Emails From The Nader Campaign

Day 1 and 2

I gave a reading, I got drunk, I got on a plane and twelve hours later I am at a small diner a block from the Nader headquarters eating breakfast for $1.85, greasy potatoes, bacon, eggs, bad coffee. I swallow, I digest, I arrive at the Nader headquarters ready for work. The headquarters are not fancy. Boxes everywhere. Volunteers mailing out bumper stickers and T-shirts. The phones are ringing. The first person I meet is Amy. Amy says I look tired and asks me if I would like a hug. I say no, I would like a bed. She says, you really look like you need a hug. I say no, really I need a bed. Amy will drive me crazy for the first two days. When Josh complains of losing his cellular phone which he left in a cab in New York Amy assures him he'll get it back because once she lost her credit card and somebody sent it back to her. Amy says she has good karma. Amy tells Quetta not to drink diet coke. It kills brain cells. It's worse than cancer. Quetta says her aunt has cancer and Amy tells Quetta how to cure her aunt using holistic medicines. Quetta hates Amy. I decide Amy is a dirty hippy. Fortunately, she is not in my van.

Chris is in my van. Chris is a 45-year-old ex-navy officer shitkicker from Atlanta, Georgia weighing in at 6'4" and 240 pounds. A lifelong Republican until hearing Ralph speak last May. He doesn't take shit from anybody. He's says we're gonna go south and raise some hell. I assure him I am behind him all the way. He asks me where I'm from and I tell him San Francisco. He says he has a wife that lives there.

The first two days are spent in groups of four and six writing and rehearsing our scripts for street theater, watching videos and talking about how to throw a house party. We are going to show up at Republican offices and Democratic offices and try to clean the offices and hand out soap and ask them not to take any more money from big corporations. We're bringing sock puppets and videocassettes. The sock puppets represent Gore and Bush but really, they are just socks. The joke is that you wear them on both right hands. I realize that we will be beat and our attackers will be minimum wage earning uninsured flanneled hillbillies in Alabama. We will be stoned by black people that were fired from Marriott for trying to form a union. I will be molested by a man whose cousin is serving twenty years for smoking marijuana. We will be unable to fight back because the attacks will come during the puppet show and it would look to silly to fight with sock puppets on our hands. They will beat us like the fools we are. Our faces bruised and battered and our teeth gone we will assimilate into the local population. We will never be heard from again.

The first two days we talk about non-voters and the disillusioned. A lot of people in California and New York and Illinois are afraid to waste their vote on Nader but they don't realize those states are so solidly democratic that there is no chance of Bush winning one of those states. We talk about prisons filled with non-violent criminals. We talk about the death penalty. Somebody points out a particular issue is unpopular with voters. They say a lot of voters support the death penalty and somebody else says we shouldn't care what is unpopular with voters. That's the difference between us and them. I think it's me that says that. And at the end of the second day of training, before heading out on the van, before the moment when I pose for a picture for all the left wing newsrags in front of the national pressclub wearing a janitor uniform and holding up a big sign, I go on a date with an old girlfriend Michelle who just happens to live in Washington D.C. now. I leave the office at 8pm to meet her. That's considered early. I never really liked Michelle except that she smelled so good and felt so good and looked so good. Truth be told I would have stolen a car for her once upon a time. The problem with Michelle is she would expect me to steal a car every time I saw her. She constantly needed me to prove my affection and I can only hold up the false face for so long. Michelle works for Arthur Anderson. She takes me for sushi. She asks me if I remember where we were on my birthday two years ago. It takes a minute and then I say yes, we were at the south park cafe and she gave me a beige sweater from Eddie Bauer with three buttons on the collar. She asks me if I still have the sweater and I say no, I lost it.

Dinner is quick but tasty and Michelle looks good, but cold, like always. And while diverted momentarily from her breasts I remember what short arms she has. This makes me feel better. As she is driving me back to the youth hostel she asks me if she should break up with her boyfriend and I say no. A peck on the cheek later I'm back at the youth hostel. We are believers. We will make a difference.

Day 3

There's a press conference. The vans aren't ready and we spend $60 dollars going to Maryland and back. The natives are restless. Moral is low. Nothing is going right. Our coordinator has a nervous breakdown. I tell him he needs to learn a few things. Chris offers to take his place. We stuff envelopes. We make phone calls. We organize. We make progress. We receive ten thousand bars of soap with really cool designs on it that we are going to give on the road as we clean up the campaign. At 6pm the first van arrives. It is beautiful. It looks like a huge box of Tide and says corporate cleanup crew on it. We are overjoyed and we high five and we pose and take pictures. I peel the diesel fuel only sticker off of the gas tank. At 8pm I have a conversation with Ralph Nader out in front of headquarters. He signs my book, to Steve Elliott. For Justice. He is warm, like an uncle or a grandpa. He hangs out in corduroys and a flannel shirt. He tells me if I get in trouble in Knoxville to call his lawyer friend J.D. Lee. I tell him about Tulia Texas. He says we should send a van there. He gives great advice. If you see a small town newspaper building, stop in and say hi. Tell them what you're doing. It's not about the election; it's about after the election. It's about building an alternative political party. He speaks to me and Quetta and Amy and Amy says something stupid. And Chris is there as well and when Nader goes we all decide, he is a good man. And that is important. Because it's hard to be sure until you meet someone.

Day 4

I met my first cousin last night. He lives in D.C. and the van was delayed one more day so I contacted him and he said I could crash at his house. I'd never met him before. He said look for the bald guy in the leather jacket. We met up at the fountain in Dupont Circle at 11p.m. I'd been stuffing envelopes all day. We dropped my bags at his place and went for a beer but then I remembered my wallet was in my bag but he wouldn't let me go back for it. He took me to a place that served 300 different kinds of beer. I ordered something local. He ordered a cider. He wanted to know about my father's side of the family. He said my father once wrote him a letter calling him a pussywhipped faggot. I say, yeah. My father's like that.

Today our van finally arrived. Chris and I loaded up and got out. Chris joked about bringing a shotgun. We have to be on the radio tomorrow in Chattanooga, TN. It's a long drive. It's gonna be a long night. Quetta called me from headquarters and told me that a reporter in Florida was interviewing the van crew down there and expressed concern that the van was diesel and was polluting the air and aren't we the green party? The clean air party? I asked Quetta if she'd hooked up a place to stay yet. She's been sleeping on the floor at headquarters. She doesn't have any money. She said no, not yet. I said, I bet my cousin would put you up for a few days.

We travel through Virginia and then Tennessee. Along the way we trade our insights and ideas. I realize that Chris is essentially a right leaning communist. He believes in compulsory civil service and the right to own a shotgun. For my part, I'm a libertarian that believes the primary function of the government should be to stop the corporations and the rich from stepping on the rights of the poor. My political ideology is most closely paralleled in nature by the spotted pink Bengalis tiger. We are complex and interesting. We will change the world. The subject of God comes up. The trees are turning color. They have fall in this part of the country. Chris and I laugh. We don't believe in God or ghosts or spirits. We are atheists. But it gets me thinking on the parallel between politics and religion. Many people working on the campaign are clearly atheists. But here we are, driving through small towns, giving speeches, trying to save people from themselves. We hope to convert and we do it in the name of what we think is right. Are we empty? Do we cling to this like Christians to a cross? Are we perhaps just a bunch of misfits looking for where we fit in? A meaning to life? Something to do with our time? A church? I worry that I have joined a cult.

It's gotten dark and Chris has been sleeping in the passenger seat while I play memories in my head like old silent movies. We pull into the Super 8. We have five hours. In the morning we must get to Chattanooga.

Day 5

A day of action at last! The alarm blows at 6a.m. and we hit the road to Chattanooga. We get lost. Chris' fuse starts to burn. I realize that our personalities are like our beliefs. Sometimes he gets angry and violent. Sometimes I get sad and tired. At 10a.m. we've found our way and we are on the radio with the local coordinator and the state coordinator. Deborah and Geary. WGOW is the largest radio in the area, broadcast in three states. We accept phone calls and questions from morons and politicians trying to advance their own agenda. One man calls in and says he doesn't think he should pay more taxes just because he makes over $300,000. That's why he went to school. Deborah responds that you are supposed to go to school to learn civics. We are spreading the word. Letting the disillusioned know there is a movement.

Elizabeth Dole is speaking outside of the McKinsey Coliseum. We park the van out front and hold up a sign and our mops. A crowd of 100 loyal republicans have shown up to hear the speakers. The republicans open with prayers. God wants George W. Bush in the white house. God has delivered the republicans unto us. They stand in attendance, children in their arms, long golden hair flowing like a yellow river over their shoulders. But the press! They don't care about Elizabeth Dole and her husband Bob. They want to know who the freaks are with the mop buckets in the janitor uniforms with the big crazy van that looks like an enormous box of Tide. We tell them our story. We tell them a third party is emerging. When the republicans finish they pray and then they are marching to the poles to vote early. But we are ahead of them! Four of us with Nader signs leading our flock of God fearing republicans to the poles. The cars driving by honk. They have never seen fifty people marching for Nader before. We are interesting and clever in our tactics. Deborah buys us lunch.

After that we hang out at Deborah's house for a bit and I think she makes eyes at Chris. I tell Chris, get yourself a Chattanooga girl. Chris says he is married. And he loves his wife, even though she won't talk to him because he is mean. He says, "Steve, there's lonely women all over this country."

And I say, "Yeah, but you're both old, with white hair."

Day 6

Chris Talks Guns and Bombs

We traveled over the Smokies today. All of the trees shimmering bowls of red and orange and yellow. We were going to attend a town hall debate for state representative in the Rabun County Courthouse, Clayton, Georgia. Chris said to me, "I'll tell you what, after this election, I'm gonna get violent." I raised my eyebrows and smiled awkwardly. He brought up Lori, the girl from the other van. She has been wearing an ISO button. International Socialist Organization. Chris said, "ISO is hardcore. They are determined to turn the whole thing upside down, by any means necessary. They're building bunkers. You better lookout. There's going to be trouble." He lit up a cigarette. The van hit a bump. "The republicans and the democrats are going to sabotage us, with all their money. I'm not going to take it." He looked to me with a look that asked if I was willing to carry a gun. If I would die in the frontlines. It was 5p.m. A sliver of shade was painting the spoon shaped slope of the mountains. We were wearing our janitor uniforms covered in green party buttons. Green baseball caps on our head. The trees have changed color.

The Decline Of The Democrats

At town hall the local pastor approached us. He asked for a five-dollar donation for the hospital and I said I was out asking for donations myself. He said, "See, that's where you're wrong. It's got to go both ways."

I said, "Does that mean if I give you five dollars you will give it right back to me?"

The town hall debate was amazing. I am at Kerri's house up in the loneliest hills of Georgia. Kerri is the green party candidate for state representative. And she spoke so beautifully during the debate that I wanted to cry. She wanted to know why they were building a 260-bed prison when they never had more than 30 prisoners and the state already had more beds than prisoners. She wanted to know why the democrat incumbent had voted in favor of narrowing the creeks. The incumbent explained that it was a compromise between the environmentalists and the business interests. The skin on his face was falling right off the bone. Kerri was amazing. When she said something she smiled at the fifty people in attendance and it looked like it hurt, her cheekbones lifted so high. She played hippy songs on her guitar as the people walked into the hall. We showed our support. The county coroner was also running for reelection, all bald and pointy headed. The coroner shook when he talked and forgot his words. I think the lights were hurting his eyes. He's been the coroner for 44 years, and he was asking for our vote.

Most interesting to me was the republican candidate for representative. He said he was pro-life and against the death penalty. Only God should take life. He was clearly an idiot, but I never doubted his integrity, unlike his blatantly dishonest democratic opponent.

We've been running around handing out bars of soap, trying to clean up the political process. We've been in D.C., Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. We've spoken on campuses and in city hall. The political mood is as obvious as a Rorschach inkblot. The republicans love their candidates. Most republicans are just stupid thinking they are doing Gods will. They are more pink, with worse skin and they wear bad clothes. But they love their candidate. They really want George Bush to be president. They are proud of the president's son. That he is dumb and has been given everything he has is a source of pride to the republicans. They believe that turning down federal money in favor of corporate funding is a source of honor. They want school vouchers. They want to lower the minimum wage and criminalize labor unions. But they are not afraid to speak their ignorant minds and there is something to be said for that. NOBODY wants Al Gore to be president. People vote for Al Gore for only one reason: They hate George Bush. They hate Bush so much they would vote for anyone else. Even someone with a record of voting pro-life. Someone in favor of more military spending. Someone against universal health care. Someone in favor of capital punishment and other forms of institutional racism. They will accept all of that, as an alternative to Bush. The democrats have sold themselves up the river. Obvious crooks. At least the republicans mean it when they say something stupid. They really are stupid. The democrats just act stupid because that's what they think you want to hear. They have forced a green movement that didn't exist a year ago. They will lose their place in line to people that wear sundresses and smoke pot every night and hang copper goddess statues above their beds. The democrats are ceasing to exist. There is no reason for them. They don't even like their own candidates. The 55% of the population that didn't vote in the last election were all democrats. Many republicans have stopped at our tables and told me why they are voting for Bush. Nobody has done that for Gore, not even in his homestate of Tennessee. Not even on the University of Tennessee campus. The democrats bite their lips and delicately accept buttons and bumper stickers with the tips of their fingers. They look confused. They are unsure. What is the right thing to do? In a state like Georgia where Bush has a sixteen-point lead the answer is obvious. But in other places, like Missouri, democrats are locking themselves in their bathrooms and popping little blue pills. They drink to forget. They read the comics instead of the news. They watch Saturday Night Live instead of the debates. They are sad and hungry. They stare at the sky and wish they could see the ocean and if they could how long would it take them to swim somewhere far away and come back in four years. In four years things will be better. Things will be different.

Day 7

Chris Steals My Socks

We sleep at Kerri and Hughes out in the Georgia Hills. Before going to bed we watch George Bush on David Letterman. Letterman hammers him on the death penalty. He jokes, "You Texans sure do have a high electricity bill." We get to sleep by 2 and we are up by 5a.m. to make the five hour drive to Columbia, South Carolina.

I go to grab my laundry out of Kerri's dryer. I can't seem to get my eyes open. Maybe I am going blind. I grab my pants and shirts but all my socks are gone. Chris has already cleared his half of the load and is fumbling with the zipper on his bag while Hugh, the head of the Georgia green party reads us a speech he wrote while up all night writing and smoking pot.

"Chris," I say. "I think you have my socks."

"Well," he replies stopping what he is doing. We are tired. We cannot think. "I suppose if they are the same color as my socks which are white than I might have taken them."

I don't say anything else. I pull my DocMarten shoes on over my bare feet, go out to the van and sit in the passenger seat. Chris comes moments later and we're on our way. I sleep against the seat belt. I've learned this trick where I wrap the seat belt twice around my bicep and then rest my head against it. It's very comfortable.

When I wake it is seven in the morning and my turn to drive. Chris is pulling into a Texaco because he knows I will need coffee. We joke about the horrible gas station coffee.

"I'd give anything for a Starbucks," I say. We laugh. The days are long. We're for Nader. We don't like Starbucks. But really, I would like a Starbucks coffee. Then I say, "Hello sir. Can I have a cup of your shitty ass wretched small town southern coffee for ninety three cents?" We laugh some more.

"Tell 'em that," Chris says. "That'll get us votes."

I buy my coffee and we get back in the van. Things are OK again. I'm going to drive and Chris lays his head against the window.

"You know, Chris," I say. "Those are my only socks. I only brought three pairs of socks."

"We'll get 'em out," he says.

"I didn't want to make a big deal out of it this morning. Seeing as we were so tired."

"We'll get your socks," he replies.

I better not catch him wearing my underwear, I think to myself.

Columbia, South Carolina

The people of Columbia are good people. We meet Leslie at her store. Leslie has long red hair, a tight face with cheeks like the moon. She sells leather and latex and Halloween is coming and Halloween is the busiest time of the year. Her store serves as the green party headquarters for Columbia, South Carolina. We sit and talk and I finger a pair of fishnets hanging on a rack. She's happy to see us. We are happy to see her.

We drive over to USC and I trick the staff there into opening the gates and letting us drive the closed road into the center of campus. "You have been expecting us," I tell them. They nod slowly. We drive our big white van with our big slogans up in front of the Russel House. We are met by members of the press. Leslie has given us plastic masks of Gore and Bush. We are young and immature. Our supporters wear the masks and Chris tapes a dollar sign to his chest and acts like he is controlling puppets and I fire questions at him as we mock the presidential debates. The crowd loves us. We are heroes. But we are tired from the drive and the road. A radio station is playing hip hop. We are dressed like janitors again and I start dancing in front of the party table, shaking and rattling with all the buttons on me. We trick the staff into letting us out. It is time to visit congressman Floyd Spence.

We set up cleaning crew signs in front of the republican office. We are tired and angry. I told Chris on the drive over there, "I will dissolve into this seat and you will never see me again." The press follows us in red Toyota hard top trucks. We stand in the parking lot, five greens, two janitors, two reporters. They ready their cameras and tape players. "OK," I say, grabbing my mop firmly in my left hand. "Let's go in." We are tired and angry. We push open the doors. The press follows.

"I want to see Floyd Spence!" I practically yell.

"He's not here," I am told.

"Well, I want to know how it is he can take $50,000 from private defense contractors and be head of the house arms services committee. I believe that is a conflict of interest. Would you like to say anything about that?"

"No."

"OK. Well thanks for listening. I'd like to leave you this soap and I hope you will clean up your campaign."

"Thank you."

"Thank you sir." We shake hands and then Chris and I leave. The press stays trying to get a comment. We head back to Leslie's for a quick nap before tonight's fundraiser.

Day 8

The Girls Of Charleston College Throw A Party For Nader

Sweet little Jessica wears flowered skirts and tank tops with no bra. She laughs easily and dances by stretching her arm out and spinning in circles while her favorite band plays rock and roll at the Purple Pelican on the South Carolina shoreline. We walk on the sea shells and she tells me of driving through the redwood jungle and getting out and hugging a tree and she spreads her arms out for me and lowers her head to show me what she means and I can see her dressed in shimmering silk like Tinkerbell and dwarfs come out of the trees and latch onto Jessica's legs and the nuclear reactor winks at Jessica with one eye before shutting its doors and the Chiapas Indians send her postcards of thanks and the dolphins whistle her song in the ocean for sweet little Jessica.

Sweet little Claire takes pictures of the bands and collects five dollars at the door. She helps me work the table. We collect names and ask people to vote. She lives on the Atlantic and she invites me to spend the night. There are nine girls living there, on the ocean, attending the College of Charleston. I wonder if I am in heaven and what I did to deserve it. Between sets I am invited to the stage. I tell people to call five people on November 7 and invite them to go to the polls, and then to go home and call five more. They will be heroes. After my speech the masses come to the table. Claire in a light green shirt, brown hair running down her neck like honey. Bring five, I tell everybody, like a mantra. There's too many beautiful girls here. I can't concentrate. My mouth talks politics but porno movies are currently playing at the local cinema in my mind.

I go back to Karen and Elizabeth's house to get a nap. I lay down on the couch and wake to the sound of Karen coughing and laughing with people on the front porch. It's that southern drawl that kills me. Then they are gone and I sleep again. When I wake it is 10p.m. I have to go back to the party and perform a puppet show. I see a picture of Elizabeth naked in the corner of her bathroom mirror. It's a good picture. I shower and head out. On the way back I run into Elizabeth with two other girls but when I arrive the girls skate off and it is just Elizabeth and I and the sound of the water.

"I like your place," I tell her.

"Yes," she says to me. "We are truly blessed to be here. We have community."

I nod.

"Why don't you come over for breakfast," she says. I wonder if she is going to kiss me. "Do you eat eggs?"

I notice her jeans, the frills on the bottom of her shirt. "Yes. I eat everything."

Do you remember how happy you used to be? That's what these kids are tonight. Playing music and sitting in the corner talking about cocaine and ecstasy. They are having the best days of the best days of their lives. They are part of a movement and the music is good and the air is hot and humid and the night is full of star and sky. The girls wear the latest backless shirts and the boys walk slouched, smiling, fingers gripping a cold bottle of beer, fake IDs proclaiming just turned 21. Somebody put out six boxes of donuts and the porch is filled with revelers and people are whispering their deepest secrets to one another over by the video games. So young, so in love. Everything matters. Everyone cares. The band is really jamming tonight and when the bar closes there's always the beach because it's hot and humid and Saturday. Life is a raging success. It's not over. The bar closed, but the band isn't done. The kids are not tired. There's a house, called the fort, on the marsh, with a dog. And five college students live there. And you have to speed over the sand dunes or you'll never make it through. And hundreds of students, stoned and brimming with good intentions, descend on the marsh, and I open a beer, my first of the night, and the music starts again.

Day 9

The morning comes to Karen and Elizabeth's house and I'm rubbing my eyes on the couch and Elizabeth is sitting in front of me wearing ruby colored pajamas.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Like a baby."

"I'm so glad."

There's been no word from Chris. He left me in this beach front paradise for a house party fundraiser in Augusta, Georgia. Karen comes out of her bedroom in a flowing nitie. Blond hair curling over her shoulders. Elizabeth leaves and Karen takes me to lunch. And it's on the way to lunch that I start to understand. We pull into Mondo's, a sandwich shop. Mermaids pass by carrying loads of laundry. The girls in the restaurant all greet Karen like the left wing vote getting activist royalty she is. We sit down and I say, "I don't get it."

"What?" she asks sipping a cup of water with a lemon cut into it.

"The women here. You're all beautiful. And there are no men."

"Oh, I know. It's crazy. There's seven girls for every guy in this town."

I spit my orange juice into my glass and just manage to answer the campaign phone before choking to death curled up on the restaurant floor in a fetal ball. It's Chris. The van has broken down in Georgia. He'll come and pick me up as soon as it is fixed and he hopes I'm having a good time. "Hurry up," I tell him. "I don't know if I'm going to make it."

"Don't tell me what to do dagumbitt! I'll fix this thing and get there soon as I can." He hangs up the phone. Karen smiles at me. I wonder if I'm dreaming.

It's a haze from that point. I expect to log onto the internet and find out that Gore and Bush have both withdrawn from the race. "I'm too stupid to be president," Bush declares to a roomful of stunned journalists. "I'm a liar," Al Gore admits. "My therapist tells me it's a compulsive disorder. I'm going to start taking paxil." They both cede to Ralph candidly admitting Nader is simply the best man for the job.

I walk along the beach, kicking the sand. It's that perfect kind of hot. The kind you don't feel. I lay on the beach with Elizabeth and her ex-boyfriend John who leaves right away as if I had willed it. I get comfortable on my towel with a fine view of Elizabeth and the South Carolina sun. Elizabeth unsnaps her bikini top. "Nothing wrong with breasts," she proclaims. We talk but I don't remember too much. Just when she says, "I love sex. I have always loved sex." Chris hasn't called in hours. The van is busted, the campaign over. I have been stranded in some strange Nirvana by a force greater than myself and far beyond my control. I realize I will always be here in Charleston, South Carolina. I have always been here. I was searching for the purple grass but it was underneath my feet the whole time. The key was in my possession I simply needed to open the door. The ocean and the sands swallow me peacefully in a rising din of sun and warmth.

Day 11

I told her I would make her breakfast in the morning but then she woke up before I did. By the time I awoke all that was left was an apple and some soy milk and I found myself wondering, what's up with hippies and soy milk? Are the lactose intolerant more likely to protest? Or is it something in the marijuana that makes it impossible to digest dairy products?

In the morning, the sun is burning through the ocean fog and I walk along the streets of the College of Charleston. The girls are arriving for their class, thousands of them, long arms crossed over their books, funneling into the university. Here and there a boy walks amongst them in a bright orange polo or a sweatshirt. The boys are outnumbered. The girls would destroy them in Dionysian festivals and throw their bodies to the wolves. And then I see sweet little Claire. The most beautiful of all the 10,000 women of the College of Charleston. We embrace on the sidewalk and I tell her my time here is coming to an end. The batphone has been ringing. I am to board a greyhound to Savannah. We have to do something about the republicans frying the blacks in Texas. The forces of evil are brewing in Georgia. We have a mission to save the free world. Chris will be waiting for me in the bus station with my superhero uniform and a van. Oh, Claire. Things could have been different. But her classes are starting, and she has to go. Watching her leave I remember that Sherman spared Charleston his torch during his disastrous march to the sea. He must have known. I was told sweet Ashley, Sherman's love, was waiting for him upon the rocks singing songs to the ships on the sea. I kiss Karen and Elizabeth goodbye. I have a job to do. They run by the bus waving napkins and crying but I look straight ahead. A close call indeed. I have given up the moon and the stars for Ralph Nader.

Day 11

I got a call from the Florida van. The sunshine state is a disorganized sinkhole of two and three person green rallies. I never liked Florida with all the swamps and mosquitoes and the transplanted geriatric New Yorkers breathing heavily into tubes in small air-conditioned condos. Apparently the whole damn peninsula is awash with political apathy which doesn't surprise me. Maybe it's the heat or the humidity that gets so deep into your skin that it takes every fiber of your being just to gather the strength necessary to chew a toothpick. Anyway, I find this news from the south extremely disheartening. We need four million votes. It shouldn't be so dammed hard. Our van has been more fortunate overall despite the bad luck of being stranded for 48 hours on the South Carolina coastline and savaged by beautiful insatiable sea nymphs. Still, I worry. We'll be finishing the last leg of our trip in Cajun Country. The final week in Louisiana, home of Huey Long. I don't know. There's something dark and foreboding about Louisiana. I've never met anyone from there except for New Orleans a town famous for Mardi Gras, a drink called the hurricane, and police brutality. It's easy in San Francisco and the Bay Area where Nader will probably pull 20% of the popular vote, a happy little P.C. liberal enclave on the western edge of the United States where a serious challenge was posed in a runoff vote against a mayor who publicly performed gay marriages. The charge; he wasn't liberal enough. But the rest of the country doesn't give a fuck what San Francisco thinks, chocked full of queers, hippies and freaks. Hell, we couldn't even field a governor that's against the death penalty. That's why we're in the south, trying to win over the sharecropper vote and mobilize enough students and first time voters to make a difference this time around.

**

Well, I'm in Atlanta. I am at Chris' house drinking beer. It's a bigger house than I expected, and he lives alone, and the place is barren, just hardwood floors, a couple of chairs, a smattering of books on the shelves. It's like my place except my place is a studio. But then I'm 28 and Chris is 47. When I'm older perhaps I will have a big naked house somewhere with mosquitoes, a television network and an 18 lane super highway. Somewhere like Atlanta. And we're here now and we're celebrating but I'm not sure why. The Arabs are preparing to nuke the Jews in the middle east. Nader is being blamed for propelling Bush to the white house and the democrats are stalking the greens in angry mobs and beating us senseless with tire irons. Even many of Nader's old crew are calling for him to quit. Nader's Raiders are accusing him of giving back all of the gains the progressives have made. Others are crying betrayal for campaigning in the crucial swing states where Gore is afraid to campaign in favor of gun control for fear of pissing someone off. But truth be told I don't know what progressive gains people are talking about when they squeal betrayal. It's the same kind of thinking that put Nixon in the white house when the democrats ran that hack Humphrey back in '68. Where is the progress? Drug testing came in under Reagan but was legitimized under Clinton. I mean, the democrats are fielding a candidate that is pro-death penalty, pro-military, pro-big business, who voted pro-life most of his political career and who has the integrity of a tobacco executive. His only hope is that his camp has finally recognized its own political incompetence and invited Clinton to say a few choice words in front of reporters for the Washington Post and New York Times. The president took a breath from campaigning for his wife to tell the major papers that there was, in fact, a difference between Al Gore and George Bush. This was such big news that it made the front page of the times the very next day. If Gore hadn't been such a spineless asshole he would have involved Clinton from day one instead of turning his back on the man that made his career. He could have closed it up real quick with a few statements early on along the lines of, "Nothing wrong with a blowjob. It's hard being the leader of the free world and that hummer probably saved a few thousand lives." Instead he refused to take a stand on anything except to insist that he was pro-death penalty at which time his membership in the National-Organization-of-People-Who-Think-Shit-Through was promptly revoked. All I'm trying to say is that if and when the democrats are beaten silly by someone who can't pronounce Milosevic it's there own damn fault. Next time they will be forced to field someone with character in order to stave off the threat from the now well-funded greens.

Day 12

It should be mentioned that I really like my van-mate Chris. He's a total freak and I wouldn't trust him within ten feet of anybody I had any respect for. Especially looking at him now dancing around in his living room with a bottle of beer tilted parallel to his neck wearing a pair of shorts, sandals and a big winter jacket. Still, the man is a true revolutionary. He's ready to blow up any thing, any time. Sometimes he says I'm too moderate. After all, real violence makes me shiver like a newborn kitten dunked in a tub full of ice water. But this guy goes all the way. This Thursday he wants to take me to a secret ISO meeting in Athens so I can read them the piece I sketched out in the van one day about Texas republicans being guilty of murder. "Why stop there?" he always says. Why stop there indeed. And another thing he says, "That's not good enough," which is great when you're dealing with people who are trying to fuck you over. Like the Twinkies over at Ryder Truck Rental. I'm more inclined to be like, "That's OK. We'll work it out." Chris would never say some shit like that. He barks into the phone, "We will skin you like a jackrabbit and hang your carcass from the nearest telephone pole as a reminder to your friends and family!" Yeah, Chris is a good guy. I joke with him that he has what psychiatrists call (here I make the sign for quotations using my fingers) "anger". "Well, maybe I do have "anger" if that's what you call it," he replies. "Or maybe it's something else altogether. Good of you not to say anything about me smoking in the dining room. I can tell it bothers you." "What are friends for." "True." Chris used to be afraid of dying when he first married his wife but now his wife won't talk to him and he's not afraid to die anymore. I love this guy. And he loves me. And if the time ever came I know he would take my bullet, and he knows that I would lay flowers on his grave.

Day 12

A Forum On The Death Penalty

When you're surrounded by serious politicos like Hugh and Chris it effects the way you think. Chris tells me there is a forum on the death penalty tonight at the church and I have two hours to kill. I jump in the van and head down. Normally I wouldn't do that. I would be too busy surfing the internet or beating Ben in pinball or ping pong or basketball but politics has gotten into my lungs and it is nearly impossible to breath.

Prison reform is the issue that effects me the most. It's actually the main reason I started campaigning for Nader. The death penalty is the tip of that iceberg. As a rebellious kid living on the streets of Chicago I was always harassed by overgrown high school bullies in police uniforms. I was beat up by cops twice and locked up once for three months. As a group home brat, I sometimes lived in all black neighborhoods in houses filled with black kids and I learned very early that if a cop wants to stop and search you there is always a reason. And there is nothing you can do. And anybody that thinks black people are not stopped and searched without cause more often than white people doesn't know any black people. But I digress. I was talking about me, a short white guy. I definitely have a very real, deep seated fear, that I am going to be arrested again. Probably put to death if not for the eloquent defense of my LSAT students or perhaps the Northwestern undergraduate journalism class that proved three people on death row in Illinois innocent before the governor pulled the plug on the whole damn thing.

There are four speakers. The first is a woman who saw her father murdered and then the man stabbed her, in the head, but she lived. She went to court and pleaded for the life of the man who killed her father. She carries a bible around with the killers name engraved on the cover. Her daddy was a preacher. She asks everybody she meets to sign the bible. She intends to give it to her father's killer one day.
The second speaker is the minister of France who is there to remind us that France also has nuclear weapons and does not appreciate all the snide comments about rolling over for Hitler's drill sergeants. Just kidding. His primary point is the conclusive evidence proving the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent. I know the last time I hacked six pedestrians to death in a Wal Mart parking lot the last thing on my mind was the consequences.

He is followed by a man who spent sixteen years in death row, Billy Moore. Following Billy, Stephen Bright lays us with a ticker tape parade of statistics. But you get the point. I'm not about to tell these people who to vote for. I'm too depressed. When I get back to Chris' place I start drinking to forget.

Day 13

Krispy Kreme Endorses Ralph Nader

First thing in the morning the Georgia Reform Party is endorsing Ralph Nader on the steps of the state capitol in Atlanta. Ten of us show up waving signs but no one from the press. Where is the fucking press? This is a big deal. The press are all down the street interviewing the CEOs of Coca Cola and Krispy Kreme. We pack up our stuff and head over. The party is mostly over but we stick our signs in any photo opportunity. The important people are all boarding a large CNBC bus with tinted windows. A spokeswoman for Krispy Kreme gives us two boxes of donuts. I step to the stage and announce in my loudest voice, "Krispy Kreme has decided to endorse Ralph Nader for president of the United States and has donated two boxes of donuts to his campaign!" But I am too late. The busses are pulling away. Nothing left but a handful of electricians and ten lunatics waving green flags at the darkened windows of the departing vessels.

Fireworks In Athens

Then to Athens for a blowout Green meeting. The minister has made t-shirts that read God Bless America and then go on to endorse Nader/LaDuke blah blah blah. The girl with the tight curly blond hair starts crying. She says she knows Winona. She was part of an Indian ceremony with Winona and God Bless America is an insult to Winona's Native American spirituality. The minister replies that the shirt represents his beliefs and he paid for them and is giving them away to his friends. But the lady with the tight blond hair won't stop crying. Telling all of us that she was in a car with Winona and Winona is a truly great woman. She prayed with Winona in a very Native American way. The Christian God is an ugly, evil god, famous for such atrocities as the Inquisition, Genocide, the subjugation of the third world. Some of God's lesser known works include a walk on in Alfred Hitchcock's famous thriller, Psycho and a dance number opposite John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever that was later cut. The minister tries to explain that he runs a Universalist Church. He is not a Christian. Universalists accept all Gods and Native American spirits. But she keeps crying until a booming voice emanating from the sky fills not just the room but the grocery and the parking lot and I am sure the winds of heaven are coming in to sweep the tiny town of Athens Georgia from the face of this continent. It is the minister. He will burn the shirts. They mean nothing in comparison with his respect for the woman with the curly hair. He preaches to us as he cries and holds the woman. He preaches love, and togetherness. And she is crying. And the girls in the corner start crying. The guy with the pony tale that offered us a joint earlier starts crying. And the boy with the mullet starts crying. Of the thirty people in the room fifteen of them are crying. I wonder if I should cry? But I don't.

Day 14
I'm Fucking Tired

I'm fucking tired. Some of our days are long. Wake up early, get in the van for four hours and scribble away while Chris rattles on and on about the traffic jam on the other side of the highway. Today we got on two newstations and grabbed the front page of the Nashville Tennessean. Tomorrow we're on a radio show. Seeing myself on television in this dumb janitor suit is depressing. It's what we're supposed to wear, but what the hell. I would never be a janitor, walk around all day in one of these dumpy ass looking one piece polyester outfits. Nobody would like me then. Today we visited The Gore National Headquarters where a volunteer came out and pleaded with us to change our minds in front of the channel five news camera. Another democratic worker came out and told us flat out that Nader was clearly the best candidate. The news lady looked like someone had slipped a hand up her skirt. After that we went to the Corrections Corporation of America, prisons for profit. Ten of us, hanging out in the halls with a reporter and a camera from Fox news talking about all the contributions this private corporation was making to politicians and how fucked up that was. Those contributions are coming out of the prison budgets so inmates will now have to eat plaster instead of cement and water. This is the most evil corporation in America. And there we are, and they won't even throw us out. At least the Gore camp had the decency to ask us to leave their property. These fuckers just left us standing there, for hours. They didn't care. We'll see how it all comes out in print in the morning. All I'm saying is I'm sleep deprived and angry. Beyond that I'm having the time of my life.

The Execution Of George W. Bush

I've changed my mind on who I think is going to win this election. A week ago I was sure that Gore wouldn't win since all he was attracting was the Bush Hate Vote. Now I'm starting to wonder if I haven't underestimated the power of hate. I thought the 25 million drooling idiots enamored with Bush would put him over the edge since it's clear in state after state nobody actually likes Gore. Bush at least has the idiot vote locked down. Those people would walk off a bridge for him, and probably have walked off of things and fallen many times before. But now people have the fear. The anybody but Bush coalition is getting stronger by the day. There was one rumor circulating that Bush held a press conference two days ago following an execution. Apparently, the executioner had failed to show and so Bush took over the job personally. Bush hit the switch three times but apparently the inmate was still alive, flopping like an electrified fish out of water. At that point the resourceful governor brought out his pocket knife and filleted the poor bastard. At the press conference afterwards Bush spoke with blood dripping from his teeth and blood splattered all over the sleeves of his white shirt. Apparently this exhibition of ruthlessness and bad manners really freaked some people out. Currently it's just something I've heard but if anybody can find any pictures please email them to me as an attachment. In the meanwhile Vice President Gore has responded with a promise to protect our children from internet porn. But if Gore invented the internet, didn't he then also invent internet porn?

Day 16

What I Think

Nothing much happening today. I talk to Washington. Nader is coming in big, the press is interested now. He's getting ten percent in the pacific northwest where people are notorious for caring about trees. Gore has blown it by running the most ridiculous campaign of all time. He has done everything wrong. Bush could be the most hated man in the country but he is looking better than Gore. Nader's getting the big press now because Gore/Lieberman are blaming Nader for losing the race. Gotta blame somebody. Al needs to look inside himself. If he wasn't such a noodle there wouldn't have been a third party challenge. Meanwhile Buchanan can't mount a legitimate challenge from the right because Bush is such a bloodthirsty biggot the republicans don't need to look to Buchanan to get their thirst quenched. Gore has abandoned the progressive constituency but Bush has held strong for the morons. Still, the hate bus is running right over my joyless parade. Article today in the alternative media blasting Nader for not pulling out, and not pulling together any kind of coalition of blacks and laborers. Which is true. It's pretty much hippies and students and people that are too pissed off or too crazy to vote for anyone else. Dirty dope smokers the whole bunch of them. Nobody has ever been elected president on the strength of the dope smoker vote. And I don't quite understand it. All this talk about Nader not getting the colored vote. He is colored. He's Lebanese. He's certainly not white. Still, it confuses me that the blacks and the laborers are not getting on the Nader wagon. And I read in the New York Times today that this could be the lowest voter turnout ever. Apparently, we have the lowest turnout of any of the democratic nations. And another thing, as long as I'm telling you what I think. The republican candidate for senate in California is calling for an easing of the drug war and treatment instead of jailtime for people caught with small amounts of drugs. Fientstein, the democrat is trading on her experience. She's way behind the 1.3 billion we wasted on Columbia. Perhaps the democrats and the republicans are about to switch sides again. After all, the republicans freed the slaves way back when. That was before "Family Values" became republican codespeak for "Let's hang some coons." And maybe it's going back to that. With more pro-choice, anti-drug war republicans coming in against more pro-corporation, pro-life, pro-death penalty democrats.

When I'm doubting myself I think back to my time at that sinkhole, ROI Direct, and how I told everybody I was going to be an internet millionaire with all my stock options. When the paper work finally came I scratched some notes on it and promptly threw it in the trash. That dogshit company isn't going anywhere. But I believed it for awhile, pumped up on a big case of mania and a bigger case of nothing better to do. And maybe this ends that way as well, with no third party, but more of the same. Because if we don't have a third party than none of this is going to change. That's why tonight I'm going to a lesbian gathering followed by a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And if I can find any acid I'm going to save it up for election day so that when the end begins I can promptly blow my mind.

The MacClaine Clan

When I was 12 years old I was hanging out in front of my friend Albert's place smoking a cigarette with his toothless old landlady. I was straddling my bicycle as I smoked and she was muttering something incomprehensible. Albert was inside arguing with his mother. They were dirt poor and she kept adopting all these stray dogs who would come in and shit and piss on the floor. Right in that moment Scott MacClaine came speeding down the sidewalk on his BMX and kicked my backwheel sending me sprawling and bloody across the pavement. "Go!" the landlady roared through her gums. "Kick his fucking ass!" I jumped on my bike and took after the bastard. He led me to a house the other side of Armstrong grammar school and disappeared. I waited for a second and then two of his older brothers came racing out after me. Scott MacClaine came from one of those Irish families that obviously didn't believe in birth control because he had like six older brothers. They gave chase but I had fear on my side and they were unable to catch me. Over the next six to nine months the MacClaines went after me everytime our paths crossed, which was fairly often even though we attended different schools. Finally, I told my dad. The old man was a landlord for some pretty rough buildings on the south side and always had four or five thugs on the payroll. We showed up at the MacClaine house with four big black guys and threatened Scott MacClaine's father. I never had any more trouble with the MacClaine's after that. We just looked separate ways. It was years later that it finally dawned on me why the MacClaine's hated me so much. The cops had picked me up at some dope party in the park and in exchange for letting me go I had fingered the MacClaine brothers. And I had totally forgotten about that. I remember sitting with Amy Butler in Rogers Park four years later when I was sixteen and she tells me she's dating Scott MacClaine. Amy was something of a neighborhood saint and I was in love with her. "That guy's a jerk," I said.

"Hmphh. He always says nice things about you." Anyway, I'm trying for the life of me to relate this particular event to the political struggle at hand, or even to the trip. But I can't. It's just something I thought of, between stops. With some time to kill.

Day 17

A Baboons Pink Naked Ass

Man, I was depressed this morning. I woke up in the van at 6a.m. in Birmingham while Chris partied in that cesspool of sin called Georgia. I went to grab some coffee and walked around a bit but still felt bitter about being intentionally abandoned by the Alabama Lesbian Coalition. Then, driving down the 280 East heading to meet Chris in Montgomery I see a sign for the Birmingham Zoo.

The zoo is the perfect place for how I feel. Something about the 50 different kinds of poison on a kimono dragon's tongue and the sight of the baboon's pink naked ass rejuvenates my spirits. I leave for Montgomery feeling stronger. But after this I'm calling Washington to tell them to give up on Alabama. It's doomed.

Day 18

That Boy Ain't Right

Montgomery, Alabama was a failure. The organizer had us booked for a food court at the shopping mall and we were of course immediately removed by two fat security guards, neither of whom belonged to a union. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was the organizer, this guy named Brandon. He wore slacks and a button down striped shirt with a bow tie in the 92 degree heat. And he spoke with a Scottish Brogue. But get this, he has never been to Scotland. He was born and raised in Prattville, Alabama. I don't think he's ever been out of the state. He's as southern as Lynrd Skynrd. Every time he rolled an R I clenched my teeth. Drinking beers afterward Chris and I decided that when the revolution came Brandon would be the first to go.

We slept in the van and then headed for Jackson, Mississippi the largest city in the poorest state in the union. First stop, a Laundromat. In the Laundromat signs hang over the washers stating the price of a wash and a quote from the bible. A handful of locals hang out on the benches drinking beer in paper bags at eight o'clock in the morning. A natural Nader coalition if ever I saw one. But whose going to get them to the polls? And more immediately whose gonna fix the sinks and clean the shit and the blood off the bathroom stalls in this God fearing Laundromat.

The streets of downtown are practically empty and the people that have been left behind have never heard of Starbucks or the Internet. There's talk of encampments to the north. The Lonely Planet Guide says Jackson has a serious problem with urban sprawl. People are trying to get away. Everytime someone gets too far though they get eaten by alligators. But the biggest problem is the proliferation of billboards supporting senate majority leader Trent Lott. The billboards promise jobs and education to a state that has neither. Trent has been in office since 1988.

The rally is very successful today. We head down to Trent Lott's office in the courthouse and we get coverage from two networks and the Mississippi newspaper. The guards give us a hard time but we finally get up to his office though we have to leave our signs outside. Unfortunately we can't get past his secretary, but she agrees to give him a message.

"Tell him we would like him to stop taking money from big companies like Eli Lilly. We think there is a conflict of interest."

"OK. I'll tell him," she says writing it down.

"And give him this soap and ask him to clean up his act."

"I will."

She's a sweet lady and we all leave feeling better for having spent some time with her.

Back in front I am interviewed by the reporter for NPR Mississippi. "Tell me about Nader," he says.

"Nader who? Have you heard of my book, Jones Inn. It's about junkies and losers."

"That right?"

"Yeah. And I got another one coming. Hold onto your underwear old man 'cause it's gonna blow your pants off."

Day 19

Halloween

Holloween. A Mexican diner by the side of Mississippi 61. Five inbred two headed vegan freaks ordering quesadillas without the cheese. 4,000 apathetic Delta State students doped up on thorazine. A plea from Leiberman, there is room for me in the democratic party. Annie Lennox sings would I lie to you. Chris says Arkansas is wet and green but to me it just looks dark. Annie Lennox sings now would I say something that wasn't true. Holloween is a van on Delta State campus handing out bars of soap to apathetic students. I address two classes at Delta State. The classes are mostly African American. I say, I too, am black. Holloween is hundreds of miles covered with no road signs. For Holloween I dressed as a man lying in a strange doctor's bed with a remote in my right hand trying and failing to stay up long enough to watch Ralph Nader on Niteline. For Holloween Ralph Nader went dressed as a presidential candidate. Al Gore went dressed as a man of integrity. George Bush went dressed as a compassionate conservative. Bush's costume won first place for Holloween because he actually fooled people and the rest of us did not. I send George this note:

George, you funny bastard. that was a great bit about the compassion. You really had me going. But seriously. Your idea of a police state funded entirely by the poor has the markings of genius written all over it. My car also runs on gas. Hey, what environment? Am I right? And I am eager to join your army of privileged. I have often been told over the years that I am manipulative and cunning. What I want to do is lower the minimum wage and move into a big house with servants. What we need is more people in jail, working for pennies. Tough on crime, more money for us. I think I will fit in well with your organization. As a symbol of my good faith I am sending you this shopping cart stolen from a homeless person. Can we melt it down for bullets? I've heard it said that people who vote for you are either greedy or stupid. Well, let me go on the record as being greedy. I am tired of being excluded from the richest one percent. I will keep up my work as an undercover agent, splitting the vote until after the election. Yours truly, special agent Crowley.

Day 20

Greens For Gore

"There's nothing Green about being for Gore," Chris says. We're talking about the recent defection of the green party going on in California and Oregon. They say the price is too high. Stephan, from the northwest van called me up and said they're burning down the fort. In-fighting is tearing us apart. We're a small group with little money comprised of freaks and hippies, tree huggers, socialists, libertarians and lonely old ladies who squat in the woods and hide their children from the government. Of course we are unorganized. Of course shit is messed up. He says the greens are clashing in Oregon and we are at our own throats. This is the tragedy of our party. I tell Stephan a couple of things. I've been on the van two weeks longer. I've already cried over all the arguments. Number one: Nader did not cost Gore the election. Gore cost Gore the election. To blame it on anyone else is absurd. Number two: Every four years we will be faced with the same choices. If now is not the right time then there never will be a right time. Number three: We may be wrong. For our work and our hopes. For every picket sign we carry to be seen over the barbed wire fences. Every time we hand out a bar of soap and ask someone to support a third party, we may be wrong. The green party may develop into something we don't want the way every party in our country's history has. The green party may not evolve into anything at all. It's too soon to tell. It's nearly impossible to be absolutely right in what you do. "I've never seen things like other people," Chris says. "It's impossible for me to understand a green voting for Gore. I thought we were building a third party." Easy enough to say in Louisiana or Texas where we are going next. But in Oregon they are burning a path through the dope fields and Kem Nunn's mythic surfers have all drowned seeking heart attacks on the Oregon coastline. And the democrats are angry and the environmentalists are slitting their wrists in the redwood forests and that anger is lashing out. That anger is the sound of the drills in the arctic preserve. The smell of private school vouchers and the pitter pat of the crumbling public schools. The rockets whistling overhead. The spoons rattling through the prison cells. The shaft of light under the door in a supermax. The gathering hum of one in three black males between 20 and 30. The gavel cracking the wooden bench as federal revue is overturned. It's the smell of smog and death over Houston. It's a snap as the unions are broken. It's the silence of school prayer. The thunder of NAFTA's wheels ruling over American environmental law. Healthcare is dead. They're searching your urine with flashlights and gloved fingers for the drugs you might have done the night before. But maybe we deserve our world. It is of our own creation.

Day 21

We drive over the border from Shreveport into Texas and Chris points out the place where he bought the straps for his trampoline. Most people don't know that Chris is a trampoline expert. He has one in his backyard and spends hours at a time bouncing around trying to clear his head and alleviate some of his anger. He wants to make an institutional video on it. You're never supposed to flip, he says. You'll land on your neck and end up like Christopher Reeves. It's OK to spin and to bounce off your butt, you just have to know what you're doing. You should not be erratic in the air. There is much you can do without inverting. Chris says he can get his head twenty feet in the air off his trampoline.

Day 22

In Texas we are preparing to take on big oil, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, George Bush. I'm in the state coordinator's house in Houston and we've been up since 6a.m. while her lawyer husband head of the state green party David rants and paces across the hardwood floors. "There has to be a revolution. A revolution of thinking. We have to get organized. I keep telling them, those people in Washington. They're trying too hard to control. They need to step back, get it straight. We have to have five percent. I have nightmares. I can't sleep thinking about the five percent." I hug myself on the couch. David, in his zest for reform, never offered me a blanket so I fell asleep under a sweater. The house has been turned into a warehouse of paper and posters and banners. The shipment hub for the entire state. David rattles off the difficulty of getting on the ballot in Texas. "They do it on purpose. They own us man." He rubs his bald head and then his naked belly hanging over his red boxer shorts. I am dazzled by his commitment and intellect. And if he talks too much, well that's just a sign of insecurity and he should be insecure. Things have been peaceful up to here but now that the word has gotten out about George Bush dosed up on alcohol and cocaine skidding slowly down the highway like a turtle cranked up on epidephrine, well, things are going to change. Any day now the Texas stormtroopers are going to kick in David's door while he's pacing half naked on the hardwood and they're going to beat him down with billy clubs until he shuts the hell up.

Natalie, the state coordinator walks in about eight a.m. wearing a sheer white cotton dress and white cotton underwear and a mustard colored sweater. She's getting back from east Texas. Her accent is a combination of Spanish from Venezuela mixed with the French she spoke in boarding school. Maybe it's the road and maybe I'm just a pervert but I can't take my eyes off her legs long enough to hear her talk and I imagine the two of us falling to the floor in passionate embrace while Chris checks his hotmail and David paces around us saying, "We've got to get organized! The stormtroopers are coming, AACK! The stormtroopers are coming, AACK!"

**

I think we should make signs for our visit to Exxon, "Conservatives for the environment." After all, I figure, conservatives breath too, through their gills. So they're just as affected by the six mile tower of smog over Houston as we are. So I'm making my sign. But I used to be engaged to a girl from Houston so maybe instead of writing "Conservatives for the environment," I'll make a sign that reads, "Please Take Me Back."

At the last minute I decide against it. She was a bitch. She doesn't deserve a sign. Chris is ready, Natalie is ready, David is on the phone. These are great people, revolutionaries. I will not let them down.

**

Houston could not have been better today. 10a.m.: We show up at Harris County republican headquarters and are met by channel 11. We bust into the office and demand they cease taking corporate contributions immediately. "Are you allowed to be here?" asks an 80 year old man stuffing envelopes with crooked fingers.

"We are," I tell him. "Until you ask us to leave."

"Oh. Well, hmmm, hmphh." He mumbles into the envelopes. Alzhiemers is setting in. It's nothing to laugh at. He's already forgotten our conversation. I stand between the two life size cutouts of George Bush senior and Ronald Reagan. If only I had brought my camera.

"I'll get Michael," a little old lady says ambling towards the rear offices. She's getting away. You can run, granny, but you can't hide. Finally, the manager comes out. We peacefully explain our position to him. He listens thoughtfully.

"You know, it's already illegal for a candidate to accept money from a corporation. The reforms you are asking for already exist." He enunciates every word and smiles broadly for the camera. For a second I figure he's right. I might as well throw in the towel and go home. But wait! Why do all the republicans seem so lock step with the corporations? What about Bush's assertion that what's good for big oil is good for everybody and once elected he plans to give the oil companies a license to drill wherever they please. And wasn't it Bush that stated that the two things he hated most were trade unions and endangered species. In fact, if I remember correctly, Bush's solution to the endangered species issue is to kill the rest of them. Under the Bush plan we will have no more endangered species. And where exactly did Bush pick up that $200 million? He couldn't have just found it. Nobody leaves that kind of money lying around. And then I remember, soft money, PACs. The bastard stunned me with his circular reasoning but now I am back around. Chris and I lay into him. It doesn't matter. The camera is running but the microphone is off. "I'm sleeping with your daughter," I tell him. "Your grandchildren will listen to hip hop and wear earrings and steal your prescription drugs."

Noon: Exxon. Met by WB 39. The whole crew is in attendance. We picket the evil pricks. They've got Houston police officers on the payroll and the cop/security tells us if we block the sidewalk we will be arrested. I ask him to define blocking the sidewalk and he says it's a gray area, open to interpretation. "Sounds fuzzy," I say. "Oh, it is," he replies. He's in full uniform, badge, gun, whole bit. The irony of a public police officer working in full uniform directly for a corporation kills something deep inside of me. But Exxon pays his salary and he takes orders from marketing executives. Every time that cop get a paycheck, a fairy dies.

The WB reporter wants to know the story. He levels the camera. Adjusts the mike. "Tell me about your quixotic journey through the southeastern states of America."

The rain is coming down pretty heavy and I adjust my collar and look up into the cold gray sky. "Well," I begin. "I was engaged once to a girl from Houston"

3p.m. Enron. Enron's slogan is 'What Are You Afraid Of.' Enron owns the ballpark. They build damns, move people that are in the way. Famous for crushing trade unions with an iron fist. Perhaps even more famous for organizing the largest ever 'river shit' where they shuttled thousands of employees down to the Houston river to shit in the water. I think it was their 100 year celebration or something like that.

We are met by channel 45, the Spanish station, and they film us cleaning the Enron sign while shuttle busses take company employees to the polls for early voting.

Leslie tells me to relax. I tell her I can't. All of these corporations have real cops on the payroll. They'll lock us up. There is no one to call. I'll never sleep again. We agree to go dancing tonight. She promises to show me the Houston nightlife.

Day 23

I stumble into the Texas green party headquarters at eight a.m. tired and hungover from a night out in the Houston wilderness. Dancing and liquor and lines outside of niteclubs and live jazz and new people and new cultures and even cowboy hats can all be good for the soul. At headquarters David is already up and pounding the phones, stomping his foot rambling on in his brilliant narcissistic way. He will save the world for us and all he asks in return is a large statue of himself in a public square. I for one am in favor of it because it is too much to ask that the best among us not be flawed. So we spend another hour together and then there are hugs and we talk about the mad celebrations we will be having in a few days when Ralph Nader gets five percent of the vote. How we will dance through the streets naked and organized, a new progressive power structure we're going to turn the nuclear weapons into glow sticks that last for a thousand years and drop enough acid to play with them peacefully for the rest of our lives. We're going to pardon Gore and Bush for their transgressions against the American people and then we're going to exile them to Cuba the way Castro gave us all of his criminals. A fair swap, remove Gore and Bush from our sight in exchange for normalized trade relations. We're going to make the oil companies scrub the skies over Houston until they are looking glass clear and the stars of Texas will shine for us during our victory parade.

And then it's time to split. We hug. I tell David, "I'd tell you to take care of yourself but instead I'm asking you to take care of the rest of us." More hugs, laughter. We'll write. We'll call. We love you. And then the road.

We drive out of Houston headed for Lafeyette, Louisiana. I lean back in the seat while Chris drives and think to myself, "Nothing wrong with Texas. Even though a girl from there did once break my heart."

Day 26

We find ourselves in New Orleans the day before the election covered in sheets of rain. We picket city hall and interview with channel 4 and channel 6. New Orleans is noted as the most corrupt major city in America. The TV interviews want to know what it is that has us so mad we are willing to stand in the rain. What it is indeed. Chris asks me why I am always the one that gets to talk to the reporter. I tell him it is because I am better looking and more articulate. "You'd scare them." Following that we hang out at Loyola and Tulane while God pisses on us for our indiscretions. We are attacked by angry democrats but we are angry as well. Give us one good reason to vote for Gore other than the fact that George Bush is a not so distant relation of Hitler (the story goes something like Hitler had a son and abandoned him in the black forest. The son found his way out after living for many years with wolves. He traveled through Russia with the circus, where he met Svetlana, Stalin's daughter. The two of them had a daughter who became heavily embroiled in the drug trade and at some point met George Bush senior, then the head of the C.I.A. They had a quick affair resulting in the ugliest baby ever seen at Texas Methodist hospital, the future president of the United States.) And now, I'm sitting with a cup of coffee, at 3p.m., just outside of the French Quarter.

Tomorrow there's a party planned for the Louisiana greens but we hear it is not a blowout. The blowout will be in Washington D.C. We're going to a bar in the suburbs of New Orleans. The first drink will be free. And there will be finger food. And we'll eat cajun wienies and watch the election returns while the rain pitter pats on the tin roof. I might eat my acid anyway and terrorize the Louisiana suburbs in a drugged up stupor screaming, "I'm the ghost of Huey Long! I'm the ghost of Huey Long!" But probably not. In the van, once Chris and I start talking again, he says, "seems kind of anti-climactic. Don't it?"

ELECTION DAY

A Cold Blue Dawn

I go for coffee in the morning with Jen and we sit outside near Bourbon Street and talk about why we did it and what we've done. Last night emasculated, beat down, ridiculed, and fed up I wade out into the democrat demonstration in front of Gore headquarters on St. Charles, a green felt pen in a sea of white and blue. They yell at me and I yell back. And then more greens come over and things are getting tense but nothing happens except for a ten year old Gore supporter on ritalin rubbing paint on Gary's back. The women are out in force carrying signs that read, "When Women Vote Democrats Win." Our women are stronger and smarter but these women are dressed in tight jeans and halter tops dancing in the meridian rubbing Gore/Lieberman posters all over their ass and stomach. Practically masturbating in support of Gore/Leiberman. It was downright lewd. We have radical cheerleaders too but they're in Athens, Georgia. By 9p.m. we call it a day but not until after one of the democrats gets run over by a streetcar.

**

Today I've already been out on the corner for hours in front of the green office. The local organizer has not arrived and it's almost noon and Chris has not arrived with the fucking van so I stand in the intersection with my sign and some guy in a shirt and tie driving a Mercedes cuts real close to me and gives me the finger and I go chasing after him screaming, "Get out of the car you motherfucker!" and a guy walking by with a broken tooth wearing a Gore/Lieberman shirt laughs at me. I remember giving the finger to a lady standing on Market Street with a Fazio sign and she just said to me, "You have a right to your opinion." But in my mind she was out there waving around a swastika on a stick. As soon as Chris gets here I'm heading over to the Bush headquarters.

**

At the Bush headquarters I meet Tracy. Tracy is aspiring to a career in broadcast journalism. She is shades of one color, coffee with cream. Seeing my sign she says that she is glad it's a free country. I reply it's not a free country for the five percent of Texas that is sitting in jail. She replies that Texas is a big state with a lot of people. I ask her if she knows the difference between real numbers and percentages. Then we talk about college. Every day I am more convinced of the relationship between politics and sex. The word back from D.C. headquarters is that an orgy has erupted, everybody in the office hooking up. Quickies in the only bathroom on P Street, blowjobs in Dupont Circle. The Nader offices are sweatshops full of sin. Hearts are broken almost daily as the workers look to each other through large, young, idealistic eyes. I haven't thought this much about sex since Mrs. Scott taught my 7th grade class. Ahhh, Mrs. Scott... Tracy says you can't pick your president on one issue. I tell her Texas has a lot of pollution. She says that pollution comes from Mexico. She tells me she voted for Bush this morning and she will sleep well tonight. I tell her I would like to sleep well tonight too but she doesn't get the hint. She says people who work hard for their money have a right to be rich.

"A billion dollars?" I ask.

"If you work hard all of your life," she replies.

I tell her I worked hard once for six months. Surely I'm entitled to a million. Chris pulls up in the van. "C'mon. Let's go hit the polling place."

"I need 10 more minutes. Park the van in front of the Bush headquarters." I turn back to Tracy. "You know, Tracy, there's a lot of information out there for people who don't know any better. All you need is internet access. You could educate yourself." She laughs. She has exceptionally white teeth. We shake hands and her fingers are soft. Chris and I drive away.

**

After lunch the coordinator is gone and the door is locked. Chris has disappeared again. I open the office and then picket out in front. Three little black kids join me. It starts to rain. The kids wash themselves in the rain with the Nader Corporate Clean Up Soap. Then they yell and fight and jump in puddles. They ask me about the politicians running. I tell them Bush hates black people. They ask if Gore is better than Bush and I admit that he is. So why vote for Nader. "Do you know people in prison?" I ask. They say yes. I say under Nader you wouldn't know so many people in prison. A homeless guy stops on the corner and the children push over his shopping cart and run away. He says to them, "I'm not mad at you. You fight fire with water." I apologize for the kids. "That's alright. They're not yours." Then he offers me some ice cream he got from the Bush headquarters and ambles away. The kids want to know if they can have the bumper stickers. I give them a stack of Nader/LaDuke bumper stickers and they run off to play a game of 'sticker the window.'

**

Bored, I head back to Bush HQ. But this time, coffee with cream is gone. She has been replaced by high school girls in pleated skirts with thick legs and fat ankles and testosterone charged high school wrestlers flexing their arms with veins popping out of their necks. The boys talk of hate, of going down to Gore headquarters and stabbing people in the face. They are the worst America has to offer. Socio-pathic deranged with hatred and greed. Pricks shriveled from steroid overdoses they are literally foaming at the mouths. When a Gore car pulls up they swarm it kicking the sides and the tires. Fox news films the chaos. Why save the world for these people?

**

There's nothing to do now except watch the returns in some filthy highway bar outside of New Orleans. I'm on my second beer watching three fuzzy TVs filled with red, white and blue states. The proprietor has set out a table full of tiny roast beef sandwich squares and sausage slices smothered in barbecue sauce. All of the greens hover around the TV sets with their drinks. Brad lopes his arms over Kat. Kat has just come from her job stripping on Bourbon street and wears a tiny tank top a short skirt and heels. Tonja cries. Jen says everything will be OK. We should all be proud of ourselves.

Day 27

The election too close to call Jen and I hold hands while we sleep. In the morning the newshows are broadcasting that a man was shot 11 times by police while his arms were raised above his head. The weatherman predicts thunder clouds and a reign of terror. We're all nervous and upset. Nader did not get his five percent. He was the popular favorite, everybody wanted him to be president. The most anybody was able to dig up on him was that he owned mutual funds. He was the best man for the job. But nobody believed he could win so they called votes for Nader wasted. And now I have to ask if what we did was the right thing. I mean we had one van working exclusively in Florida. It's clear that if Bush wins it will be by less than the margin of green votes. Still, I have to hold that Gore cost himself the election. If he had, for example, come out in favor of the death penalty but called for a moratorium until we were able to apply it fairly. I mean, the guy admitted in an interview that he felt there were innocent people on death row, and then came out in favor of the death penalty anyway. But anything would have sufficed. One show of integrity would have been enough. He left no openings. Even his record on the supreme court was horrendous, voting in favor of Scalia and Thomas. And I still feel the same that neither man was worth voting for. The list is long: NAFTA, Taft-Hartley, Three Strikes, Death Penalty, Drug Wars, Universal Health Care, Campaign Finance Reform, Integrity, Ballot Access, Youth Tried As Adults, Military Spending, Pollution. But only time, maybe a lifetime, will really show just how good or bad our decisions were. I'm sure Martin Luther King was offered many compromises. "Give us your vote, we'll let you sit in the front of the bus." And now I have to decide what to do next. It's not like I'm going to be become a good person after this. I'm still going to lie and steal and avoid working. Back in San Francisco I will have to decide how much I want to be a part of the green party now that its tiny wheels are in motion. After all, Ralph is 67 years old. I don't think he'll run again. And I can use that time to rock climb, write poetry about myself, do drugs, travel, watch movies, beat Ben in ping pong. The list is endless. I could even get a job. This is what I will be wrestling with over the next month once the haze lifts and I wake up. And I think it's partly a question of compassion. Should we try to force compassion onto an unwilling society that has clearly lost its mind?

Fortunately, Jen has the soundtrack to Grease. We turn down the newshows with all the black leaders lambasting us for sending the projects back to the plantation. When I was in second grade I was in a Grease club with two Hasidic Jews, Sammy and Dave. I slicked my hair back in a DA using VO Oil and wore a black, plastic jacket and white T-shirt. Olivia Newton John was the only woman I would ever love, still is. Our parents laughed at the movie, they didn't realize it's social significance. I crank up the sound as loud as it will go, waking up everyone sleeping on the floor in the other room. Grease is the word. Soon we are all dancing. "It got colder, that's how it ends." "So I told her we'd still be friends." We dance around the house and then we're throwing socks. Rachel and I twist on the bed, Chris does Grease Lightening with Jen. Angie and Jason belong together like bop de bop de bop ramma lamma ding dong. We're so young. Even 47 year old Chris. We're so incredibly young. Too young to give up.

**

This article was a series of ten emails sent out to my list. To recieve articles as I write them send an email to articles@stephenelliott.com

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