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Sometimes you just gotta marvel at how sublimely,
how unpredictably ridiculous the world has become around us.
It is no wonder that as we stagger, somewhat incredulously and
very deservedly often drunk, across the threshold of the Twenty-First
Century, there are no emerging comedians of note on the fickle
scope of the popular culture. No "the next" George
Carlins, Robin Williamses (I've always wanted to bludgeon the
grammarian responsible for that), Eddie Murphys or even Jerry
Seinfelds to point out and describe the finer screwiness of modern
life. There's simply no need for such professional spectators
of the silly-assed to exist anymore. The universe is well and
truly cocked; this is a fact readily apparent to even the least
interested, stoically uninvolved pedestrian. And in no moment
was this salient point -- that all of Creation is now irretrievably,
hysterically bent -- more overwhelmingly obvious than in the
Great Pundit Massacre of 2000. Or, as we overly optimistic Yanks
persist in calling it, in total disregard for reality, Election
Night.
I have no doubt that the many brutally absurd scenarios which
unfolded like an exhibition of manic origami last evening have
been played out before, mainly in Hollywood studio boardrooms
and the twisted, impressively medicated dreams of Oliver Stone
and possibly Howard Hughes. Let's detail them, point by point,
out of respect to the disenfranchised, comatose or Special Agent
Fox Mulder, who while currently residing in an alien spacecraft
surely has a firmer grip on reality than many of his fellow homo
sapiens (homo sapienses? Oh, the hell with it) on this particular
day:
- A stiff -- not Al Gore, who is regularly mistaken for a
corpse, but an actual, interred formerly living thing -- beat
out a highly touted incumbent Senator to win elevation, albeit
posthumously, to the upper house of Congress.
- A flurry of Jewish retirees in an affluent Florida retirement
community accidentally racked up impressive numbers for Reform
Party candidate Pat Buchanan, at the expense of Al Gore, Joe
Lieberman, and any resemblance to actual sanity;
- Literally thousands of statisticians, political scientists,
television journalists, network anchors, campaign advisors, and
variously irrelevant talking heads committed professional sepukku
on international television before an appreciative and increasingly
exasperated global audience;
- An election was won, declared a tossup, lost, won, and lost
again before all involved threw up their hands in disgust and
hit the bars, mumbling, Bush-like, incoherently about the incompetence
of myriad electors, prognosticators, campaign officials, and
the disconcerting absence of readily available weapons of mass
destruction at this spectacularly inconvenient moment;
and, last but not least --
- The shockingly earnest and incontrovertible realization
that in the first national election to influence a new millenium,
Ralph &-at-$#in' Nader was, for all practical intents and purposes,
the most powerful man on the planet, having ultimately decided
which person will be elevated to the most far-reaching andimpactful
position in all of human history.
Please excuse me while I indulge in a liberal gulp of Irish
whiskey. I'd highly recommend you help yourself, also.
The thing that kept occuring to me, annoyingly, while I was
watching many many highly compensated pundits implode over the
course of eight madcap hours, was that the whole sordid, indescribably
actual affair resembled nothing so much as a combination of rejected
Monty Python, Burt Reynolds, and Tom Clancy material. Put straightforwardly,
"Election Night [chortle, snigger] 2000," had it been
pitched to a twelve-year-old executive at any number of financially
solvent entertainment corporations, would have been promptly
hurled, along with
its author, from a very great height to impact the prostitute-laden
pavement far below at an impressive rate of descent. Let's face
it, Ed
Wood couldn't have put together a more seriously ridiculous spectacle
than the one witnessed Tuesday, November 7th -- a day which will
live not in infamy, but in bloopers reels, forever.
But we're talking about reality here, not the famed and laudably
insane career of Edward Wood, Jr. And that's what makes it so
fun.
It's been nearly twelve hours now since Bernard Shaw begged
pathetically for scraps of food to sustain his rapidly unraveling
body; since Tom Brokaw squinted blearily into the camera and
began babbling like a stroke victim, his brain long since having
thrown its gears; since Al Gore's campaign manager resolutely
took the stage in traitorous Carthage, Tennessee, to announce
that the Democratic candidates had
elected to not concede the non-election, and that the election
would continue to remain in the hands of the electors until someone
or other could be finally elected, and that they now elected
to go home, kick their dogs miserably, and go to bed; since I
finally flipped over to
Dionne Warwick and her psychic friends, hopeful that finally,
in this act of desparation and mild dementia, I could learn who
would win the White House (she predicted confidently that Harry
Truman, another dead guy from Missouri, would beat all three
major candidates when all the absentee ballots had been counted).
It's been nearly twelve hours since the wheels came off our entire
process of government, since the "American experiment"
blew up and destroyed the lab, since Jeb Bush last fondled a
razor and his brother last tossed back a scotch rocks and Joe
Lieberman last consulted the Tanakh for divine guidance and Al
Gore finally ground his incisors into pearly nubs. It's been
nearly twelve hours since Jefferson turned in his grave, Carnahan
was elevated from his grave, and Al Gore, Sr. considered relocating
his grave to Austin in preparation for a gubernatorial challenge
to Dubya in 2004.
And in those twelve hours, I have come up with only three
inescapable conclusions:
[1] For all its wonderful qualities and excellent execution,
"The West Wing" now pales in comparison to what passes
for reality;
[2] I'm going to lobby for a return to constitutional monarchy
by the next general election;
[3] At the end of the day, to paraphrase William Goldman, nobody
knows nothin'.
Oh, strike that... I just thought of [4]:
[4] I need another drink. A big 'un.
Rick Cromack.
You can contact Rick Cromack at: cromack-at-rockzilla.net
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