The Desecration Will Be Televised

I'll try to make this quick.

Way back in February of 2007, I published a piece that was written as an open-letter apology to America for the media's coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Needless to say, it was pretty scathing -- an indictment not only of this country's supposedly respectable news outlets but of Anna Nicole Smith herself and her overall importance in the lives of you and your family. (Hint: She wasn't important at all.)

One of the points I made was this:

"During the past week, those charged with the awesome responsibility of relaying to you the global, cultural, political, economic and medical news which you rightly expect and demand from us, have instead willingly allowed ourselves to be taken hostage by every permutation of loathsome, opportunistic degenerate -- each claiming to be able to add yet another spoonful of pabulum to the pot we're all too happy to stir. During the past week, hundreds of American soldiers and innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq -- as our focus shifted to one minor celebrity who died just off the Florida Turnpike... I'm sorry that we've allowed Wolf Blitzer and Diane Sawyer to look no better than Pat O'Brien and Maria Menounos. I am truly sorry that we have, even for a moment, lent a shred of credibility to the opinions of Nancy Grace."

Obviously, Michael Jackson wasn't a B-list celebrity -- he was a pop culture icon of the highest order. But the truly sad thing is that, other than that one very pronounced difference, you could easily plug in his name for Anna Nicole Smith's and the point would be exactly the same. In other words: The all-day-all-night freakshow on cable has begun, just as it always does in the wake of a shocking, seemingly epochal event within the throroughly fucked-up world of the self-proclaimed Hollywood elite.

Larry King, fresh from his most recent blood transfusion in Transylvania, is already trotting out a few of the characters whose names will become common cultural knowledge by next week -- the Kato Kaelins, Denise Simpsons, Howard K. Sterns, and Larry Birkheads of this particular affair. I'm talking about people like the frightening plastic surgery nightmare that is Iris Finsilver, Debbie Rowe's "close personal friend"; future tell-all author Dr. Arnie Klein, Michael Jackson's dermatologist, and so on. (I'm not even bothering to bring up that repugnant mainstay of obscene opportunism, Al Sharpton; he's a given.) These are the vultures who will be swooping in to feast on the carcass of Michael Jackson, to use his death to get their 15 minutes in the spotlight.

And the media -- the cable media especially, the 24/7 beast that must constantly be fed fresh meat in order to survive -- will be more than happy to give them all the time they'd like to turn one loss into their gain.

Get ready, folks. It's gonna get ugly.

Burn, Baby, Burn (A Humorous Epilogue)

My name is Chez Pazienza. I used to be a TV news producer living in New York. Until...

Anonymous Executive Type: "We got a burn notice on you."

Jayne: "Sorry, honey. You're blacklisted."

When you're burned, you've got nothing: No wife, no job, no transportation. You're stuck in whatever city you find yourself dumped in.

Chez (in a haze): "Where am I?"

Stranger: "Miami."

You do whatever work comes your way. You rely on who you can: Ex-girlfriends, the ones still talking to you. A few old friends, one gay and fabulous, three others single, straight and cynical as hell. Former co-workers.

Former Co-worker: "You know TV people. Bunch of bitchy little girls."

Family too...

Mom (smiling broadly): "It's so good to have you back, son."

...If you're desperate.

Bottom line, as long as you're burned, you're not going anywhere.

(If you get none of this, you're not watching Burn Notice on USA, which you should be.)

Listening Post

This is one of those bands whose last couple of albums have gone largely under-the-radar here in the states, and that's a shame.

From Brighton, England, this is Clearlake -- Neon.

Quote of the Week (Honorable Mention)

"Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas! Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn’t like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where’s the public debate between scientists on 'Climate Change/Global Warming?') Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O’s nationalized car be? So… kill off the weak. That’s the plan. Tax the workers to death. Erase the middle class. Sounds like the evil governments we studied in high school long ago. The evil governments were : kings, oligarchies, facist, socialist, and communist. Now it’s called the Obama Administration. Sounds like candy or a rock band."

-- Former Saturday Night Live cast-member turned complete fucking lunatic Victoria Jackson

(h/t Cesca)

(Incidentally, the high school she went to? The one where she learned about "evil governments?" It's Dade Christian School in Miami, a Southern Baptist insane asylum that forbids kids from going to concerts, dancing, holding hands, having their hair cut in ways that might call forth the devil, etc. I know because I went there -- for about six months. You can imagine why I only lasted that long.)

Forever and Never, Amen (Parts 1, 2 & 3)

"Fancy a big house, some kids and a horse. I can not quite, but nearly guarantee a divorce. I think that I love you. I think that I do. So go on, mister -- make 'Miss Me' 'Mrs. You.'"

-- Zero 7, Distractions

"There's no guarantees. There's no guarantees. There's no guarantees."

-- Ryan Adams, Political Scientist (from the album Love is Hell)


Part 1: In Which Things Fall Apart


As these kinds of things go, it started off pretty standard: There was the disgraced, white male political figure, his head hung in just the right amount of requisite shame; the frenzied gaggle of vulturine media types, electricity shooting through their veins from being in the immediate presence of a human being who was about to be reduced to little more than a lifeless carcass ripe for the picking; the flashes of the strobes and the podium adorned with a bouquet of microphones. We knew the drill. We'd seen it all before and understood what was next. Another politician caught, literally, with his pants down was going to confess his sins to the American people. He'd apologize for betraying his constituents, his family, God, whomever, and stoically ask for forgiveness in exchange for a trip to sex-addict rehab with his spiritual adviser or some other such horseshit.

This was the way it worked. How it went for Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, and so on. It was contrition-as-theater, and we all knew the script.

But a funny thing happened when it was South Carolina governor Mark Sanford's turn to take the stage in the role of the respected leader embroiled in a career-threatening sex scandal: He went "off-book," quickly dropping the cool, practiced and thoroughly unconvincing I-let-myself-down routine in favor of being, well, human. The result was nothing short of captivating -- the public implosion, body and soul, of a man for whom public implosions wouldn't seem possible. Sanford didn't downplay his relationship with his mistress, whom he'd just spent six days with in her home country of Argentina; he eulogized it. Rather than taking the politically expedient route and reducing the other woman to an anonymous figure intruding on the sacred ground of his marriage, he did exactly the opposite -- coming apart at the seams as he admitted that he was, in fact, deeply and passionately in love with the person for whom he was willing to risk his life as he knew it. If it didn't garner a surprising pang of sympathy from the millions of Americans who'd been there, who understood what it was like to suddenly find the heart in a violent battle with all better judgment, then at the very least it deserved credit as a hell of a clever bit of misdirection.

To hear Mark Sanford tell it, Maria Belen Chapur wasn't the other woman. She was the woman. The only woman.

Since last week's startling and revealing announcement, Mark Sanford the overwhelmed inamorato has slowly begun to morph back into Mark Sanford the reptilian politician: He's admitted to having "crossed lines" with a handful of other women during his 20 year marriage and he's contradicted his own story several times. But he still can't shut up about "Maria," whom he calls his "soulmate."

"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford says, sounding like he's about to compose a sonnet. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

If you find this more than a little amusing -- the thought of a typically uptight and sanctimonious Republican politician suddenly drama-queening out, turning into poor, stupid lovestruck Paris, willing to bring war to Troy's doorstep in the name of the beauty who's so entranced him -- you're certainly not alone.

But you've got to wonder how Mark Sanford's wife Jenny, the mother of his children, feels about all this florid praise aimed in the direction of a woman other than herself. I'm sure it was especially stinging when the good governor said in an interview that he was trying to learn to fall back in love with his wife. That's the kind of revelation that gets a man killed in his sleep.

Still, and I realize this question will be seen as impertinent by some: Didn't she sign up for this? Didn't she know the risks inherent not simply in marrying someone with political aspirations but, to some extent, in marrying anyone? And for that matter -- didn't he? Didn't they realize that, at any point and for no discernible reason, one or the other of them could fall out of love -- or fall in love with someone else -- and walk out the front door without ever looking back?

Don't we all understand the reality by this point?

So why do we do it -- why do we get married anymore -- at all?

The Kids in the Hall once did a sketch where they compared getting married to skydiving. It ended with one of the cast-members putting America's oft-quoted marriage statistics into jarring perspective by essentially saying: Would you jump out of a plane if you knew that there was only a 50% chance of your chute opening?

As much as I wish it weren't true, and as much as I hate to drop another couple of pop culture references, the events that have taken place in my own life in the past several months have conspired to make me think quite a bit about the entire institution of marriage. To challenge my long-held perceptions about it -- and my overall belief in it and in the ability of two people to make it last these days. At the core of my cynicism: personal experience -- both direct and indirect -- with two assumptions that are rooted in undeniable fact.

First, as Chris Rock famously said, a man is only as faithful as his options -- although I'd expand that proposition to include the opposite sex as well. To some extent, we're all looking to trade up -- physically, emotionally, financially -- and the temptation of the perfect opportunity to do just that is often impossible to completely resist. (Just ask Jerry Seinfeld's wife, Jessica Sklar, who left her first, non-household-name husband immediately after their three-week Italian honeymoon to begin dating TV royalty.) And even if the opportunity never does in fact come to fruition, isn't the knowledge of this kind of innate desire a deal-breaker in and of itself? You can't spend your whole life hoping nobody better than you comes along.

Second, in the immortal words of TV's Dr. House -- everybody lies.

Everybody. No matter who you are. One way or the other, you're likely covering something up, hiding the truth from the person you claim to love, burying a deep, dark secret that, if revealed, would constitute an Extinction Level Event in your relationship. If you're not now, you probably have at some point. We tell the biggest lies to the ones we're closest to, whose lives we affect the most and who in turn have the ability to drastically affect ours. We do it to keep the peace, or, we tell ourselves, as an act of pure altruism -- to keep our partners safe from unnecessary harm, the harm that we ourselves would cause.

Some would look at Mark Sanford and say, rightly, "the balls on this guy." He actually had the colossal arrogance to ask his wife for permission to visit his paramour -- who's an ex-television news producer, incidentally, proving my well-tested theory that the TV news business grows amoral sexual predators like fruit on the vine -- after he was busted writing romantic e-mails to her. Needless to say, Jenny Sanford, having a thimble-full of self-respect, told him where to shove his burning schoolboy desire: She "politely denied" his request, then threw him out of the house when he ignored her, ditched his official tail, and went to Argentina anyway.

"It’s one thing to forgive adultery, it’s another to condone it," she says, in what's sure to become an Oprah-approved battle-cry for scorned women everywhere.

Once again though, she had to know that this day would, in one form or another, come. She had to grasp, even from the beginning, that no matter the ostensible strength of the foundation she'd built with her husband -- years together, kids, a home, mutual friends, a joint membership at the local country club -- that it could all come crashing down and be rendered utterly meaningless at some point. That he'd be willing to betray it all for a cheap, ego-stroking thrill. Or that she might. Humans are painfully flawed creatures -- maybe too inherently flawed to make a marriage, the brass ring marriage we're taught to strive for by movies and TV commercials, work and last.

I want to believe in a love that lasts forever and can withstand anything -- the good times and bad. And for a long time I believed just that. I clung desperately, passionately to the fantasy that there was a "right person" and that being in a committed relationship with her or him -- while not without conflict, trauma, and a lot of hard work -- would be rewarding in immeasurable ways, because that person would bring out the best parts of you and you would do likewise.

I believed so strongly in that. I don't anymore.

And I'm betting that almost everyone involved in the Sanford affair -- Mark, Jenny, Maria, even Maria's stunned and betrayed boyfriend -- feels the same way.

Like everything else these days, love is a many fickled thing.

If you don't think this is true, don't worry. You'll eventually find out the hard way.


"The cruelest lies are often told in silence."

-- Robert Louis Stevenson


Part 2: In Which the Center Cannot Hold


My flight was supposed to have arrived seven hours ago. Because of the delay, which left me sitting on the floor of the Ft. Lauderdale airport cursing under my breath for most of the afternoon into evening, I'm just now pulling up to the front of the modest two-story apartment in Astoria. At one in the morning. The street, which is silent at this hour, looks and feels unnervingly different from the one I left almost three months ago. It was still winter then. The trees protruding from evenly spaced squares carved out of the sidewalk on either side of the street were eerie and skeletal the day that I took my infant daughter away from this place and off to Miami. That was the day our family officially fractured, likely never to be repaired. A month ago, I returned here with my little girl, Inara, and left her behind while I traveled back to my sad exile in South Florida. But I'm not thinking about that now. I can only remember that cold morning in April, when I kissed my wife goodbye and realized that it would probably be the last time I kissed her at all.

I heft my bag out of the cab, slam the door shut and watch as hot-red taillights disappear down the darkened street, leaving me standing there -- alone. I turn and face the home that isn't my home anymore. The place where my wife Jayne and I once hoped to make a life with our child. The place that's now hers and only hers. Closing my eyes and taking a deep, long breath, I force myself forward, onto the sidewalk and up the steps to the front door. She's left it unlocked for me. As I step inside and pull the door closed behind me, I can already make out the familiar points in the landscape of what was once my living room. At the same time, though, my mind and body involuntarily read the changes that have been made since I first left, and the result throws my equilibrium off. The surreality of the intimately recognizable and the thoroughly alien side-by-side. The life that somewhat resembles mine but most definitely isn't mine anymore.

I climb the stairs gently, trying not to make noise that might wake Jayne or the baby. The upstairs landing is lit only by a timid yellow glow coming from the bathroom. I place my bag in the room I'll be sleeping in for the next few days -- what used to be Inara's nursery, before Jayne moved the crib and changing table into her own room to accommodate a potential full-time nanny -- and take another few deep breaths, trying to work up the courage to finally see my daughter and wife after what feels like an eternity.

A few hesitant steps across the hall and I slowly push open the bedroom door, revealing the shadowy space beyond. A tousle of Jayne's chestnut hair peeks out from under the Calvin Klein comforter -- our comforter, the one we've had for years. In the rosewood crib, Inara sleeps soundly -- her tiny body rising and falling with each steady breath. I reach out to touch her, then think the better of it, instead bringing my hand up to my mouth to stifle a forlorn sigh. I close my eyes for the slightest moment and projected on the inside of my eyelids, in my mind, is the alternate universe I had hoped to one day inhabit with these two women -- my true loves. A world where I never missed a moment of Inara's life. Where Jayne and I were devoted husband and wife. Where there was light, instead of all this endless, impenetrable darkness. I open my eyes again, and that darkness is still there. I'm a ghost, standing in the middle of this perfectly still room. No one can see me or feel me. No one even knows I'm here. Forgotten, but not gone.


I burned my first marriage to the ground. Doused the whole thing in gasoline and torched it. There were times while I was doing it that I agonized over the choices I was making and the almost certain consequences they would have, but it was never enough to make me rethink the direction I'd chosen to move in. My goal wasn't specifically to destroy my wife, the woman who loved me -- her name was Abby -- but it's not as if that exculpates me in the wake of my admittedly heinous crimes.

I cheated on Abby. Cheated publicly in a way that left her utterly humiliated in front of those closest to her. Stuck the knife into her as hard and deeply as I could and callously shrugged as she gasped in shocked horror at what the man she loved was capable of. It wasn't that I didn't care about her. It wasn't that at all. It was that I cared about myself so much more.

The worst thing about it?

To this day, I can't really explain why I did what I did.

The easy answer is that I was young and, yes, staggeringly narcissistic. A rotten, cocky son-of-a-bitch more than a little obsessed with his own supposed charm. But there's more to it than that. There has to be. And I've spent years trying to nail it down because I worry that if I can't, I'll always be a hair's breadth away from doing it all over again. At the time, there were those who tried to console me with the usual platitudes about how there had to be something wrong with the relationship to cause me to betray, in such devastating fashion, the woman I purported to care for. The reality, though, is that there was nothing wrong with the relationship between me and Abby. Nothing at all. In fact, I loved her, or so I told myself, as much as it was possible for one person to love another. Abby and I had an attachment to each other that even now seems slightly otherwordly. We were more than lovers, partners, boyfriend-girlfriend and eventually husband and wife -- we were good friends, and we were even more than that. There was never a moment that I felt anything but completely comfortable around her; she was like home from the moment I met her, and our passionate and primal connection never dissipated -- not even after I tried to beat it to death with a sledgehammer.

What I did damaged Abby incalculably, it would leave her emotionally scarred for years. But despite that, she tried to forgive me and, in the short term, attempted to repair our marriage; long term, she kept in contact with me, offered a shoulder to cry on when I needed it, a sharp mind to bounce ideas off, a kind voice on the other end of a telephone line and, occasionally, a bed in which to spend a night forgetting about everything but her. Put simply, she was that rare breed which provides the one thing every married man or woman wishes and hopes for: unconditional love. A loyalty that isn't naive or simple-minded but is indomitable precisely because it's based on a firm knowledge of the truth, in all its ugliness. Abby knew full-well what she was getting herself into with me -- and she loved me anyway.

Whether or not we could have lasted had I not screwed things up so badly, who knows. I'm inclined to think that what made our relationship so special was its position -- the time and place -- in each of our lives. We were kids. Kids lead lives filled with gloriously impetuous passion and thoroughly unrealistic expectations.

In the end, regardless of everything -- or maybe because of it -- Abby and I split up.

That was marriage number one for me. There have been two more since. I'm 39 years old. Billy Joel is a fucking amateur.

The dramatic arc of my second marriage, to Kara, is well-documented. Suffice it to say, she didn't want to be married from the very beginning -- and what happened between us was more wishful thinking on both our parts than anything else. It ended in absolute catastrophe. Enough said.

The good that came from my short-lived marriage to Kara was always crystal clear in my mind: It led me, in more than simply a roundabout way, to Jayne. On the map of quantum moments in my life -- choices and even missteps small and large that altered my trajectory -- you can draw a direct path to Jayne. And for a very long time, that filled me with more joy than I ever could've imagined. That's because Jayne was a revelation. The first truly adult relationship I ever had. The first one I gave myself over to completely, committing to absolutely.

What I felt for Jayne, I've never felt for another human being. Ever.

Throughout our seven year relationship and five year marriage, she and I have seen ups and downs, trials and triumphs. I've made mistakes and have on more than one occasion kept things hidden from her that I should've been honest and forthcoming about. Once again, everybody lies, but that doesn't stop me from believing that I shouldn't have -- about anything. There's no excuse, and the ones I used to cling to -- the typical bullshit I peddled to myself in an attempt to rationalize my own feckless guile -- don't hold an ounce of water. In spite of those mistakes, however, I remained faithfully committed to the relationship. Always. I took our vows seriously, maybe even more than others might have because I had actually been through two bad marriages before. I believed in "for better or for worse."

And so did Jayne -- to an extent, I suppose.

That's where the specifics will end.

There's no point in getting into gruesome detail about who did what to whom. Many of our transgressions against each other -- Jayne's and mine -- have been alluded to in the past. The end result is all that really matters, and that result is, ironically, the same as my last two marriages. I say "ironically" because my relationship with Jayne was so much more committed and so much stronger than anything I'd experienced before, and yet it all turned out strangely the same. Worse, in fact -- because this time there's a child involved. A little girl who was born just eleven months ago. Sometimes it's impossible to wrap my head around it all; the gravity of what's happened is too daunting to fully grasp.

If years ago you had told me that Jayne and I would eventually end up in the position we're in right now, I would've laughed out loud. That's how strong my faith was in us. Then again, if you had told me years ago that sweet, outwardly devoted Jayne was capable of doing some of the things she did during the second half of our marriage, I would've laughed even harder. I say this not to in any way shame her -- only to make a couple of necessary points: First, that anyone can screw up a marriage; even the most seemingly committed and genuinely kind-hearted can destroy trust from the inside out. Second, and maybe more alarmingly but certainly more pertinent when put in the context of a dedicated relationship, that I'm not sure we ever really know anyone. If you believe that everybody lies to some extent and harbors their own secrets (and I do) then it stands to reason that you'll never know someone thoroughly. That isn't a problem as long as, say, you never promise to love anyone for the rest of your life.

And what about that promise -- the one that's the very foundation of the marriage vows?

In our hyper-fragmented, single-serving, ADD culture, is it really possible to predict with any certainty that what you want now is what you'll want in ten years? Or even five years? Or five months, for that matter? Is it possible for two people to honestly grow together, in the same direction, when every bit of the daily kinetic whirlwind we inhabit at the beginning of the 21st century seems designed to pull us in a thousand different directions at once? How do two people remain in a consistent state of grace? These days, with all the choices we've been inundated with, most of us can't commit to watching one TV show for longer than a few minutes without getting bored -- and yet we're expected to decide on one person to be with for the rest of our lives?

The reality, of course, is that we don't have to decide on one person -- even if we do choose to get married. Sure, millions of us take the vows. We say the words "til death do us part." But obviously, that's more of a suggestion than an actual contract. For far too many people it's a ritual with almost no meaning or muscle behind it anymore. The "Starter Marriage," occasionally lasting all of a few months, is practically a punchline at this point, while ditching the obligation and responsibility of a long-term commitment is as simple as packing a bag, walking out the door, and making a phone call to a lawyer the next morning.

Just how far have we lowered the bar when it comes to marriage in our culture? Let's put it this way: A lot of people these days seem intent on reassuring me that my five year legally sanctioned stint with Jayne was a success because it lasted as long as it did. At the risk of getting all pedantic, neither Jayne nor I are dead -- and I certainly don't remember taking her hand five years ago and saying "til one, or both of us, gets sick of putting up with the other" do we part.

Maybe our overall relationship, in time, will be judged a success. Make no mistake, though: Our marriage will never be.

If a five year marriage can be heralded as a victory, we as a society have very serious problems.


It's a cool, sunny morning and Inara's wearing the little overalls I bought for her last month while we were in Miami. She's crawling up the hall, toward me, a huge smile spread across her face. A few moments ago, she was standing and walking -- only resorting to a high-speed crawl after tripping over her own feet. I'm laying on the floor across the length of what used to be her nursery, urging her on as she races forward. When she crosses the doorway, I reach out and grab her, sitting up and pulling her in close for a hug. She laughs as I do this. I close my eyes and stroke the back of her head -- the wispy curls now growing there. I say nothing. I barely even breathe. I don't want anything to interrupt the sound of her laughter. I keep my eyes closed, because I know that if I open them the world around me will just be blurred by the tears forming in my eyes. So I listen -- and I once again imagine that alternate universe. The one where this moment goes on and on. Where I'm never apart from the little girl in my arms. Or her mother, who I wish I wasn't still in love with.


"Better make sure you're looking closely -- before you fall into your swoon."

-- Silversun Pickups, There's No Secrets This Year

"It's not going to stop. It's not going to stop. It's not going to stop 'til you wise up."

-- Aimee Mann, Wise Up


Part 3: In Which Mere Apathy is Loosed Upon the World


There's already someone new. That's what she's essentially saying. When I had no idea what was going on -- when the very thought of Jayne and someone else was simply too preposterous to fathom when contrasted with her effusive expressions of love and loyalty -- the reality was even more terrible than I could've imagined. If she's now willing to actually admit that there's someone she may be interested in -- a partner in a Manhattan law firm, a Harvard grad -- then I have to assume that a courtship of some sort is already well underway. I shouldn't be shocked, and yet, strangely, I am. Even after all this time, with everything that's happened between us, it's nearly impossible to reconcile the Jayne I knew just a few years ago with the woman now standing in front of me in the kitchen of what was once our shared apartment -- the woman who seems barely willing to mourn the death of our marriage, whose veins run with liquid nitrogen when it comes to me. The cognitive dissonance is just too great. In some ways I respect that she's made decisions within her own mind and is sticking by them; in others, I consider the times in our recent history when we looked each other in the eyes and admitted that we were worth working to save and that there was too much there to simply toss aside. I think of what each of us has forgiven -- or at least claims to have.

Somewhere along the line, Jayne changed -- drastically. So did I, I suppose. Although which one of us changed for the better, if either of us did, could be debated endlessly.

She brushes past me and strides cooly into the living room -- says she doesn't want to talk about it anymore. This is the first time I've even casually brought up the subject of "us" in the two days that I've been here. And this is how it's responded to: with palpable irritation preceded by the acknowledgement of a potentially budding relationship with someone I've never met and maybe never will. Not that it's really my place to affect a tone of anger, sadness, hurt, what-have-you over such developments anymore. This was, to an extent, decided for me at some point recently -- without my even knowing it.

My shoulders slump slightly, as if all the tension in the room had been resting squarely on my back until Jayne finally walked away, lifting it. Leaving me standing there by myself -- with Inara crawling over my feet.


I keep wondering when the indentation around my left ring-finger is going to disappear. It's been almost two months since I took off my wedding band and, amazingly, tragically, its imprint on the area where it was once worn so proudly remains. It's like I have a permanent symbol of my marriage to Jayne on my finger -- which would be a very romantic notion had my marriage to Jayne been anything approaching permanent.

Throughout the course of our seven years together, I bought Jayne three separate engagement rings. The first was a gorgeous, princess-cut diamond in a vintage art deco setting. It was thoroughly originally while remaining classic and understated, and I knew it was the right ring for her the moment I laid eyes on it. While working late one night before we even got married, Jayne took off the ring to wash her hands and accidentally left it in a public bathroom; by the time she realized she'd forgotten to put it back on, the thing was probably well on its way to a 24-hour pawn shop. She was a wreck when she called to tell me -- crying uncontrollably and apologizing. I took it in stride and replaced the ring a month later with one that, while much more impressive, never really affected me the way its missing predecessor had. I eventually wound up springing for a third ring after a particularly traumatic event in our life as a married couple. I figured it would be a good way to consecrate our decision to recommit to each other -- the perfect representation of putting the past behind us and looking only toward the future.

What's interesting, though, is that for all the value and significance I placed on the ring that I put on Jayne's finger -- any of the rings, including her wedding band -- there always seemed to be a steady procession of men for whom her ring, and what it symbolized, meant absolutely nothing. I never took any sort of "deterrence factor" into consideration when deciding what to slip on Jayne's finger. I never deliberately chose something whose light was so bright that it would send the cockroaches -- or maybe wolves would be a better metaphor -- scurrying back to their holes. But to many men, many married men, the ring on her finger meant as little as the ones on their own. They wanted my wife to betray her husband just as they wanted to betray their own wives, and they were completely comfortable using every weapon in their charmingly romantic arsenals to make fantasy into reality. This kind of thing happened with shocking, enervating regularity.

Men who wanted to cheat on their wives -- with my wife.

No matter how many times I say it -- or how many different ways -- it still has the same sickening effect someplace deep inside me. It makes me feel like I need to take a shower.

I never truly understood the feeling of not simply betrayal but violation -- of everything you believe in, everything you hold dear, your sense of safety and self -- that invariably goes hand in hand with an affair, with the discovery of an entire life lived in secret. If I had, I don't think I ever would've hurt Abby the way I did. I couldn't have walked the earth in peace, safe in the knowledge that I was essentially a good person, if I had fully understood the consequences of what I was doing and still chose to do it anyway. No amount of rationalization would've provided safe harbor for my soul.

The fact is, however, that aware of the repercussions or not, millions of married people cheat. They cheat with other married people -- or with singles. They cheat with their secretaries, the people they meet at the bar, the next-door neighbor, the impressionable, and impressable, younger girls or guys they see every day -- the ones who are wonderfully free of the ability to remind them of the biggest impediments to their own egos: demands, expectations, responsibilities. We lie and cheat, in one way or another and for one reason or another. It's what humans do. The question is whether our individual marriages survive the desires that lead us to want to sleep with and seek comfort from other people (whether we're successful at doing so or not).

It seems like there's always someone else somewhere.

I have a family friend who died late last year in Chicago; he and his wife were married for more than 40 years -- an astonishing feat by any standard. But while you'd be quick to hail their union as an example of a marriage that worked, and while I have absolutely no doubt that their love for each other was incredibly strong, certain recent events have given me more to think about than I probably would've liked. A few months ago, my friend's widow inadvertently ran into a man you might call a proverbial "old flame." Apparently, the guy in question is someone she once cared for very much -- before she got married -- and as, yes, fate I suppose, would have it, they wound up hitting it off. I realize that this kind of thing happens quite a bit and that it's usually looked upon with nary a critical eye; in fact, it's typically canonized, told as a tale of true love enduring across time and distance. But what about the husband with whom she spent 41 years? Did he know that somewhere deep down, the woman he loved may have burned for another man -- that this other man at least crossed her mind on more than one occasion? I realize that we are actually human and don't shut down completely when we choose to be with one person, but what does something like this say about the authority, the necessity, of marriage?

And does it prove something else: that since we can obviously love more than one person at once, can we in fact love almost anyone if we put our minds to it -- rendering the entire concept of one-man-one-woman-forever-and-ever marriage utterly meaningless? We come together and pledge eternal love, then we split up, or one of us dies, and we eventually come together with someone new and do it all over again. We're always told that it's not the same, that each relationship has its own definitive markers, but if this is true -- then doesn't it still diminish and devalue the textbook definition of what marriage is supposed to be? When love can be transferred relatively easily from one person to another -- whether through a passionate affair or simply moving on in the wake of disaster -- is there any sense of safety left in the institution?

I was forced to spend almost every day of my relationship with Jayne trying to convince and assure her that what I felt for her was real. That what I felt for her was in fact stronger and more "true" than anything I'd experienced before. I did everything I knew how to do -- undertook Sisyphean errands both large and small. Made sweeping gestures and did the littlest things. Still, ironically coming from the kind of person Jayne claimed to be, I was constantly, bitterly reminded that I was married before. Loved before. Had, I suppose, said and done it all before.

I can't even imagine, nor do I want to, the height of the bar I'm going to have to hurdle should I ever actually find myself caring for someone again. Three marriages creates a pile of baggage even Superman couldn't leap.

Not that I'm concerned about caring again at the moment.

My previous divorce, from Kara, although an incredibly painful ordeal, can now be looked upon as quaint compared to what's ahead for me in the wake of my break-up with Jayne. The reason, one among many really, is that while Kara hurt me, the wreckage of my relationship with her didn't fundamentally change the way I looked at the world. Kara wasn't all women, and I knew that. A divorce from her wouldn't mean, in my mind, that every woman on the planet wasn't to be trusted. I knew damn well what Kara was about when I met her; I knew that an ugly split from her would be in the cards the minute I crossed her (which looking back on it makes me very, very foolish and myopic, like those people who live on cliffs in Malibu hoping they'll never get a half-inch of rain). When Kara and I imploded, I didn't look at every woman who expressed an interest in me and say, "Well, she'll just devastate me the way my ex did."

But Jayne...

When I met Jayne, she was the sweetest, kindest, and most genuinely compassionate woman I'd ever had the pleasure of knowing. Someone who seemed to read me inside out and know precisely the right thing to say and do and when to say and do it. I could spend hours trying to adequately put into words the feeling she and I had in each other's presence. I could relate in pure poetry how I remember every single detail about so much of our time together, particularly at the beginning. I could tell you how surely I knew it was right. How I never doubted my love for her or hers for me, not for a second. How she was my best friend. I could do all of that and yet it still wouldn't be as convincing as I knew it to be in my heart and head.

I didn't want to get married again. But I absolutely wanted to marry Jayne. Honestly, and I say this with complete conviction: If she wasn't the right person, no one was. If I were to meet her today, I would say the exact same thing.

At least I would have if what eventually became of her and us hadn't.

The truly disheartening legacy of the end of my marriage to Jayne is what it's done to my peace of mind -- my willingness to trust not only others but myself. I believed Jayne absolutely, to the point of naivete even, and in the end everything I thought I knew about her, about us, was false. It's one thing when you're bitten by a snake -- quite another when you're eaten alive by a teddy-bear. By your best friend. How do you learn to trust again? What do you do when you believe that the next time, even years from now, when someone accuses you of a having a "fear of commitment," your answer will almost surely be, "No, I don't fear commitment. I just know that it's a crock of shit"?

For now, what I do is something I've never done before: not care at all.

I've never been a true cynic. An honest-to-God, devil-may-care misanthrope. I'm afraid that I may become one now. It's easier and smarter and will, I hope, keep me safe from harm. I have actually changed drastically. In ways I never wanted to. I always liked that I believed. That I had faith in love.

Now I just feel like I don't ever again want to hand someone the gun used to shoot me -- the power to leave me lost and in pieces and forced to rebuild from the ground up. I don't want anyone to be able to make a decision about my life over which I have no control. I realize how this sounds. Unrealistic at best. Ridiculous at worst. And I'm sure some will scoff at this notion and chalk it up to the predictable rhetoric of the freshly broken-hearted.

But if it makes no sense to give up on love now, when will it?


Jayne's bouncing the baby on her hip as I toss my overnight bag onto the backseat of the idling Town Car. I wipe my hands on my jeans, turn around and meet the eyes of my wife. She cracks the tiniest of bittersweet smiles -- I return the wistful look, simultaneously trying to quash the desperate emotions tearing me up inside. The ones that make me want to grab her and my child, hold them both tightly, tell Jayne that I refuse to give up and that I don't care about the better judgment of either of us -- that I'll fight to the death to save our family. I allow myself one last glimpse of that alternate universe. Then I push it out of my mind -- watch it dissolve and blow away like dust. This is my reality. It's not the reality I longed for -- the one we promised each other -- but it's the one I've been given. I never wanted to be selfish again, not after so willingly moving in the opposite direction. Not after learning the joy of putting my wife and my daughter above everything. Everything. But as I hug Inara one last time and force myself not to run a hand through Jayne's hair -- here on this sidewalk in Astoria, New York -- I realize that I have no choice but to think of myself for a while. To go back to concentrating on surviving. Detatching. Moving on. Loving my daughter, but moving on. Inara is wearing my favorite pair of her pajamas -- they have little gray elephants on them with the inscription "Once Upon a Dream" written in dainty script.

Once upon a dream.

I turn from my family, close my eyes in the hope of stifling the tears, and get into the car -- waving absently one last time and closing the door.

A few minutes later, as the car glides silently past St. Michael's Cemetery on the way to Laguardia Airport, I take off my sunglasses, rub the tears out of my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, and watch the gravestones through the fence as they flicker by. There are angels atop many of them. Dozens and dozens of angels, their heads turned downward. Their eyes are all closed, though. They see nothing.

Listening Post

It's impossible to call Green Day a punk (or punk-ish) band anymore; their new album, 21st Century Breakdown, is almost distractingly over-produced.

That said, this really is a spectacular song and one that's deserving of all the airplay it's getting.

Here's 21 Guns.

American Mourning

I'm working on finishing up the extended piece on marriage so I'm a little pre-occupied to say the least -- but obviously, it's just impossible to ignore the Michael Jackson Mournapalooza that's going on in Los Angeles right now and being broadcast around the world by, well, every fucking television network on the planet.

So, at the risk of stomping on the man's grave, which I certainly don't mean to do, I have to ask a question that's been bugging me for quite awhile.

The grotesque spectacle of this whole supposed grieving process is bad enough, as is the media's insistence on playing it literally to death with over-the-top, round-the-clock live genuflection. Also horrible are certain members of the Jackson family itself, who were at least partially if not fully responsible for making Michael Jackson into the potentially pederastic freakshow (talented or not) that he was and are now attempting to use this time back in the spotlight to carry on their proud tradition of shameless self-promotion.

But here's what I'm most curious about: Why are many black Americans, and I'm of course talking mostly about guys like Al "Where's the Camera?" Sharpton and Jesse "It's Right Here!" Jackson, so shockingly quick to come to the absolute, unwavering defense of a man who spent his entire adult life trying to alter himself so that he wasn't black anymore?

Just listen to Sharpton in particular over the past couple of days (and really, it's been impossible not to). The level of bullshit revisionist history coming out of his mouth is staggering.

Look, folks, I thought Thriller was a masterpiece too. Doesn't mean Michael Jackson wasn't completely insane -- and there damn sure was no way I'd have let him near my kids.

An amazing, amazing artist and performer; a truly screwed-up human being. That's his real legacy. Trumpeting one while denying the other is nothing more than dishonest.

Quote of the Week

"Los Angeles is a world-class city that's used to putting on world-class events, (but it is) not immune to the recession. We're asking Michael Jackson fans to help be a part of this event -- to contribute online and literally support this great memorial."

-- Matt Szabo, personal aide to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, essentially panhandling on national television because L.A. is inexplicably shelling out four-million dollars for today's tasteful and understated Jackson memorial extravaganza when it can barely stay financially afloat

Tuesday is Recycling Day

It was the introduction of Sarah Palin into the national news cycle that led me to turn this into an almost exclusively political blog late last year -- and now that she's, ahem, "leaving" the spotlight, I think it's only fair to take a look back at some of the best pieces and edited excerpts that dealt with her rise to fame and fortune. (Not surprisingly given the reaction by many of the, as Sarah herself might say, "Trigs" on the right, much of the stuff I wrote then is still relevant.) Bottom line: Where would we smart-asses be without her? We owe her so much great material. So, goodbye, Sarah. We'll miss you for the ten minutes you spend being quiet followed by all the interviews you do about your decision to be quiet followed by the reality show you and your idiot family launch next season on Fox.

"The Meta-Metamorphosis of Sarah Palin" (Originally Published, 10.24.08)

Remember Sarah Palin's hilarious appearance on Saturday Night Live last weekend?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

The truth is that Palin's SNL cameo was, by almost any reasonable standard, entirely uneventful -- shocking only for its complete lack of shock. I'm not sure what most people were expecting, but given her reputation for self-satisfied feistiness I think it's safe to say that Sarah Palin-as-barely-there-window-dressing probably wasn't it. Think about it: the woman who's been a weekly punching bag for a bunch of New York City wise-asses who can barely hide their disdain for her finally gets a chance to turn the tables and take a few shots of her own on national television and what does she do? Nothing. She talks to Lorne Michaels, shakes hands with Alec Baldwin, doesn't even speak to Tina Fey -- who's been personally responsible for the merciless mocking which many believe has helped to cement her image as a worldwide laughing stock -- but instead allows Fey to shoot her a look of absolute contempt, and throws her hands in the air for an "Alaska Rap" that makes MC Rove's little dance a couple of years back look like Chris Brown.

Sure, the writers likely had plenty of say in just how Palin would be used on the show -- but she's a candidate for the second highest office in the free world. Don't think for a second that she couldn't have flexed some muscle to ensure that she'd come off less like a wallflower and more like the kick-ass Vice Presidentrix holding her own in the lion's den against the snooty liberal onslaught she regularly rails against in small towns across America.

She could've done that. She had the chance -- not to be rude or vicious, but to be sharp and assertive -- and yet she didn't take it.

Why?

Simple.


Because no matter what she says to the robotic throngs of Joe Six-Packs who show up at her rallies -- no matter how strenuously she demonizes the so-called elitism of those Times-reading pseudo-intellectuals on the coasts -- make no mistake: She loved every second of being on Saturday Night Live.

Loved it.

She couldn't get enough of hearing the audience laugh.

It thrilled her to no end to shout, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!"

She got wet when Alec Baldwin stroked her hand and spoke to her in that soothing tone.

Sarah Palin was, in a word, starstruck -- both by those around her and, yes, by herself and how far she'd come. There she was, living out her Small Town TV Reporter/Miss Alaska Pageant fantasy of being on one of the biggest entertainment stages in the country, surrounded by celebrities. And she was the hottest thing there -- the belle of the ball.

We know this because according to SNL costume designer Tim Broecker, Palin was somewhat of a prima donna, upset that producers wanted her to wear the same kind of red skirt suit that Tina Fey's dead-on impression of Palin wears each week -- the kind Palin herself wore when she first hit the campaign trail. As it turns out, however, Fey's parody may not be so dead-on anymore, at least not when it comes to the way she dresses. Put simply, Tina Fey's version of Sarah Palin's fashion is so September, and Palin saw no reason to go back to that frumpy look, even for a comedy bit -- not when she'd worked so hard and spent so much of the Republican National Committee's money over the past few weeks to carefully cultivate a new image as America's Next Next-to-Top Executive.

By the way, now might be a good time to remind yourself of that whole Obama-Paris Hilton comparison that John McCain shamelessly pushed earlier this year and marvel at how the entire McCain campaign has become one constantly constricting Ouroboros of bald-faced hypocrisy.


Sarah Palin honestly thinks she's a star -- a pop culture icon. She now believes her own hype.

That pandering and sloganeering and droppin'-her-g's garbage? That's all a means to an end. I have no doubt that Palin actually buys into the crap she's shoveling -- that she's a True Believer in the power of Joe Six-Pack and a lockstep warrior for nonsensical neo-con values. It's just that over the past several weeks, it's become glaringly obvious that Sarah Palin's primary concern throughout this campaign has always been Sarah Palin. Like the proverbial ingenue, she was plucked from relative obscurity by a sad, aging once-great looking for that last shot at glory -- a guy convinced that her youth and vitality would be just what he needed to finally thrust him into the big time. And like the Hollywood ending that you could've seen coming a mile away, the ingenue quickly outgrew the one-time father figure and realized that he was actually nothing more than an obstacle on her own road to fame and fortune. Just like John McCain now at least partially blames Sarah Palin's shallow ignorance for his spiraling political fortunes, make no mistake that Sarah Palin -- in a breathtaking lack of gratitude -- likewise blames McCain's doddering buffoonery for hers, which is why, if you pay close attention, you can see that she's already subtly distancing herself from her running mate in what some are saying is an effort to sow the seeds of a personal run for the presidency in 2012.

As he often does, Bob Cesca cranked out a pretty entertaining piece for the Huffington Post recently in which he heralded the death of what he calls "Larry the Cable Guy Politics"; the idea being that for years Republican mainstays like George W. Bush have been playing dress-up, pretending to be just your average uneducated dumb-asses in an effort to ingratiate themselves to the real uneducated dumb-asses they rely on to keep them in power -- the same way comedian Dan Whitney has assumed the entirely fraudulent persona of "Larry the Cable Guy" because it's made him really, really rich. Cesca likens it to the meta-performance of Mark Wahlberg playing Eddie Adams playing Dirk Diggler playing Brock Landers in Boogie Nights. But now comes this little twist: that Sarah Palin, despite actually being a hockey mom and working off the premise that she's just Jane Six-Pack when trying to sell herself and her "vision" to NASCAR America, in reality doesn't think of herself as average at all. She in fact sees herself as a fashion plate, some hyper-hottie in a tight leather blazer and knee-high black boots, someone worthy of a $75,000 shopping spree at Neiman Marcus. Sarah Palin is now everything she ever dreamed of being: Sex and the City, right down to the "city" part. Sure, publicly she rebukes and ridicules those cosmopolitan urbanites in their bustling elitist hubs, but she knows damn well that she can't buy Valentino and Louis Vuitton at the Wal-Mart in Wasilla -- and if you don't think that Sarah Heath Palin has always fantasized about wearing Valentino and carrying Louis Vuitton, I've got a bridge to nowhere I want to sell you. She may still be a backwater dingbat, but she's now a very well put together backwater dingbat -- which I'm willing to bet has convinced her that she's no longer a backwater dingbat. If this is true, then it would mean that Palin has essentially ascended to the same position as George W. Bush and her GOP benefactors: she's only playing the part of the rube and is, in fact, secretly talking down to every one of those pick-up-driving Toby Keith fans who show up to her rallies -- the Dickies-clad folk not lucky enough to have won the Miss Vice Presidential pageant and been scooped up to a life of charter jets and appearances on Saturday Night Live.

But the new and improved Sarah Palin is more than just a simple case of someone taking on a part or putting on airs -- "lipstick on a pig," as it were.

I don't think Charlie Kaufman himself could've dreamed up a more Victor/Victorian mobius strip of meta-fiction than Saturday Night Live sticking the real Sarah Palin into her old red skirt suit to play Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin.

It would be enough to make your head spin were we not already talking about a woman whose willful Extreme Makeover had transformed her, ironically, into the very thing she purports to despise.

Of course, I'm not sure that -- as with everything Sarah Palin has shown us to date -- all the folksy indignation wasn't just bullshit anyway.


From "Six of Dumb, Half Dozen of Dumber" (Originally Published, 10.2.08)

Remember back in early 2001, when perpetual intellectual underachiever George W. Bush told the graduating class at Yale -- his alma mater -- that he was proof that even a "C" student could become president? Although he was aiming for self-deprecation, it was the subtext of that simple statement which made it so patently offensive. Bush wasn't the everyman hick he pretended to be -- a down-home interloper among the silver spoon-fed rich kids of the Ivy League; far from it. Not only was he a legacy while at Yale -- a predestined Skull and Bones oligarch -- but he in fact came from one of the wealthiest and most politically powerful families in the country. And that's what made his comments at the school's commencement so goddamned obnoxious: it's not as if he squeaked by with a "C" average because he had to work his way through college or because he faced some other obstacle that stood as an impediment to his education; it's not as if he scratched and clawed to earn that very average average. Bush didn't get better grades because he knew he didn't have to. He fucked around and didn't give a damn about actually being the best student he could be because his family, and his family's status, all but guaranteed that he'd eventually inherit the keys to the kingdom regardless. Why work for it when you don't have to?

What Bush was basically telling the Yale kids is, "You can be a lazy fuck-up and still get ahead -- as long as your last name is Bush. Heh heh."

No wonder they protested his appearance; it was an insult to everyone who actually worked to earn a degree.

At first glance, it may not seem like the dynastic Junior Bush has anything in common with an undereducated rube like Sarah Palin -- and really he doesn't.

Unless you consider this: they both believe that there's nothing wrong with ascending to the most important offices in our government without actually doing the work and learning the skills necessary to do the job well.

But whereas Bush seems slyly proud to have been able to work the system and stand on the shoulders of giants to get where he is, Palin's a True Believer -- she genuinely thinks that anyone, any "Joe Six-Pack," should have access to the presidency and vice presidency of this country without ever having made the effort or undertaken the course of self-betterment which would assure that he or she is more than just adequately qualified for the position.

What's more, the particular brand of Joe Six-Pack that Palin is ham handedly attempting to ingratiate and compare herself to is really, no bullshit, the last guy you want having an inequitable advantage at the very top of our government. He's the guy who robotically chants "USA! USA!" when confronted with a delicate international situation that requires not simply stern action but thoughtful nuance as well; who likewise extolls that this is "the greatest country on earth" without ever having tested that premise by traveling beyond its borders (or even wanting to); who believes that the rest of the world will invariably fall in line with whatever the good ole U-S-of-A says, dammit; who wants leaders he can drink with rather than ones he can look up to.

Sarah Palin really is just your basic unimpressive doofus -- living proof of affirmative action for the ambitious-but-stupid.

And she doesn't simply think of Joe Six-Pack as a campaign slogan or a means to an end -- she thinks of him as the future.


From "Choose Wisely" (Originally Published, 9.4.08)

So this is how it's going to be.

If you believe the chest-thumping coming from the McCain camp and its cadre of surrogates this morning, Sarah Palin hit it out of the park -- or at the very least, the Xcel Center -- last night in St. Paul. They're saying she killed when she mocked, in contemptuous fashion, Barack Obama's community service roots; they claim she silenced her critics by expressing solidarity with the nation's concerned and angry mothers, portraying herself as a "pit bull in lipstick" who could take any kind of heat; at the risk of mixing sports metaphors, they're smugly insisting that she put the Republican Party back in the game by throwing open the playbook from races past and pulling out an oldie-but-goodie that's never failed to bring the crowd to its feet and the base to the ballot box.

Call it the "Us vs. Them" end run.

Last night Sarah Palin -- and for that matter, most of the other Republican heavies who took the podium -- dropped all pretense of making the 2008 race for the White House about issues, choosing instead to do what the GOP does best: pander to the absolute lowest common denominator. Palin cast this election as nothing less than a "battle for survival," telling the frenzied crowd that "defeat means death." She dug out of the ground and whipped the corpse of the Republican base's oldest and most tired nemesis: the "liberal media," which the McCain campaign insists have unfairly savaged Palin and her family, but which, ironically, gave John McCain a free ride for so long. But best of all, and maybe most importantly when it comes to winning elections, Palin audaciously held her party up as underdogs battling valiantly against subjugation at the hands of -- you guessed it -- the "elite."

"In small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening. We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco," she sarcastically seethed at one point, emphasizing those divisive buzzwords -- "small towns," "San Francisco" -- that act as a subliminal trigger to NASCAR America that its simple way of life is under attack from overeducated outsiders.

And if you don't think this kind of crass misdirection works -- this brand of ridiculous, over-the-top fear-mongering aimed at keeping the culture war alive and well -- just look at the last eight years.

Here's the thing though, and this needs to be said: from what we witnessed last night, this election isn't about red and blue, black and white or small town and big city. Despite the subtle innuendoes and outright cries of Palin and the Republicans, none of these things is in competition during this race.

More than ever -- really, ever -- the race for the office of President of the United States is about smart and dumb.

Sarah Palin may have scored a barnburner last night, preaching to the converted by heaping scorn upon the fact that Barack Obama has authored two books -- which only to the Stuckey's night managers that make up so much of the Republican shock troops would seem like a liability. But it doesn't change the fact that she still has no business being anywhere near the White House; she simply isn't qualified, and her I'm-just-a-hockey-mom routine last night only proved it further. Honestly, it would take an idiot to want someone who spoke as if she were running for PTA chairwoman to be placed in the second highest office in the free world, directly under a 72-year-old cancer survivor. Unfortunately though, that's exactly the voting bloc the Republicans are counting on to give them another four years in the White House after these disastrous eight: Idiots. John McCain and Sarah Palin have nothing new, no groundbreaking or landmark ideas to bring to the table, so they're falling back on standard operating procedure: rile up the ignorant; complain about the dangers of people who actually think -- the "elite"; bitch about mistreatment at the hands of the right's most necessary boogeyman -- the so-called liberal media; complain, accuse, repeat. It's bullshit political theater, with the average American used as a stage prop to keep the oligarchic fat-cats of the GOP firmly in power.

As for those who say that Sarah Palin has more "executive experience" than a Barack Obama or a Joe Biden -- that claim reinforces the need for clearer, better thinking this time around. The reality is that Palin is trying to portray "small town" chutzpah as a substitute for education, intellectual curiosity and basic, well, smarts. Obama is quite possibly the most thoughtful, erudite and analytical political candidate I've seen in my lifetime; call him "elite" -- which the last time I checked was a compliment -- all you want, he's smart. He gets it. The same can be said about Joe Biden.

As for McCain and Palin?

The former is a very bright man who -- and I'm not kidding here -- may be showing major signs of cognitive deterioration as he pushes into his 70s; the latter believes the world is 6,000 years old. (And for the record, I don't care whether you believe in a hereafter or a benevolent supreme being -- if you seriously think that the world is 6,000 years old, standing in defiance of a truth that's been proven over and over again, you're a moron and I don't want you having any sort of say in my life beyond how quickly I get my Chicken McNuggets.)

And this is what it's come down to. They've drawn the battle lines and all that's left now is for the rest of us to choose which side we're on -- because they've seen to it that there is no middle-ground.

You're with us or you're with the idiots.

You're smart or stupid.

You either want your leaders to use their brains or you align yourself with the ones who would play the role of the dumb jocks mocking those who dare to think as being a bunch of effete wimps who can't be trusted.

You vote for great minds or for people who don't just devalue great minds but demonize them.

Sarah Palin was right about one thing last night: This is a battle for survival, but defeat doesn't mean death -- it means dumb.

I don't know about you, but I don't want the two most powerful people in the free world to be a couple of folks I'd just like to sit down and have a beer with; I want them to be fucking super heroes -- sharper, stronger and wiser than I could ever hope to be. They have the weight of the world on their shoulders; I want to never have to worry that they won't be able to carry it.

But that's my choice.

Now it's your turn.

Where do you stand?


From "And Now the Last Word (Hopefully) on Sarah Palin from Chez's Evil Twin, Garth" (Originally Published, 9.3.08)

Sarah Palin -- former beauty queen, ex-secessionist, small-town mayor turned first-term governor, mother of five, pro-lifer, hunter, gun enthusiast, patriot, Jesus freak creationist, cultivator of the naughty librarian look, and all-around empty vessel.

She's what the hardcore right's been waiting for all this time -- George W. Bush with tits.

She's somebody they can jerk-off to with one hand while they're saluting our troops with the other.

Sorry folks, but from where I'm sitting the only goddamned difference between Sarah Palin and George Bush is that Bush doesn't whip off his eyeglasses, let down his hair and rip open his blouse whenever he hears Motley Crue's Girls, Girls, Girls.

Listening Post

These guys have just about the worst band name ever, but if you can't mellow out -- or even better, seduce the woman or man of your choice -- to the down-tempo material on Weekend Players' debut album, it's time to give it up.

This isn't one of those slower songs, but it's pretty good nonetheless. Here's Into the Sun.

Goodbye Cruel World

So I took the weekend off.

Anything big happen that I missed?

AKMuckraker (via the Huffington Post): Palin Quits, Threatens Bloggers and Media Outlets with Legal Action/07.05.09

(In all seriousness, I realize it's been a couple of days but if you haven't done so already, you have to actually read Palin's rambling, incoherent resignation speech from Friday. To see it in print -- the weird asides, as if she's talking to herself; the inexplicably random words written in all caps -- it's the comedy gift that keeps on giving.)

Listening Post

Even after all this time, the Jesus and Mary Chain are still mind-blowing.

Here's Blues from a Gun, live.

Listening Post

This song is positively soul-wrenching to begin with, but this intimate, stripped-down version -- from the studios of KCRW in Los Angeles, the best radio station in the country as far as I'm concerned -- is just beyond words.

If you can make it through this without tearing up, even a little bit, you've got a stronger constitution than I do.

Here's Sia's Breathe Me.

Quote of the Week (Honorable Mention)

"More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of 'narcissistic personality disorder' in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—'a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy'—and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it 'Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.'"

-- Vanity Fair National Editor Todd Purdum, from his article on Sarah Palin in the magazine's August issue

Listening Post

By now regular readers know of my unyielding love for Jonatha Brooke. If you don't know who she is, stop reading immediately and download everything she's ever done. Really. She's easily the most talented singer-songwriter who's inexplicably remained under-the-radar in the entire world of pop music. She's written more gorgeous, moving songs than just about anyone I can think of.

Here's proof -- Lullaby.

Dick to the Future

I love it when Hitchens has a few scotches and gets really feisty. And his brilliant and brutal take on Richard Nixon's ongoing legacy-of-ugly has him in top form.

Slate: "Caught on Tape" by Christopher Hitchens/6.29.09

Robots & Disgust

Just wanted to put this out there: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the worst movie ever made.

Seriously -- the worst EVER.

It's mindless, pointless, endless, racist, sexist and infuriatingly infantile crap -- and this is coming from someone who really enjoyed the original.

Somebody please kick Michael Bay in the balls for this thing.

Picture of the Week

Shameless Joe Jackson and partner-in-pimpin' Al Sharpton at yesterday's combination press conference/sales pitch for Jackson's record company and other assorted crap, in Los Angeles.

Note the large, stuffed purple gorilla in the background.

Because when I think classy, tasteful and dignified reaction to tragedy, I think Jackson and Sharpton.

Jesus, anybody really wonder why Michael was so fucked up?

Tuesday is Recycling Day

"Monkey Business" (Originally Published, 12.17.07)

It looks like South Carolina will be the next battleground in the seemingly never-ending, Whack-a-Mole style guerilla war on Darwin.

The state which lists on its registry of cultural landmarks that Mecca of grotesque roadside kitsch "South of the Border" (a designation which one would assume takes into account the 200 miles of billboards on either side of it along I-95 shamelessly playing Mexican stereotypes for a cheap laugh) will likely be taking up the "debate" over evolution next month. That's when the State Board of Education will meet to consider whether or not to endorse a high school biology textbook after a series of complaints were lodged against it by a weed researcher from Clemson University who goes by the amusing name of Horace D. Skipper.

Professor Skipper is challenging the book's assertion -- and stop me if you've heard this one before -- that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the basic foundation of any lesson about the development of life on Earth.

With an eloquence one might expect from, say, a Wal-Mart greeter, Skipper rails against the conclusions posited by the authors of the book, saying that when they write about "the origins of life and stuff -- I didn't see where they had the scientific support that I think public schools need in a textbook."

He goes on to say that while he's not for teaching creationism exclusively, he considers it a viable, one would have to assume "scientifically supported," supplement. "If you're going to teach 'historical science,' that would be an alternative," he says.

As if science can ever legitimately be subject to the caprices of perspective.

It's a little like arguing that cavemen once believed 2-plus-2 equals rock, therefore such a possibility should be lent serious consideration 350-thousand years later.

"If we're going to have good, honest truth taught to our students, they need to be taught about weaknesses or gaps in these theories," Skipper says.

The fact that Horace D. Skipper, a weed expert, has any free time on his hands at all being from a state so perpetually overrun by botanical vermin is noteworthy; that he feels it's his place from both a scientific and legal standpoint to insert himself into a controversy regarding a high school textbook -- particularly when there is no controversy whatsoever -- is simply staggering in its level of arrogant stupidity.

In the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover, an entire Pennsylvania school district was given the unconditional legal smackdown for trying to pull an end-run on centuries of scientific authenticity through the quiet insertion of ridiculous religious apocrypha. Instead of "creationism" they gave their nonsensical, unprovable hypothesis the impressive sounding label "intelligent design," as if simply removing "God" from the name in fact removed him from the equation. The court easily saw through the charade and ruled that attempting to teach intelligent design to public school students as anything other than irrational voodoo violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

Anyone who believed however that, following such an explicit rejection, the God Crowd would slink back to their churches and temples and leave science to the scientists has apparently never lived near a Southern Baptist church and therefore not found him or herself subjected to weekly visits from Stepford-esque Christian-folk all filled with the Holy Spirit and determined to stay put until they can rightfully say that they've claimed another home for Jesus. These people don't give up; they answer to a higher authority than your insignificant little Constitution (and they damn sure don't care what some silver-tongued elitist from New York City has to say about how they live their lives).


The fact that South Carolina is the next stop on what, to the untrained eye, seems to be the intelligent design traveling circus should surprise no one. The state is the official target of the secessionist movement known as "Christian Exodus." For the past few years, it's promoted the mass migration of fundamentalist Christian whack-jobs to South Carolina with the hope of influencing governmental policy there and essentially creating the first "Christian Republic" on U.S. soil.

Think Saudi Arabia, only without the Muslims, the oil, the money, or the culture -- and with an even more direct influence over the American government.

These are people who believe that the U.S has strayed from its Puritanical roots (the ones sane individuals would refer to as nightmarishly oppressive) and are now determined to seize power so that they can cleanse the land, thus preparing it for Jesus's triumphant return which will no doubt play out just like the crap they've read in those Left Behind books. For the rest of us, this means a repeal of our basic rights -- those not supported by Biblical scripture -- and essentially the outright suppression of most of the freedoms we've cultivated throughout the years, particularly the ones that infringe on the God-given entitlement of white men to do whatever the hell they want. If the Christian Exodus folks can't make this work, though, they're content to simply secede from the union -- and as far as they're concerned, South Carolina represents the perfect place to make this little paranoid fantasy come true, as it was the first state to withdraw at the onset of the Civil War.

So how's the effort going so far?

On its website, the group advanced a goal of relocating 12,000 like-minded Christians to South Carolina by 2006.

As of this year, only about 15 families have actually made the move. (By comparison, there are now somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,000 same-sex couples in South Carolina; one town alone, Sumter, has the highest concentration of black, gay, committed couples in the country -- a rare trifecta of offensiveness to fundamentalist Christian sensibilities.)

The issue however is not whether a serious threat is posed by the possibility of South Carolina seceding from the U.S. -- there isn't. What's notable is that the Christian Exodus loonies figure they'll find a friendly audience waiting for them when they get there -- that they'll be greeted as liberators, as it were.

Unfortunately, guys like Horace D. Skipper aren't doing much to prove them wrong on this -- quite the contrary in fact. Once again, a very public battle is about to rage over scientific certainty against which there is no legitimate argument. Once again, there will be sleight-of-hand, there will be misdirection and there will be euphemism, but in the end it will all add up to nothing. Once again, it will be reality versus nonsense -- proven fact versus cleverly decorated superstition for which there isn't a shred of evidence.

Just a "historical" tradition of True Belief and blind acceptance.

Headline of the Week

"Obama Responds to Gay Anger: You'll Be Happy in the End"

-- From the Huffington Post

Listening Post

An ambient return to form for Moby and a video directed by David Lynch.

Here's Shot in the Back of the Head.