Blue Monday

Snow Pond, NH -

The malaise set in a couple of days ago, and it finally breached the skin today like a mild case of Dracunculiasis or a herpes sore. But in the midst of a long political campaign, even a mild case can have a crippling effect on the brain causing you to stare longingly out at the water, with the distant red leaves reflecting onto the surface, as the words swim about in your head but fail to find a smooth stroke into your fingers and onto the screen.

And what a day for it. A Monday and Columbus Day, when I awoke to the sound of mild rain that excluded me from my usual pondside blogging chair by way a rain-vulnerable laptop. A day to celebrate the legacy of the dawn of the Western world and, subculturally, the beginning of the end of Indian dominance on the continent. Maybe it is because I am a Westerner, but I have always felt that that the political slighting of the Native tribes of this land is one of the greatest prolonged miscarriages of justice to ever have been operated upon America. You can feel that when you see beauty of the landscape, read the forgotten histories and visit the rez from La Push to Crow Agency. Show me a politician who speaks to Native America and I will show you at least the potential for a real patriot.

Alas, what better way to explore the feelings of despair than by checking back in with the Good Doctor himself as he looks back on a life of football betting and political terror. Aye, the Hey Rube years. Reading Thompson's musings one politics one is always struck by his eye for brutality and power, glaringly evident in his article from the time of the 2001 Presidential election, The Fix Is In. Here are two particularly telling passages:

Where did Gore think he was -- in some friendly Civics class? Hell no, he was in Florida, arguably the most Vicious & Corrupt state in the Union. ... Not only that, but he was brazenly invading Florida, trying to steal it from right under the noses of the whole Bush family. It was a bold move & brilliantly done, in some ways -- but then so was Lee's decision to invade the North & attack Gettysburg...

...But still there was something wrong. Even reading the Sports section began to give me a Queasy feeling. I came to secretly dread the coming of Sunday, although I never admitted that to anybody. It was too weird....Most stadiums are sold out every Sunday. But only rich people can afford to attend the games in person. It's not much different from getting involved in National Politics.

Terrible, I know. For we still believe in New Hampshire that retail politics will lead us to the promised land of Democracy. Right?

October is upon us now, and it is the fourth quarter both literally and figuratively. Receivers are resting for the potential of one more Hail Mary sprint to the end zone and the oxygen tanks are charging up to feed the lungs of fattened up defenses as they struggle to fight the offensive push.
It is about to rain all week in New Hampshire. So with that news, here's to growth.

See you on the trail,
BTB

"This incident...smacked me in the eyes one peaceful Sunday morning a few weeks ago"

I'm back on the sauce. The strong sauce, that is. Ever since that one magical week in December, 2004 that I spent holed up in Mocha Joe's basement cafe in Brattleboro, VT reading the magnificent journal of Nixon's re-election, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72, I have not been the same person. Prior to that week I had seen life through a different set of eyes. It was a set of eyes that was far more naive, foolish and willing to settle. A set of eyes that had not read the words vile, swine, freak, or maniac nearly enough. Upon closing the back cover of the book, I ruminated for a few hours and then immediately got on the horn to spread the gospel. Within days I was in my car driving south to Guilford, CT where I left my bargain copy of the text with a crew of intellectually and soulfully untouchable gentlemen hoping it would spread like gonorrhea at Mardi Gras, and hoping I would never see it again. I can't promise results on the first, but I will vouch for the fact that I never saw that short, fat, red tome ever again. I held it in my memories, but I never held it close to my breast to keep me warm on some of those hairy Allston nights later on; nor to keep me sane on those riotous stable nights in the summer of 2006. Perhaps that whole freaky period (December, 2004 -Present) was too far removed from a real election to make it worthwhile. Perhaps I was afraid. Then again, maybe I just never got around to replacing it.

That all changed this past Monday. Wandering around Northampton after an offseason high school track practice looking for a copy of the New York Times to bring into a coffee shop so that I might climb upon it's pretensions to gain the proper footing to flirt with an older, liberal local female sipping a pot of organic green tea at 5 in the afternoon I came upon a bookstore with seven copies of '72 stocked among it's verbal weaponry. It was a true omen, seeing as I hadn't been able to causally locate a copy in some years, in spite of noticing title upon title of Gonzo Papers, Las Vegas and Hey Rube but never the Golden Goose. I picked one up and haven't looked back.

"It was just before midnight when I left Cambridge and headed north in U.S. 93 toward Manchester--driving one of those big green rented Auto/stick Cougars that gets rubber for about twenty-nine seconds in Drive, and spits hot black divots all over the road in First or Second ... a terrible screeching and fishtailing through the outskirts of Boston heading north to New Hampshire, back on the Campaign Trail ...running late, as usual: left hand on the wheel and the other on the radio dial, seeking music, and a glass of iced Wild Turkey spilling into my crotch on every turn (43)."

That is where it begins, both for Hunter and myself: a commitment to the '72 Campaign Trail and a deep-rooted love of Austin Nichols, bred on cold nights after closing up Harriman's Pub in West Dover, Vermont and warm nights dreaming of the gulf stream in Cotuit, Massachusetts with Manchester, Nashua, Keene, Berlin and all the rest on the docket.

The Lord knows that I am a small fraction of Hunter S. Thompson, but the Lord also knows a thing or two about inspiration. With that said, it is likely only a matter of time before we see some sort of bootleg publication of Thugs and Cowardice: On the Campaign Trail '08. Then again, given that the New Hampshire primary was in March of 1972, perhaps a more fitting title would be On the Campaign Trail '07-'08. Frontloading, shame be thy name.

In the meantime I have briefly traded digs, tonight choosing The Spoke over the M & D, in part because of prior engagements and in part because this is the kind of place where you can see fat, drunken townies mingling some 10 feet away from a table full of pre-gaming sorority sisters on their way, ultimately, to The Pub. Over yonder sits a woman on a barstool with a Weezer tattoo on her neck. The whole fuckin' pie, by the way, with wings and everything. She is obnoxiously loud, and probably prefers Beverly Hills to Why Bother?. To Hell with that. In the words of Rivers, "I know I should get next to you/You got a look that makes me think you're cool/But it's just sexual attraction/Not something real so I'd rather keep wackin'/Why bother? it's gonna hurt me/It's gonna kill when you desert me/This happened to me twice before/It won't happen to me anymore." Then again, who am I to judge?

Lastly, let me give a shout out to the Indian Hill Cemetery (aka the Sem-ET-ery, copyright James S., 2004). I randomly thought about this place tonight because of the facebook and it's infernally lovable newsfeed. I have seen so many sunsets at that place, it's not even funny. Yet how is it that I hadn't thought about the place in 3 years?? O hallowed Indian Hill. Hail, hail, Mattabeseck.

Meanwhile, it's Ballard Bitter all the way. Ya Sure? Ya Betcha!
BTB