measuring the drapes
I would have posted sooner, but I’ve been recovering from an election hangover. When I woke up Wednesday, I had to check online to make sure the Repugnicans hadn’t found some creative way to send this election into limbo (”Fox News reports that the Supreme Court has ruled that Ohio is not actually a state”). Since I didn’t have a ticket to Obamapalooza in Grant Park, I watched the results with some friends at a gay bar. Talk about a conflicted vibe–”Obama’s won California!” “California hates us!” Watching an election in a gay bar wasn’t any different than watching it in any other kind of bar, except for that one priceless moment as Michelle and Barack walked onstage, and everyone in the bar was hushed, until one queen in the back said “What were you thinking with that dress, honey? Michelle needs more gay friends!”
Today the Bushes are hosting the Obamas at the White House, and I like to imagine Barack messing with W.’s head when they’re alone in the Oval Office. You know, just…making shit up. “So, George, I was thinking now that I’m here, would you mind helping me move that desk so I can face Mecca?” Or maybe, in the privacy of that moment, Georgie comes clean–”You know, B-Man, I realize it’s pronounced ‘nu-cle-ar,’ but I like to sound stupid to piss off my dad.”
Now that talk has turned to the transition, you’ll be interested to know that you can apply for a job in the new administration online, at this link. Since I’ve been out of work for a while, I think I’ll give it a shot. Is see myself in a new Cabinet positon–Secretary of Humor. Any time the global political situation got really tense, I would come out and do a quick ten minute standup routine, just to loosen everyone up. I would also be in charge of executive -level snarkiness. I truly believe that sometimes it’s not enough to stand up to enemies, you need to mock them. I could convene a special subcommittee to determine exactly which world leaders are the most ridiculous.
Like most people, I was inspired by Obama’s grand oratorical skills. But there on the home page of the transition website, the goal of the new administration is stated as “making sure the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.” Just a little bit better? Talk about lowering expectations…jeez, take a risk, you guys! Apparently we’ve gone from the sweeping pronouncement ‘Yes We Can!’ to ‘We Might Be Able To In A Small Incremental Way.’ Not quite as catchy.
Incidentally, I think today might also the day God officially gives up on us. You knew there would come that one quintessentially human act that would make the Creator decide “Yeah, I’m done.” At the Tomb of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, in the ‘Holy Land’ (and at this point I do think quotation marks are appropriate), a fight between an Armenian Orthodox monk and a Greek Orthodox monk led to a full-on brawl. Watch the video–it looks like the stands at a soccer match. I’m really worried that God watched this one on the celestial big-screen and finally said “Screw it.”
And so, as much as I want to believe this is a new era of people working together for the greater good, maybe the French got it right–Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
