Now that the Presidential election is a year away it seems that the time is ripe to actually pay attention to the Republican debates. Didn't they start debating a little early this time?

I suppose since the Christmas season now starts in July they might as well.

After watching the recent debate I came up with some ideas on how the next debate is likely to come out. These are below.

_ PREDICTIONS

Rick Perry-Gov. Perry will pee himself and then forget he did it.

Herman Cain-The self help guru and pizza businessman will put his hand up Michelle Bachmann’s dress and then deny it, saying he just needed change for the soda machine. He will then speak about himself in the third person and say a bunch of nonsensical gobbledygook.

Michelle Bachmann-The enigmatic Representative from the great state of Minnesota will blame Socialists and President Obama for Cain’s hand being up her dress.  She will then scream “Socialismmmm” over and over again.

Mitt Romney- Romney will discuss, at length, a plan to essentially end Medicare and Social Security as we know it, saving billions and devastating millions of seniors. No one will pay attention however because he is so BORING. He will then show everyone his magic underpants.

Newt Gingrich- Gingrich’s phone keeps going off with calls from various mistresses and bankrupt financial giants he has lobbied for. He will repeatedly shush the moderator saying “Shh I am giving Freddie Mac more good advice. I was hired to give advice, not be a shill, really, I was…sometimes I get hired to be a marriage counselor too.”  When asked about being in third place he’ll state; “Really? Are you SERIOUS?” He will then discuss at length why it would be a bad idea for anyone named “Newt” to be in a position of authority.

Ron Paul- Paul will say something that makes you think he makes sense and then immediately follow it up with something that makes him sound like Louis Farrakhan does his debate prep.

Rick Santorum-Santorum (how can you say his name without a smile if you read Dan Savage?) will say something about God being good and most everything else bad but by that time everyone will have left the building and the lights will be off.

John Huntsman-Huntsman will quietly sob, off to the side, whispering; ”My GOD how am I trailing these nitwits by double digits.”

Gary Johnson-The candidate, himself, will try to figure out who he is and if he is really a candidate while he waits outside for a pizza (but not from Godfather’s).

After the past three years the financial roller coaster the United States (and indeed the world) has been on has resembled the Six Flags Scream Machine; if the scream machine mostly went downward and the screams were of people losing their life savings, not their pocket change. This has led to a great deal of anger. It was first aimed at anyone who wore a suit. But then it seemed to sort of..vanish.

We, oddly, no longer aim this anger at the financial geniuses on Wall Street or the insurance and mortgage industries. This is especially odd since basically none of them have been held to account for their actions. Some may have had to get a smaller yacht, which I suppose is pretty harsh punishment. Hell, even loud mouthed television, “financial experts” who were predicting never ending prosperity and a constant supply of free beer got to keep their jobs.

So who to blame? Whose door can we lay it at? How about Congress?

Everyone ALWAYS hates Congress. We shriek and prattle on about how awful our Representatives and Senators are and lament there is not a cannon with the range to fire them all directly into the sun.

Yes, everyone hates Congress, except their own representative, who they re-elect until they die of old age or get caught riding a greased donkey with an underage hooker while snorting cocaine with a rolled up copy of the constitution.  Even then, if they get born again they still stand a coin-toss chance of re-election.

Think I am full of shit? I may be but in 2010, an especially hard year for incumbents, 85 percent of the House were re-elected. It is a little harder to get re-elected to the Senate. In that tough year of 2010 they were only re-elected at a rate of 84 percent (if you go back 31 years you can find a year where only 55 percent were re-elected to the Senate).

So, if these people are such a bunch of jabbering mandrills who is really at fault for them getting their damned job? If I went to the dentist and left with fangs I would get a new dentist. If I brought my Mercedes to a mechanic and was given back a Pinto I would go home for my pistol. Yet we get the same thing over and over and we re-elect them and then do it again until they need adult diapers or figure out they can make more cash as a lobbyist.

Try this out if you have some spare time. Go down to the mall and poll people using this question:

Which of the following would you most trust with the financial future of the United States?

A)    Mussolini (or Michelle Bachmann)

B)    Bernie Madoff

C)    Johnny “Itchy” Jones (local junkie)

D)    Congress

If you asked a thousand people something like four of them would answer “Congress.” Yet eight and a half of these nitwits for every ten running for re-election will return to office in 2012.

But ultimately this isn’t about ragging on Congress. It is about ragging on US, every single Kardashian-watching-Palin-obsessed-GlennBeckBillMaherRachelMaddowRushLimbaugh-loving ONE of us. We are responsible because we could, easily, chuck all of them out.  But we don’t. Then we whine about it and post something on Facebook. Sure makes you FEEL lots better doesn't it? I am sure Mark Zuckerberg shares your anger on HIS yacht.

Sure sometimes the alternatives are less than attractive. David Duke and Al Sharpton seem REASONABLE by today’s standards so the choices can sometimes be stark. And "sending a message" often leads to lunatics being in the Congress. BUT, there have already been lunatics in Congress. In the Early Republic the House was made up largely of alcoholics and inveterate racists. If you get rid of a crook and elect a lunatic? You can vote OUT the lunatic in 2 years.

So how does this happen? Check the list below.

1-Money

2-Gerrymandering (look it up, Google “Elbridge Gerry”)

3-Stupidity

4-Money

5-Extreme stupidity

And money wouldn't matter so much if WE didn't watch their damned ADS. I want to encourage everyone, whenever you hear a political ad on the radio? Change the station? On TV? Hit the mute button. Don't listen or watch ANY of them.

But wouldn’t it be neat if one of them, just ONE, would tell us the complete truth? Tell us all the shit we didn’t want to hear?

“Umm, yeah, forget about that Social Security shit kids. When you get old the retirement age is going to be 89.” or “Health care? You fuckers are going to be lucky to have FOOD next month.” or “Umm..just a tip….learn Mandarin.”

But back to self loathing. We elect the politicians. It is like if you had a maid who took a dump on the dining room table every morning and you couldn’t bring yourself to fire her out of fear. You would have every reason to loath yourself. SO, unless you can point to a veritable laundry list of consistent action, straight talking  and general coherence (Bernie Sanders I suppose) vote them OUT.

Jethro Tull inspired me to write something about appreciating music. Yes, Jethro Tull. That monster of rock n roll and prog rock from the 70s. There are a lot of reasons as to why; one is that I saw them play live a few days back. Another reason is that, many years ago, I really liked the band. I had their records and, in some cases (Aqualung, Stormwatch, Heavy Horses), I listened to them in that crazy way only a kid can.

I would have never disowned them totally even though by the time I was 15 or 16 I was listening to punk rock. One of the sillier things about punk rock was that you were just NOT supposed to appreciate the music that came before. For one, they had long hair, which of course really matters a lot in judging talent and songwriting ability. Another issue was that they could really PLAY. I mean punks weren’t supposed to be able to play (although, let’s face it, a lot of them could-The Clash’s Paul Simonon, Siouxsie and The Banshee’s Budgee spring readily to mind). It was all silly crap to market music to kids. Don’t listen to what those OLD 29 year olds listen to!

And then they sell you a new wardrobe, then everyone figures out it is bullshit and they come up with the next bullshit to sell to the next group of teenagers. 

Some bands survive this and some don’t. Jethro Tull survived up to a point and remained big venue viable into the 80s. But then something odd happened, in the late 90s they won the first ever Grammy for heavy metal. As Anderson said in explanation; they didn’t win a Grammy for being metal. They won a Grammy be for being a bunch of nice guys who had never won a Grammy before. And I think that metal Grammy brought them back into the limelight in a negative way (even though the presupposed winner, Metallica, had a good humor about it).

But anyway, that is also a bit after the fact. The sort of hard rock, meets prog, meets folk that Jethro Tull play is all over the place and distinct and hard to pigeonhole. It isn’t like the blues stealing Led Zeppelin or the fiscal machine that is the Rolling Stones. It is, kind of unique. Name ONE other rock band, and one that did rock pretty hard, who featured, consistently, the FLUTE.

Ian Anderson’s voice is no longer what it was. No doubt about it. But he plays guitar and flute still with perfection and ferocity. And it is still obvious this music means something to him and he MEANS what he plays. He has a sense of humor about himself and is a master story teller and joker, sort of a court jester in a way. He poked fun at the brief emergence of prog rock in the early 70s, listing bands like ELP, Genesis, King Crimson and others who, for a two year period had “their heads up their asses”. He then admitted that he did as well suggesting “it was quite cozy up there.” Next they broke into the second song of the evening, a great version of the sprawling Thick As A Brick.

The evening was mostly older material obviously, as the tour is, in part, a tribute to the 40th anniversary of the classic record Aqualung (an extended version with alternate takes, 11 of them, comes out in September). And Aqualung is truly a classic. Leave aside, for a second, the two most often played tracks, the title and Locomotive Breath, the rest of the record has such songs as Mother Goose, Wind Up (regrettably not played the other evening) and the profound—lyrically and musically, My God. The song was arguably the best of this evening and may be the best on this record. It is a lambasting of organized religion, without being totally dismissive of the basic concept of God (the same could be said of Wind Up). It is an angry young man’s castigation of old men in robes, oppressing as they burn incense and make moral pronouncements based on nothing. The other night it was an old man singing it.

Sometimes you forget how good some music is. There are a lot of reasons why this happens. One is just time, you forget the details. You may forget the songs and then, years later, you hear them again and something clicks. You remember how good they were, what they meant to you. A missing part of your life floods back into your conscious mind.

And there is something strange about this. I am certain the mostly older crowd may have been radicals in their day. Today they are probably Episcopalians who, were the show on the other side of the Atlantic, might shift uncomfortably in their seats at “and the bloody Church of England, in chains of history, request your earthly presence in the vicarage for tea” To say nothing of how the remaining non-lapsed Catholics would react.

The music comes alive again and brings back a part of your life. You get how it moved you again. You can, if you let yourself, get past the jadedness that settles on you as you get older. You can also free yourself from that bizarre adolescent self definition with a style of music that made it yours and helped you identify who you were. You shouldn’t as a grown up, need that nonsense anymore. You can like a band with old guys in it, even if it makes you feel old. You can still like the latest music too. Hell, you should, but it is ok to get excited when you hear; “Sitting on a park bench….”

Years ago I was in a bar. I know this, in and of itself, is not terribly shocking, but in this case I was actually paying attention to a conversation going on at the table next to me.

“I am a big Twins fan and a 49ers fan.” said one guy.

“I HATE that, when people pick random teams to like.” said another guy.

“I am from ATLANTA. What am I going to be a loser for the rest of my life?” said first guy.

At the time the Atlanta teams did not seem poised for greatness. But does this mean you can just randomly PICK someone to be a fan of? Even if they are winners?

In any sport, you can only be a fan of a team you have some connection to: you lived there, your family lived there or you spent summers there when you were in juvenile detention. You cannot be a Yankee fan who has never set foot in NYC, or whose family has never set foot in NYC. There are exceptions, if Reggie Jackson visited you in the hospital when you were a kid and had your legs amputated? Sure, YOU can be a Yankee fan. Never been near Pittsburgh? If Mean Joe tossed YOU his jersey? Ok, exception granted.

This said there is another issue to consider in the USA. Alexis de Tocqueville noted, in the Early Republic, that Americans move a great deal. Therefore you might move to a place and gradually change allegiances or ADD an allegiance.  This, over time, is acceptable. You might move to Miami from NYC and decide, rightly, that the Jets suck and you want to be a Dolphin fan. This is not a qualitative discussion. It has nothing to do with wins and losses. “Suckiness” is a more ethereal and elusive matter than simple “wins and losses.”. You might want to ask yourself; Does the coach of my team possibly suck on strangers toes at bus stations? If you answer yes and have moved you might want to get a new team.

There is a limit. In any given sport you can only have three teams and they must be clearly delineated as 1, 2 and 3. You can never root for 3 over 2 or 2 over one or, GOD FORBID, 3 over 1.  The only exception is when all teams have been eliminated from the playoffs and draft standing is in question. Then losing is winning. You can change the order, maybe once or twice but if you do it more than that? You cannot watch the sport anymore.

For example, I grew up in South Florida but my family is from Pittsburgh. I grew up a Steeler fan and spent many summers in Pittsburgh being brainwashed my relatives (like in The Manchurian Candidate). Over the years I did, gradually, develop a liking for the Dolphins as well (with the Steelers remaining #1). Then I moved to Chicago, where I lived, off and on, for 11 years. I developed a liking for the Bears.

Different sports can indeed have teams from different cities but there should be some continuity. I don’t care about the Chicago baseball teams much, rooting for the Pirates or Marlins (a team that didn’t exist when I first left Florida but that has managed to win two more World Series in the past hundred years than one of the Chicago teams has). Rooting for the Pirates, when you do not live IN Pittsburgh can, however, be considered a form of insanity. When you grow up in Florida you do not have a favorite hockey team while you live there, even if you have Panthers season tickets. You are just waiting for the Blackhawks, Red Wings or Penguins to come to town.

But then we come to another matter, mass hysteria; when I arrived in Chicago Michael Jordan was still with the Bulls. YOU had NO choice in the matter. As soon as you arrived here, you had a Chicago Bulls chip implanted which caused excruciating pain should you root against them (even if you watched every single, miserable game of the Miami Heat’s first season). You can be excused for succumbing to this mass hysteria. It is something written into our human DNA to follow the herd.

In some cases you might be murdered if you are a fan of the wrong team. In this case it is unacceptable to turn on your team simply for your own safety. This is America, buy a gun and carry it under the offending sport jersey at all times. If you are in one of those states where they don’t let you carry guns openly then you can settle matters with a slap fight.

College sports, especially football, are more complicated and beyond the purview of this article. But there are a few things that must be noted; You may root for a team from your region if you didn’t go the school. You may root for other teams to beat a hated rival. You cannot root for Notre Dame, even if you go there. And if you didn’t go there and have the Fighting Irish symbol tattooed on you, that appendage should be hacked off. You also should not root for any team coached by USC’s Lane Kiffin.

Keep in mind, these are a loose set of rules, made up by me off the top of my head. Therefore you should take them to be absolute, irrefutable truth. You should be willing to kill over these pronouncements. If anyone doubts the veracity of these words simply tell them you read them on the internet, ergo meaning they are true.

Recently, my prelude to a discussion of the film Paranormal Activity 2, had a brief allusion to the film Red and discussed how the primary reason I was able to even try to care about the movie was the presence of Mary Louise Parker. I have just adored Ms. Parker since she was on The West Wing, so imagine my concern when I receive a comment on that piece saying that Parker was “batshit crazy" (specifically  the "one of the nastiest, most bat-shit crazy people in Hollywood”).  This, of course, let to me pondering the origins of the phrase “batshit crazy” and wondering where such a, if not common certainly not rare, epithet might have its origins.  The last sentence of the comment gave me pause. It asserted, clearly referring to the Weeds actress, as follows; “I think she has rabies.”

I found this alarming.

Rabies is a contagious disease. Beyond the potential rabidness of the exquisite, if surgically altered, Ms. Parker, there are other concerns.  If Parker had rabies then Bruce Willis, almost certainly, would have contracted it.  I tremble to think about what a monkey wrench that might throw into the development to the shooting schedule of Die Hard 5, Will You Just Fucking DIE Already.   Even more alarming, the lovely Parker also had scenes in close proximity to Dame Helen Mirren and John Malkovich. If Mirren, like Willis, went rapid there would be absolutely NO chance of a Caligula 2 Electric Boogaloo. If Malkovich were to fall victim plans for Being John Malkovich Again might well be scotched. Let’s not even get into the potential issues faced by the cast of Weeds.

But back to “batshit crazy.”

I have to assume that given my interlocutors’ placing this description so near the notion that the talented and stunning Ms. Parker might be rapid implies a connection between “batshit crazy” and “rabies.” Many believe that bats are a primary vector for the spread of dread hydrophobia, ergot inhaling dried bat droppings might make a person, left untreated, “bat shit crazy.”

Years ago writing for a real publication I contacted the Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas to ask them a couple of questions about the flying mammals and the spread of rabies. They told me back then, if I recall correctly, that all mammals could theoretically carry rabies. Bats, however, are small; a bat that gets bitten is unlikely to survive long enough to spread hydrophobia. However, if one bat gets rabies, being very social animals, they might well spread it to their entire colony.  A CDC report concurs stating, “For example, even among bats submitted for rabies testing because they could be captured, were obviously weak or sick, or had been captured by a cat, only about 6% had rabies.”

My ultimate aim here is to prove, at least beyond a reasonable doubt, that Parker is NOT rabid and remove a great deal of worry from my mind about the potential damage to the film and television industry.

First of all, although we have already dispensed with the misguided thought that Parker contracted rabies from a bat, let us look into bats of Southern California and the spread of rabies. I have no idea where Ms. Parker lives. I am just assuming California (she is originally from South Carolina and may also have previous rabies experience, which makes it even less likely she would approach a rabid animal). There is  an alarming notice about how most California wild animal cases are in bats and skunks. Nonetheless I posit that it is unlikely Parker handled either species, even if she lived in West Hollywood.

Without quoting statistics human rabies cases in the United States are rare and even in wild animals the disease is fairly well controlled. Another way to, at least circumstantially, show Parker is not rabid is to examine symptoms.

The symptoms of rabies vary and can apparently be different in humans and other animals. For our purposes we need only concern ourselves with human symptoms. One of the obvious symptoms of rabies comes from the diseases medical name, hydrophobia. Those afflicted with rabies fear water. There are at least two scenes, one in a bathtub and another in a swimming pool wherein Ms. Parker demonstrates no fear whatever of water (see above video).

Humans afflicted with rabies also have headaches, pain, irritability, itching near where the infection site and later music spasms in the throat that lead the foaming at the mouth symptom alluded to earlier. While such "irritability" might well be a reason my commenter referred to Parker being one of the "nastiest" people in Hollywood it is hardly conclusive proof of rabies infection.

In later stages those with rabies have hallucinations, seizures, paralysis and death. We will assume the commenter is asserting Ms. Parker is in the early stages of rabies therefore we will not deal with these later stages. Such advanced rabies would make it difficult to act in even a Jerry Bruckheimer film.  After examining numerous episodes of Weeds (especially scenes in bathtubs), I can state unequivocally that I observed no undue itching, spasms or mouth foaming. Ms Parker did not seem to be in inordinate pain from a headache, although that is difficult to gauge. Irritability is likewise difficult to gauge and it appeared Ms Parker’s characters seem to exhibit neither more, nor less, irritability than was required in a given scene.

While there are scenes in Weeds where the actress did become unhinged it appears to have been the intent of the writers of that scene.  In one case Ms. Parker leaps into a pool in the final moments of the scene. It would take a both skilled and forceful director to coax such a performance out of a rabid actress. I doubt even Alfred Hitchcock could have managed it. Maybe John Derek.

I believe I have shown it, at the very least, highly unlikely that Ms. Parker is afflicted with rabies in either the early or latter stages of the disease. I would further suggest that if anyone, even tangentially associated with the sultry Ms. Parker, might be rabid it is those who wrote the screenplay for Red.