getting outta my funk a bit. I mean, really, really bummed about Tuesday's election. I was so energized, Anna and I went to our polling place at 6:45 am, the polls opened at 7:00 am, and there was a huge line already. yeah! such a turnout means, I thought, that people wanted this fucker outta office. but no!

I live in a pretty liberal area in pretty liberal California, so it is easy to be myopic. however, what is real fricking maddening is how Shrub won by capitalizing on fear and hatred. what the fuck!?

so I spent Tuesday night at my friend's, Richard, bookstore. Richard and his wife Rachel and their young daughter invited a group of friends to come to the store, drink wine and watch the election results. I left at 9:00 pm in very low spirits. the numbers were impossible to ignore: Kerry was gonna lose.

shit.

and Kerry did lose by going the high road and conceding defeat on Wednesday and not vowing to sue for a recount in Ohio.

damn.

it is not a time for sober analyses of the sorry state of our sorry states. but time to rant, at least for a while. and yet we must be sober about it. cuz we lost big time, and we are heading for dark times. best to have our wits about us.

Dawn of the Dead (2004) was released on dvd 10/26/04, a week before the election. I bought it and watched it cuz I dig the film. then in very low spirits Wednesday night I watched it again. and yeah, how appropriate the film right now. imagine: a huge mass of individuals lose their minds and become drooling, raging monkeys, hellbent on mayhem. the polis become the dead body politic. how else to explain in California the passage of Proposition 69 where people simply arrested and charged with certain felonies will have their DNA taken and collected in a large database.

good god.

but life moves on. tonight I went to our favorite Mexican restaurant to pick up burritos for me, Anna and our little soon-to-be-born hot tot. and ran into the poet Dennis Schmitz, an old teacher of mine. it was wonderful to see him again. he currently has a couple of poems in the Dorn issue of Chicago Review. a kind, generous man who suffered many of my early attempts at versifying with good humor. our ideas about poetry greatly differ, but what the hell. why not, indeed. it remains a large world.