Slow Work, Fast News

It’s been such a slow day here at work that they held a pumpkin-carving contest. (I came in second.) On the news front, it’s been mostly bad for the Bushies, which is music to my internet-addicted eyes (pardon the mixed metaphor – but use it, use it!). Salon has a pretty good overview of all the crap that’s been raining on the White House lately. Between the Alquaqua (al-kaka? Alcuca? Alcoa?) munitions dump scandal (followed by Guiliani blaming the troops!), the Halliburton no-bid FBI probe, the additional 70 billion about to be requested for Iraq, the doctored Bush-Cheney ad (with photoshopped soldiers), even an prematurely exploding confetti machine in New Hampshire – it’s all thrown the President a bit off message. A friend recently sent me an editorial featuring a Kerry endorsement from The American Conservative! All this is good news for the Kipper (and all of us).

I’ll be heading out to Ohio tomorrow morning with members of ACT-New York (a black-clad contingent of Noo Yawkers helping Buckeyes find the polling places), so I’ll be incommunicato probably till next Wednesday when, hopefully, we’ll know who the next Prez. And hopefully...it’ll be President Kipper

Anecdotal Evidence

With the Red Sox crushing St. Louis (is that in Ohio?), it seems all the more likely that The Kipper will eke out a victory either late Tuesday night or very early Thursday morning. I voted by absentee ballot here in New York on Monday afternoon as I’m heading out to Ohio Saturday morning to help ACT-New York get out the Kipper vote there. By coincidence the Manhattan Board of Elections is located in the building where I work – just one floor down, in fact. So I figured the whole thing would take about five minutes. Boy, was I wrong; the place was packed, and it took 40 minutes to complete the maneuver. And this is in about the un-swingingest state you can imagine. So take it from Fear of Jazz: There is HUGE interest in this election. And I think that helps The Kipper.

Fear of Jazz Endorsements

Fear of Jazz officially offers the following endorsements:
George W. Bush for Best Guy to Have a Beer With
John F. Kerry for President of the United States

Let's win one for the Kipper!

The wolverines are howling... the weapons in Iraq are missing... President Clinton has returned and he looks like crap... The Kipper is getting taller... The Bush is shrinking... Let's send the Bush back to Bush Gardens and let's win one for the Kipper!

Latest News

Too busy at work to contribute any kind of meaningful post on Fear of Jazz. So let's just recap the last couple of days:
Red Sox beat Yankees = good.
Flu vaccine shortage = bad.
Kerry = good.
Bush = bad.
Cheney scaring us all with nuke-in-America fears = bad.
Entenmann's Oatmeal Raisin cookies = good.
"The Office" special on BBC-America = disappointing.
Movie "Tarnation" = good.
Price of oil = high.
Jabes = wants to get out of the office, it's Friday evening for godsake!

Jabes reading

I have a couple of satirical pieces in the new humor anthology "May Contain Nuts" (the third volume of the annual collection "Mirth of a Nation," published by Something Books) and am joining a group of "humorists" (I put the word in quotes because I hate the term!) Wednesday night at Don't Tell Mama on West 44th Street. I think it's 65 bucks and a nine-drink minimum. Something like that. You have my permission to stay home and watch the season premier of "The West Wing." But buy the book. It's pretty funny.

Jabes in New York Times

Yeah, I had a piece in yesterday's Sunday Times (City section) about how I've been in my apartment for 50 years or something. So far the general reaction has been: "Time to move, huh? Can I have your apartment?" A fair question, I guess, but I think it represents a slight misreading of the piece.

By the way, I didn't write the photo caption that said, "Going Nowhere." Anyway, I guess it’s official: New York Times says J.B. Miller is "going nowhere." Thanks a lot.

Superbloke vs. Creepyguy

Over the weekend I visited one of my favorite haunts in downtown New York, the Housing Works Bookstore Café, on Crosby Street. I was flipping through a book of photographs of JFK (the original) and his wide-eyed bride Jackie. What a charismatic duo that was! That Kennedy bloke was pretty fast on his feet (and off them as well), and the debates with Nixon (the original) were pretty revealing: Superbloke vs. Creepyguy. Anyway, I remembered reading how close that damn election was (it really came down to the wire, with apparently non people and dead folks voting on either side), and I thought: if the Original JFK had a hard time getting elected, how in hell is this new JFK gonna make it? Just some more pre-election jitters for ya!

Nothing to report

I'm still obsessed with the election and trying to get fired from my job.

Happy Ending

That was a great debate last night. I thought Kerry did a terrific job. I watched it in the West Village with some French friends, one of whom got a bit too drunk and started railing against the U.S. But I called U.S. Immigration this morning and she’s being deported on Tuesday. Apparently with this wonderful new Patriot Act it only takes a single phone call.

Final Debate

So the last debate is tonight and I'm watching it with friends in the West Village here in New York. This election has smothered everything in its wake. It's the huge elephant (and donkey) in the room. It pulls all focus. What novel could be as exciting (and frustrating)? What movie could feature its plot turns and surprise third act?

And what's with that iPod lump in Bush's jacket -- in the back? (He's wearing it wrong.) What the hell has he been listening to during the debates? Wayne Newton? Karl Rove? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be working.

At least, let's hope not.

Nobel Lit Prize goes to Wrong Person

Another year, another mistake. The Nobel Committee has again forgotten to give me the Prize for Literature (or Peace, for that matter.) (Or Physics, but I wasn't expecting that one.) Instead they gave it to some Austrian chick I've never even heard of. If it'd been Philip Roth, I would have at least understood it. Or the writers at The Onion.

Anyway, demonstrate your outrage by signing the petition at nobelforjb.com.

And you can get the facts at factcheck.com.

So Cheney Won

What a lousy debate -- creepy, nasty, and a snoozefest. Cheney should never have made that snarky comment about never having met Edwards before, because the web is flooded with pictures of them together before AT A PRAYER MEETING (why couldn't have Edwards brought this up last night?). Also, his claim that he never said Saddam was behind 911 is being blown out of the water. And apparently he scared a lot of children last night. And his family is bunch of real uglies. But still think he won the debate. By a snarl and a half.

Love of Jazz

Saw the Brad Mehldau Quartet at the Village Vanguard on Friday night. Mehldau pratically lives at the Vanguard -- at least when he's in New York -- and he always sells out there. For those of you who don't know his work, it's kind of Bill Evans-y and his intrerest shows astonishihng range. Particularly nifty are his Radiohead covers, which are truly beautiful. I walk around with his music on my iPod, but I was a little disappointed at the set I heard on Friday as he was playing not with his usual trio but with a quartet featuring Mark Turner on sax. So Turner played a lot of the melodies that Mehldau usually plays on the pinao, and it sounded fine, but it's not why I go to a Brad Mehldau show.

(Note: A normal person -- say, my brother -- would put a link to the official Brad Mehldau website somewhere around here, but I have no idea how to do this. In fact, I can't even post pictures or photographs on this blog because Blogger evidently doens't support Macs. If any of you out there know otherwise, please inform.)

Kerry Kicks a Homer out of the Football Pitch

Good debate. And a real debate. But frankly, hands down, Kerry whupped Dubya’s ass – even though I disagree with the Senator that Saddam Hussein was a “threat” and “had to be taken out” (those are my words).

So I’ve resigned my membership in “Kerry Haters for Kerry” and joined “Kerry Likers for Kerry.”

And I’m voting for the bastard.

Weird Bush debate quote

"I think about Missy Johnson, fantastic young lady I met in Charlotte, N.C.... Her husband, P.J., got killed.. You know, it's hard work to try to love her as best I can knowing full well that the decision I made caused her, her loved one to be in harm's way." (i.e., to be dead.) (But he's going to try to love her anyway. Such a guy!)