Politics & Funk

In 1999, when I was sixteen years old, I waited in line for forty-five minutes to see Kid Rock play at the UNO Lakefront Area in New Orleans, LA. I had been listening to his album Devil Without a Cause on a daily basis, and felt a particular attachment to the track, “Bullgod,” which was his first single to gain significant radio play. Once my friends and I finally proceeded into the arena, we took seats on the far right next to the two towering speakers. As fate had it, we plopped down adjacent to a group of raucous twenty-one-year-old girls.

“Ask them to buy us daiquiris,” one of my buddies urged.
“What kind should we get?” I responded.
“Get 120 Octane, it’s what my brother always drinks, he says it’s the strongest.”

It was, and by the time Kid Rock came striding out in a leopard skin frock and a top hat, I was drunk.

I don’t remember much of that show, outside of the four gold cages that were suspended from the ceiling and filled with scantily clad dancers. In fact, I’m not even sure if they played “Bullgod,” although I assume they must have. However, I do know that when I woke up the next day—besides being hung-over for geometry—I couldn’t hear anything except for an intolerable ringing in my eardrums.

My deafness didn’t subside for an entire week, during which numerous doctors told me that I might suffer from hearing impairment for life. Ever since that miserable moment, I have strictly adhered to the belief that almost nothing in life is worth waiting in line for.

However, On Tuesday, January 30th, I found myself bobbing up and down for warmth at eight-thirty in the morning along with over 15,000 others, a single speck, in a line that shouted, smiled, and snaked its way across five blocks of the Denver University campus in the hopes of getting a glimpse of presidential candidate Barack Obama. Mr. Obama was just a week off of one of the most impressive conquests of his campaign, a brutal trouncing of Senator Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, in which he defeated the former First Lady by a vote margin of more than two to one. With exactly one week left until the Super Tuesday primaries, he was picking up steam; nevertheless, he was still trailing Mrs. Clinton by eleven points in national presidential polls.

However in Denver on Tuesday, there didn’t seem to be a dour looking face in all the lot, despite the fact that it was 22 degrees and we hadn’t progressed an inch in over an hour. The soccer Mom’s in front of me were well bundled and pre-occupied with chat about the PTA, and behind me sauntered a group of college students ranting about midterms and bemoaning the fact that they hadn’t brought a “J for the line.”

After waiting for an hour and half, I got a call from a friend of mine who was an Obama precinct captain, and through her influence I was allowed to bypass the horde and make it inside. I later learned that if it weren’t for her favor, I would have been consigned to a seat in the lacrosse bleachers, where Mr. Obama spoke briefly to the overflow crowd.

Instead, I waltzed inside, where the energy level was high.

Obama had just recently received the endorsement of Senator Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, and it was Caroline who introduced him to a monsoon of applause. The support of the daughter and the brother of America’s most iconic president was a boost for the Obama campaign, accentuating Obama’s appeal as an agent of change.

During his speech, Obama hit upon on the usual spectrum of Democratic issues, from providing universal healthcare to withdrawing from Iraq. But while doing so, he chose not to make many ideological distinctions between himself and Mrs. Clinton.

Instead, Senator Obama drew contrast between his character and that of the former First Lady.

Obama furthered paralleled himself to John. F. Kennedy by relaying an exchange that occurred between Kennedy and Harry Truman, when Truman advised Kennedy to put off running for the presidency.

“Harry Truman, urged patience, “ Obama said. “And John Kennedy replied: ‘The world is changing. The old ways will not do. It is time for a new generation of leadership.’”

In a nutshell, this has become Obama’s message and campaign strategy deftly tied into one. He knows he is an inspirational figure with a charismatic, public persona that Mrs. Clinton cannot match, so he flaunts his similarities to political icons of the past whenever possible.

In contrast, Mrs. Clinton’s strategy of questioning Mr. Obama’s experience seems to have lost its sway, especially since Mr. Obama has responded by embracing his lack of Washington credentials and proclaiming them as a virtue.

“Washington wants to boil me, wants to stew the hope out of me,” he often jokes, portraying himself as a crusader aimed at altering a government that has continually failed the American people, a government of greed and “cronyism” to which Mrs. Clinton belongs

Obama also suggests that a Clinton presidency will be a regression to the politics of the past.

“I know it is tempting—after another presidency by a man named George Bush—to simply turn back the clock, and to build a bridge back to the 20th century,” he said in Denver.

It is a classic battle of old guard versus new guard politics, and Obama appears to have finally grown comfortable with his role as populist crusader—and it seems the nation may be growing more comfortable with the idea of him becoming president as well.

Although he still trails Clinton nationally, Obama has made huge strides in many of the key primary states in the last week. According to a Zogby poll released on Sunday, February 3rd, he has opened up a twenty-point lead in Georgia, is neck and neck with Hillary in New Jersey and Missouri, and picked up fifteen percentage points in the last two weeks to take the lead from Mrs. Clinton in California, the biggest prize of all the Super Tuesday states.

It appears that the Clinton dam is on the verge of breaking, but with only one day remaining before the dawn of Super Tuesday, does the Illinois senator have enough time to crash through?

If Mr. Obama takes enough delegates to keep things close after this Tuesday, he may send the Clinton machine spinning into disarray. In fact, the longer the nomination stays unsettled, the more saturated and intrigued America will become with the improbable storyline of a half-black, half-white, junior Senator with a weird name toppling the matron of one of America’s most dominant political sects.

At Denver University on Tuesday, it took Barack Obama fifteen minutes to make it to the podium—the crowd screaming and chanting as he signed autographs and slapped hands. But once he began to orate, there were moments in between the chanting and the applause when all of those in attendance seemed to be gripped in jut-jawed astonishment. It was as if they felt that they were watching something, or someone, who might be on the verge of turning a corner on the American political system, and radically altering the “brand” of politics we can expect for years go come.

Throughout his candidacy, Mr. Obama has evoked comparisons with Dr. Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and JFK. Personally, after watching him in the flesh, he reminds me of someone else.

Tags: Barack Obama, Denver, Hillary Clinton, Kid Rock

The evening before Halloween is one of those moments in every calendar year that have a visceral feel to them. It’s not quite the jovial excitement of Christmas Eve, or the drunken patriotic slurring that accompanies a Fourth of July celebration. It’s more of a niche in time, like the fleeting seconds before plunging from one year to another—the countdown, from ten, during which you grasp a bottle of champagne in one hand and search with a free eye for a prospect to greet with a fat, sloppy, New Year’s kiss.

It feels a bit magical and eerie at the same time, and as I walk down Broadway at dusk searching for a last-minute costume I am afflicted with the excitable vibration that accompanies trading away one’s persona for another. One night—that’s all I have—a mere 6-8 hours to shift identities and go nuts, put on an ape suit and a Nixon mask and scare the living shit out of every hippie walking the streets.

However, quickly, I realize that such a costume might not actually resonate at all, and might even be viewed by some as a “bummer.” It would be much better to go with something more pop-culture friendly and iconic, or, to maybe just buy a green-fringed jacket with myriad badges, pins, and ribbons, and call myself an “An American Hero.”

After a protracted negotiation, I do just that, and as I wear my newfound identity out the door I immediately feel transformed into a different, zanier version of myself. I am a caricature, a wild-man, and maybe even a bit deviant and … possibly similar … to the way that Vincent Margera felt last summer before he fondled and groped two teenagers in two separate incidents at a Lakewood, Colorado mall and skate-park.

According to the Denver Post, Margera—who is best known as Don Vito, the fat and unintelligible uncle of MTV star Bam Margera—was convicted on October 31 of two charges of sexual assault with a minor. After hearing the verdict, Vito collapsed in the middle of the courtroom and screamed, “Just kill me now, I can’t spend my fucking life in prison. I didn’t do anything,” while writhing on the courtroom floor. Deputies rushed in with a wheelchair and a defibrillator, although witnesses were unsure if Mr. Margera actually had to be resuscitated.

Damn!

Don Vito has gone down hard, and barring a miraculous appeal, he will stay in the clink for quite a while. And although I find him a reprehensible subject, a potential life sentence does seem a bit harsh for putting a sticker on a fourteen-year-old girl’s breast. I mean could we expect anything less from slovenly Uncle Vito? Maybe we are just as guilty as he is.

When Vito first emerged on MTV’s reality show Viva La Bam, it was as an object of torment for Bam and his friends. They would mock him, demolish his possessions with sledgehammers and cranes, and, on occasion, dress him up in women’s underwear. All of these things were mildly funny, but not nearly as funny the things Vito seemed to do on his own accord. At somewhere in the realm of 400 pounds, with a penchant for drink and a mumbling, unintelligible, idiotic method of speech, Don Vito became a caricature of himself. Whether he was taped to a wheelchair, lying semi-naked on a hotel bed with his left testicle exposed, or making aggressive comments to blind dates regarding their most appetizing body parts, we laughed at Don Vito, because what he did, though nowhere near admirable or normal, was really goddamn funny.

As Viva La Bam progressed, the popularity of Uncle Vito grew to the extent that he was no longer a supporting role but often the focus. His obesity, inarticulateness, male chauvinism, drunkenness, and generally lewd and bizarre behavior were rewarded by money and pop-culture status, so it only seemed natural that when he showed up for a public appearance with the rest of the Margera crew he would be in character. Apparently, Don Vito was so intoxicated at the two photo shoots he attended that he urinated in his pants. After he was finished, he proceeded to fondle the breasts and buttocks of three girls between the ages of 12-14.

What in God’s name would let a normal person think they could get away with this? Sure, a bit of the blame goes to MTV, but it’s hard to fault them for much more than the destruction of American music. But, clearly, no sensible person could argue that this behavior is rational, or for that matter legal, could they?

Actually, Vincent Margera’s lawyer did just that!

Attorney Pamela Mackey, who formerly represented Kobe Bryant in a 2003 rape allegation, based her client’s defense upon the theory that Margera was innocent of sexual assault because the assault was perpetrated by his alter ego, Don Vito, who, due to being a character in a popular reality show, could not be prosecuted for his actions. “Fans expected to see Don Vito, not Vincent Margera. You may find the behavior vulgar and disgusting, but it was done to amuse, to entertain, to get a laugh,” Mackey said—which, of course, makes perfect sense.

Because clearly there’s really no other way to get your kicks than tying one on, urinating all over yourself, and then lunging at the chest of fourteen-year-olds!

The reality is that Mr. Vito played a part on T.V. for so long that he forgot it was just that. He forgot that despite his powerful role as America’s favorite degenerate uncle, he still had to follow laws of basic decency. It slipped his mind that couldn’t simply trample over those who awarded him money, prestige, and fame—that he couldn’t just plant his fat, greasy fingers upon the chests of America’s pre-pubescent daughters and expect the collective civil consciousness of our country to sit back and continue to fill his pockets and elevate his ego.

Mr. Margera didn’t remember that sometimes you reap what you sow, that your chickens eventually come home to roost, and that when you think that you’ve made it high enough to be invincible from the laws of basic civil society, you’re usually about a millisecond from being snapped back to earth. And on Halloween—while I was trying on the ultimate fringed jacket—not only had Don Vito gone down, but there was a similarly strange and savage entity that was being reined in for losing sight of the law as well; it was the Democrats

In the name of democracy, these savages had abused the courts, the electoral process, the power of attorney, and the citizens of the United States in a way close to that in which Vito had abused the pure and virginal secondary sexual organs of three young girls. They had simply believed they were entitled, because for so long no one had found the guts to explain to them that they weren’t. Like Vikings laying siege to a hamlet, they did their best to burn, pillage, slash, smear, assault, rape, rob, and riddle—with tremendous displays of intimidation and harassment—an attempt by a third- party candidate to run for the 2004 Presidency of the United States, and if they had thought about it, they would have likely slapped him on the ass and grabbed his crotch while they were at it.

On Halloween, consumer advocate and former Green Party and Independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party accusing them of filing “groundless and abusive litigation” for the sole purpose of bankrupting his presidential campaign. The suit also names the Kerry-Edwards campaign, the Service Employees International Union, the Ballot Project, and other Democratic-affiliated interest groups. The allegation states that over 53 private law firms and 90 attorneys hired by the Democratic National Party and allied interest groups filed a total of 24 lawsuits against Mr. Nader’s campaign, as well as six complaints with the Federal Elections Committee (FEC)

According to Mr. Nader’s attorney, Carl Mayer, the vast majority of these lawsuits and all six FEC complaints were dismissed through the work of Mr. Nader’s volunteer legal team. The suits were primarily focused around the process of submitting petition signatures to get on the ballot in different states, and eventually resulted in Mr. Nader being removed from the Presidential ballot in at least 18 states. The most formidable allegations are as follows:

(1) Democratic operatives posed as Nader supporters in order to fill out petitions with false signatures such as Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and, most frequently, Ralph Nader. Then, knowing that fictitious names existed on the petitions, the Democratic legal team sued the Nader campaign for signature irregularities.

(2) Private lawyers telephoned ‘real’ Nader petitioners and threatened that they would be charged with a felony if they personally failed to validate each and every signature. On occasion, Nader supporters were even visited at home by private detectives hired by the defendants and menaced further.

(3) At an Oregon nominating convention in which Mr. Nader needed to get one thousand signatures to qualify for the ballot, hundreds of Democratic operatives posing as Nader supporters were deployed. Taking the place of real supporters, they then refused to sign Nader’s petition, thereby preventing him for getting on the Oregon ballot.

(4) Democratic operatives intentionally signed Nader petitions in incorrect places in the hopes of getting them disqualified.

Nader and his attorney claim their case is “tremendous” and have stated their intention to depose Democratic strategists of the likes of Toby Moffet, Terry McAuliffe, Elizabeth Holtzman, and others. In a 2004 interview with the Guardian, Moffet tacitly admitted that the Democrats used the weapon of endless, frivolous litigation in order to prevent Nader from getting ballot access.

“I think we had a role in the ballot challenges. We distracted him and drained him of resources,” Moffet claimed, adding, “I’d be less than honest if I said it was all about the law. It was all about stopping Bush from getting elected.”

Clearly a staunch believer that the ends justify the means, Moffet seems particularly proud about his role in impeding democracy in the 2004 Presidential election. Maybe, now that his blind political warfare has ended and Mr. Nader has named him personally in a lawsuit, he will realize that the election process is supposed to be about citizens making a choice for an elected leader, not high-priced lawyers filing abusive and groundless litigation to prevent a candidate for being on the ballot.

If not, someone should dress him up in a cheerleader outfit, tie a twelve- pack of Budweiser and a piece of raw meat to his skirt, and roll him headfirst into an 8 by 11 cell with Vincent Margera. I’m quite certain they would have wild and spirited conversations about what it’s like to feel above the law.

Tags: Democrats, Denver, Don Vito, Halloween, Ralph Nader