Fear and Loathing at the Inauguration of Barack Obama

It was an epic seventy-two hour excursion from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Washington, D.C. and back involving a fifth of vodka, a fifth of rum, six Blue Agave flavored energy drinks, half an ounce of high-grade marijuana, six pills of adderall,two hits of acid that I never took, two pills of ecstasy that turned out to be fake, and twenty-four hours without sleep. I was greeted with two cases of Spike Energy Shots, two shots of Maker's Mark, and an hour nap. Standing, late in the evening, on the briskly chilled streets of Washington D.C. on January 19th smoking cigarettes was a welcome relief from the piles of snow we'd left behind in Michigan.

Following my nap, we set out for the first bar of many in those two days in the Capital. As we sat around a pool table in some basement bar near Columbia Heights gingerly sipping our $9 Guinness pints, one could not help but notice the subtle thematic differences in bar culture that remind you how close to the heart of American politics you are. Instead of the working-class Michigan mix of Nascar/ESPN/Telemundo, the array of televisions were affixed on CNN/CSPAN/MSNBC. Rather than the pre-coital grunts of mid-IQ college students from Western Michigan University, the conversation was relegated to one topic only: the next morning's local attraction, the inaugural soiree of the 44th President of the United States of America.

We stumbled from the bar to a nearby hookah lounge and plotted the following day's events. As of eight the morning we left, we had assumed we were in possession of tickets to the gated area nearest the Capitol. Those tickets had failed to come about, so we were at a loss as to how we were going to gain access to this prestigious and highly-secure historical event. We decided to just get as close as we could, then find the nearest bar and watch the thing on television like the rest of Earth. At least we knew it was going down less than a mile away, and we could openly drink the large quantity of alcohol we had been in the habit of drinking that winter.

Following another brief nap, we showered and assembled for the subway ride to Chinatown for the walk down to the mall. Nearly eight already, we were surely not the early birds. Just out the door you could tell something was happening. The air almost seemed thicker with the improvised music of millions of people gathered in a tiny spot on Earth. As we crammed ourselves into the overly-crowded subway trains, I had my first "wow" experience of the day. I'm no stranger to big American cities, no stranger to the sights of a big group of people. The real experiences are the person to person, eye to eye experiences. As an elderly black woman demonstrated her well-adjusted subway skills simultaneously chatting, holding the rail, adjusting her glasses, and grabbing the collar of her Sunday-best grandchildren looked at me and smiled. All she said was,

"TODAY IS A WONDERFUL DAY"

I hiccuped and smiled, first of the day's caffeine, cigarette, weed, and whiskey still on my breath, and replied, "it really is, ma'am." I'm not usually one for such formality, but I figured it was right for the occasion. She smiled again, and nodded along, shuffling children by the shirt collars. I sunk back into my chemical haze, more of a historian drunk on the stories of the ages. What was so wonderful about this day? The first black president? A good thing, no doubt, but not the heart of the reason for millions to gather of all races. A good riddance to the eight years of frat boy politics? Also good, but not nearly the locus of the excitement. The true Jesus Christ of the thing, the true reason everybody came from all over Earth, Barack Hussein Obama, that's who. The guy speaks the English language like it's rolling out of a textbook. Compared to the spelling-bee flunkout before him, a sonic boom of exquisite articulation.

Truth be told, I didn't really know a thing about Barack Obama outside "The Audacity of Hope," and I really don't still. Sure, his dad was Kenyan with a sob story, his rags to riches "live for the next generation" all-American mom, hot ivy league wife, trials and tribulations of youth, community organizer, Hawaii, blah, blah, blah. If Keith Olbermann said it, I heard it, and if he didn't then, well, I didn't. I don't want to pretend I know more than anyone else who got college credit for intro to poli-sci. I know what just about everybody else knew: when the guy speaks, people listen. Period. It was just the cult of personality behind this guy that made me wonder what we've all become as iconographers.

I stood there, jaw agape, as we walked up the subway stairs to the light at the end of the tunnel. As we went up, step by step, the first thing I saw was a man with Obama's face on his T-shirt. In his hand, he held a bottle of water with Obama's face on it.

"O-Bama water. Fi' dollas! Historic Event!"

bled to a cacaphony of
"OOOH-Bama! Get your t-shirts here"
"O-BamaBama, OBMAMABAMABAMA, O-0-o-o-oBAMA"
"O-Bama cups!" "Get your Obama coins! Real hand-painted brass! Twenny Twen Twen Twenty" "Obama, Obamabama, Obamaramaobama get your lasagna!"
"Buy our new Obama Brew- A hearty, American Pale Ale brewed in America only $7 a bottle!" "Obama! Obama! O-baaaa-ma, gonna kill O-saaaa-ma"

The beating of fists on the bottoms of five gallon drums.
The crackle of a protester's bullhorn,
"Barack Obama is going to Hell! America will burn in Hell! Your only eternal salvation is with the LORD JEEEEEESUS CHA-RIIIST"

"OBAMA AIR FRESHENERS! Two bucks, three for five!"

My favorite, though, was "celbrate this momentis ocasion with a elephant ear!"

The lovely barely-educated vendorfolk had made it from some backwoods Virginia hillbilly stronghold. A blonde television reporter points a microphone at a mounted police officer, and an ambulance crew carries off a man on a stretcher. Thousands of people ahead and behind us we stumble out to the daylight and see an endless mass of people walking, eating, talking, and all- every last one- smiling. As we grew nearer and nearer to downtown, and as the Starbucks became one every few blocks to one every corner, the crowd got thicker and thicker with the sound of choked breath anticipation, civic pride, and the smell of the vendors- food and body alike.

As we approached an area of sight-distance from the Capitol building, it became more than obvious there was something very big happening. Police cars everywhere, road-spiked barricades, men with machine guns, and giant television screens seemingly hanging in mid-air. Strangers embrace in tears. Tears for the joy of the future, perhaps, or tears of old memories that won't go away so easily.

Lost in the overwhelmingly existential nature of the whole thing, I floated about like the wandering drunk I was in tow of my friends Seth and Ally only trying to make sense of the whole thing. Why were we here? Why did we come? What was happening? What's with the commercialism of Obama's face? What mattered so much to so many people that day? Where are we going to get a place to sit and drink? So many questions, such minute levels of BAC. Not being burdened by a vehicle must be one of the best perks to the big city.

We found a place called RFD, where we took a seat at a four-top near the outside smoking area. As I wandered in and out between cigarettes and irish car bombs, my ears perked up right away. This guy is having YoYo Ma play at his party, dude. That's intense. We had racked up a significant bar tab by the time and at one point I was sure I saw a bong between Obama and Biden, but quickly realized it was a glass of water.

Then the man speaks and all is silent but for the clinking of glasses

"Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. they are serious and they are many they will not be met easily or in a short span of time but know this, America, they will be met"

I actually shed a tear. Just one, couldn't help it.

"That all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness"

"Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we may live a better life"

"Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man woman and child that seeks a future of peace and dignity, and
we are ready to lead once more."

Ok, maybe two tears.

The clamor of the bar began to rise to a normal level following the speech and into the following speeches. Then, as the helicopter took off with George W. Bush, the entire bar let out a thunderous cheer. We paid our tab after a few more drinks, and went to the mall to survey the scene.

Ironically, this was the most sober of times I've spent in the Capital city. As we tread through the garbage of four million average-joe consumerist assholes, and watched from the muddied marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial as ducks fought with plastic bottles for space in the reflecting pool. We kept to the path around the boot-flattened hill near the Washington Monument, and read thousands of discarded fliers. Could one be so disappointed with his fellow citizens after having his faith restored in the human race just a few short hours ago?

So, what was so god damned wonderful about the whole thing?

Four million people stand in a park for eight hours to watch a guy talk, and then they leave a pile of shit in one of the thousands of port-a-potties. A big steaming pile of shit to remind us we're all a bunch of raving-mad savage beasts, leaving a wave of destruction wherever we go. The way I see it, no greater assessment of our national identity could have been made but in that moment where a man stood triumphant speaking of change and progress only to have his literal millions of supporters fall back into the same rut of petty argument, carelessness for their surroundings, reckless abandon of civility, and blatant disregard for anything but what's right in front of their face. The taxi ride home was nearly silent, and it is not possible to render the true scope of the ghastly scene to writing.

In Kalamazoo, the bar televisions were still on sports.
But all that's left from the box is audacious hope, anyhow, right?
Just saying.

-Z

An Ode to Progress

At a red light the other day, as I was driving to work, a middle-aged man in a blue mini-van rolls down his window and started making frantic gestures at me. At first startled, I remembered that this is a common thing. I have a simple sticker on the back of my car. Four simple words, none more than four letters. It reads, "Who is John Galt?"

For those of you who don't know what that means, click this link to purchase the book "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.

For those that do, imagine the scene. Police station in the back ground, the NPR on both radios, two cars neck and neck. Me, unsuspecting, and another person foaming at the mouth to make a comment.
"Oh man, I love your sticker. 'Who is John Galt?' My god, there's a hope for this world yet"
I couldn't help but notice the Christian Family Bookstore bumper sticker and shudder.

Amicably, I smiled, grabbed the copy of Atlas Shrugged I 'just so' happened to have with me, held it up and said:
"Words to live by, friend."

We drove on.

I went to work, I pressed the buttons on the cash register, and I dreamed of times to come. Soon enough, just eleven short hours later, I would be out of work and traveling down the street on the way to the grocery store. I hear a horn blare from a car speeding past me as they lean out the window and scream:
"Who is John Galt?!"

Two in one day makes a good day. I sit in the coffee shop and pick through the book. A man, well-dressed, and in his late forties taps my table. I look up to see a smile.
"Great book you have there"
"I know it"
"First time?"
"Seventeenth"
"Hence the highlighter"
"Yes, and you may call me Hugh Akston if you wish"

We both share a quick laugh, and he walks out to his car. Shiny, red, extravagant. his new car blurs into the the motion of the passing traffic and he's gone. Three in one day is uncommon.

Settling in from the journey home, I started watching classes on Academic Earth as I got ready for bed. I watched the first lecture of four in a series on Copyright Law by Keith Winstein. As he instucted the class, he looked up from his book and said:
"Anyone read Atlas Shrugged? Any objectivists here?"

::silence::

He shakes his head as I laugh out loud, and explains how a theoretical Randian ideal has to do with a certain viewpoint of the law.

I found myself wishing I was in his classroom to be the person that jumped up and screamed

"Who is John Galt?"

Four references in one day leaves me resting assured that the world hasn't gone to an idiotic hand-basket hell.

Tracking down the Oneiroi

I've made it no secret, my newest pet project. I'm searching for the American Dream, plain and simple. If not just to grab it by the throat and choke it half way to death, leaving it's elusive body gasping on the floor of some North Carolina strip club stage knowing what it's like to be down on your luck. Funny how every time I go looking for the Dream, I end up face-first into some diabolical foray of endlessly iterating drug frenzies, alcohol binges, and aimless cross country driving. The damned dream gets further away for every stab in the dark I take at it's wispy-thin effigies dancing in the shadows of our nation's last-call bars.

I found myself smoking weed in public last week, a habit I don't indulge frequently. Setting the scene, we were at a local downtown haunt frequented by a large cross-section of Kalamazoo's finest. Next door, Ani DiFranco was playing at the State Theater (a casual coincidence.) I sat on a shady picnic bench with my friend Mike, and his buddy patiently yet frantically awaiting the telephone call that his first child was about to be born. On a bet, I asked two attractive young ladies at the bar if they'd fancy a jaunt down the street to have a few puffs on some lovingly cultivated, high potency marijuana. The ladies excused themselves from their dates, their husbands, who were left sulking at the bar as their newlywedded brides went off with two scary looking men in black clothing to smoke a plant most definitely still illegal in the United States. Both teachers in the Kalamazoo Public School System, the young ladies admitted that they had been on the hunt to get high ever since they went downtown to see Ani.

"Are we going to your car, Zach?" the blond asks, bubbly yet inquisitive.
"Nope," Mike interjects as he jams an index-finger sized joint in the poor thing's face.
"In public?" the stern and visibly more assertive of the two blurts out, as if accidentally.
"Sure, why not?" I say, as the passer-bys keep to themselves and stare straight forward.

There we sat, fifteen minutes in all, as the crowded bar district of Kalamazoo dispersed it's drunks accordingly. I thought to myself, if only for a second, "have I found it?" as we wandered back into the bar. Six pints deep, I had to occupy the lavatory. Naturally, so to speak. As I washed my hands, some rube walks in and says

"whoa, who's been smoking the reefer?"
"Oh, not me, I must have just missed out. It smells damn good, though, I can tell ya that much"
"Damn right, It's like fuckin Snoop Dogg was here or sump'n"
I laugh as I tell Mike the story, and he says
"Oh, I was ripping a chillum in there a few minutes ago"

As my mind wanders back to the places I've been, the people I've met, and the things that I've seen; one thing remains constant. Smoking marijuana. If it be Hashish-laced cigarettes in the Great Pyramid of Giza, back stage at the Club Soda, to every concert from Nobuo Uematsu to ICP to Opeth to Kenny Chesney, under the thundering elevated trains of Chicago, in the back alleys of Manhattan, in the dense thick of the Redwood National Forest, in the dazzling lights of Las Vegas, at all the parties, through all the late nights, in the kitchen coolers, the bar bathrooms, and the beds of girlfriends - one thing remains as a constant. Every one I know, and everyone I hang out with, and nearly everyone I've met smokes marijuana. Yet every few weeks, I hear that another one of them has gone to jail because of it.

I think, futher still, about the American Dream. I think about all the endless hours of driving with a smoldering bowl of chronic tucked under my leg, all over the country. I think about all the strangers I've encountered and smoked with. I think of all the grow-ops I've seen, all the strains I've smoked, all the cops I've nearly hit my pipe in front of. I think about my friend's close calls and near-misses with getting busted. The favorite glass pieces broken on brick porches. The stashes dumped down sewer drains. I think about the off-duty cops I've smoked with, I think about the Oklahoma billboard I saw, "cops against prohibition."

I think of the American Dream. I think of smoking weed on the streets of Washington, D.C. during the Inauguration of Barack Obama. I think about what it all means. I think about the bong my dead friend Stan bought us that sits in my footlocker. I think about the connections that we all share, as people caught up in the moment of being people. Sharing stories, passing a neverending bongload around a cicle. The joints around the campfires. The feeling you get, not when you're busy living, but when you remember the good times you had.

That feeling is the Dream in action. The feeling of connection with some great big idea that no one can quite hold on to, but for a moment of fleeting reverie. Needless to say, no matter where I'm drinking a mug of beer, there's always someone who's eyes sparkle when I say those two words we all hear every day.

American Dream.

Psychophantic Sedentary Symbiosis

I pulled out my headphones in line at the grocery store to pay for my groceries (mostly booze,) and the girl checking my ID made the mistake of asking the now ubiquitous question: "what are you listening to?"

"Bible of the Devil"
"Oh" (She picks up the bottle of Tequila, looks at the rum) "I guess this explains it"
"No, that's what the limes are for"
:Total Shock and Confusion:

She was nice, but totally terrified of the fact that I might not believe in god. Totally put off. I'm just another guy in the store buying booze, but the fact that I said Devil in public whilst wearing sunglasses suddenly makes me the enemy of the fucking state.

Yes, I drink. That's why I came to the place with shelves of liquor. Drugs, booze, cigarettes, sex, gambling, lying, cheating, cursing, motorcycles, yes, all of it. I have a definite sour taste for the law, and for a majority of society and their stupid pallid incompetence. I've been in rock bands for more than half my life, and I've done done more drugs than most people can name. I've traveled the world, and all anyone can ever say is "how?" Easy. Work hard, play harder. I've read the satanic bible as many times as the real one, and the bible of the devil the band is named after the codex gigas, which IS A CHRISTIAN BIBLE. Do these people forget that you'd have to believe in God to believe in the Devil? I am an ATHEIST! I don't believe in fairy tales of any kind!

Everybody else gets caught up in shopping at whole foods, balancing their lifestyle, and marching the straight and narrow right on to the collection plate at megachurch. Idiots. We're all going to die, and Horus will not be taking us to get our hearts weighed, much less will Jesus stand in robes judging our every life choice. Jesus, contingent on existence, would most likely not care. What a forgiving chap, right? When we're all rotting in the ground, the ground will not care how many shots of tequila you took two hours before work.

Religion is stupid. Just a thought.
Stay tuned for updates from the road. I'm leaving Kalamazoo for a while.

How pretentious do you have to be before you google yourself?

You've done it, right? You saw that blinking cursor on the search bar, and you couldn't help yourself. Maybe just to see your alter ego, maybe to add hits to the counter. It's a sad creature of malevolent self-pride to type your own name into a google search. Today, I did it. It wasn't the first time, it won't be the last. I was honestly surprised by what I saw. What's my score today? 3,190 hits. Granted that includes the first name "Zach," but honestly, I don't know how my name came up 3,190 times on the internet. I have 121 friends on Facebook today, and 0 followers on twitter. I own a website, thenewscum.org, which has had a few hits from stumbleupon, but nothing much. I gave out about a hundred stickers or so, and haven't got a single comment about the site from someone I don't know. But they are all over the Ohio turnpike rest stops, I know that! Sure, there's the podcast as well; The New Scum Fix, but there's only 13 episodes. I'm trying to create a presence on the web, of course, who isn't? The thing is, though, where do we draw the line? How do you take someone seriously on the internet? I'm just as real as any other person, but how can we quantify success these days? Some of the most brilliant minds on the internet are just normal guys like you and me, that just happened to have an early stake in some form of electronic exchange that gave them e-notoriety. So how prententious do you have to be before you go and start googling yourself? Not so pretentious at all, it would seem, but pretentious enough to enjoy surfing through thousands of results. You can rest assured, though, that no matter how much your checking account fluctuates, google will do nothing but retain more and more information about you and who you are as time passes. When does pretentious turn to terrifying?