Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
As Is
Exhausting
idle
in my driveway
rust enough
to break hearts
across Texas
put her into overdrive
and watch
numbers tick
like dead soldiers
off miles
body bruised as fruit
backseat boneyard--
pizzas
not lovers.
She's got
glove box
maplines
across
the mainland
dollar in my pocket
piece of bubblegum
stuck
to the dash
keeps a door from jiggling
giggling like a drunk
girl singing
Pedal to the Metal, baby.
Speed up
slow down
sputter round
that
corner used
previously
if ever new
once
when a window
crank roller
smooth as piss
got a leak
that grew until
she blew up
in my face
like those windbags
in new cars
and I looked at her
and she said
soft yelling--
it's over.
idle
in my driveway
rust enough
to break hearts
across Texas
put her into overdrive
and watch
numbers tick
like dead soldiers
off miles
body bruised as fruit
backseat boneyard--
pizzas
not lovers.
She's got
glove box
maplines
across
the mainland
dollar in my pocket
piece of bubblegum
stuck
to the dash
keeps a door from jiggling
giggling like a drunk
girl singing
Pedal to the Metal, baby.
Speed up
slow down
sputter round
that
corner used
previously
if ever new
once
when a window
crank roller
smooth as piss
got a leak
that grew until
she blew up
in my face
like those windbags
in new cars
and I looked at her
and she said
soft yelling--
it's over.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Teenager Alert
Yesterday I woke up and Thea was 15. Her attitude--I am too wearing this skirt out of the house. And talk about sassy. She actually said, "Move it" to her father. Followed by, "I need you. Need you. Need you," to me. But once in my arms, there was little I could do to console my 19-month-old baby. "No mama. No."
I need you. But I don't. I need you. But I don't. If this isn't the never ending internal conflict of a teenage girl, I don't know what is.
Also, I think that she's been sneaking to the pub at night, learning how to shake it.
Like I said. 15. She's 15. And I'm in a cloud with what to do about it.
My kids go nutty for the unicorn song. Click here if you'd like to go nutty, too.
I need you. But I don't. I need you. But I don't. If this isn't the never ending internal conflict of a teenage girl, I don't know what is.
Also, I think that she's been sneaking to the pub at night, learning how to shake it.
Like I said. 15. She's 15. And I'm in a cloud with what to do about it.
My kids go nutty for the unicorn song. Click here if you'd like to go nutty, too.
Monday, February 18, 2008
At That
I walk downtown, past the fire rubble for the first time. I see dead and gone Christmas wreaths tied to one part of the fence, a small, plastic wreath in the middle, remains of a marred temple visible against blue sky. It's black and blue and makes me sad.
I take pictures, not with my camera. Proceed, I say. Go like it didn't happen. But it did, I reason with myself. It did happen.
When I arrive at the cafe I am alone. I choose a seat in the back corner and try to read the paper. "People are dying," I think. People are always dying.
I want company so I make a call. We talk. And talk. And argue, maybe. But our arguments don't matter because in the end we agree--about something, if nothing.
It feels right to leave it at that.
Leave. It. At. That.
I take pictures, not with my camera. Proceed, I say. Go like it didn't happen. But it did, I reason with myself. It did happen.
When I arrive at the cafe I am alone. I choose a seat in the back corner and try to read the paper. "People are dying," I think. People are always dying.
I want company so I make a call. We talk. And talk. And argue, maybe. But our arguments don't matter because in the end we agree--about something, if nothing.
It feels right to leave it at that.
Leave. It. At. That.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Bios, Interviews and Stephin Merritt
Today I met with a friend and we talked a little about bios. Some are silly and read like a resume. Some tell nothing about a person. But some say more than words on a page and give a glimpse into a person. I like those bios. I like to know.
Maybe I prefer interviews. Here are some excerpts from an interview with Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields.
As Hundreds Cheer
The Glum Triumph of The Magnetic Fields
by Rob Tannenbaum
December 1 - 7, 1999
The part of the interview where Merritt says that he relates well to the English.
***
"I have a low voice and a sad facial expression, and I'm not enthusiastic about anything," Merritt explains unenthusiastically, "and I prefer honesty in conversation. That combination drives some people crazy. Almost everyone in California thinks I hate them. I relate well to the English; they understand that I don't hate them." The emotions detailed on 69 Love Songs, he says, include many unknown to him, like—er, such as ecstasy, joy, jealousy, and boredom. All are "emotions I don't actually feel," he says, because his own moods range only "between delight and agonizing depression."
***
The part of the interview where he talks about his upbringing.
***
"I was conceived by barefoot hippies on a houseboat in St. Thomas," he says with the practiced air of someone reciting a fable. An epileptic baby, he was raised by his mother, an English teacher to whom he is still close; he has never met his father, the obscure folksinger Scott Fagan, who recorded for RCA and Atlantic in the late '60s. In the hippie style, mother and son were "sometimes very poor." They lived in 33 houses in his first 23 years, mostly in the Northeast, including a stint in West Berlin when she briefly married an Army officer.
At 14, with a guitar, a synthesizer, and a four-track tape deck, he began recording. He preferred music and reading ("Other than sports, I can't think of anything I don't want to know more about") to socializing, and was regularly threatened with violence in school. To escape bullies—and to dodge mandatory sports—he went to the Cambridge School of Weston, outside Boston, a "leafy prep school for bohemian kids. The people who didn't seem different were looked down upon."
The school had a good music program, where he studied theory, augmented by a Berklee tutor. He was, he hints, a prodigy. "I'm a professional musician because that's what I've had the most success in. I was told I had promise in several other areas: poetry, acting, science." After seeing a TV program on tracking junk mail, he devised multiple spellings of Stephen, his given name, for different aspects of his life: "Stephin" was the musician, and the spelling stuck.
He never had to come out, he says, because "no one thought I was straight." Friends kept telling him he was gay, "and finally I said, I guess you're right." His mom gave him a book called The Gay Mystique, and he followed the author's advice on how to find sex: He went to New York and struck up a conversation about Fassbinder in a West Village bookstore. "But I hadn't read the part about what you're supposed to do," he laughs, "so it wasn't all that satisfying."
His college education was interrupted by a "crippling" bout with a fatigue virus, and he was an itinerant student: some NYU Film School, some art school in Boston, and several years at Harvard Extension School, where he fell one statistics exam short of graduation. He studied film and the history of the built environment, a discipline that applies semiotic theory to highways, suburban planning, and other artifacts of industrial culture.
***
This is the part of the interview where he talks about how The Magnetic Fields came to be. And about writing 69 Love Songs.
***
At first, a female singer fronted the Magnetic Fields, partly because Merritt was opposed in principle to singer-songwriters (Freudians can read a rejection of his father here), partly because he was "a terrible singer, very graceless and out of tune." Since then, he's honed a unique style, delivering his froggish baritone with a lethargic air, as though from a fainting couch. And TMF have expanded to include Gonson, a Harvard College grad now studying with queer theorist Eve Sedgwick at City University while pursuing a Ph.D., plus two of her college mates, Chinese American cellist Sam Davol, a Legal Aid lawyer, and Korean American guitarist John Woo, a graphic designer.
No one, Merritt says, believed he could write 69 good love songs. "It was clear they were humoring me." It took him a full year, "working whenever I was awake. I had no life. I sat around all day writing songs. Which is often what I do all day long, anyway."
One of the grandest of the 69, "A Pretty Girl Is Like . . . ," is a deconstructive answer song to Irving Berlin's "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody." Merritt had been reading Ulysses, and considering how writers objectify women in metaphors. In the lyrics ("A pretty girl is like a violent crime/If you do it wrong, you could do time"), he celebrates, mocks, and critiques song similes, adopting "an exaggeratedly sexist, male point of view. It's a lot of baggage for one song," he acknowledges, "but that's part of why it's funny."
He still listens to 69 Love Songs, and reconsiders his choices. For instance, he regrets not assigning "I Don't Want to Get Over You" to another singer. "My voice always says, 'I Don't Want to Get Over You,' " he grumbles. "I could sing 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' and you'd remember it as 'I Don't Want to Get Over You.' "
He doesn't even delight in the record's acclaim, which routinely labels him a genius. "I prefer 'whiz,' " he deadpans. It's not fun to be called a genius by The New York Times? "Well, if it's in The New York Times, it must be true."
It's hard to gauge his sincerity when Merritt says, "I would like to be as successful as God. And as rich." He bristles at indie, but suspects the majors, who aren't leaping to sign him anyway. ("He's not exactly Kid Rock," says one A&R honcho, who considers the indie-rock experiment an expensive failure.) Given his British-identified distance, Merritt's view of himself comes clearest when he lists the people he identifies with.
***
This is the part of the interview where Merritt lists the people he identifies with.
***
First he names avant composer Harry Partch, "for his spunky iconoclasm and insistence on novelty," and Cole Porter, "for being a writer of light verse who has a facility with words—a big showoff." (Both were gay, he notes, "but that's not really why I identify with them.") And he cites Irving Berlin, "for being an artistic hack, but making a show of hackdom."
Next, he mentions the Buddah Records producers Kasenetz-Katz, "for inventing bubblegum pop, and doing everything themselves while pretending to be different people," David Bowie, for hiding within stage personas, and Annie Lennox "for making the subversion of one cliché the entire idea of a song."
Lastly, he names two folk artists: Grandma Prisbrey, a California senior who built "stained-glass windows from the junkyard," leaving behind a full village, now a registered landmark, created wholly from discarded objects; and Henry Darger, a Chicago loner who "had no life," and whose Byzantine writings and watercolors were discovered and celebrated only after he died a pauper.
Together, this motley comprises Stephen Merritt's self-portrait: visionary and crank, genius and charlatan, highbrow and lowdown. Music so encompasses his day, his mind, his identity, that he's become a human medley.
Maybe I prefer interviews. Here are some excerpts from an interview with Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields.
As Hundreds Cheer
The Glum Triumph of The Magnetic Fields
by Rob Tannenbaum
December 1 - 7, 1999
The part of the interview where Merritt says that he relates well to the English.
***
"I have a low voice and a sad facial expression, and I'm not enthusiastic about anything," Merritt explains unenthusiastically, "and I prefer honesty in conversation. That combination drives some people crazy. Almost everyone in California thinks I hate them. I relate well to the English; they understand that I don't hate them." The emotions detailed on 69 Love Songs, he says, include many unknown to him, like—er, such as ecstasy, joy, jealousy, and boredom. All are "emotions I don't actually feel," he says, because his own moods range only "between delight and agonizing depression."
***
The part of the interview where he talks about his upbringing.
***
"I was conceived by barefoot hippies on a houseboat in St. Thomas," he says with the practiced air of someone reciting a fable. An epileptic baby, he was raised by his mother, an English teacher to whom he is still close; he has never met his father, the obscure folksinger Scott Fagan, who recorded for RCA and Atlantic in the late '60s. In the hippie style, mother and son were "sometimes very poor." They lived in 33 houses in his first 23 years, mostly in the Northeast, including a stint in West Berlin when she briefly married an Army officer.
At 14, with a guitar, a synthesizer, and a four-track tape deck, he began recording. He preferred music and reading ("Other than sports, I can't think of anything I don't want to know more about") to socializing, and was regularly threatened with violence in school. To escape bullies—and to dodge mandatory sports—he went to the Cambridge School of Weston, outside Boston, a "leafy prep school for bohemian kids. The people who didn't seem different were looked down upon."
The school had a good music program, where he studied theory, augmented by a Berklee tutor. He was, he hints, a prodigy. "I'm a professional musician because that's what I've had the most success in. I was told I had promise in several other areas: poetry, acting, science." After seeing a TV program on tracking junk mail, he devised multiple spellings of Stephen, his given name, for different aspects of his life: "Stephin" was the musician, and the spelling stuck.
He never had to come out, he says, because "no one thought I was straight." Friends kept telling him he was gay, "and finally I said, I guess you're right." His mom gave him a book called The Gay Mystique, and he followed the author's advice on how to find sex: He went to New York and struck up a conversation about Fassbinder in a West Village bookstore. "But I hadn't read the part about what you're supposed to do," he laughs, "so it wasn't all that satisfying."
His college education was interrupted by a "crippling" bout with a fatigue virus, and he was an itinerant student: some NYU Film School, some art school in Boston, and several years at Harvard Extension School, where he fell one statistics exam short of graduation. He studied film and the history of the built environment, a discipline that applies semiotic theory to highways, suburban planning, and other artifacts of industrial culture.
***
This is the part of the interview where he talks about how The Magnetic Fields came to be. And about writing 69 Love Songs.
***
At first, a female singer fronted the Magnetic Fields, partly because Merritt was opposed in principle to singer-songwriters (Freudians can read a rejection of his father here), partly because he was "a terrible singer, very graceless and out of tune." Since then, he's honed a unique style, delivering his froggish baritone with a lethargic air, as though from a fainting couch. And TMF have expanded to include Gonson, a Harvard College grad now studying with queer theorist Eve Sedgwick at City University while pursuing a Ph.D., plus two of her college mates, Chinese American cellist Sam Davol, a Legal Aid lawyer, and Korean American guitarist John Woo, a graphic designer.
No one, Merritt says, believed he could write 69 good love songs. "It was clear they were humoring me." It took him a full year, "working whenever I was awake. I had no life. I sat around all day writing songs. Which is often what I do all day long, anyway."
One of the grandest of the 69, "A Pretty Girl Is Like . . . ," is a deconstructive answer song to Irving Berlin's "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody." Merritt had been reading Ulysses, and considering how writers objectify women in metaphors. In the lyrics ("A pretty girl is like a violent crime/If you do it wrong, you could do time"), he celebrates, mocks, and critiques song similes, adopting "an exaggeratedly sexist, male point of view. It's a lot of baggage for one song," he acknowledges, "but that's part of why it's funny."
He still listens to 69 Love Songs, and reconsiders his choices. For instance, he regrets not assigning "I Don't Want to Get Over You" to another singer. "My voice always says, 'I Don't Want to Get Over You,' " he grumbles. "I could sing 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' and you'd remember it as 'I Don't Want to Get Over You.' "
He doesn't even delight in the record's acclaim, which routinely labels him a genius. "I prefer 'whiz,' " he deadpans. It's not fun to be called a genius by The New York Times? "Well, if it's in The New York Times, it must be true."
It's hard to gauge his sincerity when Merritt says, "I would like to be as successful as God. And as rich." He bristles at indie, but suspects the majors, who aren't leaping to sign him anyway. ("He's not exactly Kid Rock," says one A&R honcho, who considers the indie-rock experiment an expensive failure.) Given his British-identified distance, Merritt's view of himself comes clearest when he lists the people he identifies with.
***
This is the part of the interview where Merritt lists the people he identifies with.
***
First he names avant composer Harry Partch, "for his spunky iconoclasm and insistence on novelty," and Cole Porter, "for being a writer of light verse who has a facility with words—a big showoff." (Both were gay, he notes, "but that's not really why I identify with them.") And he cites Irving Berlin, "for being an artistic hack, but making a show of hackdom."
Next, he mentions the Buddah Records producers Kasenetz-Katz, "for inventing bubblegum pop, and doing everything themselves while pretending to be different people," David Bowie, for hiding within stage personas, and Annie Lennox "for making the subversion of one cliché the entire idea of a song."
Lastly, he names two folk artists: Grandma Prisbrey, a California senior who built "stained-glass windows from the junkyard," leaving behind a full village, now a registered landmark, created wholly from discarded objects; and Henry Darger, a Chicago loner who "had no life," and whose Byzantine writings and watercolors were discovered and celebrated only after he died a pauper.
Together, this motley comprises Stephen Merritt's self-portrait: visionary and crank, genius and charlatan, highbrow and lowdown. Music so encompasses his day, his mind, his identity, that he's become a human medley.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Set List
The Magnetic Fields
2/15/08
Somerville Theatre
California Girls
I Don't Believe You
All My Little Words
Come Back from San Francisco
Old Fools
Xavier Says
Walking My Gargoyle
Too Drunk to Dream
Till the Bitter End
The Night You Can't Remember
I Thought You Were My Boyfriend
Water Torture
* * * *
Lovers from the Moon
I Wish I Had An Evil Twin
Give Me Back My Dreams
Grand Canyon
Papa Was a Rodeo
Drive On, Driver
Nun's Litany
The Tiny Goat
Smoke and Mirrors
Zombie Boy
* * * *
Three-Way
Take Ecstasy with Me
The Book of Love
Lyrics to "Water Torture"
Lorraine MacLean's strange paintings change the rain-stained Maine terrain. Paint rain, Lorraine./ "Teasing bees is easy," wheezed Louise. "These bees are teased." Tease these, Louise./ Jill's drill skills instill ill will. A shrill trill fills the hills. Drill still, li'l Jill./ Jo-Jo knows the snow slows, no, no Jo-Jo slows the snow. Slow snow, Jo-Jo./ Lulu glues two blue shoes to tutus to lose the blues. Glue, Lulu, glue.
2/15/08
Somerville Theatre
California Girls
I Don't Believe You
All My Little Words
Come Back from San Francisco
Old Fools
Xavier Says
Walking My Gargoyle
Too Drunk to Dream
Till the Bitter End
The Night You Can't Remember
I Thought You Were My Boyfriend
Water Torture
* * * *
Lovers from the Moon
I Wish I Had An Evil Twin
Give Me Back My Dreams
Grand Canyon
Papa Was a Rodeo
Drive On, Driver
Nun's Litany
The Tiny Goat
Smoke and Mirrors
Zombie Boy
* * * *
Three-Way
Take Ecstasy with Me
The Book of Love
Lyrics to "Water Torture"
Lorraine MacLean's strange paintings change the rain-stained Maine terrain. Paint rain, Lorraine./ "Teasing bees is easy," wheezed Louise. "These bees are teased." Tease these, Louise./ Jill's drill skills instill ill will. A shrill trill fills the hills. Drill still, li'l Jill./ Jo-Jo knows the snow slows, no, no Jo-Jo slows the snow. Slow snow, Jo-Jo./ Lulu glues two blue shoes to tutus to lose the blues. Glue, Lulu, glue.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Mitt Happened
I can't stop thinking about or writing about Mitt. I don't know what it means. Yesterday at the coffee shop the Boston Herald headline "Mitt Happens" popped out at me. "That's a shitty play on words," I thought as I chuckled to myself. I never had a chance to read the accompanying text that probably reiterated Mitt's reason for leaving the race--to give the remaining Republican candidates a chance to campaign hard against those terrorist and terrorism softies.
I feel safe already. Safe from jello salad and shorts that are too long and revelations from God.
Later when telling Tad about the headline I said something like, "I don't think he'd like that," and Tad reminded me that Mitt lives in Belmont--at least when he's not living in Deer Valley. That means that he probably saw the headline in all of its play on (Mormon) swearword glory. He might have teared up to see his name like that. Maybe he even got on a plane and flew to Utah--like he did when he was our governor.
I'm not really a mean person--I swear. And I'd be nicer about Mitt if I didn't feel so used by his stay in Massachusetts. But how sad is it that he's out of the race? He provided comic relief--much better than that of fried squirrel eating guy. What's a girl to do? Pray? But to which god?
Mitt, I'm lost without you.
I feel safe already. Safe from jello salad and shorts that are too long and revelations from God.
Later when telling Tad about the headline I said something like, "I don't think he'd like that," and Tad reminded me that Mitt lives in Belmont--at least when he's not living in Deer Valley. That means that he probably saw the headline in all of its play on (Mormon) swearword glory. He might have teared up to see his name like that. Maybe he even got on a plane and flew to Utah--like he did when he was our governor.
I'm not really a mean person--I swear. And I'd be nicer about Mitt if I didn't feel so used by his stay in Massachusetts. But how sad is it that he's out of the race? He provided comic relief--much better than that of fried squirrel eating guy. What's a girl to do? Pray? But to which god?
Mitt, I'm lost without you.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Oops, I didn't do it again.
I'm so embarrassed. I am actually on a *second name basis with my best friend Willard Mitt Romney. I won't make the mistake again. I swear on the Book of Mormon with which I sleep. Thanks Derek.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Mittmentum No More
I find it delightful and hilarious and maybe a tad disconcerting that minutes and hours after Mitt's (we're on a middle name basis) decision to drop out of the race, I've had a slew of phone calls and e-mails.
It's true that my disdain for the flip flopper is more than obvious, but I was not aware that so many people think of me when they think of him. I might throw up now.
My brother from Utah called to dissect Mitt's drop out speech minutes after it ended. He had two questions: 1) How did he get elected in Massachusetts?? How? and 2) What happened to the Patriots? Apparently there's a great deal of buzz about both subjects in the western part of the country.
It's true that my disdain for the flip flopper is more than obvious, but I was not aware that so many people think of me when they think of him. I might throw up now.
My brother from Utah called to dissect Mitt's drop out speech minutes after it ended. He had two questions: 1) How did he get elected in Massachusetts?? How? and 2) What happened to the Patriots? Apparently there's a great deal of buzz about both subjects in the western part of the country.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Friday, February 01, 2008
After receiving a few e-mails of concern regarding my recent Clinton endorsement, I feel the need to say a few words. O.k., so almost anything leads to my need to say a few words hence the blog.
I am aware of some of the controversial aspects surrounding Clinton's candidacy. There's her Iraq vote. There's DOMA. There's Whitewater. There's Bill (good and bad). There's the Establishment. There's welfare reform. There's status quo. There's politics as usual. There's divisiveness. There's well-connected, political favoritism. There's: THE SYSTEM IS FLAWED.
This list of things makes me grumble and say, "what's the use?" until I shake myself and slap my cheeks and wake up. Even with the muck aplenty, I still believe it's useful to pay attention to politics and to vote and to try to have a say, not because my single vote can change things, but because having an opinion matters in the grander scheme of things. It's about thinking and mulling and talking. It's about conversations that I'll have with my mother-in-law or my husband or my friends at the bar or a dad at the bus stop or my children. It's about caring about, for better or for worse, the policies that shape our existence.
I'm not one for soapboxes (well, maybe just a little, cough, cough) and this isn't much of a political blog, but I know that when I sat and listened to those know-it-all guys in the coffee shop, I was appalled. And then I felt empathy. This is what Hillary's been up against her entire political life. These are the people saying that she's not masculine enough, she's not feminine enough, she cries, she doesn't cry. These are the people saying that there's no way for her to get it right--because she's a woman.
In the last few weeks she's proven (to me, anyway) to be scrappy and capable (if not a little underhanded) and commandeering and bright. I won't say that she's better than Obama because I don't see their platforms as radically different and I plan to support either Democratic nominee, but I will say that I'm proud to be voting for a woman who could become president for the first time in my life.
I am aware of some of the controversial aspects surrounding Clinton's candidacy. There's her Iraq vote. There's DOMA. There's Whitewater. There's Bill (good and bad). There's the Establishment. There's welfare reform. There's status quo. There's politics as usual. There's divisiveness. There's well-connected, political favoritism. There's: THE SYSTEM IS FLAWED.
This list of things makes me grumble and say, "what's the use?" until I shake myself and slap my cheeks and wake up. Even with the muck aplenty, I still believe it's useful to pay attention to politics and to vote and to try to have a say, not because my single vote can change things, but because having an opinion matters in the grander scheme of things. It's about thinking and mulling and talking. It's about conversations that I'll have with my mother-in-law or my husband or my friends at the bar or a dad at the bus stop or my children. It's about caring about, for better or for worse, the policies that shape our existence.
I'm not one for soapboxes (well, maybe just a little, cough, cough) and this isn't much of a political blog, but I know that when I sat and listened to those know-it-all guys in the coffee shop, I was appalled. And then I felt empathy. This is what Hillary's been up against her entire political life. These are the people saying that she's not masculine enough, she's not feminine enough, she cries, she doesn't cry. These are the people saying that there's no way for her to get it right--because she's a woman.
In the last few weeks she's proven (to me, anyway) to be scrappy and capable (if not a little underhanded) and commandeering and bright. I won't say that she's better than Obama because I don't see their platforms as radically different and I plan to support either Democratic nominee, but I will say that I'm proud to be voting for a woman who could become president for the first time in my life.
At the Other Coffee Shop
The three of us walk in and there's a couple sitting at the corner table. They're reading the paper.
We order a lemon poppyseed muffin and an untoasted sesame bagel with cream cheese and a mocha latte with 2% milk. The German-American woman behind the counter treats four-year-old Cole like he's a king--King Cole. He loves it.
Then others come, white-haired guys who hold or have run for public office. They all sit at a table together, talking--first of football and then of politics.
"I'm voting for McCain. He's the only person capable of running this country."
"Obama. He's Irish, right? If they're drunk enough in Boston, they won't know he's not. O'bama," he says again and laughs.
"I'm not voting for Romney. I know that."
I smile and laugh a little. Eyes turn to me. "I'm a recovering Mormon," I say. "And I wouldn't encourage anyone to vote for Mitt."
They laugh. And we banter back and forth. The couple in the corner throws in its two cents when asked, "Do they vote in Rockport?" "They usually vote Republican," the man says, wrinkling his nose.
There is more laughing. There is more talking about candidates. It is a scene. Aged white guys. The Gloucester political establishment (recently semi-dethroned by a woman) thinking they know how to run it all. Finally one asks, "So who are you thinking about?"
"I'm undecided," I say. Which I am. Still. But it's becoming clearer. I've been making the argument that it's Hillary that's the Establishment, that I'm tired of the Clinton dynasty, that the Clintons are sneaky as can be.
And I continue to think that they're sneaky and that they've made big mistakes and that they're ridiculously well-connected and well-heeled. I also wish that Bill would shut up lately and let Hillary do her job. But as I sit drinking coffee and eating muffins with my young son and my young daughter, I realize that Hillary is my candidate. I know it as soon as the words leave my mouth.
"I'm thinking about Hillary," I say. The solidly male table gets quiet, the hostile silence telling me everything that I need to know.
We order a lemon poppyseed muffin and an untoasted sesame bagel with cream cheese and a mocha latte with 2% milk. The German-American woman behind the counter treats four-year-old Cole like he's a king--King Cole. He loves it.
Then others come, white-haired guys who hold or have run for public office. They all sit at a table together, talking--first of football and then of politics.
"I'm voting for McCain. He's the only person capable of running this country."
"Obama. He's Irish, right? If they're drunk enough in Boston, they won't know he's not. O'bama," he says again and laughs.
"I'm not voting for Romney. I know that."
I smile and laugh a little. Eyes turn to me. "I'm a recovering Mormon," I say. "And I wouldn't encourage anyone to vote for Mitt."
They laugh. And we banter back and forth. The couple in the corner throws in its two cents when asked, "Do they vote in Rockport?" "They usually vote Republican," the man says, wrinkling his nose.
There is more laughing. There is more talking about candidates. It is a scene. Aged white guys. The Gloucester political establishment (recently semi-dethroned by a woman) thinking they know how to run it all. Finally one asks, "So who are you thinking about?"
"I'm undecided," I say. Which I am. Still. But it's becoming clearer. I've been making the argument that it's Hillary that's the Establishment, that I'm tired of the Clinton dynasty, that the Clintons are sneaky as can be.
And I continue to think that they're sneaky and that they've made big mistakes and that they're ridiculously well-connected and well-heeled. I also wish that Bill would shut up lately and let Hillary do her job. But as I sit drinking coffee and eating muffins with my young son and my young daughter, I realize that Hillary is my candidate. I know it as soon as the words leave my mouth.
"I'm thinking about Hillary," I say. The solidly male table gets quiet, the hostile silence telling me everything that I need to know.
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