"If Bush wins, I'm moving to France" - Robert Altman

Fine with me, Bob. Shit, seems you're already there considering the pointless, humorless, mid-life crisis approach to your last few films. Altman and Lewis (Jerry, of course) sounds like a ticket made in heaven. And I've talked to more than a few folks who figured maybe they ought to move to somewhere else themselves after they'd spent hard earned cash on that Dr. T debacle of yours. Anyhow, maybe on November 7 we can have a nice good riddance my friend.

Not that George W. Bush is the answer to anything (more than likely he is one HUGE fucking question - but what the hell it's only the Presidency). But Al Gore's l'il Tipper, Joe Lieberman, and all of the cultural crafting that both sides seem to yap about endlessly scare the goddamn V-chip out of me. Christ, can't they just leave ME - MY LIFE - MY CHOICES - the FUCK alone!

Apparently not. Maybe we can get an Altman chip for everyone.

So it is on November 7, 2000 that we'll all (ok, not all, but a good solid 30% of the population) go slogging through the rain (I don't know about you, but here in the Midwest it always rains on Election Day - a time honored omen for the horrible mistake you are about to make - tears from an understanding God's heavens) to punch out a little hole beside the name of some characters you hardly have a inkling about. And you'll get a sporty "I Voted Today" sticker to slap on your smug ass and wander back out into the streets that aren't gonna look too much different four years from now. Who cares? I do!

The last time I went to pick a President - or rather, to vote against the guy I really didn't like, cuz I never like the guy I vote for anyway - I tried to wear my walkman in for a little democratic inspiration. I'd spent a good few weeks giving serious consideration to the precise selection that would make my moment in democracy's dim spotlight feel, well, reasonable is, sadly enough, the best way to put it. I figured that rocknroll would be the perfect antidote to a carefully sculpted moment of American Electoral politics. They hand me the names - none of which I asked for - and I'll give them my choice - music.

Going through discs, tapes, and lps seeking the perfect soundtrack for the moment Democracy would sweep me into the next politically miserable four years, I settled on the notion that, in 1996, I was going to need something harsh, something completely obliterating, as well as utterly numbing. I would need the sounds of the dispassionate chaos these quadrennials always bring along with them. Hollow souls, vacant minds, quips and quandaries formatted to the singularly short attention span of "whaddya got for me?" representative republicanism. The squeaky wheel of public persuasion getting the big goddamn grease job by some wanks who don't even know why they wanna rule the world, 'cept for the fact that they got nothin' better to do. I would definitely need a horrible noise to drown that all out as I cast my soul to the system.

"Comin' down the mountain / one of many children / everybody has their own opinion" - "Mountain Song" Jane's Addiction

Oh sweet justice...yes.

"Mountain Song" would have to be a sober consideration. The primal howl of Dave Navarro's Zep-fueled guitar, the vacuum tube yodel of Perry Farrell, and the idea that it was all contrived - it was spectacle. The whole thing was a mess of power and anger for no one's sake in particular. Just emptiness - it fit the mood.

The Stooges "TV Eye" also had to be a careful consideration. Hell, every last moment of Fun House would be appropriate. The destructive moan of personal freedom being unearthed at the very bottom of life's gutter; the idea that Iggy and the Asheton's could rise from the depths to craft beauty out of the peculiar repetitive groan of suburban blues dragged into unrecognizable repulsiveness. The fact that Fun House may be the last century's most honest approach to freedom as a form and, perhaps, came as close to finding beauty in the process gives it real credibility as a reaction to the political forum of our time. I mulled over dozen's that could just as easily do the job.

Husker Du's "Turn on the News" or "New Day Rising", Springsteen's "Factory" or 90% of the Nebraska album. I had selections by Dylan, Pere Ubu ("Final Solution") Johnny Paycheck, PJ Harvey, the Electric Eels ("[I'm so] Agitated"), Neil Young ("Rockin' In the Free World", and most appropriate "After the Goldrush"), and countless others.

So many contenders, so much of the deep personal sense of freedom that music/noise has brought to my life. I felt confident that my selection would make the moment, that it would be worthy of what I felt I owed to the art that has kept me more spiritually free than any Brooks Brothers attired dimwit with an eager eye for a wooden seat in Washington D.C. I felt. I felt like it had to be a BIG sound, an ENERGIZED noise, a song to shake the very core ideal of order and the sordid notion of phony political high ideals in our contemporary state of Democracy. I would pulverize my own participation in the process with a personal drug of choice - rocknroll noise!

The plan was set into motion. This was to be the deepest of personal political conviction and statement - or the most a punk with a head full of notions like myself could muster in the face of the system. The politics of self. I had every plan to pollute my mind for hours the evening before. I would douse my nationalistic spirit in vodka, whiskey, beer - whatever my bedraggled hands could grip. I would quickly blow into the polling joint - a beery breeze and eye's afire with the wild, manic energy emanating from some explosion of noise that fit my moment in this political process flawlessly. "Fuck you and your next four years!" I was better off in a centered moment like this one than I'd ever be in the deceptive world of your politics! Horrible noises would calm me into a catatonic state and I would robotically go into the poll and...

"Could you please leave that here while you vote?" the greyhair lady said to me. I pulled an earphone away from my hole. "Huh?" I asked. '"That thing. That, that music player, what do they call them? That music man..."

"A walkman." I replied.

"Yes, yes. Could you please leave that here at the table while you vote? I don't believe you're allowed to wear it in there."

She smiled politely. I felt neutered, but never questioned. I returned her grandmotherly politeness.

"Okay," I said. "Just give me a second here, and I'll be ready."

I sat down on a stool that was built for one of the elementary students at the school that was my polling place. My ass was about a foot from the floor as I popped the disc in and turned the volume up. I was as clean and sober as I could have probably ever remembered being - not an ounce of even beer the night before.

Then the sounds flooded my head: "Is it getting better? / or do you feel the same? / Will it make it easier on you now / you've got someone to blame / You said / one love / One life / When it's / one need / In the night / One love / we get to share it / it leaves you baby / if you don't care for it. Did I disappoint you / or leave a bad taste in your mouth / you act like you never had love / and you won't need to go without / Well it's too late / tonight / to drag the past out / into the light"

Bono Paul Hewson's elegic tune, "One", absorbed my hardened spirit and spit it back out. It was abruptly obvious that my choice was the right one - and that it wasn't really a choice at all. The fact of the matter was that for all of the posturing, for all of my misgivings, I found out that I truly did believe. I always have. I've always believed in that which was bigger than myself, like music itself. I was moved.

"Have you come here for forgiveness"

Yes

"Have you come to raise the dead?"

Yes

"Have you come here to play Jesus / to the lepers in your head?"

Again.Yes.

I was asked to enter, but then, in this case, I made myself crawl. One love, one blood, one life - doing what we should. Sisters/brothers. I could not find an argument. I no longer sought one. I placed my walkman on the table, smiled at the greyhair, and went to the booth.

On the walk home it rained, but somehow this time it didn't quite feel like tears - and I hardly recall even getting wet. Four more years, four more years, four more years, four more years...

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