 |
 |
|---|---|
| BIO | CONTACT | |
|
 |
|
 |
Thursday, September 30, 2004 Operation Ohio Day 3 It's morning in Ohio as I write this. It's morning lots of places but for me there is nowhere else. Ohio is a spaceship, an island, the conquering state of this great nation. I'm in the house of Julie Orringer's parents. Julie and Ryan are asleep upstairs as are Josh Bearman and Jonathan Ames. It's a big house with a curiously small coffee maker and lots of bedrooms and in the room Josh and I stayed in there was a fish tank. Josh couldn't sleep with the tank on so he unplugged it. He pointed a long, bony finger at me before turning out the lights. If the fish dies he made me promise not to tell. Yesterday's reading was great. Ryan Harty, Jonathan Ames, and Dan Chaon joined us as Anthony Swofford, Rick Moody, and Dave Eggers peeled from the state. Swofford is already going through Ohio detox and wrote me a frantic letter, if we just get one more vote it was worth it, he wrote. 150 kids showed up to see us at Oberlin College, a small school an hour outside of Cleveland. Ames read a story called I Shit My Pants In The South Of France, which was probably the funniest story I've ever heard. Note to all writers, never follow Jonathan Ames, make him read last. We signed up a hundred students to receive phone calls on election day. After the reading the students followed us to the bar and I told stories about working as a stripper in my year after college and selling tickets to live sex shows in Amsterdam. I told everyone that I was sober all through college and as a result I have no memories of school because for me nothing happened. Most of the students hanging out at the bar with us were writing majors. Oberlin gets a lot of visiting writers and the kids were free and easy with who they liked and didn't. "So and so (a very famous poet) came to our workshop and didn't like my poetry, but I don't think his poetry is very good either." Students are the harshest critics. I thumbwrestled with this one kid, a senior. He kept cheating but accusing me of cheating. Truth is, I'm one of the greatest thumb wrestlers the world has ever known. Hanging out with young people keeps you young. Or at least older people believe that and I believe it too. And like the young Oberlin students I felt alive and like I could change the world, which is what youth is. Around midnight Josh and I ordered Grasshoppers, which are these chocolate liquor things covered in whip cream and syrup and served in martini glasses. We intertwined our arms before taking our first sip. People thought we were gay and we had to explain the principle of bromance to them. Bromance, which is neither gay nor not gay, but rather a profound affection displayed between two men. Yesterday was Vendela and Shepard's last night. I see Vendela a lot in San Francisco but this was my first time meeting Jim Shepard, who is one of my literary idols. I told him so at the end of the night, throwing caution to the wind, and we hugged and then he got himself a room at the Oberlin Inn. Today we add Andrew Sean Greer, Robert Olmstead, and Ann Packer for a daytime reading at Cleveland State University. We're getting coverage from the local PBS and NPR. And here's something exciting. Last night, in my half drunken state, lying in bed in the Cleveland suburbs, I came up with the idea for the Operation Ohio Street Team. I've started emailing flyers to students that have signed up for a phone call from Operation Ohio and they're putting up flyers in their schools to let more people know about us. So you see, among other things, beyond my mad thumbwrestling abilities, I am a deft Viral Marketeer. If you'd like to hang a flyer in your school in Wisconsin, Florida, or Ohio, you can download one here. Also, soon we're going to add a fax number so people under 25 can sign up to receive a phone call from an author without a university email account by faxing a copy of their drivers license and relevant information. Also, so many authors are signing up that I'm considering adding another state. I'm kind of leaning Iowa. Hmmmm... posted by Stephen Elliott 5:55 AM | link | Wednesday, September 29, 2004 Operation Ohio Day 2 It would be a lie to say I wasn't disappointed by the first day's turnout, but lies are what get people elected and I'm not above telling them. Three hundred people came out to hear Dave Eggers, Anthony Swofford, Rick Moody, Vendela Vida, Julie Orringer, Jim Shepard, and myself. We each read for eight to ten minutes. Here is the good news. The good news is that the reading went well. People were funny. Swofford read an amazing essay about his first time voting that he had written specifically for the event. Eggers read a piece from the perspective of a man explaining to his eleven year old daughter how he and his wife had saved the world and how every time they did something great, like end hunger or genocide, his wife would get horny and want to have sex. Jim Shepard read a story written from the perspective of John Ashcroft. The good news is we signed up a hundred students to receive reminder phone calls on election day. A reporter from the New York Times is traveling with us and when her story comes out on Saturday a lot more people will register to receive phone calls by visiting the website. And the list is all that matters. In truth, the registration readings are just a publicity stunt to raise awareness for the list. Because the list, which is a list of students in Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio, who have requested phone calls from authors on election day reminding them to vote, the list is what matters. And in terms of getting the word out about the list the events have already been a smashing success. James Harding was there, a friend of mine from the campaign bus. He said he's been door knocking for the last few days around Ohio. He says there's a lot more undecided voters than people think. James is British, so if things get really bad he can leave. The rest of us have to make do with what we have. Here's the bad news. I stopped in a composition class during the day. There were twenty-five students. One of them was a girl with a deep tan and a rope necklace so tight around her neck I couldn't imagine how she could breathe. I asked the class who their favorite author was. My guess was that their favorite author was probably on the list of authors making phone calls. One student said "Kerouac" so I amended it to living author. Another student said he preferred movies. A third student said John Grisham. At which point I changed the subject. But here's some more good news. After the reading we all went out for dinner at the Blue Danube and the hamburgers were only $2.75, which is why I love Ohio. I said that Operation Ohio would pick up the tab. There were more than ten of us in the group including Robert Olmstead and Ryan Harty who are reading in the coming days and when the bill came it was just under a hundred dollars. But that's not the good news. The good news is the reporter from the New York Times picked up the check. She said she would expense it. And I remember Nedra Pickler's famous advice to me in the Iowa firehouse back in December at a John Kerry rally when John Kerry was getting beat badly by Howard Dean and there was a table lined with various cold meats and mayonaise salads. She said, "Don't eat from that table. You'll compromise yourself." And I said, "I don't mind being compromised. This whole election is about compromise. I'm a compromise-ahololic." I loaded up my white plate and John Kerry went on to win Iowa. And did I let the New York Times buy our dinner last night? You bet your sweet ass I did. posted by Stephen Elliott 7:53 AM | link | Operation Ohio Speech OK. This is the sappy speech I gave yesterday before the reading. I don't think I'll be hired as a speech writer anytime soon. ** Hi. Thanks for coming out tonight to enjoy this reading with us. Before we start I'd like to thank the Wexner Center for generously providing the space for this event and the people who helped put this together, especially Michelle Herman and Annie Logue who did so much to make this event happen, also all of the student volunteers. This is the first of three readings we're doing in Ohio to register voters and prepare to get out the vote on Election Day. By this point you're probably tired of political advertising, tired of another advertisement every time you turn on your radio or TV. With so much blather out there it's easy to turn off on the political process, especially with all the negative campaigning, and with contradictory information coming at you from both sides. So we've decided to just offer you cash. Yep, everybody that registers to vote today will get $50. I'm just kidding. That would be against the law. Also, I checked with some of the writers here and we'd only be able to register like three people. So. Ohio. I'm very fond of Ohio. A smart state, birthplace of Thomas Edison. Lots of good Universities. The most important election of our lifetime and it all comes down to Ohio. Well, the way I see it, if it has to come down to somewhere, this is a good place for it. I wonder, Did anybody here see Before Sunset, that movie with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphi? I love that movie. Such a great movie, right? There's that awesome moment where they're walking through the park in Paris and Julie Delphi is regretting not meeting Ethan Hawke nine years earlier, remember, she blew him off when she they were supposed to meet, and she's like, "I just thought I would always meet interesting, good looking people on trains." You must be feeling that way too if this is your first election. You must be thinking, "I just thought I would always cast the deciding vote in the presidential election." Well, since I knew you were thinking that, I checked in with the committee for states that decide the presidential election. Do you know about these guys. They're like the olympic committee and different states bid to be the deciding state every four years. Apparently, and you're not going to believe this, but Oklahoma, of all places, has won the right to decide the presidential election in 2008. And 2012 will be decided by Alaska, marking the first time ever a presidential election will be decided outside the continental U.S. So you might want to take advantage of this opportunity. Seriously, none of us were paid to come here today. Our only payment is you registering to vote. We all hope you realize how important your voice is in this election. And I mean this on a very personal level as someone without health insurance. And I'm speaking especially to the young voters. When you don't vote you cede power to the special interests, the corporations, the anti-environmentalists the war profiteers. I'm not telling you who to vote for, but the truth is that if you, as a group, vote, then your concerns will be addressed. History has proven this to be true. You've heard the term all boats rise? Believe it or not voter turnout is actually good for both Democrats and Republicans. Because if more people vote, the politicians will adjust. Your voting will make the politicians more responsive. Ask any of your poli-sci professors. Some of the people currently holding office would probably loose their jobs but they'd be replaced by better candidates on both sides. Both the Republicans and the Democrats will shift their positions in reaction to high turnout. The focus will move away from the special interests, big corporations like Enron and Haliburton, the lobbyists and the donors, and back to the people it was intended for. But the only way to make the politicians responsible to you is by being responsible yourself. Politicians have been telling us for too long that we don't have to sacrifice but the truth is there's no free lunch. Democracy takes work and the very first responsibility of every member of a free society is the responsibility to vote. A lot of people think that if they don't like the politicians then they shouldn't participate. You know what it's like living in a society where people are too lazy to vote? It's like living in a house where nobody flushes the toilet. I actually have a story about that... but now is probably not the time. What I'm trying to say is if you turn off on politics politics will turn on you in a serious way. And if you don't vote and you find your environment being destroyed, your health care unaffordable or inadequate, your tuition going up and up and up, then you have only yourself to blame. And if you have friends your age in the military, serving their country, you are also responsible for them. There is no Democracy without participation. You can't sit around waiting for the politicians to come to you. If you're waiting for the perfect politician to come along you'll be waiting your whole life. This is a non-partisan reading and I'd like to explain what I mean by that. Obviously, every author that's going to read today has an opinion about whom you should vote for. So does every journalist and all of your teachers. But as a group we are not affiliated with any party and none of the authors were asked their political affiliation or told what they could or couldn't say, since there's no point in inviting artists to read only to censor them. The only question asked of any of the authors who are here today was, Would you like to come to Ohio and register voters. Some of the authors are probably planning on reading something political, others aren't. Some might say things you disagree with about George Bush, others about John Kerry. At the end of the event there will be a question period. If you don't agree with something someone says please wait to the end to question them about it. But first the most important thing. You'll notice there's tons of people here ready to register you. It only takes a minute. If you didn't get a registration form would you please raise your hand. Remember how I said nobody paid us to be here and that our only payment is registering voters. Well, if you're here and you haven't registered yet you are screwing us over. And that's messed up. Why would you want to do us like that? Also, there's two parts to what we are doing today. The first is trying to encourage people to register to vote. The second is we're collecting a list of people under 24 that would like to receive a voting reminder phone call from an author on Election Day. Most of the authors here are making phone calls on election day, as are authors that were unable to make the trip: Tobias Wolff, Aimee Bender, ZZ Packer, Jonathan Lethem, David Rees, Michael Chabon, and many others. If you'd like to get that phone call be sure to find one of the people with clipboards in the white shirts. We'd love to give you a call on Election Day. Just a friendly little rise and shine, don't forget to vote today, kind of thing. Again, thank you for coming out tonight and we hope you are as happy with tonight's reading as we are all thrilled to be here with you. posted by Stephen Elliott 7:51 AM | link | Tuesday, September 28, 2004 The Toronto Globe and Mail gets on board with Operation Ohio. Also, Jonathan Lethem, whose Fortress Of Solitude was one of my favorite books last year, has joined the swelling ranks of authors making phone calls on election day. Also, here's an interesting article from outside of the mainstream media. ** Operation Ohio day 1, Monday I'm on a plane to Ohio, birthplace of Thomas Edison, where I've organized a series of voter registration readings with other authors. We're going to register students to vote and create a list of students that would like to receive a reminder phone call from one of their favorite authors on election day. We're hoping to collect 5,000 names and phone numbers of students in Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin and figuring the readings in Ohio will generate enough press to get people from other schools signing up for reminder calls over the internet. Some students are like: "But I already know I'm going to vote. I don't want to waste someone's time." To which I respond: "We don't mind." Getting out on the campaign is not new for me. I spent the past year writing a book about this election and I've grown used to traveling, especially in swing states. I've been through Ohio with John Kerry and George Bush many times. I turned the book in August 1 and the plan was to get off the campaign trail after that but I never really thought I would. Anybody that's spent any heavy time on the trail during a presidential election knows that it's as addictive as the worst kind of drug and the only way to kick is to go cold turkey and the only way to go cold turkey is to ride it out straight through to the first Wednesday in November at which point I plan to check myself into a monostary in Asia and go through three months of heavy detox, no sex, no booze, and no politics. But not yet. Right now there's a war going on. People are dying over a mistake. The government is lying to us, destroying our environment, and giving away our social security to people rich beyond my imagining. Also, I don't have health insurance. So it's incumbent upon me to do everything I can to remove George Bush from office. And fortunately a lot of other people have the same sentiment, which is why I think we're going to win this election. I'm happy and excited now. Today I land in Columbus for our first reading at Ohio State University. The authors I'm reading with are some of my favorite writers. Dave Eggers, Rick Moody, Anthony Swofford, Vendela Vida, Julie Orringer, and Jim Shepard. And even though I forgot to set my alarm and woke at 6am in a panic, the weather was nice this morning. It's my favorite time of the year, the fall, not too hot not too cold. Plus, I feel like we're doing our small part to save all of mankind, which is cool. posted by Stephen Elliott 10:22 AM | link | Sunday, September 26, 2004 Website Does Not Equal Book People keep saying to me, "I read some excerpts from your book on your website." I'd like to point out that there aren't any excerpts from my book on my website, or if there are they are buried deep in the archives and represent very rough drafts. I think what people are probably referring to is my commentary from the Republican Convention. But none of that is actually in the book. My publisher didn't want me posting sections of the book online because they thought it would hurt sales. But the good news is Looking Forward To It is dirt cheap, paperback orginal, only $14. I'll be heading to Ohio tomorrow. See if we can't register a few thousand voters there and get them to the polls. Wish us luck. Also, I think it's strange that Dick Cheney is still going around linking Iraq with Al Qaeda. I really do. I think it's about the strangest thing in the world. posted by Stephen Elliott 9:04 AM | link | Saturday, September 25, 2004 The 2004 election in a nutshell. posted by Stephen Elliott 11:22 AM | link | 
posted by Stephen Elliott 10:36 AM | link | Hal Crowther has a fantastic essay about Iraq and the Bush administration in The Progressive Populist. posted by Stephen Elliott 10:31 AM | link | Friday, September 24, 2004 Woo hoo! Looking Forward To It is finally available for shipping from Amazon. You can also order it from Powell's and from A Clean Well Lighted Place For Books as well as just about any bookstore. posted by Stephen Elliott 9:56 AM | link | Thursday, September 23, 2004 Nick Flynn and Heidi Julavitz have both committed to making phone calls for Operation Ohio. They'll both be joining me for a fundraiser in Manhattan for Concerts For Change on October 23rd. Details to be announced. Also, there a review of Laurenn and Michelle's Rent Girl up on Maud Newton. ** Put Away Your Hankies...a message from Michael Moore 9/20/04 Dear Friends, Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner -- IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is embarrassing! The Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, "Oh, it's all over! We are finished! Bush can't win! Waaaaaa!" Hell no. It's never over for them until the last ballot is shredded. They are never finished -- they just keeping moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying. They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them -- they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself "Republican," yet the Republicans own it all -- the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet. Look at us -- what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it's like, "THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!" No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a candidate Kerry is and how he can't win... Dammit, of COURSE he's a lousy candidate -- he's a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic, they even lose the elections they win! What were you expecting, Bruce Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but guys like him don't run -- and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run. Yes, OF COURSE any of us would have run a better, smarter, kick-ass campaign. Of course we would have smacked each and every one of those phony swifty boaty bastards down. But WE are not running for president -- Kerry is. So quit complaining and work with what we have. Oprah just gave 300 women a... Pontiac! Did you see any of them frowning and moaning and screaming, "Oh God, NOT a friggin' Pontiac!" Of course not, they were happy. The Pontiacs all had four wheels, an engine and a gas pedal. You want more than that, well, I can't help you. I had a Pontiac once and it lasted a good year. And it was a VERY good year. My friends, it is time for a reality check. 1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead -- and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling "likely voters." "Likely" means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls. 2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake. 3. Traveling around the country, as I've been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is just a sugar-coated lie). 4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on "9/11" (the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that "job," you might have noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to call Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original war vote, he ain't the one who sent those kids to their deaths -- and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to show up when he was in the "service" he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be "won." All he has delivered to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November. So, do not despair. All is not over. Far from it. The Bush people need you to believe that it is over. They need you to slump back into your easy chair and feel that sick pain in your gut as you contemplate another four years of George W. Bush. They need you to wish we had a candidate who didn't windsurf and who was just as smart as we were when WE knew Bush was lying about WMD and Saddam planning 9/11. It's like Karl Rove is hypnotizing you -- "Kerry voted for the war...Kerry voted for the war...Kerrrrrryyy vooootted fooooor theeee warrrrrrrrrr..." Yes...Yes...Yesssss....He did! HE DID! No sense in fighting now...what I need is sleep...sleeep...sleeeeeeppppp... WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all Americans are pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled that assault weapons are back on the street -- and 54% now believe the war is wrong. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS -- YOU JUST HAVE TO GIVE THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT? WILL YOU DO THAT? Just for me, please? Buck up. The country is almost back in our hands. Not another negative word until Nov. 3rd! Then you can bitch all you want about how you wish Kerry was still that long-haired kid who once had the courage to stand up for something. Personally, I think that kid is still inside him. Instead of the wailing and gnashing of your teeth, why not hold out a hand to him and help the inner soldier/protester come out and defeat the forces of evil we now so desperately face. Do we have any other choice? Yours, Michael Moore www.michaelmoore.com posted by Stephen Elliott 9:42 AM | link | Wednesday, September 22, 2004 I have a new hero. Professor Skaggs I love you deeply. posted by Stephen Elliott 1:08 AM | link | Tuesday, September 21, 2004 Dan Rather For President The focus on Dan Rather and CBS continues, despite widespread agreement that the report was true - that Bush had not done his duty in the National Guard. It's weird that the focus is on one piece of evidance rather than the conclusions reached. More interesting still is Dan Rather admitting the error, saying in effect, The Buck Stops Here. And I wonder if the President couldn't learn something from that, the nobility of taking responsibility when you're in charge rather than letting your underlings drown on your behalf, pawning the blame on those under your supervision. While Dan Rather is copping to his mistake, a mistake which ruins his legacy of more than 30 years worth of reporting, George Bush is telling America that everything is great in Iraq, talking about the hope and security of Democracy. I have friends in Iraq. My pal Stephen is the bureau chief for a major photography news organization in Baghdad. There is no hope of "Democracy and security" in Iraq, and the administration's own experts have stated this. And instead of taking responsibility for failed intelligence George Bush points to all the other people who also thought there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As if he wasn't the President of the United States. As if all those intelligence agencies didn't report to him. So while it's true that John Kerrry is a flip-flopper on Iraq, at least he's right 50% of the time. Which is a big step up. I have no idea what John Kerry's policy toward Iraq will actually be when he's elected, but I have no doubt at all that it will be an improvement. The Swidge Check out Peter Alton's great new political film, "The Swidge". Just go to Instant Films. "The Swidge" is in the right hand corner. Also, Jon Carroll has an awesome editorial on SFGate, which essentially restates everything I said in my own editorial, except his was published, and probably better written. As usual everyone should read Talking Points Memo. And a little E.J. Dionne never hurt anyone. posted by Stephen Elliott 1:16 AM | link | Monday, September 20, 2004 More on the guy kicking the protester at the Republican Convention. Much, much more information available on The Anti-War blog. posted by Stephen Elliott 2:58 PM | link | Friday, September 17, 2004 Notes and Musings Operation Ohio continues to rock. We're getting written up in a bunch of news sources including Columbus Alive, which should help build attendance at the events and build our phone list of students in Ohio and Florida who would like to receive a reminder phone call from an author on November 2nd. Michael Cunningham has joined the list of authors making phone calls. Talking Points Memo has an excellent post outlining the differences between what the administration says is happening in Iraq, and what government analysts say is happening in Iraq. I remember in the beginning of this war I had a conversation with Robert Polhemus, the head of the Stanford English Department, and I said to him that I hoped Bush was right and I was wrong and that if I turned out to be wrong about this war I was going to vote for Bush in 2004. I still wish I was wrong, and that things had worked out better in Iraq. I'd much rather have peace in the Middle East than not, no matter who was in office. But things haven't worked out that way. I was reading another article this morning about Kerry flip-flopping on Iraq and I found myself thinking, well, at least he's right half of the time. Which is a pretty serious improvement when you look at the incredible mess over there. posted by Stephen Elliott 9:46 AM | link | Thursday, September 16, 2004 Important Update This appears to be the guy kicking the protester at the Republican Convention in New York. How long until he is arrested? More information here. posted by Stephen Elliott 5:26 PM | link | Wednesday, September 15, 2004 Why is it that the 'maybe' fake documents used by CBS are getting so much media play? Even if one of the documents was fake the content of the story was accurate. It seems we didn't hear as much about the lies told by Vietnam Veterans For Draft Dodging. Also, this just in. Ann Packer is going to be joining Operation Ohio for our Cleveland State reading. One last thing. Slate has an awesome breakdown of the new Kitty Kelley book. (via Maud) posted by Stephen Elliott 11:08 PM | link | Tuesday, September 14, 2004 Operation Ohio gets written up in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Cincinnati Enquirer. posted by Stephen Elliott 1:24 PM | link | Monday, September 13, 2004 Links Response to Katie Simenson from Racine County. According to the New York Times George Bush is destroying the environment. There's a new page for Operation Ohio. There's also an Operation Ohio page on McSweeney's. The first Operation Ohio fundraiser is tonight. posted by Stephen Elliott 4:44 PM | link | More astounding insight from star writer Andrew Foster Altschul: Opening Day Dear Steve, Yesterday, my beloved New York Giants opened their season with a 31-17 ass-drubbing at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles. Now, every thinking person knows that the Giants are a better team than the Eagles - they are one of football's class acts, steeped in history, with two Super Bowl victories and photos of some of football's greatest legends hanging in their locker room. The Eagles, on the other hand, are a gang of degenerates, a ragtag assortment of undisciplined and nasty thugs who've never really amounted to anything. They give football, and all sport, a bad name. Everyone agrees on this. And yet, for the last few years, the Eagles have regularly kicked the shit out of the Giants, making my boys in blue look confused and dispirited, as if they've lost their faith in themselves. There's a good reason for this: the Eagles are mean. They don't play by the rules. It's not clear that they even know the rules. They certainly couldn't read or write them. What they do know is a single-minded obsession with winning, at any cost. They know that putting that mark in the W column is much more important than looking pretty or earning anyone's respect, and that usually it isn't the team with the best vocabulary or the most winning smiles that gets to go to the championship in January. The Eagles are willing to bite, kick, trip, poke, clip, hack, chop, crack, taunt, and spit to get the ball and run with it. They are willing to break defenders' kneecaps when they stand between them and the end zone. They laugh at the yellow flag when it flutters from the referee's pocket. They make dirty, vicious, illegal hits on unprotected receivers, they crush vertebrae and break ribs and rupture Achilles' tendons - and then they sit around the locker room watching the tape and high-fiving. The Philadelphia Eagles are the lowest species of human, and they will almost certainly win the NFC East this year. You've got to love them. What I'm trying to say here is that the pre-season is over. The conventions have passed, Labor Day has passed, and seven weeks from tomorrow the U.S. electorate is going to choose between George W. Bush - the most dishonest, shameless, immoral, greedy, hypocritical, stupid, vicious man ever to sit in the Oval Office a and... um... what's that other dude's name again? And from where I sit, things are looking pretty grim. Since the airbrushed and bounceless Democratic convention, John Kerry has sat complacently back while a parade of scumbags and psychopaths have taken their potshots at him. He has withstood the betrayals of a close friend (John McCain), responded to insinuations and outright libels with a relaxed, aristocratic cool which even pisses me off - just imagine how it plays in Cleveland. Actually, you don't have to imagine it: Look at the latest Ohio polls. Now, after watching his numbers plummet like a Tiki Barber fumble, Kerry is "shaking up" his campaign, bringing in ringers like James Carville to breathe some fire into things. And it sure is working - last week, the leaner, meaner Kerry introduced a new line in his stump speech, a comment so laser-like in its diagnosis, so cutting in its rhetoric, so utterly convincing that you can almost hear the Diebold machines switching their electronic votes from red to blue: "The W in George Bush's name stands for 'Wrong'!" And today, in response to two years of lying and manipulation by the Bush administration, which has relentlessly tied Iraq to September 11, John Edwards sniffled, "Vice President Cheney should not say the kind of things he said Friday and the president should not mislead the American people." I'm sure Dick and W. feel duly chastened. Look, this is not going to get it done. Somebody has got to explain to the Kerry campaign that this is a bloodsport. It is a fight to the death, and there's no referee, and no holds barred, and if you whine to the American people about how dirty your opponent is playing they are going to laugh at you and think you're a wimp and they are going to vote for the dirty guy. This tendency has certainly been amplified since the "War on Terror" began, but God knows it didn't start there - so the Democrats have absolutely no excuse for the off-balance, pouty-lipped torpor with which they have responded. The Republicans sit in their War Room and laugh; they get inside Kerry's head by saying, "The American people don't want a negative, angry campaign," and Kerry actually believes them and tries to fight nice, and the Republicans proceed to sucker punch and groin kick and make jokes about his mother. And the electorate eats it up. Steve, where is the opposition? Bush has a whole stable of surrogates out there pounding Kerry on a daily basis. Tom Ridge puts the whole country on alert, Colin Powell takes over the Sunday Morning talk shows, Condi Rice and Bill Frist look reporters in the eye and repeat lies which were disproven months ago - and meanwhile, Bill Clinton is under anesthesia and John Edwards is taking his ball and going home. It's time for the Democrats to start giving as good as they get. If they don't bump up their rhetoric and get the public's attention again - and soon - they are going to lose. Period. And if they lose in 2004, it's hard to see how it doesn't spell the end of this party, and maybe the end of the American left for the next generation. I don't care what surveys say. Dirty campaigning works - and there never was a more vulnerable candidate than George Bush. Kerry needs to start reminding voters that they have been lied to - not "manipulated," not "misled"or "finessed," lied. As in: "George Bush has lied to the American people about every important event and policy in the last few years." As in, "George Bush lied to the military and to his commanding officers in the National Guard when he went A.W.O.L. in a time of war." As in, "George Bush has ruined the careers of respected Americans like Colin Powell by ordering them to lie to the American people, lie to the United Nations, and lie to the world about weapons of mass destruction which George Bush knew all along did not exist." As in, "George Bush has lied about education reform, lied about helping senior citizens buy prescription drugs, lied about revealing the identity of undercover C.I.A. agents, lied in the State of the Union Address - his sacred covenant with the American people! - lied about the cost of Medicare reform, lied about his military service, and lied about the reasons he sent 1,000 Americans to die. He is a pathological liar, he cannot be trusted, and he is unfit to lead this great nation." Take it from a long-time writing teacher: It's all in the verbs. How about, "George Bush has betrayed the American people and American ideals"? How about, "George Bush has ruined America's standing in the world and made us a target for hatred and terror"? How about, "George Bush has swindled Americans and sent their children to die in Iraq so that Dick Cheney's old company could have a no-bid contract"? How about, "George Bush has destroyed 100 years of environmental policy so that the Enrons of the world could make money off of pollution and not even pay taxes on it"? How about, "When the American people needed George Bush to be on the job, he was Missing In Action, so obsessed with Iraq he has let Iran and North Korea go nuclear and threaten our children"? How about, "On every promise George Bush made in 2000, he has gone AWOL"? Too much? Not even close. Kerry has got to get over this idea that Americans respond to integrity, geniality, and noblesse oblige. I mean, Jesus, look at Al Gore – the guy's teaching at more college campuses than I am. Americans, now more than ever, respond to force. They respond to passion and conviction and steely-jawed certainty. They respond to the cheapest, most predictable kind of sloganeering and cant and there needs to be a chorus of Democrats using the same phrasebook to hammer it home day after day. Am I happy about this? Does it make me proud to be an American? Who the fuck cares? Remember when you bet me ten bucks that Kerry would win in a landslide, Steve? Wanna go double? It's game time, Steve. Now or never. Within the next two weeks, barring some kind of catastrophic October surprise, we'll know who is going to win in November (or rather, we'll know who'll get the most votes). It's time for Kerry and Edwards to stop trying to be everyone's buddy, to stop being the teacher's pets, and to show the electorate that they want to win this election - they want it so bad they could chew through a crowbar. They want it so bad they're willing to sound angry and risk a sneer or two from time to time. It's time for them to get off their snowboards, put away their Crest Whitening Strips, and start tearing out their opponents jugulars with their teeth. Think Ultimate Fighting. Think Eagles-Giants. Think Rome. It's not pretty, but neither is winning. afa ** note from Steve: yes you chickenshit, I will go double posted by Andrew Foster Altschul 11:53 AM | link | Friday, September 10, 2004 Operation Ohio gets written up in the San Francisco Chronicle. posted by Stephen Elliott 5:22 AM | link | Thursday, September 09, 2004 Josh Bearman's got footage of a Republican kicking one of the protesters at the convention. Then there's today's evidence of the Republican's tendency to place violence before reason. posted by Stephen Elliott 11:47 AM | link | Please come to the Operation Ohio fundraiser in San Francisco this Monday at 7:30pm. We're also doing a fundraiser for Operation Ohio this Tuesday, 7 pm in Berkeley at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Berkeley readers will include Ann Marie Cummins, Tom Barbash, Julie Orringer, Ryan Harty, and Me. The Berkeley Repertory Theatre is located at 2025 Addison Street, near the intersection of Addison and Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley. posted by Stephen Elliott 11:24 AM | link | Wednesday, September 08, 2004 "I would really like to see you guys speak up and answer those questions. Because even though I am a Democrat and although I did vote for (Ralph) Nader last time, I even get questions in my mind and you have to speak up. They are really going to run you right over and make you look like idiots, and I really want you to speak up. And what are you going to do?" - Katie Simenson to John Edwards, 9/7/04 ** Reply to Katie Simenson of Racine County Wisconsin by Stephen Elliott www.stephenelliot.com Dear Katie, Being an armchair quarterback is easy. Sitting in front of a television set and pulling your hair out burns very few calories. Second guessing is a popular sport predating the Olympics. The question is: What are you going to do? What are you going to do while our president squanders the country's resources and prestige on ill-planned wars in the Middle East? When massive surpluses have become massive deficits siphoning revenue from our communities to service the interest on a debt? When minorities are being denied their vote in Florida, again? When the Congressional Budget Office tells you, once more, that the administration has lied about the price of their wars, their medicare bills, intentionally misstating costs by hundreds of billions of dollars? When experts who disagree with the administration, rather than being debated, are simply labeled Democrats, or worse, liberals? While your social security and your children's education are given away in parcels to those that are already rich beyond your imagining? When you or someone you know doesn't have healthcare and Roe V. Wade is in deep peril and a national draft is just an inauguration away? When polluters are in charge of environmental policy and oil executives are writing your energy bills and your public utilities are being dismantled and sold to the highest bidder? While pension plans are plundered, the company employee is replaced with the contract worker, benefits are slashed, workplace standards are sabotaged, wages are cut, and jobs are shifted to countries without labor policies or environmental laws? And the United Nations – which was formed because the next great war is unthinkable – is ridiculed and derided at the Republican Convention? And when your leaders have been caught lying about the threat of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction and his ties to the terrorists and the response to being caught in their lies is to repeat them, and they are still repeating them today? What are you going to do as your world becomes less safe, less clean, less free? Because if you went to a fundraiser this week it's not enough. And if you wrote a letter to the editor this week it's not enough. And if you crafted some funny little piece about George Bush and posted it on your friend's website it's not enough. If you spent less than ten hours this week working to remove George W. Bush from office - you aren't doing enough. Democracy is participation. If you have children and a low paying job and are squeezed for time then you should be doing twice as much because you are the one who will suffer the most. If you are waiting for the perfect candidate to come along you will be waiting for the rest of your life. If you turn off on politics, politics will turn on you in a most disagreeable manner. George W. Bush is what happens when people aren't paying attention to the political process. If you're upset because your candidate is down in the polls and a swath of the nation seems poised to vote against their own interests and yours, then do something about it. We've been told there are no consequences, we can run up debt without having to pay the balance, we can make war without troops, and when the troops we do send die, the pictures are hidden from us by executive decree. When our country is attacked we're encouraged to keep shopping. We've been told we don't have to conserve energy as the automobile industry works legal loopholes through emission laws and Hummers and SUVs clog our streets and blacken our skies - as if there weren't a direct link to these monsters and the quagmire in the Middle East. We've grown to think government operates without oversight and politicians stopped asking us to make sacrifices a long time ago, after Jimmy Carter went on television wearing a sweater telling us to turn down the heat and promptly lost the election. Well, with eight weeks left we have to ask ourselves how much we are willing to give, if we care about the fate of our nation, which is the fate of all of us, because on November 3rd it will be too late. And if George Bush wins we'll all be wishing we had done more. Do more now. ** Some things you can do: Take a weekend road trip to a swing state to register voters: Driving Votes Throw a fundraiser for your favorite 527: Texans For Truth Get involved with your local John Kerry office: John Kerry Donate time on the web: Moveon posted by Stephen Elliott 7:36 AM | link | Tuesday, September 07, 2004 Who's the Reporter Here? "The debate has become an issue in the presidential campaign as Democrats have accused Mr. Bush of shirking his Guard duty and the White House has countered that records show the president did not." - From Elizabeth Bumiller in The New York Times. Instead of just quoting each side of the story, can't a newspaper like the Times just tell us which side is telling the truth. ie. "The White has countered that records show the president did not, though in fact, the records don't show that." or "The White House has countered, wrongly..." or "... but the White House appears to be lying." Surely they can fact check these responses before publishing them. posted by Stephen Elliott 10:10 PM | link | Sunday, September 05, 2004 Links Personal: I'll be reading with Eileen Miles, A.M. Homes, Moby, Anthony Swofford, and David Gates this Wednesday in Manhattan. Plus, Omaha Pulp reviews Happy Baby. Other: Neal Pollack has left the Republican party. Los Angeles schoolteacher Julianne Flynn has a well written weblog with interesting literary and filmic insights. I've been hanging out with Ward Sutton since Boston but I just checked out his cartoons for the first time. Guy's a genius. An open letter from Emily Weinstein to officials of the United States Government regarding "What's New In My Reproductive Area." posted by Stephen Elliott 7:44 AM | link | Saturday, September 04, 2004 Operation Ohio Now that the convention is over I should probably explain Operation Ohio, which has been essentially a full-time job for me since I turned in the manuscript for my book a month ago. In the end of September I'm going with a bunch of writers to Ohio to do voter registration readings at four universities. Why Ohio? Well, the common wisdom among the press set is that as Ohio goes so goes the election. I don't have any special knowledge to add to that, but pretty much every politico and pundit I've spoken with this past year has expressed that sentiment. So we're going to Ohio to give readings and register students. Then we're going to compile a list of students who would like to receive a phone call from an author on November 2nd reminding them to vote. Students will receive an email a week before the election telling them which author will be calling and what books that author has written. The authors doing the readings in Ohio are listed on the right of this page. The authors that have volunteered to call between 25 and 50 students on election day include ZZ Packer, Tobias Wolff, Dave Eggers, Ann Cummins, Michael Chabon, Glen David Gold, Gabe Hudson, Aimee Bender, Julie Orringer, Vendela Vida, Jim Shepard, Andrew Sean Greer, Anthony Swofford, and many others. If you're a student in Ohio, Florida, or Wisconsin, and would like to receive a phone call from an author on election day reminding you to vote, send an email to annielogue@gmail.com. The email must come from a university account, ie. florida.edu or osu.edu, and must include your name, school, and phone number. This is a non-partisan voter registration and turnout drive. It's also uncensored and the authors at the readings are free to express any opinions they want. posted by Stephen Elliott 9:55 AM | link | Links Josh Marshall is slowly building a strong case that at its base infers many of the hawks pushing us to invade Iraq were actually or were influenced by spies for Israel. Rereading that sounds really paranoid, and I don't want to propagate conspiracy theories. So there's this from the Washington Post. Also, James Wolcott now has a blog. posted by Stephen Elliott 8:25 AM | link | Friday, September 03, 2004 The Republican National Convention - Day 4 Updated! It would be easy to say that not much happened yesterday, when President George Bush put forward his plan for a second term in office, which wasn't really so much a plan as a string of generalizations brushed with a dark coat of fear. But things did happen, though there's still a lot of question as to what. The editorialists from the big newspapers I spoke with yesterday all thought that Zell Miller's Wednesday speech was a disaster. It didn't help that following his speech he challenged Chris Matthews to a duel. They wondered if Bush had repaired the damage done by crazy Zell and the consensus seemed to be that he hadn't. But there won't be polling results for another week and we may never really know beyond speculation tempered and distorted by hindsight. Sometimes, I feel like I live in a bubble, surrounded by liberals at home and writers on the road. But the fact is that everybody lives in a bubble, all we have are our snapshots and intuition. This is what happened from my end. I stayed in until four p.m. then trawled the Village looking for a t-shirt that said Gay And Proud on the back. It seemed like the correct message to bring to the floor of the convention. But I didn't find one. And I sat through the speeches wondering if I should scream something. It reminded me of college, when I saw a parked police car with the engine running, and had this sudden urge to steal it. Anyway, I couldn't find the shirt and I didn't steal the car and I arrived at Madison Square Garden just after seven o'clock. But there was nothing going on. While the Democrats had gone for eight hours a day the Republicans have been clocking in at under four and for the final day they would clock in at three. And a third of the seats were empty. The strangest part of the convention was still the phony reporter with the square, black RNC microphone interviewing delegates, the interviews projected on the big screen above the stadium. At one point there were live feeds from RNC parties in Ohio and other places, all courtesy of RNC TV. It was just like real news, except of course it wasn't. One could look at RNC TV as the next mutation of Fox News. With partisan television so popular now, and with Fox already accepted as the media arm of the Republican Party, why not just go one step further, which is what the Republicans have done. The strange thing about RNC TV was not that speakers were being projected on the screen of Madison Square Garden but more the deliberate illusion being created that they were actually being interviewed by a reporter when in fact the reporter was an actress, the interviewees were coached on what to say, the responses were scripted. This is the New New TV and it fits perfectly into the puzzle of illusion that was the Convention. Fake news, fake interviews, untrue assertions and accusations, a parade of black speakers and supporters when in fact the percentage of African Americans in the Republican Party is so low that one could feasibly claim, for all practical purposes, there are no black Republicans. Add to the mix the Republicans that were told to stay home, Tom Delay, John Ashcroft, or kept out of the limelight, Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, as well as those asked to speak during prime time, four out of eight speakers considered moderates, three of eight speakers pro-choice, and you pretty much have the anatomy of a lie. Bush's speech stretched for an hour, and like Cheney, he didn't veer much from his standard stump speech. There was this nugget of imperialism: "The story of America is the story of expanding liberty, an ever-widening circle, constantly growing to reach further and include more. Our nation's founding commitment is still our deepest commitment. In our world, and here at home, we will extend the frontiers of freedom." And then this: "Another priority in a new term will be to help workers take advantage of the expanding economy to find better, higher-paying jobs. In this time of change, many workers want to go back to school to learn different or higher-level skills. So we will double the number of people served by our principal job training program and increase funding for community colleges." I've heard this before from Bush. He talks about community colleges a lot and mentions often how many workers don't even have a two-year college education. Bush got to travel this past year as he learned some things that he was able to work into his oration, "As I've travelled the country, I've met many workers and small business owners who have told me they are worried they cannot afford health care." He also found out why, "As I have travelled our country, I have met too many good doctors, especially OB-GYNS, who are being forced out of practice because of the high cost of lawsuits." Bush continued the lies of transition and association that were the hallmark of the speakers over four days. "Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are history. More than 50 million people have been liberated, and democracy is coming to the broader Middle East." Every day at least one of the two prime-time speakers found a way to infer that Saddam Hussein was a threat to America and then backed it up by stating that people in the Middle East had been liberated. But the evidence and the conclusion had no relation and in fact, there was no evidence, just a series of conclusions, presented without support, in support of one another. Not much later Bush related a letter he had come across: "One Army Specialist wrote home - 'We are transforming a once sick society into a hopeful place ... The various terrorist enemies we are facing in Iraq' he continued, 'are really aiming at you back in the United States. This is a test of will for our country. We soldiers of yours are doing great and scoring victories in confronting the evil terrorists.' - That young man is right," Bush said. "Our men and women in uniform are doing a superb job for America." But actually, the letter was from Joe Roche, an adjunct fellow at the National Center For Public Policy Research. In other words, it wasn't a letter at all, it was a public relations stunt. Josh found me hunkered in the second press-row next to the Pittsburgh Gazette. "Did you hear what he just said?" Josh asked me. I was digging beneath the table for a wire or an extension chord. "I did," I told him, pushing my chair back and opening my bag. "A sick society full of various terrorist enemies." Josh was wild eyed and excited. He had been hanging out with a protester. She had snuck inside and she was going to pull her dress off revealing a pink slip written in damming slogans. "If she went right now it would be awesome," I said, forgetting what I was looking for or why I was looking for it. Then there was screaming, but it wasn't the woman Josh was with. The crowd turned on the protester, opposite the congressional gallery, unleashing a storm of boos inside the Garden just as Bush was re-making his case for going into Iraq. The president stuttered and didn't seem to recover. A short while later there was more screaming, a woman in a pink slip charged the media area, knocking over chairs, before disappearing inside a swell of security, briefly her leg or arm stuck from knot of holstered pistols, then she was gone. The delegates were booing again and the cameras were turned away from Bush's "clear moral purpose"and "careful diplomacy." The third protester was caught on tape. At the end of the night I crept through the city in a slow cab toward a French restaurant on the upper west side. I was with two journalists who knew more and had been doing this longer than me and would still be doing it after I was done. It seemed an appropriate place to finish the evening, a French restaurant. The one place in New York guaranteed absent any GOP. The streets were thick with barricades and demonstrations, the cops pulled their neon plastic fences across the streets. Protesters yelled at me through the open cab window, "Burn in hell Republican." I gave them the thumbs up, but why did they think I was a Republican? I hadn't made it home in two days and was wearing cargo pants, four earrings, and a Happy Baby t-shirt (which I later took off and gave to Steven Sherril). There was good wine and steak courtesy of The Washington Post. When M. ordered the wine the waitress lifted her chin smiling and said, "So, you know your wine." Later, the staff of The Majority Report showed up, and Bearman, Robert Smith and a gaggle of NPR reporters, editors from Harpers. We had all gravitated naturally to the anonymity offered by the French. I'm not a person that would necessarily know the difference between good and bad wine but in the morning I woke up in Brooklyn feeling better than if I hadn't drank at all. posted by Stephen Elliott 1:37 PM | link | Some Links and Notes I'll be reading in Manhattan September 8th. Come by if you can make it. Also, I have a very long article in the new issue of The Believer. It's all about the time I spent traveling with the Bush campaign through the swing states a couple of months ago. Sparrow reports from the protests, exclusive to stephenelliott.com. Check it out. Great post on Slate(via DailyKos) Josh Bearman turns out a bomber article for the LA Weekly. Why am I always flacking Josh Bearman you ask. One word, Bromance. MyDD has good numbers coverage. And Harold Meyerson is a f*&*ing cool guy. More on Zell Miller, the crazy person you love to point out is crazy. From The Washington Post: Unfortunately for Republicans, he added, it seemed as though their keynote speaker was "drunk or on drugs." posted by Stephen Elliott 10:05 AM | link | Thursday, September 02, 2004 Links a-Go-Go MyDD gives the comprehensive breakdown of the response to Zell Miller. Maud Newton has a great blog combining literature and politics and I don't just say that because she liked Happy Baby. It really is one of the very best blogs. I read it almost every day. Picture of Josh Bearman with his pretty publicist. posted by Stephen Elliott 12:03 PM | link | The Republican Convention - Day 3 At 5pm Captain Morgan was campaigning on the edge of Bryant Square on the Americans For A Better Party ticket. He spoke loudly and there was a model with him dressed in heels and fishnets and a torn shirt. There were also eight or nine people carrying signs in support of electing the Captain. "That's the real Captain," Stephen Maliszewski, an account manager for consumer brands from Edelman, said to Josh and I. "He's been the Captain for seven years." Stephen offered us T-shirts that said Captain Morgan For President as well as a press release stating that Americans were tired of serious political debate. Later that night, in Madison Square Garden, a security guard stole my press passes. "Why do you have all these passes?" he asked. I explained that some were from yesterday and the day before. He wanted to know why the numbers didn't match between my seat pass and floor pass and I tried to explain how the Congressional Press Gallery operated but he wasn't really interested. "I'm keeping these," he said, holding my Tuesday perimeter and seat passes. "Why are you stealing my souvenirs?" I asked. Because the truth was that he was leaving me with two perfectly valid passes, one of which I could have passed on to a liberal, but keeping two passes that had already expired. But I was the only guy in the convention center wearing earrings and I've grown used to being harassed. Then Senator Zell Miller came on stage and accused John Kerry of wanting to arm the military with spitballs. He drew the line between Saddam and terrorists the way all the speakers have drawn it so far, with plausible deniability. "George Bush is committed to providing the kind of forces it takes to root out terrorists. No matter what spider hole they may hide in or what rock they crawl under." Of course, when he said spider hole he meant Saddam and when he said terrorists he meant al-Qaeda and what makes a lie is intent. Miller continued, "Nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators." Whether it was true or not didn't seem to matter. The idea that American troops are liberators, no matter where they go or why they're there, might seem like a scary philosophy. But that's only because it is. One thing I've heard a lot of is that people don't like seeing Bush compared to Hitler or Republicans - and yes, I am also calling Zell a Republican - compared to Nazis and to those people I respond, 'I'm sorry you feel that way.' The idea that Americans could never commit the same atrocities as Germans is in direct contrast to the idea that all men are created equal. And while it's true that we haven't started shipping the Jews to concentration camps, anybody that can't see how fascistic the rhetoric of this convention is, clearly isn't listening. And it's not just the rhetoric of fascism, ie. American troops are always liberators, it's a paid in full subscription to Hitler's notion that it's better to tell a big lie (WMD) than a small one (combat ribbons). Also, like the Nazis, the Republicans have created their own media. Fascism has not taken full hold of America, but given a chance it could. "Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending," Miller said, as signs waved across the Garden - Let Freedom Reign. But instead of reign I thought rain and in place of freedom I saw bullets and then I thought I was losing it again. Any time a speaker mentioned France of the United Nations everybody booed. Then there was Cheney whose speech was not substantively different from the speech he's been delivering for a while now. He was introduced by his wife who didn't say much except that her husband was very serious as an adolescent, not like the other boys who trawled between the fast food restaurants in their small town. "President Bush reached across the aisle," Cheney said, "and brought both parties together to pass the most significant education reform in 40 years. With higher standards and new resources." And by new resources he really meant less resources and then I wondered if they were co-opting the word 'new' the way they co-opted the word 'optimism'. And I thought about language and how quickly it corrupts and degrades into something else. A secret service officer slipped his arm around my ribs and tugged my credential, making sure I was legally on the floor. There had been protesters already. They had volunteered for the convention and then during some speeches they pulled their shirts off to reveal other shirts that said something like, 'Bush is a lying baby killer', or something like that. And I've been thinking about wearing my own interesting shirt to the convention on Thursday. My connection in the Bloomberg office has assured me that she'll get me out of jail as long as I don't do anything too egregious. I missed whatever Dick said next and tuned in again when he stated, "Our nation has the best health care in the world, and President Bush is making it more affordable and accessible to all Americans." I don't have health insurance. If I get sick or beat up I'm in trouble. Cheney followed this with a lie of transition. "In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat, and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein. Seventeen months ago, he controlled the lives and fortunes of 25 million people. Tonight he sits in jail." I used to teach LSAT classes for Kaplan and Princeton Review and this is the kind of statement a person would often see in the logical reasoning portion of the test under a heading like, which one of these statements represents circular reasoning. With day three done I left the Garden for Chelsea Piers and the Billionaires For Bush party. This was our third agi-prop theater event. The first being Communists For Kerry who were hanging out on top of the Union Square Station last Saturday dressed like Fidel Castro and Vladimir Lenin and handing out band-aids courtesy of, "John Kerry's healthcare plan." I understood where they were coming from, the urge to mock the other side. Then there was Captain Morgan, representing Corporate agi-prop, intended to keep the consumers doped up and voter turnout surpressed. And finally liberal agi-prop, Billionaires For Bush, and their dark history from 2000. The Billionaires party was on a pier and there was live music and dancing below the hull of a docked boat. They danced in thrift store outfits: black dresses and mock pearls, long leather jackets stitched with Enron logos, boas and gowns. It was twenty dollars to get in but press was free. "We're media whores," a representative told me. The party went late and at three in the morning the police came to inspect the alcohol bottles for fruit flies. It was a good time and I felt like I was part of this group of young media hipsters. And that was day three. Theater mixed with lies, finished off with a few beers and a view of the New Jersey Shore. posted by Stephen Elliott 11:23 AM | link | Wednesday, September 01, 2004 The Republican National Convention - Day 2 The Sex Issue I should have more to say about day two of the RNC then I do but after day one I was already burnt out so I spent most of yesterday away from Madison Square Garden trying to scrub my mind. I met Mistress Yin for lunch on the upper west side and she explained to me that the Republican who call her are more into intense degradation and strap-on play then most. They like to be humiliated. They like to be forced to dress as women and then laughed at. (see footnote) "I didn't know I had so much in common with Republicans," I said. Then I said, "Just kidding." Mistress Yin continued to explain the difference. The Republicans weren't like most of her clients who liked pain and extensive bondage. They like to be shamed. There's a lot of self-loathing. Mistress Yin says she prefers men who want to dress as women to men who want to be forced to dress as women. An interesting and new distinction between Democrats and Republicans. I didn't make it inside the convention until ten o'clock. Every time I got close I changed my mind and ran off to some protest somewhere. But the police were efficient and the city did not shut down. Inside the hall there were more people than Monday. They came to see Arnold and the president's wife. Still the crowd didn't approach the colorful mass of the DNC, especially in the colorful regard. "It's so white out there," one of the security guards joked to his friend near gate 77. "It looks like glue." Schwarzenegger told his immigrant story. He referred to Democrats as "economic girlie-men." He spoke of how America was the light of the world and how we had stood with the "young Chinese man in front of those tanks in Tianenmen Square" and how we celebrated "when Nelson Mandela smiled in election victory after all those years in prison," which seemed an implicit criticism of Dick Cheney (while in Congress Cheney voted against every House resolution calling for the release from prison of Nelson Mandela). Like most of the speeches so far Schwarzenegger focused on militarism. The pride of pre-emption and the joys of unilataralism. "If you believe this country, not the United Nations, is the best hope of democracy in this world, then you are a Republican," he said. After Schwarzenegger's speech I went to the media building and stole a pack of SPF pads from the Barney's spa. I figured I could stay and listen to Laura Bush talk about her husband's compassion or find something more honest, so I walked down 11th Avenue to the strip club. I checked my bag at the door but brought Cloud Atlas in with me. I'm almost done with it, and though I wasn't too fond of the second part of the Louisa Rey story, the five-hundred page tome made a nice table prop. "What are you reading," the first girl asked me, running a hand through my hair and touching my shirt which was soaked with sweat from walking the city with a heavy pack all day. I told her it was a novel, a good one. I asked her where all the Republicans were. "They come in around one," she told me. "You should have been here on Sunday night. There were a bunch of them, all wearing hats and they brought their wives who wore flowered dresses. It was the wives who wanted lap dances." I nodded my head. She asked me if I wanted a dance or something and I told her I was waiting for some friends which was kind of true since I had tried to get Ellen Warren to come hang out with me. I had also sent the word to Matt Klam, Anthony Swofford and Josh Bearman and if everybody showed we'd have a veritable writers table. But nobody did and I was alone, as usual. By one p.m there were a few Republicans in the bar. "How can you tell?" I asked. The lady gave me a look that said, are you kidding. I counted eight out of maybe thirty-five customers total by the time I left at 1:20a.m. I wrote a book about strippers once, about straight guys that strip in gay clubs and why they might be interested in that line of work. But it wasn't very well reviewed and people didn't seem to like it so it was never released in paperback. But that's not what any of this is about. This is about the Republican Convention and the speeches denouncing international cooperation, the idea that you have to be the first to attack and that no slight goes without redress. About the exploitation of a people's anger and fear and the twisting of those emotions into a lust for revenge. It's about pride, and nationalism which Republicans have renamed "optimism" and how easily the worst instincts in people goosestep across the militarist plank paying no attention to history's knots in the wood. It seemed possible, that in the dim-lighting of 11th Avenue, the half naked women squirming from satin dresses and wiggling across the seats, latching an arm around the back of the paying customer's neck, their nails painted with glow-in-the-dark polish. It seemed reasonable that with my book on the bar table and surrounded by man's most basic instinct, more primal even than violence, that I would forget some of what I'd seen. And for an hour or two I did. ** From Mistress Yin: "I would appreciate if you could reword the theory of Republicans and humiliation- it's just a theory, not really a fully realized explanation. I don't offer strap on training or forced feminization scenes to my clients, so that is just an assumption. I think it's important to include that most lifestyle BDSM players are not likely to be social conservatives." posted by Stephen Elliott 9:33 AM | link | gratuitous links Way more than tangential links between Bush and Swift Boat Veterans for Draft Dodging. Will Durst, who is funny as hell, weighs in on the moderate Republicans. Travis LaFrance goes undercover at a conservative dating party. Or does he? While you're here please buy my novel. Think of it as a way to give back for all the free content. And look, it got such a nice review in the New York Times. posted by Stephen Elliott 8:10 AM | link | |
|
 Full-size cover Pre-order from Amazon 
"Any true love story, if told with the urgency and animal intelligence of love, isn't for the fainthearted. On every page of this profound, distilled work of art, Stephen Elliott wrestles with the unknown and unspoken essences of love, and articulates that unknown so beautifully, with such clear-eyed fearlessness... Imagine a glass of pure water with one drop of blood hanging in its center, about to dissolve... Then drink it and be transformed." -Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City "There's an emotional courage to these stories, and a sense of urgency, that are thrilling to encounter. Elliott writes as if his life depended on each sentence. It is not overstating the case to say that he does for the BDSM community in this book what Denis Johnson did for lost druggies in Jesus' Son." - Steve Almond, The Believer Magazine Best of the year: Salon.com, San Francisco Chronicle Reviews: Salon.com, LA Weekly, The Believer Excerpts: My Stripper Year, Just Always Be Good Purchase from Amazon, Powells, Cleis, and your local bookstore 
"Happy Baby is surely the most intelligent and beautiful book ever written about juvenile detention centers, sadomasochism, and drugs." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review Best of the year: Village Voice, Salon.com, Chicago New City, The Journal News Awards: Finalist Young Lions Award, Silver Medal California Book Award Reviews: The New York Times, Salon.com, Village Voice Excerpts: Stalking Gracie Part 3 Purchase from Amazon, Powell's, and your local bookstore 
"Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Richard Ben Cramer: the great, all-American genre of the political campaign in extenso (and in extremis) has had its Homers and Boswells. To that list we can now add Stephen Elliott. Hilarious, strange, electrifyingly written, and heart-pumpingly idealistic, Looking Forward to It wins every literary caucus and primary in a landslide." -Tom Bissell, author of Chasing the Sea Best of the year: Village Voice Reviews: New York Magazine, New York Times Excerpts: The Dennis Kucinich Polka, A John Edwards Almanac Purchase from Amazon, Powell's (cheap!), and your local bookstore 
"A Life Without Consequences was harrowing, hard as nails, brutal, and soaring. Stephen Elliott has to be watched, because he knows things almost no one else could." - Dave Eggers, author of A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius and What Is The What Excerpt: Adlai Stevenson House Reviews: Austin American Statesman Purchase from Amazon |
