I still believe in my friends.

I am a bit behind on this, but a close imaginary friend of mine was injured -- pretty seriously -- on Election Night. I want to thank my imaginary little sister for looking for her (she was originally admitted to the hospital as a "Jane Doe"), and then for helping her and her family once she was found, and also for keeping me and her other imaginary friends up to date on how she is doing.

The internet is a funny thing, isn't it? I've never actually met G (the injured person), but I have known her for a long time. And I feel closer to her than I do to many people I know in the Not Imaginary world.

Anyway, nja, thanks for all you have done and continue to do. And, G, I miss you and can't wait to talk to you again.

When love walks in the room, everybody stand up!

"IT WAS INEVITABLE: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love..."

And thus begins Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez's masterpiece of unrequited love (and young love, and old love, and eros, and platonic love, and . . . well, you get the picture). One of my imaginary friends recommended it to me after I mentioned reading One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Reading it, naturally, reminded me of my own unrequited love for The Inappropriate Crush Girl. An unrequited love that still bubbles along after a decade or so. Oh, sure, it's usually at a low and manageable level, but the point is that she is still present in Jackson's mind.

So, do I read the story of Florentino's certainty and patience and faith that his love will eventually win out as a tale of hope or a tale of caution? Do I bide my time until the moment that I show up at the funeral of the ICG's husband in 40 years to state my case?

I keed, I keed, as Triumph the Comic Insult Dog likes to say. No, Dear Reader, that will not happen. I made my intentions known to her once, and, frankly, that was one time too many as far as I am concerned. So, unlike Florentino, I will hum along with life as it comes, knowing that she is Not Mine. And if this love ever does decide to become unrequited, I know that it will happen at the most inconvenient of times. Because the Universe, after all, has a somewhat cruel sense of humor.

Richard Nixon back again.

I am in electoral mode today, as you can see. Misty water colored memories are seeping up, and I thought that I'd share a few.

The first election that I remember was 1972 -- Nixon versus McGovern. (By the way, the finest book on that election -- and my personal favorite book by Hunter S. Thompson -- is "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72". Thompson's Rolling Stone colleague Timothy Crouse's "The Boys on the Bus" is also quite good -- his book covers the boys (and they were all boys then) who covered the campaign. Good stuff. But I digress.)

1972 was the year that Richard Nixon, filled with rage and paranoia and the blackest bile and resentment-filled gut that Washington has ever known (yes, even worse than Dick Cheney) laid the seeds of his own destruction. Watergate, baby. But all that came out later.

Anyway, 1972. The Democrats, torn apart by the war in Vietnam and social issues, have a long drawn out primary campaign. Over the course of it, Senators Ed Muskie, Hubert Humphrey, and George McGovern rip each other and the party to shreds. Muskie started the campaign as the presumptive nominee, but faltered early. Alabama Governor George Wallace killed Muskies chances when he won the Florida primary. In fact, Wallace could well have won the nomination with a combination of racial resentment and blue-collar angst (he also did well in Northern states), but he was put into a wheelchair in an assassination attempt. Humphrey tried to muscle his way into the nomination with support of the party's old guard and big labor, but was outfought by McGovern in several states -- most fatally in the huge winner take all state of California. McGovern and the liberal insurgents had seized the reins of the party, and McGovern became the nominee.

Then, after everyone from Ted Kennedy to Abe Ribbicoff turned him down, McGovern picked for his vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton, an unvetted alcoholic who had been in mental institutions for electro-shock therapy. When the news of Eagleton's mental issues came out, McGovern said that he supported him "1000%." At least until he didn't, and replaced him with Kennedy's brother in law Sargent Shriver. And the minuscule shot he had to beat Nixon was gone just like that.

But I didn't know any of that. My experience of the election that year was of GOP swag. For some reason, I was driving with my dad one Saturday in the fall, and we must have been talking about the election. (I do remember that at some point he explained to me that Sargent Shriver was not in the Army -- he just had a funny first name.) So, dad impulsively pulled his Galaxie 500 into the parking lot of the county Democratic Party office, and we discovered that the place was closed. (On a Saturday in October. In The Ancestral Homeland. Looking back, this makes it obvious that McGovern was so toast.) So, we went around the corner to the GOP county office and picked up all sorts of buttons and posters and bumper stickers. I have to admit that CREEP was pretty good at their design:


My father and my uncles were all union guys who hated Richard Nixon, but couldn't believe that the good old US of A was losing a war to a bunch of god-damned pinko gooks in pajamas. And who didn't understand why no one seemed to want to get a god-damned haircut anymore, or why their kids laughed at Glenn Miller. So when the Democrats put up a guy who was for "Acid Amnesty and Abortion," and who after seizing the nomination, seemed like he was stumbling around from mistake (the Eagleton pick and dump) to mistake (the guaranteed income pledge) like a drunk at closing time, they probably held their nose and voted for Dick.

But I never learned nothing from playing it safe; I say fate should not tempt me.

Alex Balk is not as pessimistic as I am. A snipppet:

What’s been astounding about the Republicans during this whole campaign is the ludicrous sense of entitlement they have toward the office of the presidency. It’s like they were born on third base and forgot that the Supreme Court waved them home. And I’m not just talking about the low and ugly tactics they brought to this race. I’m leaving out the astonishing nerviness it took for them to try and make a major issue of a few meaningless bogus registration forms while attempting to systematically purge the voter rolls of anyone who might vote for the other party. (I’m leaving it out, but think about it again: They’ve been bitching and moaning about Mickey Mouse, who I’m fairly sure will not actually show up, while deliberately attempting to prevent American citizens from exercising their Constitutional privilege to elect their representatives.) I’m not going to mention the disgusting attempts to preemptively delegitimize the next president (Barack Obama). No, what’s most offensive about the whole thing is the insistence that they deserve a third term. Look at the absolute disaster the last eight years of Republican rule—six of which, do not forget, have come with that party in control of all three branches of government; the next time I
hear some Republican talking head warn against the “lack of checks and balances” if the Democrats control both Congress and the presidency, I swear I’m going to throw my shoe at the screen. Are these people willfully stupid or deliberately duplicitous?—has been for this country. The fact that any Republican anywhere can show up with a straight face and argue for another four years at the helm is a tribute to the forgiving nature of our nation; they should all be walking around with paper bags on their heads, shoulders slumped in shame, carrying placards that read “Sorry for repeatedly raping you in the ass since 2000, America. This time we promise to use lube.” The Republican party’s only hope in the last three months has been that American voters might prove more racist than they are greedy. Thankfully, they will not.

Go read his cock's take (I forget why, but "Balk's Cock" occasionally posted on Gawker when Alex was a Gawker writer) on Obama from this dialog between man and member in July 2007:

BALK BTW: Hmmmm... I don't know, politics? Who do you like for president.

COCK BTW: Oh, I'm Obama all the way.

BALK BTW: Really? You don't worry about his lack of experience?

COCK BTW: He has as much experience as the current guy.

BALK BTW: Um, that's a terrible example. Also, Bush was governor of Texas for five years.

COCK BTW: GOVERNOR OF TEXAS? BFD. The job was DESIGNED so that an idiot could do it. All the power resides with the lieutenant governor. The governor is basically the schmuck in the hat who shows up to cut the ribbon at a hospital opening in Amarillo. My Taint could be governor of Texas.

BALK BTW: How do you know about Texas politics?

COCK BTW: Most of the southern states have weak governor systems. It's a legacy of reconstruction. Don't you fucking read?

BALK BTW: Mainly "Vanity Fair."

COCK BTW: Well, sometimes that's important. The Hollywood issue in particular. Good bonding time for us.

BALK BTW: Uh... yeah. Anyway, Obama. You really don't worry about how little executive experience he's had?

COCK BTW: No. Look, my feeling is that anyone's gonna be better than the dude we've got now. Plus, Obama is a transformative politician. I have never, in our lifetimes, seen someone who inspires so many different people from such a broad spectrum of the electorate. And beyond that: What's it going to say to the rest of the world when we're willing to elect a guy named Barack Obama who's half black, is familiar with both the Christian and Muslim faiths, and has the hottest First Lady since Rosalynn Carter?

BALK BTW: Again with Rosalynn Carter.

COCK BTW: Oh, please, like you haven't stroked me to a little "Rosalynn in tight sweater" fantasy.

BALK BTW: MOVING ON. What about Hillary? Are you unwilling to vote for Hillary because she's a woman? And you're a cock?

COCK BTW: Nah, it's got nothing to do with that. Any other year, sure. I mean, she's a tough, controlling bitch who's unable to admit any mistakes she's made and she's got a penchant for secrecy and paranoia that makes Nixon look stable, but whatever. There are plenty of women I'd vote for: Kathleen Sebelius, Napolitano,
heck, even Jodi Rell if I had to vote Republican. Also, that hottie from Michigan.

BALK BTW: Granholm.

COCK BTW: Yeah. Too bad she was born in Canada, I'd pull the lever for her in a second. You know, like YOU HAVE.

BALK BTW: I, uh, think we're done here.

COCK BTW: Good. Meet me in the bathroom in five. And bring the new Maxim that just came into the office.

Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying.

Wow. Hard to believe that election day is finally here. The missus and I went to the local polling place about 20 minutes before it opened and our timing was just about perfect. We weren't the first in line, but we were close enough that it took just a few moments to sign in and get into the booth once they opened. It seemed like everyone else arrived 5 minutes after us -- I took a brief stroll just before they opened the doors, and there must have been a hundred people waiting in line behind us.

This is the first election since 1992 where I was genuinely enthused about my choice -- I voted for That One -- and I am filled with hope and optimism about what will happen over the next four years if he wins. And, needless to say, I will be seriously disappointed if he loses.

I'm realistic, though. I know that (to paraphrase Hilary Clinton's memorable remarks during the primaries) if Obama wins, we won't have celestial choirs singing, telling everyone will that we should all do the right thing. And the VRWC has made it known that they plan to pick up right where they left off in January 2001, so any progress won't be made without battles on every front. But I think that we are a very different country now than we were in the late 1990s, and that voters will have less patience for smears. I think that the country will welcome legitimate policy debates over some of his plans (Joe the Plumber's original discussion with Obama before the debate, for example), but I don't think that we'll see much tolerance for things like an Obama Death List. (He said hopefully.)

In short, I am cautiously optimistic. But I don't want to jinx anything. Fingers crossed!

I grew up believing God keeps His eye on us all.

I just got back from a too-brief visit to The Ancestral Homeland, a place that always makes me nostalgic for a past that never was. As I have surely said before, had my mother not dragged me away against my will at age 11 kicking and screaming, I almost certainly would have fled the place at age 18.

TAH is one of those places that makes you think of the song where Dar Williams sings "bet that crumbling mill town/was a booming mill town in its day." Massive factories built in the 1800s sit boarded up and economic redevelopment has been tried and failed probably a couple of dozen times since Amalgamated Industries and Acme Manufacturing started slowing production down in the 1960s. Amalgamated's building and logo still looms over downtown, with probably 5% of the workforce it had 30 years ago, and I think that the only reason the place is still running at all is that it's cheaper than paying to close it for good.

Like a lot of medium sized industrial towns, a 15 minute drive takes you into the sticks. The rolling hills outside of town were filled with the autumnal gold and scarlet of maple trees in sunlight. The weather was simply amazing -- clear and blue and comfortably cool. I drank some fresh cider and, like Proust and his cookie, was taken back to the past. In my case, it was to an apple-picking outing with my parents a few years before my dad got sick. Just before we left in the wood-paneled Country Squire, we stopped to watch them press the dropped apples to make cider, and then each drank some right from the press.

Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar.
The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.*

*(This and all italics courtesy of Mr. Jennifer Lopez, as written by Joseph Fiennes)

Who will shed a tear for the death of Merrill Lynch?

It is true that it died at the hand of The Market, its old friend, because of the foolishness of its recent leaders. Some now say that the specific Brutus in this tale may be Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan, and the dagger used was a $10 billion collateral call, but -- like Big Jules -- Merrill was the one who put itself in position to go down.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

Ah, but mighty Merrill wasn't always such a Wall Street player. It gained its size, its power, and its once-unimaginable buckets of money by retail brokerage. It was derisively referred to as "We The People" or "the thundering herd" because of its large number of branch offices in places like Omaha and Memphis and St. Louis. It created solid relationships with several generations of customers, and in essence rebuilt the country's capital markets (after the crippling blow of the Great Depression) by popularizing investments in stock with people who weren't children or grandchildren of Robber Barons. Upper middle class customers across the country poured money into the stock market for the first time through Merrill, and other firms followed the Bull from Wall Street to Main Street.

Merrill seemed to set the standard -- its training programs, its marketing, its approach were all emulated by its competitors. And for the most part, its offices were at the top of the pecking order in most towns. (For example, the chamber of commerce in my town always had the local Merrill branch manager on the executive committee. Partly because of longevity -- he had been around forever, while the Dean Witter/Smith Barney/PaineWebber guys seemed to shuffle in and out of town too quickly, and they got stuck on hospitality or running the golf tournament.)

Merrill changed, like we all do. And who knows how accurate the argument is that Stan O'Neal gutted the culture of Merrill, and that this cultural change is what is to blame for the death of Merrill by creating the short-term outlook that put the toxic sludge on its books. But it seems clear that O'Neal's regime did change Merrill by hiring leadership that had not grown up with Merrill, and firing or early retiring those who "bled Merrill blue." Hiring number-crunchers from other firms. Changing the retail brokers' relationships with their clients by such things as imposing dollar minimums for accounts and closing branches.

But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

Indeed. Tonight I shall have a Bushmills or three in mourning for the Merrill Lynch of Charlie Merrill, of Win Smith, and even of Don Regan. Up the Republic!