sentence?) In her Op/Ed she scrawled:

Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences … I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it …and who can lift our spirits”

Actually dear, we want a president who will abide by the Constitution, not rob us blind, and otherwise leave us the Hell alone. But such fundamentals cannot be clearly observed from a penthouse atop an ivory tower, and thus your are forgiven the oversight.

The good new is that soon Obama’s campaign will be undone by the act of one man, whose reputation is so poisonous outside of is native realm that the very mention of his name cases strong men to shudder, children to cry, and young women to avoid riding in sedans over bridges.

Ted Kennedy is set to endorse Obama.

For all of Bill Clinton’s poorly masked, race dividing, borderline slanderous meddling in this year’s presidential contest, it will have done far less harm to Barack than the endorsement of Boston’s own public drunk. Obama, you should be concerned. But take advice from Teddy himself: if you don’t panic, everything will go swimmingly.

At least Obama will know who to turn to to drown his sorrows comes November.

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It has been a busy week, and I’ve been racing around while the political world appears to be racing to chase races and accusing racists motivations.

Say that ten times rapidly!

You will forgive me for pressing my tongue firmly into a cheek (though whose cheek I’ll leave undisclosed). Being raised color blind I find political haraunging over skin color to be alternately offensive or amusing. Since I’ve invested my quota of angst on politicians this week, I’ll have to resort being entertained by their unsubtle race-based maturations.

Before going much further, it would be impolite to not thank those who exited to presidential race — for exiting as well as for their contributions to the entertainment industry.

Dennis Kucinich has bowed out, though nobody noticed, believing he had been bowing low all along. Despite disagreeing with nearly every plank of his platform, I was grateful for Dennis’ candidacy, for it validated that the American Dream still lives. Where else on the face of Gawd’s Gray World can the leadership of an entire nation be sought by an criminally insane communist midget?

On the other side of the political farce fence, Fred Thompson also dropped out of sight, metaphorically speaking given that nobody in primary states ever actually saw him run. Claims that Thompson was a lazy man were put to rest once and for all given ample proof provided by his alleged campaign.

But those races paled against the simmering race wars fomented between the leading Democrat contenders. With the campaign trail heading south, and with 50% of Democrat voters in one primary being of African ancestry, the Clinton camp played the race card by not playing the race card.

Confused? So are most people who didn’t take notes during the previous Hill-Billy administration.

The Clintons have a number of tactics that are as repugnant as they are effective. One such tactic is the use of proxies (namely friendly pundits) to publicly say what no sane candidate would. Fearing that Barack would garner the black vote in the South Carolina primary, they sent subtle messages to the media that an Obama victory might result in a “white backlash.” The goal was to publicly raise the issue of a backlash, and thus generate it in an effort to negate Obama’s regional advantage.

The mechanics of divisive pandering are interesting. Obama has much to lose if race becomes an issue since his race could (in small minds) be an issue. Hillary loses nothing if her sex becomes an issue because even a subtle attack on it will be regarded as sexists — there would be no feminine backlash, in part because of her lack thereof. Score the advantage for Hillary even if she gets caught pitting whites against blacks.

Now, I have no truck with the Republicans, but I’ll note that race has not been a topic of discussion amongst them. The worst they can be accused of is the passive bigotry of indifference, which is a shade more preferable to active bigotry of pandering shown by the Democrats. Being a Southern Gent, I will note in passing that the term “dixiecrat” existed for a reason.

Ignoring Obama’s race (thankfully) bring us to the other oddity in the ongoing struggle between him and the Clinton Cavalcade of Contempt. Obama’s documentable lack of experience (exposed by his rather undocumentable voting record) correctly portrays him as a cardboard candidate — a man with no detectable record of committed positions on issues.

But how the man can talk! This seems to be his only draw, that he is an inspirational public speaker. Then again, so was Hitler, but I’d be hard pressed to vote for him either.

This attraction of voters to the insubstantial element of personality is depressing, and a clear sign that encouraging voting for the sake of high voter turn-outs is bad policy. When a person’s sex, race, or personality become the top issues in deciding the leader of the free world, then we must expect a government of the same composition - namely a superficial entity prone to legislating based on public whims.

Oh. Right. That’s what we have already.

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I have encountered every conceivable form of insanity cataloged by the American Psychiatric Association. And that was just by meeting my congressman.

But I discovered a new one, which I’ll politely classify as Cheeseheaditus. If no other aspect of American culture scares the rest of the world into quivering incontinence, then this should.

There is a sports event occurring at this moment in the town of Green Bay, Wisconsin. We call the game “football”, which surely surprises the rest of the planet who have a similarly named game where the players actually use their feet.

Semantic irregularities aside, what is frightenly amazing about this particular event is that the athletes and tens of thousands of fans are in a stadium while the temperatures are two degrees below zero on the fahrenheit scale (-18 degrees for those who use the infinitely more sane centigrade scale). In other words, players and spectators alike are risking frostbite for the sake of sport and the chance to get drunk in public (hmmm, a football game where the players are intoxicated …. now that could be entertaining).

And night is falling there, meaning it is about to get really chilly.

The ball players (no, not spectators with hands in their pockets) have a small advantage. They have to expel energy and in the process raise their body temperatures, which wards off the cold. But this is little comfort to them as they slide across the frost covered field and in the process perform reverse ice sculpture on their flesh.

Wisconsin spectators also have an advantage, given that nearly 1/4 of their population is classified as obese. In a pinch, thin spectators can survive the second half of the game by eating the fat cheeseheads. In fact, this might make a good welfare food program (Memo to Congress: Since most of you would eat your own children, this is a small policy step).

The main question is if the winner of today’s game will thaw out in time to play in the Super Bowl in the balmy state of Arizona next month. If not, they could break under the temperature differential.

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A hacked out a new song this week — a love ballad about broken people in and around the rodeo circuit. Imagine like Tom Waits banging Conway Twitty.

It is called Eli’s, and there is a very rough sketch demo track online.

There is a minor lesson in song construction here (though this tune is far from complete). While pondering the lyrics I had the melody of a famous country song in my head, and kept stitching to words together with those sounds.

That’s wrong on many levels, possibly illegal, and might well be against church doctrine to boot.

So when it came time to write music, I had to force a chord structure completely different to what was echoing in my skull. It did not matter what chords I started using, because they were throw-aways (and sure enough, I ended up with completely different ones). Same with the meter, melody, etc.

Another songwriting tactic I used in this song was a common one, but I liked the way it worked here. The stanzas are in major chords, and the change-ups are in minors. Since I wanted negative emotions in the change-ups — to drive the feeling that life sucks and doesn’t get better — minor chords created that feeling.

Enough of my rambling (Jack Elliot I ain’t). Enjoy, and if you don’t … keep it to yourself.

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