"I am not a witch" is added to the political lexicon

Did people react like this during the Great Depression? Did they vote for dimwits like Christine O'Donnell? Sadly, they nearly did, there being no real "good old days" in the real world. As a matter of fact, people acted about as crazy as they are now, albeit with better results. True, the New Deal didn't go far enough--thanks to the business sector--but at least they voted for FDR.

Americans are a pretty nutty bunch, and O'Donnell just reminds us of this fact. Being "nutty" is alright at parties, but not likely to get good results as a congressional representative, especially a Senator. Yet, nutty is what we tend to elect. O'Donnell is another kind of nutty altogether, however, not that she's hateful.

Fine, lots of young women screw around with the Occult during their teen years, sit on a Satanic altar on their first date...they don't? Really? Whoopsie! Hey, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Remember 1999? Me either! What were you having for lunch on June 21st of that year? Me either! Remember the impeachment hearings of Bill Clinton? Remember unlimited credit disguising the fact that Americans were making shit wages, even then? What a time! But it had to end, like all false Edens.

O'Donnell said this on her 1999 Bill Maher appearance (apparently, she blew the entire production staff, starting with Maher): "One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that," she says. "We went to a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar." As nutty as it sounds, I know of a woman from college who did this! "A little blood"?! OK, we don't want to start throwing the blood libel around here. Would this be tolerated from a Democratic candidate or anyone on the Left? Of course not.

Let's be clear: this isn't "normal" behavior, even to someone like myself who doesn't even believe in the Christian cosmology and certainly doesn't believe in the Devil, Belial, Cheeseburglar, and all shim's other supposed guises. Interestingly, we've gone from denying that we're actually the Devil (Nixon, during the Watergate hearings in 1973) in our politics to denying that we're a holder (witch) of the franchise license (O'Donnell), like a local businessperson who owns a Howard Johnson's (who?). OK, fine, you're not a Republican, just nuts...

So, here were are, 37 years later from the Watergate hearings, and somehow, some way, the GOP is still around. We've gone from "I am not a crook," to the obvious detached insanity of "I am not a witch." If that's not a warning sign with the bodies of dead canaries littered all around it, I don't know what is. What a fuckin' bimbo in our political stasis and limbo. We probably deserve her winning the election. Now dance, bitch...er, witch.

And they saw that it was hideously flawed: The Day God Died (a very short story with dissolves and flash-forwards)

In the beginning, there were six-packs and microwaveable meals, and they were good, or at least better than nothing at all, so quit yer bitchin'. Nobody ever got hurt--muchly--and all mimsy were the Borogroves, not even a mouse. There was something I was going to write, about some "City on a Hill," but they say the place has fallen into disrepair...you really don't want to go there, trust me on this one (worse than Detroit).

And the Lord spake far too often when there were no people around to hear it, then silence for thousands of years when there were and spake again saying, "Let there be light...oh shit. Did I pay the electric bill for last month? Oh boy. There I go again!" Yet somehow, there was light, and it too was good for a time until the bill collectors came. Six thousand years passed, somehow missing the dinosaurs and several ice ages by a mile, and then it was time to go to bed again, day-in, day-out, I tell ya'...

And they found that God's all about non-sequiturs, so he must be a Libertarian: One day in the 21st century (because you can do flash-forwards and even dissolves in allegory), a corporate executive belatedly died of a heart attack in his very posh home office in upper state New York. Like most CEOs, he was a criminal asshole and nobody cared when his time came, but you have to put these people somewhere after they're six feet under, so he made his way to the afterlife. No, the streets aren't paved in gold there either, so quit asking! "What idiot would believe such bullshit?" shrugged St. Peter. No one knew.

"I'm here to win!" said the CEO to the beleaguered bureaucrat manning the Gates of Heaven. Peter grinned.

"It appears that you have lost, schlub, but I got an idea a week ago I want to try out, so come with me." He took the CEO by the hand like fathers do with their drooling children at Wal-Mart and they ambled down the crumbling halls of a crappy Ministry in a dank, smelly corner of the afterlife. The stink of piss was everywhere, and the walls of Heaven were covered with obscene graffiti. Worst-of-all, someone had written "J.D. Salinger," which confused the executive since he'd never read a book after high school, or even that much during it.

"What's that?" said the CEO as they were looking at a hole in reality into a flat plane below. Tiny dots appeared to be moving on the surface, and it reminded the executive of his many flights over Ohio--the sprawl, with capillaries and arteries of commerce spreading out like a bubbling cancer, eating-away at the surface of the plan.

"That's limbo, also known as suburbs. No actual life takes place there."St. Peter retched while the suited Golem looked down at the scene below wishing he had a piece of the action.

"Right," said the CEO with that absolute certainty all the ladies love. They kept on further down the labyrinth of halls, endless halls, all growing darker and more disintegrated as they went. At times the walls seemed to exist merely as rapidly vibrating vapor and the CEO was able to stick his arm through them. "Nifty," he said, and shrugged.

"Keep talking kid, keep talking," said his divine escort laughing softly as old men often do.

Finally, they reached an enormous set of double-doors, bronzed and festoomed with lavishes of spirals, eyes, and flora. At the heart of the door was the design of a man who was in the center of a circle, his arms and legs endtended-out in the shape of a rightside-up Pentagram. All was silent and even the pair themselves were completely immobile. There is no movement in the presence of the divine, no action...but suddenly, there was. A deep moan pervaded the hallway and seemed to emanate from everywhere, then abruptly faded away as a sickly gurgle.

"What's that? the executive asked nervously.

"That was the death of God," St. Peter said, laughing and nodding wisely.

"What killed God?" he asked. St. Peter looked at the executive sadly.

" 'What'? You mean 'who.' Why, you did. Your very existence accomplished it."

"That doesn't make any sense to me. What do you mean? I've done everything right in life, been successful, did what I had to do to get ahead, and..."

"All fine and well, but did you ever consider the beauty of a Beethoven symphony, or the divinity in children laughing and playing in peace? Did you ever see the worth in all human beings, that every life is sacred in the end? Have you ever pondered in your life why mankind yearns for more, the loneliness, the angst that created the great works of art? Did you ever try to control your animal-impulses and be the better man? Did you ever try to improve yourself? Have you ever taken a stand in your life for what was the right thing to do for others?"

"Nope, none of those--hey, are you communist or something.?"

"Yes, I thought not, and that's why you were brought here. You see, you're lack, the temporal evidence that God created something imperfect, and therefore, was imperfect himself. Your mere proximity was enough to finish the job of an already dying deity that was in the denial stage of the grieving process. I can sleep the sleep of ages now, but first..."

Someone started hacking their way through the double-doors. With an abrupt kick, a man with wild, greasy hair and a thick-mustache crashed through. He was wearing a beautiful red robe studded with Hermetic symbols on a gold-red lame background, clutching a staff, wearing jack-boots. His eyes were both of the darkest night and the brightest day.

"Who's that? said the executive.

"That's Nietzsche, here to fix some shoddy craftsmanship."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Nothing, you are lack, you never existed."

Nietzsche spake, "The last man has come...and where's the nearest bar anyway?"

"Can I finally sleep?" said St. Peter.

"Soon, but there's a universe to fix! We're off!"

As well all know, such an allegory is preposterous, impossible. Nothing so absurd has ever been contended by any religion at any time in human history, except at lunchtime and before bed.

Woodstock, 40 years later

WWW--Well, it gave Carlos Santana, Richie Havens, and Mungo Jerry (I jest), a great career, and CSN is now charging $100-a-ticket (and up), so it must have accomplished something. Beyond that, I couldn't say what. Captain Beefheart actually had a chance to play at both the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock, but declined. Perhaps he was wiser for it, and hey, Squeaky Fromme's been released, it's a good vibe week in general.

It doesn't bother me to say that Jimi Hendix was probably the only reason I would have been there, but that many people in one place always bothered me. Did I say I was one at the time?

No, the real question is this: of all the people who lied about being there since August 1969, how many got laid? Hey, at least they say the acid at Altamont was good--OK, maybe a little too good. And sure, lots of people got their asses kicked at Altamont, but at least the Stones were properly amplified, they had monitors, and only one person died at each event, granted that it was murder at Altamont.

All I can say is thank God for John Waters & the Dreamlanders; thank God for the MC5 and the Stooges, bringing us punk rock; thank God for the Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention for calling a spade a spade; and thank God for Burroughs' healthy dose of skepticism as a strong coffee-antidote to Ginsberg's hopeless utopianism.

Underneath every Guilded Age is the real era, the rot, the effluvium. And when you look at many of the psychedelic posters of that bygone era, you'll see that strange fixation on the Edwardian, that moment right after the Victorian era that the 60s counterculture was also obsessed with, that moment before the fall. It's that sad and irrational American Utopian notion that America can be the redeemer of the world--partly true, but for other reasons--when it's quite the opposite. Myths won't deliver Americans and the rest of the world from American-style theocratic capitalism, that's the work of actual adults.

But more importantly: how many people got laid when they lied and said that they were at the Colombian Exposition of 1893 when they were not? Hmmm? There were no golden ages of human history. Sentimentalism is one of the single greatest threats to human survival, besides America's two party system and their shared values of Manifest Destiny. Who cares about a stupid rock festival?

Postscript, 08.15.2009: It seems to me the best thing to celebrate would be some kind of arboreal, tranquil moment in one's life. But that's just me it seems. ;0)