Kisses for my president
While we wait to see if Howard Dean can win Wisconsin, the Republicans made their bid for the future this week in New York. As a member of the loyal opposition, I held my own convention in my apartment with a Texas-sized bottle of vodka and a rental of Passionate Conservatives Volume 6: Meatpacking Misfits. I was sort of bummed about the convention, because they asked Zell Miller to speak and not me, and we are both Democrats, plus I don’t have some hick accent. Anyway, his speech was pretty good, and I basically agreed with it if you took out all the stuff about the Democrats. Really, I think the DNC is playing a dangerous game allowing him to pretend to cozy up to the enemy while really acting as a Trojan Horse to destroy them from within. It may well end up backfiring.
Tonight, the guy who is filling in as president until the next scheduled election (tentatively slated for November 2, 2004, but the likelihood of terror attacks in urban areas may require those locations to vote sometime after January 20) took to the podium to give his speech, which was something about how he wanted to remove all barriers to the success of poor people except in cases where doing so would cost money. He also offered all poor people with millions of dollars some great ways to be just like rich people through innovative tax savings plans. Maybe having an MBA for president is a bad idea. All they want to talk about is tax savings. Where are the blow jobs?
With that grave thought in mind, I turned off the video, in which “twin” “blondes” were grinding up against each other and saying how Molly Ivins was a total bitch, and hailed an M14 bus. “Meatpacking District, and make it snappy,” I said to the driver, offering my Gold MetroCard. “Yes, sir,” he said, and we were off. Forty-five minutes later, we rolled up in style at the velvet-rope club Velvet Rope. I got off through the rear door as a courtesy to other passengers, along with an old lady with a shopping cart and two hiphop youths with their girlfriend. We all waited on line to see if we were on The List. The queue advanced slowly. Velvet Rope was known for its lack of the usual door snap judgments; they went over each of us with a fine-toothed comb, and most were found lacking. They didn’t want to let both hiphop youths in with one girl, so the other guy grabbed the old lady, whose outfit was considered pre-ironic retrofabulous. That got him in, but it had been my same idea, so now I was in trouble. As I stepped to the head of the line, I had to think fast.
“Name?” the sub-bouncer asked me.
“I’m here,” I said, “with the Twins.”
“Twins?” she said, taking a step back in terror.
“Yeah. Aren’t they here already?”
“Yes, they…they are. Go in the back.” The rope was parted, and I entered the abyss.
Around the darkened room, those who were not celebrities but were dissipated enough to qualify lounged in Calvin Klein beanbags. Waitresses in platform heels bent in half to take and distribute orders. Six guys in black t-shirts ran up and down the bar keeping the machinery of the evening going. I dawdled for a moment to take it in. A sub-sub-bouncer touched my elbow.
“Sir, if you’re looking for the Twins, you’ll have to keep moving.”
“Well, I thought I would get a drink here at the —”
“Sir, please, the Twins are in the back. We are not allowed to have any friends of the Twins out here with the regular customers. Please keep moving.”
Now I was in trouble. Having played my only card, I was now compelled to take the trick. I was shoved down a hallway marked “No Admittance” under which someone had scrawled in Urban Decay lipliner, “(except awesome peeps!!!!)” As the door behind me slammed and was deadbolted, I took a breath and stepped inside.
“Omigod! Look, party boys!” someone cried as I peered into the gloom. Then, “Oh, wait. Who’s that? Omigod, who is that, go talk to him, no, seriously, you go.”
“Hi!” said a cheerful young woman, bounding up to me. “Did, like, you get a call?”
“A call?”
“Did someone call you? Are you like, you know, are you the delivery guy? I thought I knew all the delivery guys. Are you new? I put in a call a while ago, you know, just for enough for tonight.”
“Sorry,” I said, “I just wanted to get a vodka and soda. They said there was a bartender here.” I looked back to see a sad young man in a black t-shirt. It was inside out and appeared to normally read “BUCK FUSH.”
“Oh, sure, Buck will help you! Buck is the coolest bartender!” The cheerful young woman bounded back to the bar, plopping down next to her companion and mirror image. “Get the delivery guy a drink, Buck,” the mirror image said.
“Hi ladies, I’m Jack,” I said to them.
“Hi Jack!” they chorused.
“Do you party?” asked the other one.
“Rarely,” I said, “I’m pretty old.”
“Yeah, totally,” the other other one said.
“So, you’re in town with your parents for the week?”
“I know, totally, they are so on us all the time, it sucks sucks sucks. What is the point, anyway?”
“I know!” the other one said. Then we all took a draw on our drinks.
“I mean, like, why does he have to do all this talking anyway, it’s not like somebody else is going to be president, whatever,” the first one continued.
“Who’s going to vote for that Mister Sour-Pants? And he’s a big liar anyways. He’s always saying how Dad made too much war in Iraq, but he thinks we should invade Vietnam. There’s no way Osama is there!”
“Ewww, Osama, terrorism, groooosssss,” the first one said, sticking out her tongue.
“But he could totally be in Iraq. We don’t know yet. Sometimes if you want something good to happen, like killing Osama, you have to do some things you don’t like, like killing everybody in the Middle East. It’s never easy, duh! That’s why we have other people to be president! Why can’t people just let Dad do his job and leave him alone? Let him worry about it!”
“So we can party!” the first one said, and they high-fived. Then the other one said, hastily, “And work in schools as teachers in Harlem with the disadvantageous.”
“And party,” the first one said, and they giggled.
“This convention is so much more awesome than that other one. Did you see that dress that the Edwards bitch had on? Where is her Fashion Emergency Management Agency? This is not the junior prom, 1975!” They high-fived.
“You got served, Edwards bitch!” the first one said.
“She is not hot at all,” the other one said, turning to me. “Right? Like, hot or not, right?”
“NOT!” the other other one said.
“You know that game?” the other one asked me. “Marry, Fuck, Kill?” They giggled.
“Okay, like, the three of us, Bitch and us, what do you think,” and they giggled.
“Omigod, Buck, she is so fucking funny, I need a drink!” She slammed her chocotini glass on the bar. “Sis, you’re hysterical. Isn’t she fucking crazy?”
“Did you see us on TV?” the other one asked me. “It was awesome, we gave like a whole speech.”
“I wrote the part about Outkast,” the other other one said.
“Yeah, that’s like all you did.”
“Come on! It’s not like you wrote anything. You didn’t even read it until we were —”
“Whatever! I came up with the line about peanut butter. Dad was always making us fucking peanut butter sandwiches, it was hysterical!”
As the vodka glass slipped from my numbed grasp, I felt myself falling, falling, falling. Then I sat up with a wheeze and realized I was on the floor of my local bar. Patrons were milling around woozily. I got up, dusted myself off, and realized it had all been a dream. I sat down on the barstool from which I had fallen, and called for another drink to calm my nerves. I rested my head in my hands and tried to catch my breath. There had been no trip to the west side, no Velvet Rope, and above all no Twins…it was all a bad dream. This was still the world I knew.
But at that moment, my attention shifted to the bar television set, where two girls were applauding as some guy and a lady came onto a stage. Fear hit me like a ton of corporate corruption. It was not a dream. George Bush…was the president!
by Jack, September 2, 2004 11:49 PM | More from Drinking & Women | More from Election 2004 | More from The Damned Human Race
Within the Chronology
« What I did on my summer vacation | Home | One of our horndogs is missing »
What about the part where the 3 of you strip off all your clothes, and using only baby oil and a ceiling fan, form a balance of power that revolutionizes "political" intercourse between liberals and conservatives?
Let's also remember that it was Howard Dean who first brought up the important popular culture reference "Outkast" in this campaign. Also, the Bush twins are not hot. You're thinking of Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills.
Chocotini?
Oooohhh man.