Primary Care

February 5th is New York Primary Day and interestingly enough, also Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras marks the end of carnival, which is basically a prolonged public masquerade in a circus-like setting. It’s a chance to act-up before the seriousness of Lent. Girls go wild. Guys tape them.

All this flashing and filming is in accordance with the reversal phenomenon. According to Wikepedia, the reversal phenomenon occurs when “regular behavior is reversed, and people choose to do the very opposite of normal behavior.” Which is a rather fitting way to describe the Bush administration, no?

(Our President, trying to catch beads.)

I’m not implying the past seven years have been a party; I’m just saying we have some serious spiritual penance ahead of us as a country, that the days of satin and sequins, of uni-lateral coin-getting, are over.

In the poetry world, you inevitably come to ask yourself the question: Am I a political poet? I figured out fairly quickly that I wasn’t an Adrienne Rich or a Nazim Hikmet. Mine is not the poetry of ill-lit prison walls. But while I highly doubt I’ll ever circulate a leaflet, I do know there is no such thing as having no political opinion. Disinterest is a political posture. Apathy is a stance. While I might never write this poem, my work has inherent partisan subtexts. Like everyone, I hold beliefs about health care, immigration, and Bravo television. Choosing not to write about my country is writing about my country by omission.

I’ve taken a huge interest in the primaries and yet I haven’t blogged about them. After my Junior year of high school, when I produced an error-riddled report on carpetbaggers and the Civil War — “Reconstruction: They Had It In The Bag”– I’ve kept US Government at a comfortable and factually correct distance. I’m aware that many political authors are less pundit and more provocation (Ann Coulter) but I just prefer to operate in an arena of expertise. I have seen every known episode of “Top Chef.” I only figured out last week what GOP stands for. You get my point. It makes me nervous.

And yet I’m brimming with political thought. For example:

-We simply can not have a President who plays a DA on Law and Order. This is confusing to the American People. If we do have to vote for another actor, it needs to be Martin Sheen.

-Is no one concerned that the current leader for the Republican Nomination, John McCain, was a Prisoner of War in Vietnam for over five years, two of which were solitary confinement? Go ahead, spend a Saturday inside your apartment: don’t run to the corner deli for a cup of coffee, don’t check your email, don’t answer the phone. Don’t even read a book. Then, after ten hours of finding faces in the watermarks on your ceiling, attend a birthday party at a very sensory overwhelming Chuck E Cheese where you are immediately handed a skee-ball. Now tell me you wouldn’t go a little crazy. That’s sort of what McCain running for President is like for me. Some say service, I say baggage. I admire him, but come on, we’ve all seen Apocalypse Now.

While I am currently supporting Obama, I want to encourage all of my readers to cultivate an active interest in this upcoming election and vote for whichever candidate speaks to you. I’m making my own effort to devote a little time each day to learning more about the issues. If you have a question you’d like me to address, please send it to trybeccablog@gmail.com

Elephants

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about elephants. It all started when my boss mentioned the Elephant Walk. At first I assumed this was just another urban dance, like Teyana’s Chicken Noodle Soup. Then I thought “No. It must be like Race for the Cure, only instead of cancer research all the money goes towards battling elephantitis!” Wrong again. Turns out he meant actual elephants. Filing through the Midtown Tunnel on their way to Madison Square Garden. Again, I am the last to know anything.

The Elephant Walk sounds a lot like the running of the bulls, only without the bulls or the chasing or the drunken tourists. Well, no, with the drunken tourists. Ringling Brothers can’t transport the elephants into the city any other way than by foot, so in the wee Manhattan hours, with minimal traffic, crazed sleepless carnies lead the animals through the streets to the circus. OK, I made the carnie part up.

Watch this:

Elephants move faster than you’d think, huh? With the shakey video, and the loud PETA protesters, I’m reminded of that scene in Superman II when the three Zone villains battle Superman in the low-budget streets of Metropolis and cabs and buses and citizens fly through the air.

I know elephants never forget and that makes them more likely to remember any mistreatment, but really, do we need to protest this walk? Let’s focus on Darfur first. I hooked up with a clown once and he hated his job but not a single sympathizer made a sign and shouted “No red nose!” when The Big Apple Circus came to town. Wait. The point of that story was not that I hooked up with a circus clown.

I had hoped there might be other Ringling transports, like the Camel Crawl or the Lion Line, but no such luck.

Right after my introduction to the Elephant Walk, I “herd” (ha ha) that Republican Ann Coulter referred to John Edwards as a faggot. This remark is lame on multiple levels. Level one: faggot is a hateful word. Level 2: John Edwards isn’t gay, and neither was Clinton when Coulter hinted at his homosexuality years earlier. Level 3: The comment was actually a reference to Grey’s Anatomy star Isiah Washington and his stint at rehab after calling his co-star T.R. Knight the f-word. (Where was his re-hab? In Chelsea?) I think references to Grey’s Anatomy in the political sphere are rarely a good idea and seldom credible. That just seems obvious.

The next Elephant Walk will feature weary Rupublicans. It will be led by Democrats, on the night of the 2008 election, when Bush departs office, and will end with dunking booths, trumpet fanfare, and a production of “Rent.”

Yesterday, two of my fellow employees–and friends– left the company. That was a sad walk. I initiated my first ever salary negotiation this morning and came out elephant strong in—where else?— DUMBO. Goodbye free dumplings. Hello cruise.

I couldn’t sleep last night and dreamt of, wouldn’t you know it: