The International Writers Magazine:
US Poltics and Personal Nightmares - Phil Mershon continues his series on surviving the Democratic National Convention and his personal tumble towards oblivion...

---

When Doves Burn: Self-Immolation, Part II by Phil Mershon I remain amazed that the kids I went to high school with never became famous, for they were all much brighter and more clever than I. All these years later, catching up with college students, it’s as if I jumped back in time.

These DNC folks are brilliant and have given me hope when there was no real reason for them to have done so. In addition to the other people I’ve written about, I should add that Melissa James, Erik Baxstrom, Jessica Van Dyck, Tony Andersson, Immy Singh, Mike Henry—you all made life better for me, as did my local hero in Phoenix, Barbara Brewer, without whose emotional support, I simply could not have survived. But more about her later.
 
Here’s a funny story. Jessica Van Dyck was such a good looking woman, it’s a wonder she didn’t bring in thousands every night. As it was, she brought in hundreds most nights, and not entirely based on her appearance. She was tough to disagree with. Her last day is a case in point.
 
After weeks of promises, the office finally lent us DNC T-shirts, big flashy red things with logos and slogans on cotton that did not breathe. We had to wear these every day and the very first day we gave one to Jessica. Holding it out with a look one might give to a hideous swatch of wallpaper, Jessica compared the shirt to her skirt, put a hand on her hip, recognized with horror that the two clothings clashed, and said flatly: “You have got to be kidding.” She resigned later that night, deciding to work for Bed & Bath, or Bath & Beyond, or Beyond the Valley of Bed & Bath. What will she be doing in ten years? And will she be happy?
 
What will become of Tony Andersson, a hard-fighting, gracious, quick-witted leftie who was so cool that he refused to cheat on his girlfriend when a saucy brunette tried to put the moves on him, a situation that apparently happens all the time?
 
What will become of Erik Baxstrom, a tall, lean student of a pleasant nature, who occasionally erupts with well thought out furies about whether he should pursue the career he wants or the career his family wants for him, financial support being a prime factor in the equation? Erik often drove my group out to our turfs. We never had an accident, and with all the distractions in the car, that’s remarkable.
 
What will become of Melissa James? Her upper middle class lifestyle allows her to go to Paris this Fall, and she’s as hard working as a beaver on amphetamines. Her deep, low voice is smooth as an emerald and when she looks at you a certain way, it feels like she sees parts of your life you were too embarrassed to see for yourself. Will she prosper and thrive?
 
What will become of John Kerry? If he loses, he will fade faster than Michael Dukakis. If he wins, even his most moderate initiatives will melt under the heat scope of organized media reaction, an assault so intense it’ll make what happened to Bill Clinton look like a love tap. There are some who say he isn’t supposed to win, that the Dems are just keeping up appearances until they can run Hillary in 2008. That just might be the DNC’s plan, but Kerry hasn’t signed off on it—yet. He and Edwards and their wives are out on that train every day mouthing blissful platitudes like, “We have to turn this country around and around, but hope and help are on the way!” In the words of Jessica Van Dyck, you have got to be kidding.”

Let’s look at Kerry’s tender spots:
 * Just as the GOP says, he does flip flop on the issues. Kerry calls this “recognizing the complexity of situations.” I call it getting hit by both sides in the middle of the road.”
* He refuses to hit Bush where the latter is most vulnerable: the war, the real economy, the environment, family connections to Saudi Arabia, and a stolen election in 2000. These five issues—any one of them, actually—properly addressed, could drop Walker in the polls by twenty points. And don’t expect it to happen in the debates.
* Kerry needs to forget what he knows about oration and just talk to people. Not everything a politician says is noteworthy, so stop with the forced-air emphasis and try out some complex sentences. Come on, now. You can do it.
* Kerry’s people have failed to capitalize on direct attacks against Bush from Michael Moore, Molly Ivons, Al Franken, Charlie Rose, Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks, Bruce Springsteen, and about a thousand other well-known analysts. Bush slams Kerry for going Hollywood, but the man from Mass has failed to embrace any endorsement other than that of his Vietnam buddies.
 
When you put these frailties together, it’s easy to see why John-John only reaped a five point gain after their convention. That figure, naturally, comes from “likely voters,” which most people don’t realize means “people who voted in 2000,” a year with slightly less than a 50% turn-out. Since this year’s turn-out will be 62%, control of state governorships and reliance on exclusionary strike and awe on voting logs becomes paramount for Bush. He has to cheat to win. And so he will cheat. After all, it works.
 
Here’s election night early. Bush legitimately takes the following southern states: Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana. Kerry will capture Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas. He will also have a majority of votes in Florida, but that majority will not be allowed to count. In the east and northeast, Kerry takes Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, D.C., Massachusetts, and possibly Vermont. All the rest go to Bush. The Midwest is easy. Kerry gets Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. He also earns Ohio, but governor Taft disallows that victory. Ohio gets added to the Bush win pile, along with Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Indiana.
 
Bush takes home the northern states of North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska, while Washington and Oregon will bow to Kerry. California will vote against Bush, and even Arnie the Gov can’t screw that up, although he may be able to get the Latino vote out for George. Kerry needs to hit Cali hard to make a victory there a sure thing.
 
Hawaii, Nevada, Colorado and Utah will go with the GOP, leaving only Arizona and New Mexico as undecided. Chances are that Bill Richardson can swing NM, but with John McCain’s endorsement, AZ will stay Republican this year.
 
As things stand today Bush will win by almost 50 electoral votes, a figure that anticipates his theft of Florida and Ohio (the latter being the home to the CEO of Diebolt). Ultimately, then, Kerry needs to thwart the coup in those two states, plus pull in one other state with electors in the low double digits, or else we’re headed for four years that’ll make the last four look like a warm-up.

In the meantime, I got a few spills and chills of my own. Writing this in longhand in the living room of what once was my house, I heard a key slap into the front door lock. Grabbing everything I had in one arm, I shot down the hall and hid in the back bedroom closet, listening for sounds. There turned out to be four voices: one, the pesky realtor woman, the other three a hodgepodge of her husband and two people from across the street. The conversation almost amused me, what I could hear of it over the pounding in my temples. One guy was certain the intruder had been that creepy guy who used to live here, the one who had let the yard go to hell. If you see the lights come on in here at night, a man with a voice of authority demanded, you call The Law.

A woman who was not the realtor observed that the oven was warm (true enough—I had heated up a leftover pizza delivered the night before, which I’d billed to the realtor). Finally, someone decided the locks needed to be changed. So saying, one hour later, the tribe left. I didn’t expect a locksmith to get out until the next day. I was wrong. Less than thirty minutes later, a big white van with the words LOCK & KEY painted on the sides pulled up, startling me all over again. I should have just run back to the closet, but the tension was tight, so I flew out the back glass door, of necessity leaving it unlocked. Maybe they wouldn’t notice that. It really didn’t matter. I could never risk going back there, not with curious neighbors looking to be heroes for the real estate firm.
 
I fled a good 15 miles that night, to another hospital. This one was called Boswell, The cardiologist was ready to dismiss me after three hours, but the doctor in charge let me stay another day and a half. Late that Sunday afternoon, I went back to the Coco’s that didn’t hire me, ordered a huge fish dinner with fries, coleslaw and two Cokes, and left without paying. With no place to run, I hit the ER at Arrowhead Hospital, the pain by now quite intense. They kicked me out with the warning that the ER is only for life-threatening emergencies. I ended up sleeping for two hours that night on a table in the park. At least my belly was full.
 
AUGUST 16 – 31
 
Bush’s America cracks me up. Being honest and hardworking gets me nowhere, so since I woke up this morning with a hunger stemming from twenty-four hours of no food, I chugged my feet to a nice hotel at which I used to reside, and ate a two-and-a-half hour Continental breakfast for free. The walk to the library was 14 miles, so I needed my strength. Besides, the middle toe on my left foot has a blister the size of the toe itself. But on a more whimsical note, everybody on the Left, from Alexander Cockburn to Norman Mailer, concedes that Kerry has an obligation to win, despite being the second biggest fan of corporate interests in America. I don’t know which is worse: four more years of Walker, or the fact that the best we can come up with to defeat him is this gold-digging hound dog who probably doesn’t even cheat on his wife, Teresa. No sense letting the diamond mine slip through his fingers.
 
I also find it amusing that back at Grassroots DNC Campaigns, James Koehler is flipping wildly because I refused to show him the text of this article before submitting the first half for publication. He’s extremely concerned about how that organization will be presented. As well he might: he completely endorsed the fiction that we would only be fundraising until September 1. It turns out, as I’ve learned from sources within the field office, that all the talk about mobilizing voters, filling up vans with gas to take old ladies to the polls, and building ramps for invalids, was, oh, how to put it? Untrue. Nope: the fundraising will continue right up until Election Day, November 2. Poor James. I’ll bet college is looking pretty good to him about now.
 
And speaking now, it’s now one week until the Antifada known as the Republican National Convention begins in NYC, an orgy of bloodlust, profiteering and lies the likes of which even those of us who survived Watergate haven’t seen. It does not help that over the last week I’ve had a heart pacemaker installed, the one local friend who cares about such things, the glorious Barbara Brewer, giving me the moral strength I needed to survive the ordeal. After all, my cardiologist can hardly endorse the actions I plan to take next week, joining up with “no hall pass” protesters at the RNC, another fact that has James in a tizz. He hates the idea that my involvement in political disruption may reflec badly on the DNC. Ain’t life just teejis, Jim?
 
On the subject of Watergate, funny isn’t it how the leaders of Swift Boat for Truth attackers are the same guys Nixon’s boys called on to cool out anti-war vets returning from Nam. I wish I was in Vietnam, rather than failing so badly here; in fact, looking worse than my dad did before he died. My eyes bulge, my ribs protrude, I ache all over, and my interest in continuing to live is at an all-time low. Maybe I’m more materialistic than I realized. All I know is that politics has become so trivialized, a world where allegations have replaced facts, where facts have replaced analysis, and where entertainment diverts rather than engages. I so hope these words make it to someone else. I sure have put a lot of effort into the whole thing.
 
The funny thing is that I hiked 2,500 miles to be back in Phoenix, felt refreshed at my arrival, and—except for Barb—have been met with nothing less than bewilderment from my friends here at the thought that I would actually expect any whoop-tee-doo about it. But I never give up on you, Tonstant Weader, or on my own ability to scrape together a free meal in a sit down restaurant. I’ve even made a list.
 
 Blame it on the Fat Lady. I had managed to turn the 37 cents in my pocket into $60, shooting stick, and was positioned to add another $40 to my load, when the only person in Cactus Willy’s drunker than the guy I was beating slammed into my cue, sending the nine ball flying across the room. The drunk and I decided to call the game a draw, and I left with $60.37, which I would need for my trip to NYC, where I would meet up with United for Peace and Justice on Sunday, August 29, near Seventh Avenue at 14th Street.
 
The cops had been preparing for our arrival for weeks. And these cops weren’t like the highway patrolman who cuffed me back in June, face in the dirt, eyeglasses in pieces, just for looking suspicious. These were NYC brown shirts, under the direction of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, himself under the direction of Governor Pataki, himself under the direction of Walker. The hitch from AZ to NYC was uneventful. The only decision to make was whether to follow the peace rules and behave, or risk alienating the squares and actually get the shit kicked out of us. The latter sounded like more fun, but unless the media likewise got brutalized, chances were that no one mainstream would report the melee. I suggested to my traveling companions that we ignore the Republicans and just punch out Tucker Carlson during “Crossfire,” but no one laughed. Assholes.
 
If you need another reason to hate KISS, Gene Simmons publicly endorses Walker, in the process referring to the Iraqi people as cockroaches.
 
And party every day.
 
Because the anti-RNC forces are infiltrated, needless to say with unfriendlies, our every action becomes an example of intelligence in the process of being analyzed, coordinated, or acted upon. Given that, the government can simply ignore us, knowing that if they do, the media will do likewise. If our actions become too provocative, they’ll hire a dozen Agnew Jr.’s to go on TV, making irresponsible allegations about a bunch of zanies misled by terrorist agitators, all the while assuring the public that Bloomberg has the situation under control. And if we make things extremely ugly, the government will allow a genuine threat to be carried out, its success due to the fact that local security forces were distracted. Because the government is smart, they know that we already know all this ourselves. The only question remaining is whether we will let them dictate our actions or opt to fight an offensive battle against the GOP. The largest independent variable, though, remains the police. If the cops initiate conflict, then conflict they shall receive.

By prior arrangement, I stayed in New York with an Internet pal, Acorn Hayes, 225 pounds of rugged anarchist. When I knocked on the door of his Greenwich Village apartment, he shouted for me to come in. Doing so, I discovered a tall man in a cowboy suit, kicking a book across the room. “Can you believe people send me this shit?” he demanded. “Hanks: the Unauthorized Biography! Excuse me.” So saying, he walked over to where the book lay, picked it up and stabbed it with a stiletto.
 
Acorn had tried and failed to before a professional wrestler, so he made his current living reviewing biographies for magazines under a series of different pseudonyms. We wore any number of cowboy outfits during my stay, never once bathed or showered, drank almost constantly, and made any number of demands that could strike some people as quirky. For example, “I know I agreed to let you stay here, but before I keep my word, I want you to list your 101 favorite movies. And I’ll know if you’re padding the list to impress me. My personal all-time favorite is Spellbound, so don’t get cute.”
 
I didn’t mind this request at all. In fact, I mentally walked around with a much lengthier list of such matters. Here’s a sampling of what I told Acorn.
 
101. Aloha, Bobby and Rose. 92. Deep Throat (the 5th largest grossing film of 1971). 83. Bad Company (1972 version). 74. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 version). 65. Being There. 56. The Long Goodbye. 47. On the Waterfront. 38. Frances. 29. Midnight Cowboy. 10. Swimming With Sharks. 1. Duck Soup.
 
“That’s pretty good,” acorn said. “You have that memorized? Never mind. Let me play you a little tune I wrote for you. I know it’s my first time meeting you, but we’ve talked on the computer. Besides, anybody puts Duck Soup at the top deserves to be in a song of mine. Actually, this angry Panamanian name of Ruben Blades thinks he wrote it. But he never met you. So that’s impossible.”
 
With which caution, he did pull out a guitar and commenced.
 
Phillip sits inside a bar, smoking a fat man’s cigar
In a place called Cactus Willy’s on 63rd Avenue.
He doesn’t smell a day over 69, although he’s only 45.
He likes records from the Seventies—they remind him of the better times.
And after some gin & tonic, Phillip starts to let it hang out.
He stands up on a table and asks big Jane for a pen.
 
“I’m gonna write a letter to the president
I’m gonna write a letter to him.
‘Dear Dope, send me some hope or a rope to do me in.’
A letter to the President
I’m gonna write a letter to him.
‘Dear Dope, send me some soap and a bottle of Saphire gin.’”
And no one stops him. We all lend a hand.
See, we all knew him before he got this mad.
So we just hold him until the shaking stops.
Because the heart says what only the heart knows.
 
“I wanna hear some Elton John!
Wanna hear a lotta Marvin Gaye!
I wanna hear a song that reminds me of the better days!”
Phillip slips and tries to stand up. He kisses a pretty girl on the mouth.
And running to the juke box, he tries to put a quarter in.
He says, “I’ve had enough of women. And I’ll never say Yes again.
It’s George W. Bush or nothing for me in this life.”
 
 Before I had a chance to ask my host how he came to get certain of these details exactly correct—and others a bit off—he dropped his guitar, pulled a couple pills from his leather pants pocket, dry-swallowed them, and announced it was time to go.

The cops held their ground, I’ll give them that. After all, what chance did a bunch of permit-waving pansies have against NY’s finest latent homosexual community all dressed up for Mardi Gras in their best Nazi regalia? Oh, it indeed shone beauty everywhere it went, it did: all those orange wire meshes and nightsticks a-swinging. Sad to say but not really, several innocent bystanders and even a couple journalists had the intense please of being rounded up and cordoned off by the fuzz boxes. Quite inspiring that the sons and daughters of Bill O’Reilly would even show up.
 
Acorn and I mostly hung around with the bicycle patrol. They were the unlucky dozens who kept finding police cars ramming into their rear tires.
 
But all in all, the protests were terrific. To hell with them. The real story is how we formed COW: Cops of the World. While shooting lemon juice on one another, about eighteen or so of us developed the idea that we should start raising money for Halliburton as a bribe to get them to end the war. Once we met or exceeded Pentagon appropriation projections, we’d just write Cheney a check and tell him he could have it if he’d just withdraw all the troops. COW would gladly go in and help rebuild the country ourselves. But the messages we left with the VP’s office went unanswered (though not unnoticed), and the edge of our operation never much sharpened after that.

October:
Back in Phoenix, the end of the month looks quite mixed. Bush is ahead in every major poll; the only variation being by how much. The typical range is three to fourteen points, ignoring in most cases samplings of people who usually don’t vote but may this time, although Kerry gives them little reason to do so. Michael More claims it’s in the bag, but just to be sure, he’s embarked on a cross-country tour to get college slackers registered and in the voting booth. The Nation is scared shitless, as is the New Republic. The funny thing is: the White House is really scared. When the Kerry camp announced they were withdrawing TV ads from Arizona until further notice, you’d have thought the Dems were conceding the entire election. “Oh, we’ve won, we’ve won, and the war has just begun!” cheered the local meat-hook-handed reactionaries, Representative of Corporate Interest J.D. Hayworth the loudest amongst them. All the in-the-knowers insist the results have to do with turn-out, but that’s only a third of the issue. Given fair turn-out, there’s still the matter of having the votes count. And the third half of the matter is having the election results ratified. There: three ways for Bush and the goons to steal what they cannot earn. With less than five weeks to go, things are getting uglier by the instant.

© Phil Mershon October 2004
mershonphil@hotmail.com

Part One: When Doves Burn
Phil Mershon on fundraising for John Kerry and the DNC 09.02.04

More in Comment

Home

© Hackwriters 2000-2004 all rights reserved