2:42 in the middle of the night. I think it's Thursday.
Yesterday of course I drove a couple of hours in traffic to Purdue West Lafayette to watch Bernie Sanders give his "political revolution" speech. And the day before that - it must have been Tuesday - I drove a mile or so across Hammond to watch Hillary give her "manufacturing is king" speech. I don't why I'm putting so much of myself into covering this. The morning after Hillary's speech I tried to talk about it on the radio, and the only people who called were Hillary haters. They called in droves. And make no mistake, I'm grateful whenever someone calls in with passion and resolve.
But something is happening in America and outside of covering the candidates so I can talk about them on my morning radio show... I really just kinda wanna figure out what it is.
Last night, by the way, I didn't drive to Indianapolis after the Bernie Sanders speech in Lafayette. Instead, in a pouring rain, I paid 30 bucks to JEDgolf nine holes on Purdue's Kampen Golf Course. It's where the Purdue golf team plays and it's like the best and most difficult golf course in the Big Ten. Most of the time, I'd never get on it to JEDgolf. But yesterday it was raining, so instead of driving to Indianapolis to get in line to get my crotch sniffed again, I drove to the Birck Golf Complex, put on my JEDgolf gear, and walked around one the best courses I've ever played.
The only problem is that my GoPro fogged up and much of the round looks like I filmed it though a piece of Saran Wrap. Oh well, wanna make God laugh?
Tell him your plans.
And maybe God can tell me what's happening in America. The nation is watching us here in Indiana as our primary comes up on Tuesday. The results are crucial for all five of the campaigners left. Trump is leading the Republican slate but he needs a really strong showing to get closer to having enough delegates so it doesn't go to an open convention in Cleveland. Senator Ted Cruz has a lot of the conservatives in his fold, but he really can't get traction. So he and the third Republican in the race, John Kasich, have this schoolgirl pact in which Cruz will campaign Indiana and Kasich will forsake us. It's a weird tryst. I don't understand it.
Oh, and by the way, in my quest to JEDgolf on Kampen Golf Course, I passed up a rally in Indianapolis in which Ted Cruz announced Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Also, in my quest to get at least one of the five candidates on WJOB, I can see now who it is that I have the best chance of getting.
Carly Fiorina.
And you know what? I not only OK with that. It's who, out of the five men and one woman in the race, I want the most on the radio with me. She comes out of business. I come out of business. She's a little bit gruff. And I'm a little bit gruff. She's a woman. And I love women.
Actually, John Kasich was scheduled to come on WJOB yesterday. Matt Reardon, who does a show with Dave Kusiak on Wednesdays, says he had it all lined up for Kasich to call his show until Kasich took a detour and went to Oregon instead. Oh well. It's probably not meant to be that we get a candidate on Alexis and my radio station. I don't know why it matters to me, but it does.
For now, the three or four of you can know that I'm up in the middle of the night blogging to you again. I keep getting these little shudders of horror in that I drove home from Lafayette yesterday in a driving rainstorm amidst the most semis I've ever seen on I-65 and the Borman... and I was in this little bitty Ford Fusion that no real estate agent in his or her right mind would be caught dead in. I drove home before sunset time, but it was dark and rainy and even darker amidst all the semis... and when I pulled in the driveway, I reached to turn off my headlights...
And I realized that they weren't even on. That means that I drove in the rainy gloom without my headlights on all the way from the rest area near Lowell where I stopped to piss. That's pretty stupid.
You know what else is stupid? This search to find out what's really happening in America. I couldn't figure it out eight years ago when Barack Obama kept coming to town. I couldn't believe people falling all over themselves to support this guy who never ran anything. He was Barry Obama from Occidental College who played on the basketball team. And he could give a great speech about CHANGE. And to me, that was about it.
"Do not partake in the magic dust, people," I used to say on the air, to no avail. It's not that I didn't want them to vote for Obama. It's just that I wanted at least a little critical analysis of who would make the best president.
Now I feel like saying the same thing to people falling all over themselves to support the next messiah - Trump. It's really the same kind of mania, only this time with Trump there's hint of embracing racism and back in 2008 it was all about feeling bad about racism . Either way, it's a mania. Both 2008 and 2016 remind me of tulip bulbs.
... As I let the dogs out to piss just now, I caught a little bit of Bill Maher's show. He talked about why do we have to feel bad about being white. I don't know. It's not even a question that you're supposed to ask or you might be considered a racist. Bill Maher could get away with it because he for some reason has license to joke about and comment on anything, even the most sensitive things. If you're a comedian, you are given that license to joke about anything.
But if you're a radio host, you don't get that kind of range. You gotta stay in a narrower rut of don't go too far and better watch what you say or you'll be apologizing for weeks. In the end, I'm really hungry now in the middle of the night and I could type all night and not get any closer to the golden nugget of -
why are people so drawn to Messiahs these days?
At the Bernie rally yesterday you could see it. Look at the pictures on this blog. Discontented white kids standing line for hours and then standing at attention for more than an hour to listen to Bernie's speech. And you know what? A lot of what Bernie said made sense. I too can't stand that the people at the top keep holding more and more of the riches in this country. Part of it's plain jealousy, like everyone else, but part of it's rooted in sitting in Catholic church for half my youth listening to Father Weiss talk about the meek shall inherit the earth, let their light shine before men. That they may come to worship with and give glory to God.
That's from a song. I don't know the name of the song, but it says something. There is honor in being humble before God and everyone else, even yourself. And those who sell shit in the temple and who are too freaking greedy, those are the bad people.
Yet now in America, they're somehow the good people, the ones we look up to. Maybe we're all getting tired of really rich people being really rich and then Bernie comes along to soothe the soreness on the inside of our chest cavities...
But wait. On the other side of the coin there's this mania going down to elect one of the richest of the rich, Donal Trump. Vote for Bernie if you hate rich people. Vote for Trump if you don't care if your president's rich or not. That's the key, by the way. I'm seeing that Trump supporters are pissed, bewildered, often unsatisfied with how their lives are going - and they may even be pissed about rich people keeping them down - but it's more important to change what's happening than worrying about if their candidate is rich or not.
Limousine liberals would say - these Trump supporters don't realize that the reason they're in the pickle that they're in is because of people like Trump.
Are you kidding me? When it gets so bad, it doesn't matter how much money a guy has or what color he is, you just want the system overturned... a little bit. You want the system overturned... a little bit.
That's what Bernie and Trump are both saying. In the beginning, Trump was saying - why should all the rich people get all the breaks? But he backed off on that when he realized that he probably couldn't get nominated as the Republican candidate for president by regurgitating Bernie Sanders lines. So he moved on to talking about building a wall with Mexico and keeping all Muslims from coming into the country.
Anyways, as the three or four of you can tell, I still don't know what the Sam Hill is going on in America. I thought maybe that if I went to watch all four of the candidates talk live that I'd have a better sense of what the hell's going on. But after seeing Hillary and Bernie, I get the sense that even if I do see Trump and Cruz I won't be any closer to understanding what's happening politically and anger-wise in America.
Do any the three or four of you understand what's going on in America? Stop, don't tell me. It's better if I figure it out on my own.