Mister Comedy

Sometimes when I’m creatively blocked I just start randomly typing things into Google. This time I wasn’t as random. Being a spiritual seeker, I searched for ‘God.’ Turns out, that search yielded 497,000,000 results, which I think explains why we can’t get along. Then, just to balance things out, I searched for the ‘Devil.’ Great news–only 160,000,000 results–clearly the Creator has a better handle on Search Engine Optimization. Now I’m figuring that the reason I’m not finding anything definitive is that I’m tied to archaic mythology, so I widened my search. For ‘evil,’ Google gave me 213,000,000 results, which means that there are at least 53,000,000 instances of evil for which the Devil is not responsible. This theology stuff is fun! I wanted, at the very least, to have incontrovertible proof that is more good than evil in the world, and–voila! ‘ Good’ yields 2,060,000,000 hits! Good defeats evil! I’m a philosopher genius!

All that philosophizing took my mind off my piddling worries, but not for long. I’m just not sure where I fit in the grand scheme of things, and I’m just not feeling I’ve accomplished as much as I should. Granted I have nearly TEN regular readers of my blog, and as a standup comic, I am HUGE in Berwyn, Illinois. And Crest Hill. But I needed some perspective, so it was time to consult the Great Wireless Oracle once again.

It’s called ‘ego-surfing,’ and it involves simply typing your own name (in quotation marks) into your favorite search engine. According to the magical Google, 9,700 pages on the internet have at least one reference to ‘Michael Dane.’ So to boost my self-esteem, I decided to see how my life’s work stacks up against that of some the other Michael Danes. Instead of comparing myself to everyone on the planet, or even everyone in show business, let’s just see if I’m one of the most successful people named ‘Michael Dane.’

The first result I found was for a karaoke singer in Spokane, Washington. You can see a video here. Pleasant enough fellow, but I’m way funnier. Next I found a guy in Mooresville, North Carolina. Now he does own his own company, Dane Construction, but federal campaign records show he donated $1000 to both Kay Hagen AND Elizabeth Dole in their senate race, so that tells me he’s wishy-washy and not to be trusted. Take a stand, pal! Then, rounding out the first fifty, I get worried, because there’s a Michael Dane who’s listed as a ‘voice talent.’  But I went to his website, and first of all, he’s based in Athens, Texas, which is isn’t even the hippest Athens in the U.S. And his bio says that he was a DJ at a club called ‘Toppless,’ so I actually feel o.k. about doing comedy at Bada Brew in Crest Hill. At least I was the headliner.

The next result led me to one of the most fun time-wasting sites I’ve found in ages. Iit gives you statistical information on how your name (first, last or both as a combination) ranks in popularity, and it tells you where people with your name live. Indescribable nerd fun. There are 33 ‘Michael Dane’ listings in the entire country (making it the 613,590th most popular name), and I/we can be found in 20 states (with five of me/us in Massachusettes!).

Back to the search for my doppleganger. There’s a link to the MySpace page of a twenty-one year old girl in Lorain, Ohio, but I didn’t like the looks of her friends. She could do better. Then I think I might have real competition–an actor, and he’s actually listed on IMDB. But here’s his entire resume: in the 1985 film ‘A Certain Sacrifice,’ he played ‘Transvestite Steve,’ and in the 1987 movie ‘Hangman’ he is credited as…’Bad Guy.’ I feel much better. No disrespect, Mike, but neither of your characters had last names.

Still in the field of entertainment, Canadian singer Michael Dane apparently had a minor hit with the 12″ disco single “Let’s Make Love” (the flip side, as we all remember, was “The Dead Are Making Love), but that was in 1981, and I’ve seen no evidence of a comeback. Or a resurgence of Canadian disco.

The next contender was fun to read about. An English professor at two colleges in Hawaii, he’s listed on ratemyprofessors.com . Here’s a few quotes about Professor Dane (overall rating–4.6 out of 10):

Sometimes he seems like he’s weird but he’s very helpful.

We don’t seem to do much in class at all. He is entertaining to listen to, but jokes can be repetitive.

First impression make Dane seem intimidating. He has a strange sense of humor.

Finishing the top 100 ‘Michael Dane’ results, there’s:

a goth kid who takes pictures of himself

a lawyer in Kirtland, Ohio who in 37 years of practice has never had an instance of professional misconduct (and has apparently never left Kirtland Ohio),

a guy who owns an ‘architectural products’ company in Phoenix with a sharp-looking website where twelve of the sixteen links say ‘Coming Soon.’

a guy credited on the album “A Victorian Christmas For Brass” who didn’t play any brass–he’s listed as ‘bellringer’

So, all in all, I think I represent the Michael Danes of the world quite well.  In fact, two results of the first hundred actually quote a joke of mine, and my calendar from my website is result #104. But my favorite result actually referred to a character named ‘Michael Dane.’ In the 1923 John Ford silent film “North of Hudson Bay,”  legendary cowboy Tom Mix played a rancher named Michael Dane, and check out this synopsis from the book  “John Ford” by Tag Gallagher:

Rancher Michael Dane falls in love with Estelle while en route to Northern California where his brother Peter had struck gold. But there he finds his brother dead and his partner MacKenzie sentenced to walk the ‘death trail’…Dane tries to help MacKenzie, earns the same sentence but both excape, battling wolves, and meet Estelle, pursued by her uncle, the real murderer, who dies after a canoe chase over a waterfall.

Now that would beat the hell out of telling jokes in bars. But I am having trouble imagining the pitch meeting for that movie–it’s not exactly what you’d call ‘high concept.’ Sadly, according to the book, ‘only portions’ of the film survive, ‘with titles in Czech.’ I really don’t know why. But I do know I really need to get a job.

Well, it’s official. Professor Igor Panarin, an esteemed Russian academic and former KGB analyst with the Russian Foreign Ministry, has said there is a 45-55 percent chance that the American empire will collapse by the end of 2010. This, from the Chicago Tribune:

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

Well there you have it. I especially like the Alaska part–now Sarah Palin will actually BE in Russia when she’s at her house. And of course, if anyone would be good at predicting the collapse of an empire, it would be the Russians. But if Comrade Panarin is right, so many questions come to mind, the first being, will Governor Blagojovich be calling Vladimir Putin to try and buy a Politburo seat? One other note from our friends in Russia–according to a national television survey, Josef Stalin was named third-greatest Russian in history, and in classic Russian fashion, he was also named second-greatest Russian and greatest Russian. Ah, memories.

Growing up, I listened to a lot of talk radio. It used to be like a neighborhood of the airwaves–just people talking over the metaphorical back fence about things that mattered to the community. I gave up on the medium when it got co-opted by fire-breathing right-wing hatemongers, but lately, since I’m not sleeping too well, I’ve started to tune in again. Sure, there are still plenty of xenophobes and reactionaries on the air, but they’re my neighbors too, and I might as well be neighborly and listen. Like Mike Gallagher, the popular host who this week explained why he believes that the Iraqi loafer-launching journalist should have been shot to death by the Secret Service. Seriously. Yeah, what better way to show Iraquis what democracy means than a little disproportionate whup-ass without due process.

One caller on Dennis Prager’s show had a more personal topic. Seems her mother-in-law wouldn’t speak to her since she named her son ‘Job.’ Now I can see Grandma’s point–what with the name ‘Job’ representing eternal suffering for most of western civilization. But it’s not like he’s gonna get teased by his schoolmates–kids don’t read enough these days to know who Job was. Now the boy in Hunterdon County, Pennsylvania whose parents named him Adolf Hitler Campbell might have a tougher go of it come yearbook time. And why am I not surprised that Wal-Mart was willing to decorate his birthday cake?

You know, Professor Panarin might be on to something as far as our moral degradation is concerned. Consider the guy who, on Christmas Day, became so angry at a father and son talking during a showing of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” that he shot the father…with the handgun he brought with him to the theater. Now I’ll admit I have wanted to shoot at the screen during certain movies, but did this guy at least think about…’oh, getting the usher first?

One more question when you look at this guy:  If you had to guess what movie he was watching , would you have guessed “Benjamin Button”?

Saw my favorite holiday bumper sticker the other day. It said “Santa Is A Teamster,” which makes sense, since he’s fat, only works a few days a year,  and can’t lose his job.  Christmas of course brought with it my favorite meteorological phrase–’a wintry mix.’ Now there’s descriptive, verifiable hard science for you. Anyway, I realized a long time ago that weather forecasting is actually just pseudo-science, like astrology, or phrenology. Think about it–when the weatherman says there’s a fifty percent chance of rain, that’s basically saying it might rain, or it might not.

So, I’ll wrap this up by saying there’s a forty to sixty percent chance that 2009 will be better than 2008 was. But don’t hold me to that. And have a happy new year.

Here’s why I hate trying to write topical humor. Not only are there five late night talk shows with ten writers each, and SNL, and MadTV, the Onion, and eight thousand topical blogs, but most of my hipper friends have enough technology at their disposal to simply send a one-liner on Twitter (and I’m not even sure what that is)–and poof! a joke intended for this blog has been taken. Last night, I jot down a little gag about scratching off an Illinois lottery ticket and winning a senate seat, and this morning, my friend Matt does THE EXACT SAME FREAKING JOKE as his status update on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying it was comedy gold, and it’s kind of an easy angle, but it’s still a little frustrating.

Loved watching the clip of the Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at Bush. Can’t watch it often enough. Especially the part where he throws his OTHER shoe–apparently believing the first shoe didn’t effectively communicate his point. And Bush dodged the shoe like a champ (granted, he’s had eight years of experience dodging things–accountability, criticism, responsibility)–seriously, he looked like Neo in ‘The Matrix’

I wish our press conferences were a little more rough-and-tumble.  I just have the feeling that politicians would be less inclined to bullshit if they knew they might have to dodge footwear. Overall I think the Fourth Estate (and I recently learned what the other three are from a Simpsons episode, which says something culturally) has become too wimpy. That’s one the things I love about Chicago. Since we still have two competing daily newspapers, one of them gets to be more…muckraking. It may not be as intellectual as the Tribune, but when there’s local dirt to dig, I always go to the Sun-Times first.

I also think Congress is too polite. I’d rather see Congress be more like the British Parliament. Used to love watching Parliament sessions on C-Span (C-Span is like a porn channel for political junkies). In Parliament, they actually mutter insults while the Prime Minister is speaking. Our political discourse could use a little loosening up–screw ‘parliamentary procedure,’ I want to hear Barney Frank interrupt Mitch McConnell with a little “Girlfriend, please!” In an open session of Congress, a member should be allowed to take five minutes to ridicule his rival across the aisle. “I would like to use the balance of my time to point out that my colleague from the great state of West Virginia is a backwards-thinking troglodyte.” You want to get voters involved in the political process, add a little name-calling–you’d have people at the water cooler at work saying things like “Did you hear Tom Daschle lay into Saxby Chambliss yesterday? Snap!” Apropos of nothing, ‘Saxby’ is a silly name. What, were his parents playing Scrabble when he was conceived?

As the Blago scandal ratchets up, I’m reminded of another thing I like about Chicago. In cities that are a bit more smug, this kind of scandal would be cause for outrage–time for the townspeople to light torches. Here, it’s like–yeah, they’re all crooked. The average working-stiff Chicagoan just shrugs and goes back to work. When Daley was up for coronation re-election, a survey showed that somethintg like seventy-six percent of voters believed he was connected to some form of corruption. And he won the election by pretty much the same margin. It’s sort of like a Mussolini effect–the trains are running, the garbage gets picked up, who cares who’s getting paid off. We’re gonna get the Olympics, and we have tons of bike paths!

I try not to bitch about the weather here, but today is one of those ridiculous days. This afternoon, a balmy forty-eight degrees. Tonight–eight degrees. I really don’t understand how the midwest was settled. Let’s say the westbound pioneers got here in…June. Beautiful skies over the endless plains, frolicking in the lake. But a few months later, when it became butt-fucking cold (sorry about the language, but that is an actual meteorological term)…PACK UP AND KEEP GOING WEST! It’s not like the very first Chicagoans were tied to mortgages and leases–get in the wagon and find someplace warmer! Don’t just…give up! Point your wagons south! Anywhere–just build your city someplace where a suffocating blanket of cold and ice doesn’t bury you for three months!

I would have posted sooner, but I’ve been busy preparing for an appearance in front of Congress. See, I was under the impression that the country was running out of money, but apparently you just have to ask for it. Granted, the auto bailout didn’t pass the senate, but it looks like they’ll just take fourteen billion out of the seven hundred billion that was already approved to bailout Wall Street. All this will, of course, be overseen by someone they’re calling the ‘car czar,’ an unfortunate term–what with all the criticism of Obama’s supposedly ’socialist’ leanings.

We really can’t let the auto industry collapse. If that happened, Detroit would become an empty desolate wasteland–oh wait…that’s what it is now. Anyway, I figure while they’re handing out money, I should get in line. It oughta be an easy pitch, since all I really need is five, six hundred bucks. And since the auto execs got some flack for taking private jets to D.C., I would even be willing to take Greyhound.

Here in the Land of Lincoln, we know money is always the answer. I’m not surprised that our governer was willing to sell Obama’s senate seat. I am a little surprised he couldn’t close the deal. Blagojevich’s problem (which sounds like the name of some arcane mathematical excercise–I think we had to solve that in calculus class) was that he was all over the map as far as what he wanted. According to the tapes, he wanted a Cabinet post, then he’s asking about running the Red Cross, or maybe a high-ranking union job–I mean, decide what the seat’s worth, for bleep’s sake. And just pick one buyer, instead of dealing with five. C’mon, this is basic sales technique. Keep it simple.

The fact that the transcripts even exist is amazing. If your administration is the subject of a months-long federal investigation, it’s pretty likely your phone will be tapped. Might want to discuss violating the state constitution somewhere other than your own house…go to a corner bar–there’s a few of them in Chicago. And the swearing cracks me up, because it reads like he’s auditioning for a stage version of ‘Scarface.’

Norm Coleman probably wishes he could just buy the Minnesota senate seat, but unfortunately, the good folks in Minnesota are actually trying to count all the votes that were cast. Having lived in Minnesota, this is the time of year when you’re stuck indoors anyway, so you might as well take that time to count votes. Have each precinct captain make a hot dish, mull some cider and get it right. Not much else to do in Brainerd or Round Lake in December–it’s that or scrapbooking. I really hope Franken wins, simply because he would become the first elected official in history to admit to having dropped acid.

Speaking of winter, I’m looking out my window as I write this, and it’s quite lovely–if I didn’t have to actually WALK OUTSIDE. But take it from a guy with a limp and a cane–one person’s glistening city sidewalk is another person’s treacherous path to the bus stop. Winter wonderland my ass–as far as I’m concerned, it’s just a lot of places where I can slip and crack my skull on the curb. Hope you’re all having a good holiday!

I used to love Larry King’s column. He would simply string together a handful of not-very-risky opinions (usually, but not exclusively, about celebrities), introduced by some regular guy phrase like “for my money” or “if you ask me”–add some ellipses, and you’ve got a column.

For my money, you couldn’t ask for a nicer guy than Paul Newman…if you ask me, that Cristina Aguilera can really move…if you put a gun to my head, I’d have to to call cappellini my favorite noodle–not for nothing, but I love how it’s thicker than angel hair and not as thick as spaghetti…

Since I don’t really have anything that would warrant five or six hundred words, I’m gonna take a page out of Larry’s book–just a few random rants–a snarky sampler if you will.

So I’m standing in front of Davenport’s, where I’m doing my solo show “I’m A Freakin’ Mess” this Sunday, and I’m in front of one of the posters for my show. A man walks out of the club, does a double-take, and says to me ‘You’re the freakin’ mess guy!” The tragic part is that for half a second I wasn’t sure if he was referencing the title of my show or just passing judgement on my emotional stability…

Usually I have pretty accurate gaydar, but occasionally I misread things. A few nights ago, I struck up a lovely conversation with a guy I assumed was gay. When a friend of mine who knew him said he was, in fact, straight, I realized I had assumed which team he played for based on the fact that he he was well-spoken and polite. You just so rarely see a straight guy with impeccable manners. Sad…

A friend of mine told me that, as far as finding that special someone, he’s waiting for a lightning bolt. Me, I’d settle for static electricity. Just let me walk in socks on your deep pile shag, baby…

I don’t exactly run with a gang (there are three of us who ride to open mics together, but I don’t think that counts), but I thought I understood tagging. I thought that whatever was ‘tagged’ was claimed as the ‘turf’ of whoever did the tagging. So why was the little coffeehouse near me tagged? Is there a particularly literate gang out there, trying to lock up all the good spots in the poetry jam? Are there rogue members of the Latin Kings trying to get their acoustic folk on? Has there been a sudden upswing in muffin trafficking (”Yo yo yo–check this out–that’s right, that’s cranberry walnut, homeboy–you can have the first one free”)?…

True confessions time. I’m Jewish and I love Christmas. I’m sure this is because I converted  to Judaism–I was raised Christian…Well, nominally. My mother was an Episcopalian who hadbn’t been to church in so long she was afraid if she went the church would collapse on her, and my dad was a Catholic who stopped attending Mass when the church stopped speaking Latin.  Anyway, I have made peace with ‘celebrating’ Christmas–I figure, we take a day off for Abe Lincoln, and Jesus probably ranks even higher than Lincoln on the list of “People Who Did A Lot Of Good Things But Were Killed.”

But the real reason I dig Christmas is the music. Now, traditional Jewish music is beautiful–don’t get me wrong. But it’s just not as joyful as your classic Christmas tunes. It’s all minor keys, and ‘people tried to kill us and we survived.’ (Now I realize if I joke at all about Judaism, I risk being compared to the dentist in that ‘Seinfeld” episode, the guy who only converted so he could get away with making Jewish jokes). One of my favorite Christmas songs is ‘The Christmas Song,’, known to most people as ‘chestnuts roasting…’. But how cocky was the writer of that song–Mel Torme? Literally thousands of Christmas songs had been written by  that time, but he calls his ‘The Christmas Song.’ …

Everyone has their emotional touchstones with the holidays, and for me, I know it’s the holiday season by the ads I see on tv. If Santa is skiing on an electric razor, it’s that time. More importantly, if I can buy a Chia-Pet, it’s definitely that time.  Because there’s nothing that says ‘the son of God is born’ like a pig covered in shrubbery. Happy Holidays!

Been hibernating a lot this week. I tend to plan my brooding–it’s not an organic thing that just comes over me. For instance, I normally buy one pack of cigarettes at a time, never a carton, because after all, if I buy a carton of cigarettes, then I would have to call myself a smoker, and I like to live in the delusion that any given pack might be my last. But a few days ago I bought three packs, because I intended to brood.

I’ve always romanticized tortured artists. The notion of abusing oneself as a path to brilliant creative work really grabbed me, as I imagined myself scrawling bits of genius on the back of an envelope or a napkin while surrounded by overflowing ashtrays and empty bottles while listening to Billie Holiday, or Karen Carpenter. Unfortunately, I don’t quite have the hang of it. First, I’m too anal-retentive to let that kind of righteous squalor accumulate. Also, I can only write at the computer–when I do scrawl notes, my penmanship is so godawful and the notes are so sparse that within an hour they become indecipherable to me (what did I mean by ‘elephant religion’?–I think that says ‘elephant’). And lastly, when I’m in hibernation mode, I just…tend to not feel like writing. I find that being in a funk takes up most of my time. So basically I become Charles Bukowski, but without the literary part, sitting in a very tidy apartment.

When I do commit to a couple of days of good old-fashioned angst, I watch a lot of tv, and since I no longer have cable, that means nine channels to choose between (compelling reason to learn Spanish–I’d have two more channels to watch). One classic moment this week was the much ballyhooed interview with the call girl from the Elliot Spitzer scandal. When she was asked whether she knew it was a governer she was ‘dating,’ she said she didn’t ‘conect the dots’ until she saw him on tv, and here’s the beauty part–Diane Sawyer says “You never knew who he was?…Hadn’t seen him in the paper?” Now maybe I’m making an unfair assumption here, but I just don’t see Kristin–sorry, Ashley–looking at her morning New York Times on a regular basis.

I never seem to brood for more than a couple of days–I eventually have to leave my apartment and interact with people, if only to buy more cigarettes. As I started to come out of my funk, I needed some tv that was mindless and upbeat, and that would be the exact description of “Don’t Forget The Lyrics,” hosted by Wayne Brady. Now, if it’s possible someone to have negative street cred, Wayne Brady would be one of those people. But I like to sing along with watered-down snippets of thirty-year-old songs as much as anyone, so I watched. And oddly enough, “Don’t Forget The Lyrics” brought me back. You see, when all you can see is your own shit, you need a little perspective. Well, the contestant on “Lyrics” said that she wanted to win so she could afford an operation because she was born with ONLY ONE EAR! It was then that I realized that not winning the Chicago Standup Comedy Showdown is pretty far down on the list of things about which to brood.

I think a good way to judge a new administration is by an equation I call the Contrition Differential Index. The CDI is a formula derived by dividing the number of announcements made by the number of apologies issued, then taking that number and multiplying it by the number of days since the election. Here’s an example:

Official Announcements From Team Obama: 15 (13 members of transition team, Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, and some rules about lobbyists)

Apologies: 2 (Obama to Nancy Reagan for implying she held seances, Emmanuel to the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee for a comment his father made)

Days Since Election: 10

CDI= (15/2) x 10=75

Of course, since I just invented this concept, I’m not sure if a CDI of 75 is good or bad. I am sure that, in American politics, apologies are being issued for some pretty insignificant transgressions. Let’s look at the meae culpae from the past two weeks.

Granted, for some inexplicable reason, Nancy Reagan is adored by millions of Americans (who have apparently forgotten that for most of her term as First Lady she was widely seen as a shrewish Machiavellian horoscope-consulting whack-job). But the seance thing was…what’s it called?…A JOKE! Who exactly was wronged by this? Nancy Reagan? The widow of the man who, AS A JOKE, said “We begin bombing in five minutes”? Please.

The Emmanuel apology was for a comment his father made to an Israeli newspaper, and yeah, the comment was insensitive and narrow-minded, but he was hardly speaking on behalf of the administration! I realize this isn’t a particularly good time to piss off the Arab world, but I’m pretty sure most Arab-Americans are able separate what somebody’s dad said from offical policy. Hell, I think we all can remember things Dad said that made us cringe, and we basically said ‘that’s just Dad.’

We, as a nation, need to adopt a new motto: ‘Let It Go’. Put it right on the coins, instead of ‘In God We Trust’ (I haven’t seen a Zogby poll on this, but I’m thinking there’s a lot fewer people who trust God now than there were in 1956 anyway). The problem with every aggrieved group demanding an apology for a perceived slight is that apologies are at risk of becoming meaningless. You flood a market with something, that something gets devalued.

I’m all for contrition, but let’s save it for the big stuff. Like this, after a recent air strike in Afghanistan:

“We do not know all the facts at this time but we will investigate this situation to get to the truth,” said Col. Greg Julian, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan. “If we find that innocent people were killed in this incident, we apologize…”

Putting aside my pacifistic instinct to point out that fewer innocent people will be killed if we stop firing missiles at places where innocent people live, this at least is an apology for something significant. Not sure how well received it was by the families involved, but it’s a nice gesture.

I suppose I should start sending formal apologies:

Dear T-Mobile–

I offer my heartfelt apologies if I gave the impression I would be able to pay my phone bill last month. I deeply regret any harm I have caused your company.

I feel better already. And if I’ve hurt anyone’s feelings, I am truly sorry.

I mentioned yesterday that at the Obama transition website, you can actually apply for a job with the administration online. The more I think of it, this may not be a good idea. As much as I dig the fact that the highest level of government is now internet-savvy (finally catching up to….most eighth-graders), I’m thinking that jobs within a president’s administration should be filled in a more traditional way–maybe they should be filled by people the president is already familiar with. Sure, there might be some undiscovered policy genius who sends in an app (”Hmmm…I already applied at Kinko’s, but in case I don’t get that I should also apply for that job working with the president,”), but I’d be worried that some clerical error in the screening process would allow a bunch of unemployed Gap clerks to end up as undersecretaries of something-or-other (”Mom–great news–I finally got a job–yeah I’m gonna be in charge of something called Infrastructure…no, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing but I start in January”).

It has been mentioned that yesterday’s meeting between Bush and Obama was the earliest such post-election meeting in history. If I were George, I’d be in a hurry to wrap things up too.

“Well, Barack, there’s the red phone…you know where the Rose Garden is…hmmmm…what else?….oh, yeah we’re in two unwinnable wars that the public doesn’t support and the banking system is essentially broken and the auto industry is pretty much bankrupt and unemployment is at a five year high and we’ve got no clue where Bin Laden is and…well, anyhoo, I gotta get outta here–I got me a library to build.”

Thankfully, taxpayers won’t have to pay too much for a George W. Bush Presidential Library–hell, we could probably get by with a Presidential Bookmobile for this guy.

Taking a stand against the corrupt influence of corporations, the new administration has announced that lobbyists cannot work in the federal government. Well, in the field in which they lobbied. Well, if they lobbied within the last year. Looks like we’re already gonna need a Department of Disclaimers. And speaking trying to have it both ways, Joe Lieberman (Traitor-CT) will probably be allowed to caucus with the Democrats, a decision based primarily on Lieberman’s irrelevance

One of the mantras of this transition has been “We only have one president at a time.” I’d argue that we have maybe half a president, and I really think that this artificial seventy-some day period before the new guy gets to move in is just an unnecessary throwback to an era when it took a long time for people in the new administration to get to the Capitol from different parts of the country. I say we give the president who’s leaving two weeks notice. Give him time to have one last press conference, send out some resumes, call a few buddies, and clean out his desk. Like I mentioned earlier, Bush would probably just as soon get out of town now, although I’m pretty sure it’s gonna take the jaws of life to pry Cheney’s hands off the levers of power.

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.

There was almost no line when I got to my polling place today,although there was a woman in front of me who didn’t realize she had to register before she could vote–not sure she should have a say in what happens if she’s that unclear on the process. I thought I’d take this opportunity to walk you through the Illinois ballot and why I voted the way I did.

First, a referendum to call a new constitutional convention. I voted yes, because I’m hoping if they have one, the people writing the new constitution will be wearing powdered wigs. Then it was time for the presidential race. These people have no sense of dramatic structure–that should have obviously been last on the ballot. And I really wish I had done more research. I knew that in addition to Obama and McCain, there would be Cynthia McKinney from the Green Party and the Three Grumpy Men on the fringe (Ralph, Ron, Bob–pretty sure you’re gonna just miss the cut, guys), but I had no idea there was a Constitution Party candidate (on every issue, he’s basically opposed to abortion), and my new hero is New Party candidate John J. Polachek.

In a classic case of Illinois political weirdness, although 25,000 signatures are required for a new party to appear on the ballot, and Polachek collected exactly zero, if nobody contests the petition you file, the state puts you on the ballot. Nobody contested, so there he was. Here’s what we know about Mr. Polachek. He’s a fifty-one year old taxi driver living in Rogers Park. Period. In an era where we are drowning in minutiae, I find it refreshing that we don’t know anything about this guy. Oh–and we know he did not select a running-mate…the ballot actually said ‘None Listed,’ which tells me he thought to himself–’Don’t worry–I got this.’ And his only policy statement was, according to the State Board of Elections, a handwritten note that said ninety-five percent of his passengers agreed with his ideas. Good enough for me, and I hope he runs again.

A quick wikipedia check shows five other parties with a presidential candidate on more than one state ballot. You know, I’m not sure we should get all parliamentarian and give credence to every fringe party like Israel does–I think there is such a thing as too much democracy. In Israel, my Facebook friends and I would actually have to be included in a coalition government. But maybe we could elect two presidents, one from the two main parties and one from all the others–we’d call that person the Fringe President, and the FP would be allowed to vote on things like ceremonial days, and naming buildings.

This is how unaware McCain is–he spent all that effort trying to label Obama a socialist, when ,there are actually three different REAL socialists running for president. It gets a little confusing, because there’s a Socialist Party, a Socialist Workers party, and a Socialism and Liberation Party (maybe these people should get together, sort of a strength in numbers thing). The S&L Party website says they got on the ballot in Rhode Island, so they’ve got momentum, while the SW Party has a small problem in that its candidate (Roger Calero) is constitutionally ineligible to serve, as a resident alien with a felony conviction for selling marijuana. The best of the bunch is the old-school Socialist Party, which has actually announced it’s cabinet (Jeremiah Wright as UN Ambassador–that oughta shake things up).

Now for the fringiest of the fringe. There is a Prohibition Party candidate , and as a bonus, on his website you can see some of his paintings, which is cool. There is a new Boston Tea Party,  which certainly has the simplest platform and for inspiration quotes lyrics from “Les Miserables.”  And lastly, the Objectivist Party (and where was coverage of their convention?) is based entirely on the writings of Ayn Rand, which, based on the thirty or so pages of ‘The Fountainhead’ I was able to get through in college, might limit their appeal.

For U.S. Senator, I voted for the incumbent, because though I admire the Green Party platform, I would be worried that someone who’s that far outside the Beltway might actually miss a lot of votes just by getting lost in the Senate building. Besides, they would be called a ‘freshman’ senator, and that makes me think there would be all kinds of hazing.

Then the ballot got a little strange, because for State senate and the House about fifteen candidates in a row ran unopposed, which made it feel a little like voting in Soviet Russia.

Now I always thought judges were appointed, but at least in Illinois, we have to vote for them. Every freaking one of them. For some, there was an actual race between two people I hadn’t heard of, and for about a hundred and fifty, you were just supposed to decide whether or not to ‘retain’ them. Nobody I know who voted knew anything about these judges, and the only information I found in the voter guide was that they all were deemed ‘qualified.’ So, since I wasn’t about to give up my right to vote on anything, I had to come up with a system. This was my system:

1. In a race between a man and a woman, I chose the woman. I just think they’re more nurturing, and if I ever have to face a judge, I want a nurturing one. Likewise, I voted to ‘retain’ all female judges, with the exceptions noted below.
2. I have may Irish friends in Chicago, and I mean no disrespect to the good men and women of the Emerald Isle, but I think it’s safe to say the Irish are fairly well represented in Chicago politics. So, I generally voted against people with Irish surnames. Just in the interest of balance.
3. Also in the interest of balance, I voted for people with non-Irish names, like Otaka and Wojkowski.
4. I voted to not retain Edmund Ponce de Leon, because of that whole ‘fountain of youth’ thing.
5. I voted against a guy named Nixon, just instinctively.
6. I voted against anyone who, in quotation marks, was listed by a nickname that any idiot could figure out without the quotation marks. I think we know that James Williamson can also be called ‘Jim’.
7. I voted against Katherine ‘Kitty’ McCarthy, because ‘Kitty’ sounds more like a stripper than a judge, and if she’s choosing to be listed on the ballot as ‘Kitty,’ her judgement is questionable.
8. I voted against John Thomas Doody for entirely sophomoric reasons. Seriously–Judge Doody?

There you have it–my voting experience. Now I’m going to Crispy Creme, proud to live in a nation in which my reward for voting is a glazed hunk of dough.