The Entire 2008 Presidential Campaign Summarized in One Amazing Photo

Podcast!

I have decided to start a podcast. It will be more personal than this blog, but should cover many of the same topics.

You can listen to it here: http://www.gcast.com/u/candres/main

And you can also use this site to subscribe to it on your Itunes!

Enjoy!

Sorkin’s Take

Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing, wrote a fictional conversation between his president Bartlet and Senator Obama.

It is so awesome that I immediately knew I would have to repost it here:

BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.

BARTLET Senator.

OBAMA Mr. President.

BARTLET You seem startled.

OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.

BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET Come on in.

BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.

BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.

OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.

BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —

OBAMA Look —

BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?

OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.

BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?

OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.

BARTLET I can’t give it to you.

OBAMA Why not?

BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.

OBAMA Why?

BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.

OBAMA O.K. —

BARTLET And he’s surrounded himself, I think, with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis. Why, Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” Can you spot the error in that statement?

OBAMA Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t funded by taxpayers.

BARTLET Well, at least they are now. Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security wasn’t a government program. He was only off by a little — Social Security is the largest government program.

OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor, sir, but I really could use your advice.

BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.

OBAMA Which was?

BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.

OBAMA And?

BARTLET I was.

OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?

BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.

OBAMA What do you mean?

BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.

OBAMA I’m asleep?

BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET I mean tons.

OBAMA I understand.

BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.

OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?

BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.

OBAMA How did you do it?

BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.

OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?

BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”

OBAMA That would make it easier.

BARTLET You’d do very well on NBC. Thursday nights in the old “ER” time slot with “30 Rock” as your lead-in, you’d get seven, seven-five in the demo with a 20, 22 share — you’d be selling $450,000 minutes.

OBAMA What the hell does that mean?

BARTLET TV talk. I thought you’d be interested.

OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

OBAMA You’re saying race doesn’t have anything to do with it?

BARTLET I wouldn’t go that far. Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity. Plus, if you had a black daughter —

OBAMA I have two.

BARTLET — who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with “Thug Life” inked across his chest, you’d come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.

OBAMA You’re not cheering me up.

BARTLET Is that what you came here for?

OBAMA No, but it wouldn’t kill you.

BARTLET Have you tried doing a two-hour special or a really good Christmas show?

OBAMA Sir —

BARTLET Hang on. Home run. Right here. Is there any chance you could get Michelle pregnant before the fall sweeps?

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well … let me think. …We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know … I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?

BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?

OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.

BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.

OBAMA What’s the second step?

BARTLET I don’t care.

OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?

BARTLET No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.

OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it …?

BARTLET “Break’s over.”

Sid and Sarah

Back in middle school, I had this friend named Sid. He was this short, thin, wiry little Indian kid who was so high strung that he managed to turn ADHD into an adjective. He wasn’t the shiniest piece of glitter in the bottle, so to speak, but his heart was in the right place and he was always up for an adventure. Me and Colin, who was my best friend at the time, had many an excellent sleepover at Sid’s house.

He also loved pranks.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he was very good at them. My favorite Sid prank was the time he IMed me pretending to be a girl from a small Eskimo village in Alaska. I played along, and fed right into his game right on up to the point where he started asking me to tell “her” about some of my friends from school. I decided to tell “her” all about Sid, and how she had better stay away from him if she didn’t want to be stalked by the creepiest kid I knew. At that point he just started yelling at me, asking him how I knew it was him. I actually still have part of the chatlog. with me listing all of the things he did wrong:

fennhacker: 1. eagles don’t live in Northern Alaska
fennhacker: 2. The northern lights are never seen every day
fennhacker: 3. they don’t have much snow right now
reallyhotgurl297: FUCK YOU
reallyhotgurl297: EAGLES DO LIVE THERE
fennhacker: 4. The inuits don’t live in Alaska, they live in northern canada
reallyhotgurl297: AND THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ARE THERE ALL DAY
reallyhotgurl297: AND ALASKA
fennhacker: HELL NO!
reallyhotgurl297: HAHAHAHAHA
reallyhotgurl297: THIS IS SOO FUNNY
reallyhotgurl297: SEEING WHAT I DID WRONG
fennhacker: HAHAHAHA yourself
reallyhotgurl297: THIS IS WICKED FUNNY
reallyhotgurl297: SEEING WHAT I DID WRONG
fennhacker: 5. Girls HATE the sex pistols
reallyhotgurl297: NOT ALWAYS
fennhacker: 6. All of them
fennhacker: 7. EVERYONE has heard of Boston
reallyhotgurl297: NO!
reallyhotgurl297: NOT TRUE

It goes on from there.

Anyway, after this I deemed Sid worthy of being the brunt of some of my own pranks. One day in math class, Sid got back a test with a grade that infuriated him – a D+. He was so angry about this that he tore up the test in front of everyone, shredding it and throwing the pieces into the air before stomping out of the classroom. Since class was ending anyway, I don’t think he got into that much trouble for it, but he was infurated when he found out the next day that I had quietly picked up the scrap of paper containing the actual grade and posted it on the internet.

The best prank I ever played, though, happened just before the end of seventh grade. Sid had been bragging about getting top secret emails from someone-or-other high up in the government. We all knew he was lying, of course, but we had no way of proving it.

Until I realized that the security surrounding his Yahoo mail account was really, really lax.

His username was really easy to figure out – it was the same as his instant messenger handle. His password proved elusive, but I hit paydirt when I got to the “change password” section. This was because the secret question, the fact I would have to know about him in order to reach his deepest, darkest communiques, was his zip code.

Yeah. I knew the zip code for the town he lived in.

The next day, Sid was unable to log into his email account and completely blew his top. He didn’t know what had happened. After a few days, he started getting emails in his new Yahoo account from his old one, telling him to stop lying about recieving top secret government files. A few days after that, I gave him his new password and stopped the madness.

I think Sid learned a valuable lesson about online security, and I learned a valuable lesson about taking pranks too far once Sid ran screaming to a teacher and got me in trouble for what I had done. (Luckily for me, this was before the current era of viruses and rampant hacking and phishing schemes I bet kids nowadays get into all sorts of trouble for this). A good time was had by all, and Sid and I remained friends until middle school ended and then we never spoke again.

I hadn’t thought about this for years, but it crossed my mind today because of this news story.

Yep, some crazy 4chan user knew Sarah Palin’s zip code and did to her what I did to Sid ten years ago. It’s too bad a vice presidential candidate isn’t more computer literate than a seventh grader in 1998.

It Is Possible To Pick Up Everything And Move Cross-Country

I apologize for my recent absence. The last month of my life has been a blur of packing, purging, lifting, driving, saying goodbye, more driving, quite a bit more driving, worrying about someone breaking into my car and stealing everything I own, yet more driving, looking for an apartment while not having a residence of my own, yet more driving (this time to and from Anaheim), finding a place, unpacking, finding furniture, driving all over the valley picking it up, buying everything else I needed, and finally making a home for myself here on the west coast.

I am quite proud of myself. You see, I left Boston on Wednesday, September 3rd. I arrived in LA 5 days later, on Sunday the 7th. By the morning of the 11th I had signed a lease, and it is now Tuesday the 16th and I am typing this entry from the sanctity of my own apartment, on my own internet, sitting on a new chair in front of a new desk and looking at a new computer monitor. 13 days strikes me as particulary good time to go from homeless on one side of the country to settled on the other.

I only hope finding a job will be so easy, though I know it most likely won’t be. I do hope that one month from now I can consider myself employed, at least on a most-of-the-time basis.

A few lessons I have learned during this process:

- Companies, it seems, don’t expect people to actually do what I did. Quite a few landlords refused to let me even look at places since I have no current employment. Most places were baffled that I had no current residence. I was given a lot of confused, head-scratching looks and the sort of grin that says “good luck, buddy. No one makes it in this town without having a red carpet and a limo waiting for them at LAX.”

- Your credit rating actually is important. I had always heard that I would care about my credit rating someday, and the day finally came when the determination for whether or not I could rent the apartment I wanted came down to my credit score. Oh, and if you want to check that score online, all of the sites that offer the service require you to know all sorts of information that there’s no way you’ll ever figure out, like the numbers to credit cards that you’re not even sure you’ve ever had.

- Money goes *quick* when you are buying all the incidentals needed to make a house run. Toilet paper, paper towels, dish towels, a rug for the floor in the bathroom so you don’t slip and die when you step out of the shower, soaps and sponges and hangars and all the rest…it adds up, not to mention the already insane cost of food, gas, rent, power, water…I will find a way to make this work, but don’t let anyone tell you that now is an easy time to make the transition to adulthood.

- Want furniture? Look online. Furniture stores, even used ones, are monumental ripoffs and don’t have furniture for people who don’t want to spend more than a couple hundred bucks to furnish their entire place. I went on craigslist and to yard sales and ended up paying $40 for my desk, $30 for my TV stand, $25 for my futon, $40 for my combination dresser/sheving unit, $10 for my glass cabiniet, and $5 for my filing cabinet. All of that together couldn’t buy you one dresser in a store, used or otherwise. Also: beds. I spent a whole morning going to different mattress stores, dealing with horrible, mean mattress salesmen, and couldn’t find a single one under $350 – and that one couldn’t be delivered for over a week. One second on craigslist and I found a brand new quilt-topped mattress – REALLY nice – delivered that day for $250.

- You can pack a near-infinite amount of stuff into one PT Cruiser if you do it right. All you have to do is look at the pictures and marvel at how much I was able to bring. And on that note…

Pictures of my new home!

My bed. Next to the window and A/C so I can run it only minimally at night and still keep cool. Note the decor in this part of the room is entirely Bobby Kennedy and Red Sox related.

Next up, my dreser and shelving unit. Yes – - all three shelves are full of Magic Cards. Shut up, theyre awesome.

My futon and entertainment center. The TV is set up with the DVD player and videogame systems underneath.The Absolute Magnitude posters are up above it, and there is a glass cabinet between the closet and bathroom.

My battleship of a desk, complete with my amazing new PC monitor that was on sale at Fry’s. The lower left drawer is missing and I’m using that space for my subwoofer.

The kitchen, with my antique bar set up next to the window.

The wall of the kitchen is done up in a style I like to call “Classic American Batman”.

Right now, my microwave is taking up most of the space on the kitchen counter. Soon, though, I’m going to get a small table for it and put the whole setup underneath the Batman pictures on the other wall.

My glass cabinet. My cameras are in the top part, some games and movies on the shelves. Stuffed animals from my childhood on the very top, and the Snake Hill Rd. sign leads into the bathroom.

My bathroom, done up in classic Star Trek. There is a great picture of Shatner screaming that you have to look at while you pee.

That’s it! Feel free to come and visit, one and all, next time you’re out here in sunny, beautiful North Hollywood. I live right off the Vineland exit of the 101, seconds from Studio City, and will have a decent amount of time on my hands as I look for work and plan job interviews!

Motel Hell

I arrived at a motel in Amarillo, Texas tonight, bone-weary from thirteen hours of driving down Interstate 40, heading west toward my future. It was a Motel 6, which I usually have good luck at. They generally have fast internet, comfortable sheets, and sometimes even a washer and dryer. I pulled my car up to the front office, and went inside.

The man at the counter reminded me of Dwight Schrute, but only in an indefinable sort of way. “Howdy,” he nodded at me.

“I’d like a room, please. Just for myself. AAA discount if you’ve got it.”

“I can only give you one upstairs,” he replied, flashing me a look of genuine sorrow. “All of ‘em on the ground floor are taken.”

“That’s fine,” I nodded, and he seemed genuinely surprised that I was willing to accept a room that I had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to. Incredulous, he pulled out a map of the grounds.

“Actually, I’ve got this one here. You can pull right up to it an’ park out front. It’s real close. Or I can give you this nice big handicapped room down around the other side. First floor, real easy to get at.”

I looked down, wondering if I had missed some obvious physical handicap somewhere on my body. A missing limb, perhaps, or a third leg. All I could see was my stomach, which didn’t seem all that large by Texas standards. “I’ll take whatever,” I murmured, not really caring much where I ended up just so long as I didn’t have to drive down any more of that godforsaken interstate to get there.

“I’ll give you the handicapped one, then. You’ll like that one.”

After a prolonged hassle that involved handing fake Dwight my credit card and driver’s license several times each, I hastened off to find my room. I hadn’t noticed from the road, but the motel looks EXACTLY like the one from No Country For Old Men. I half expected to find Llewelyn Moss’ body waiting for me on the carpet when I opened the door.

Instead I found way too many cigarette burns and a handicapped bathroom the size of a cattle ranch. The floor is tiled over, the shower is nothing more than a hose and a drain, and a fan makes a terrifying “WHOOSH!” noise whenever I turn on the light.

I also had to pay three dollars for the internet connection in order to write this.

But I am now only two days away from beginning my new life.

Chili for Change?

I’m leaving for Los Angeles early tomorrow morning. My life is packed in the back of my car, and I am moving for good out west to the land of tenuous dreams. Expect a more personal reflection about this on my Lj tomorrow night.

For now, I leave you with Barack Obama’s famous chili recipe. I made it last night, and it’s really, really good. I only suggest you add more chili powder or some kind of spicy sauce if you like your chili with any kind of kick.

Obama Family Chili Recipe

1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
Several cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound ground turkey or beef
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground basil
1 tablespoon chili powder
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Several tomatoes, depending on size, chopped
1 can red kidney beans

Saute onions, green pepper and garlic in olive oil until soft.

Add ground meat and brown.

Combine spices together into a mixture, then add to ground meat.

Add red wine vinegar.

Add tomatoes and let simmer, until tomatoes cook down.

Add kidney beans and cook for a few more minutes.

Serve over white or brown rice. Garnish with grated cheddar cheese, onions and sour cream.

DNC Speeches, Days Three and Four

Bill Clinton

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John Kerry

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Beau Biden (Joe Biden’s Son)

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Joe Biden

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Bill Richardson

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Al Gore

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Barack Obama (The Best Political Speech in a Generation)

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DNC Speeches, Days One and Two

I figured there would be some interest in this. Here are links to all of the most interesting political speeches from the first day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

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Ted Kennedy, Tribute and Speech

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Kathleen Sebelius

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Deval Patrick

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Mark Warner

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Brian Schweitzer

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Hillary Clinton

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Michelle Obama, Part One

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Michelle Obama, Part Two

Song Of The Week – 8/26

I’m going to try out a new feature on this blog called Song Of The Week. It’s kind of self-explainatory. Let me know if you want it to continue!

SONG OF THE WEEK 8/26

Title: Virtute The Cat Explains Her Departure

Artist: The Weakerthans

Album: Reunion Tour

Why You Should Care: This song came on the stereo last night as I drove home, and I soaked it in as I cruised through the empty Massachusetts streets. It is one of the few songs that made me tear up the first time I heard it – a true masterpiece. As the title suggests, the song is from the perspective of a cat who has run away from home, trying to explain to her owner why she felt the need to run away. The part that really gets to me are the lines where the cat speaks about “the sound that he found for me” – which, I can only assume, is how a cat would think about her own name.

Listen When: You are feeling pensive or reflective, or in a general need for some amazing lyricism.

Download Link: Here.