Italians and Motorcycles

Some jobs are more interesting than other jobs. Last night I was standing in front a of a Days Inn at midnight arguing with a short Italian about why our utensil packages didn’t include spoons for his Clam Chowder. It was a loud and brutal argument: I was trying to convince him that there was no way for me to create a spoon, and he was just giving me his fullest dose of the business. Then from the first story of this sad motel on Old Dixie Highway, the curtain from room 112 ripped open and a large man that looked like Lars Ulrich’s personal trainer pointed at my face and made a fist. His sharp and dangerous Harley Davidson sat ten feet out front of the room, with no noticeable protection. Things were going from ugly to Sarah Jessica Parker. So I told the small Italian to go fuck himself, hopped in my small car, and blasted up Old Dixie Highway at 90 mph. This was the only proper thing to do.

And that brings me of Barack Obama. I overheard a conversation by a more docile Italian at Cibelli’s Pizza & Sausage as he carefully explained to his subordinates why Hillary Clinton would be the stronger candidate for the Democratic ticket because she couldn’t be painted as a pointy headed liberal. She has two large Arkansasian balls that swill warm tequila and spit napalm. And I thought, shit, he’s right. Clinton is the smart choice. I don’t think Mr. John McCain would even stand a chance against her finely toned political monster.

But Hilary Clinton represents everything that’s wrong with modern political thought. She’s the Democrats version of President Bush; as she exploits racial fears and sticks up for good ole’ fashion white people. And Obama represents everything that we’ve been missing in a president. Especially for an office who’s chores have become more complicated as the world gets more serious and bloated. We need a Thinker pressing the buttons and not a Smasher. History seems to show that sometimes you need the Bull and sometimes you need the Fox. During the depression we needed a fox to sneak us out of trouble. Someone with ideas and calculation. During World War II we needed a Bull, and Truman punched through the walls of Pennsylvania Avenue and did the deeds that Walt Disney himself couldn’t stomach.

In this era of American history we are in another great depression. One where the shortage is of thought. And for this reason alone Barack Obama is a brilliant possibility.

So I said to the docile Italian as I picked up my delivery and headed for the door: “It doesn’t matter if Obama losses. Let the country take itself deeper into the grave if it wants. He at least represents progression”.

I kept walking, but slowly, as I listened for a reply. And all at his table started chuckling and rubbing their callused hands together. He yelled: “We need change, even if it’s bullshit change, and I’m not going to live long enough to care about progression.”

What followed was an interesting conversation and a few beers. My delivery ended up being 40-minutes late, but nothing gets in the way of American Democracy at its finest (and I didn’t have any spoons anyway). At the end of it all it struck me that the divide in the Left wasn’t between poor-white-people-who-really-don’t-hate-black-people (if they did they’d be Republicans) and intellectual pointy heads, but between dreamers and realists. The realists want results and more meat on their dinner plates after this fall. They have no more time for conversation, and sixty grand a year isn’t going to get young Penelope to Vassar. The dreamers are looking at Obama as a turning point, as the beginning of a long delayed argument. We’ve been waiting for this fight to re-start since 1971, and we’re not all that interested in results.

If (and this goes against every political predication I've made for the past 10 months, but seems more and more certain every minute) Barack Obama wins this nomination we are going to see the conversation get very ugly. It started this week when The Child President called Obama a Nazi Appeaser for even thinking of having a rational dialogue with a country we currently disagree with. And it will only get much worse from there. They are going throw everything they have at Mr. Obama, and we have only gotten knee deep into the American racism that will be on display this fall (re: Democrats of West Virginia, if you’re going to vote against someone simply because of the color of their skin, at least have the goddamn dignity to keep that thought to yourself). It’s going to be like an ideological Gangs of New York this fall. With the ignorant and cruel finally being exposed for what they are.

Things will get very nasty, but I have my axe sharpened.