First post since the last post, which was my first post…

I watched The Magnificent Seven last night for the first time. What the hell is up with this movie? The dialogues ranges from unintentionally hilarious to excruciatingly bad, the representation of the “Old West” is Disneyfied crap, and somehow in two-plus hours they don’t manage to develop any real characters or pathos at all. Why is this movie so famous? The only real pleasure I got out of it – other than the Mexican “dirt farmers” who speak grammatically perfect English (“Mightn’t you?” one nine year-old asks) – was seeing heavies like Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson “aw-shucks” it up throughout the shitty G-rated nonsense. That, and Yul Brynner is really cool. Seriously. Especially naked.

Maybe some naughty stuff will get people cruising this blog more. Oh, and I think I’m being extra hard on The Magnificent Seven ‘cause the only Westerns I’ve watched in the last six months are The Wild Bunch (fucking glorious) and Deadwood.

Hey Californians, remember how there was an election about a month ago now? Yeah, the one where we Golden State Dems chose Phil Angelides to be the next sacrificial lamb to lay on the bloody altar of Schwarzenegger’s populist, androgen-infused political might. Well, for small teams of semi-employable, rudderless peons scattered throughout the state, that election only ended a few days ago. Here are some things I’ve learned while doing the San Francisco canvass, or “ballot count” to you normal people out there:

• The American Independent Party (AIP) using the word “independent” in their name is about the only smart thing they’ve ever done. People confuse registering as a nonpartisan voter with registering as an AIP voter, and on election day they can only vote on the AIP ballot. During the ballot count I saw hundreds of AIP ballots where the voter had tried to write in the names of candidates for other parties, mostly Democrats. This dumbass party has the fourth-largest number of California voters registered with it, and its state party website describes it as “The Fastest Growing Political Party in California.” Shame on you for taking advantage of Californians’ love of thinking themselves independent. Shame, shame, shame.

• Latex stinks! We’ve been shooting men into space for nearly four decades in rocket ships, but surgical gloves still put me off my lunch. And when you think that we use this stuff in the bedroom, during delicate adventures, you must wonder why the hell this stuff smells so wrong. I’ve had to wear latex gloves to handle “live” ballots (kablooie!) for the last fucking month. Can’t we find some better non-permeable compound to cover our sin? C’mon, NASA!

• Write-in votes are funny, but not very funny. If he was a qualified candidate, Mickey Mouse would be state Controller, at the very least. But other than the occasional Charles Keating vote for Treasurer or Lenin for School Superintendent, people are neither very clever nor funny with their little chance at polling-place creativity. Thanks to the one good soul who wrote in Len Tillem for every office, though.

In closing, along the subjects of Mexicans and elections, “lo fucking siento, dudes.” Say it ain’t so.

No Comments