normalization

Nancy's been home a week and we're settling back into the Routine.

God, I love the Routine.

Work all day on various art projects, always surprised and pleased when money comes in, talking to friends throughout the day, maybe a meeting uptown, wrap it up around 6:00 PM, pour a cocktail and meet on the couch, the Fat Bunny between us, to enjoy some fine televised programming.

We studiously avoid going out at night, only dragging ourselves to the Theater when profound Guilt and intense Pressure overwhelm us.

Usually enjoy it, actually, but too many years of crushing disappointment, impotent anger and just plain bad theater have warped us into the couch-dwelling cocktail monkeys we are.

On the Sunday morning talk show circuit yesterday, Clinton's new man, Geoff Garin, got his ass handed to him, repeatedly, by Obama's David Axelrod.

It got a little silly.

Garin is highly respected, I guess, but he came off like he had just arrived in Washington from his previous post as assistant principal of a high school in suburban Michigan. The man was stammering, stuttering, avoiding Russert's questions, getting trapped in Axelrod's arguments, all but just getting up and walking off the set while apologizing to the cameraman and endorsing Obama.

Not good.

Struck me yesterday that what Clinton has done by taking the race to the mat over the last two months is to turn herself into Obama's Sacrificial Bull.

We need to know, here in the USA, that our President will kill people for us. It's why Bill had to execute that retarded guy back in Arkansas before he could sit at the Desk. Arthur Miller wrote about this right before he died, great little piece in Harper's, I think.

We're casting the lead and the movie is not a comedy. We need Brando, or at least Daniel Craig. Not a heavy, per se, but a guy with blood on his hands.

So Clinton, by refusing to die, is telling Obama:

"You kill me or you lose. It's a Death Match, son."

So Obama has to, metaphoricaly, kill this nice white lady while still being the Candidate of Hope, the New Kind of Kid. Clinton's people have looked at this particular eye of the needle and calculated that ain't no camel going through nohow noways.

Smart people. Cynical as all fuck, but smart.

On a happier note, Thurman Matthieson, our good friend out in L.A., provides the inspiration for this morning's MMMQ. Thurman gave us this extraordinary collection called Simply World,4 CDs of world music.

World music. As opposed to what, exactly?

Soul music? Gospel?

They really need to come up with a better name for this stuff. Is a falafel "world food"?

But holy Christ playing a zither, this is extraordinary stuff.

Years ago, another Los Angeleno, Jamie Angel, turned me on to some of the African sound with King Sunny Ade. His album Synchro System is still something I put on when I'm writing.

King Sunny played with an amazing band. Were they:

1. King Sunny Ade and The Tembo Brothers

2. King Sunny Ade and His African Beats

3. King Sunny Ade and The Earthquake

4. King Sunny Ade and His Bride, Queen Fudgie the First