The International Writers Magazine: Reality Check

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Whilst we were away... James Campion catches up "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde Hot damn! It's been too long with no words. Figure we'd kick this off with Wilde and degenerate from there. So, let's see, what's going on? It's official; Lindsey Lohan is our most beloved icon.

We humbly kneel before her quagmire zeitgeist. While by no means being an infinitesimal pimple on the ass of Dame Edie Sedgwick -- forever our damaged goddess -- she grips the mantle well. I think Warhol nails Lohan best when he once mused of Edie, "She's perfect; I've never seen a girl with so many problems."

Ah, and nothing quite tickles the fancy like unwarranted major wig-outs culminating in a whole lot of nada, as in the furor over the barely relevant Don Imus being yanked from the airwaves and the notoriously idiotic O.J. Simpson book, "If I Did It" banned for all time. Seems in my absence both are coming back with a bullet. Excellent. Good to see tasteless free expression and first amendment muscle will out. This is why we pound the pavement, my friends.

Next, it seems the Bush Cabal's load has been lightened a tad. Alberto Gonzalez must have finally realized whatever was left of his defense had become at best laughable and at worst suicidal. In the end the embattled attorney general looked more like a character out of a Lewis Carroll tea party than anything approaching authoritative, much less sane. His downfall came somewhere between a Nurembergian "I was just taking orders" and an Ollie North "Not my job to think" series of tales so exceedingly bizarre it forced the word "semantic" to be stricken from Webster's. Even his president had trouble burping out excuses, which, to date, has been Captain Shoo-In's most lasting raison d'être.

I can think of at least a half-dozen attorney generals tagged with far more damning crimes, but not one attempting a defense so pathetically incoherent and befuddling it often bordered on the surreal. There were crucial moments during Gonzalez's testimony before congress that he actually appeared to have been born guilty, as if he represented the essence of Original Sin, a sucker Adam booted from Eden on a bad wrap. You had to keep reminding yourself that this man was an attorney and the cornerstone of national law and not some dumb ass hillbilly beer fart who was busted for public urination.

Speaking of the foul odor emanating from hillbilly ass, how about this whole Michael Vick thing? How is it that most murder trials take fifteen years to conclude and this guy is busted, arraigned, and remanded in the stockade in two weeks? Do we really love dogs that much? Oh, the answer is a resounding Y-E-S.
How else can you explain the almost universal vilification of this walking pituitary case? Funny thing is Vick, while being a sadistic thug, hardly makes the top ten Most Horrid NFL Players list. There are guys right now on the cover of magazines who have been implicated in rape, murder, massive insurance fraud, a random series of tax evasions, and violent crimes beyond imagination. Hey, I like dogs too, but...

The only people besides fringe African American defense groups more thrilled to see Vick crash and burn was media punching bag Barry Bonds, who during my hiatus broke the all-time career home run record. Good for him, especially if he cheated, which he obviously thinks he did otherwise he would use that world-famous ornery shoulder chip of his to tell us to all go fuck ourselves because steroids and human growth hormones weren't illegal when he injected them.

Hey, cheating defines baseball. Without cheating there is no game -- sign stealing, spitballs, grounds-crew mowing techniques, and so on. Not to mention the ultimate cheat, keeping Bonds' race and every other race but the white race out of the major leagues for half a century. Baseball is our national pastime, so what is more American than Barry Bonds owning its most sacred record. It is as poetic as a man penning the very foundation of a free nation in the monumental phrase, "All men are created equal", while himself owning slaves.

And I know the bridge collapsing in Minnesota was a tragic screw-up by a host of parties, all of whom ignored a decade of warnings about its unsound structure, but does this mean we have to spend billions of federal tax funds gutting the entire infrastructure of the United States immediately? Please speak to the anti-Imus and anti-O.J. book crowd if you need the answer.
Ah, and to cap it off, the grand exit of our hero, Karl Rove.

I have written all I'm going to write about the Boy Genius in this space. I know one thing, say what you will, but he did get George W. Bush elected. Twice! His job description was Doer. He did not come to be loved or even understood. He lived in victory. Everything else was something of a drab annoyance to be expunged at first notice. He took a mediocre silver-spooned boomer and a severely flawed candidate to the pinnacle of American politics. In most civilizations this is known as an unnatural act, or a sign from the gods. A Catholic mind might call it a miracle; someone weaned in Eastern philosophy might see it as a form of karma. I disagree. I see it as a complete and utter rejection of the antiquated notion that humans possess a living soul, a healthy mantra for those in the employ of Texas politics.

I once recycled an apocryphal tale about Rove when I went drink for drink with him in a rancid hotel in Florida back in 2000 after his man had been pistol-whipped by John McCain in New Hampshire. There were serious rumors abounding that Rove had had his soul removed by a Voodoo priestess in a basement temple in New Orleans' French Quarter. But it was irresponsible reporting and I am remorseful of its publication. Karl Rove is not a soulless monster, but our invention, spawned from our school system and churches, strengthened by our moral codes and our undying fear of strange sex acts and subculture rhythms.

There was some crazy talk two weeks ago when Rove was fleeing certain subpoenas for his arms-length list of malfeasance that he once nurtured a dream of a Republican Age, a New World Order of conservative voting power and the complete control of the three branches of government by extremists bringing about the will of God into the American collective. But it was nonsense. Rove worked for paychecks, like the rest of us, and when he began to believe dreams mattered more than the take he crashed to earth and became a tired retread like everyone else who uses power to obtain daddy's love.
    Whew, I'm out of shape.
    Good to be back in the saddle.

© James Campion September 1st 2007
realitycheck@jamescampion.com
Ten Years of Reflections
James Campion Pt 111

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