PUNK ROCK REPUBLICAN

Almost to a ‘man’ these are the “Potential VP Candidates” that John McCain fooled Barack Obama into thinking he was going to pick to be his running mate.

I suspect that in private (where it is polite) McCain has been laughing his head off all night (what better way to relax - ASD).

Senator Obama is not (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha – ASD).

And I’m not sure the talking cardboard cutouts will even be told.

(to be fair - competence and charisma are separate things – but you need both in an election!)

(For the last three hours my web connection has slowed down to such a crawl that my computer can’t even read its own settings – and a page change takes a half an hour each. This has been riveting compared to the first two and a half hours of the Convention).

Wednesday night the line of the evening came from the candidate who has proven for the entire campaign that he is still the most naturally charming speaker of the entire two party field that ran - said,

“And speaking of Governor Palin. I am so tired of hearing about her lack of experience. I want to tell you folks something. She got more votes running for Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for President of the United States of America.”

Mike Huckabee is a grown up. I think he understands the parameters of a job in which one is the public voice of one’s President.

But can anybody think of anybody closer in spirit to the shear exuberance of Tony Snow?

Governor Sarah Palin’s son is going to Iraq for a year. So during her speech they have him stand up and show every member of Al Qaeda a close up of his face so that even if he is outfitted with a full set of fake ID’s …

If he is captured the enemy will know that they have the Vice President’s son

Maybe his picture is available all over the place already but this seemed incredibly stupid and dangerous.

I’m trying to remember if there’s a phrase for this type of transaction in the English Language.

Talk Radio sound bites are schooling me.

Have your male spokesman sit around bad mouthing Governor Sarah Palin’s parenting skills to recapture the female vote.

For over two years I have eagerly awaited the arrival of this election cycle but even I had no idea that Oscar Wilde would be writing it.

This is hilarious.

I think we are actually stripping England of its sophisticated humor crown. Which is why only the Republicans are laughing. Intelligence is required to get the jokes.

Add a laugh track.

No one brags about being taken prisoner. One might be able to be proud of and have others brag about how one behaves in captivity.

Mistaking the two is dishonest.

That calling sitting on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee “experience in foreign policy” is the equivalent of some Rock Critic saying “I’ve seen the Stones so many times its like I’m a member of the band.”

No its not.

Senator Joe Biden is as experienced in Foreign Policy as any American twelve year old boy who has seen thousands of hours of internet porn is experienced in having actual sex.

And his running mate hasn’t even watched that many hours.

After repeating the same story a thousand times in a few days the last thing I have felt like doing is actually typing it out. I have been out of the hospital for eight days and finally wrote an internet friend (radio talk show host John Batchelor), and told him what happened.

Seems fair to share.

(I labeled the e-mail message “How I Spent My Summer Vacation!” - ASD)

John;

This is not necessarily your business but as I have always had too much enthusiasm to sit on a story I’d like to fill you in briefly on my last month.

On Tuesday August, 12th, after working 70 straight nights I collapsed so sick and exhausted in my apartment that a friend of mine with access to my apartment and paramedic training found me in my apartment after eight days and over my delirious “strong objections” carried me to Bellevue Hospital.

A blood test revealed that I had no salt (or a critically low level of it. I wasn’t paying much attention - ASD) in my blood (it is extremely fatal for warm blooded mammals to have the fresh water circulatory system of a plant).

I had actually managed to starve to death.

Within five minutes of my arrival in the Emergency Room I had so many IV Bags in me that I looked like Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade all by myself.

Two days later my doctors appeared at my bedside and said,

“Mr. Dale, after 48 hours of constant surveillance in which teams of doctors have stood by to immediately deal with the seizures you never had - we can by no means call you normal – but we have upgraded you to stable and are moving you upstairs.

I imagine that you understand how hard it is to shock the most jaded public hospital in the nation “twice” simultaneously.

I was not only too stupid to realize that I was dead (actually I think I wouldn’t shut up long enough to die - ASD) but had also ended up in this condition by working too hard. I was quite the minor celebrity.

My brother saw me for the first time three days later, stepped back in involuntary horror and said, “Jesus Christ dude, you look like a corpse dragged out of Auschwitz. I can’t tell the parents what you look like, Jesus Christ!” (I already looked much better! - ASD)

When I was released from the hospital eight days later I looked so much better that a bunch of my friends said as one as they saw me for the first time, “You look like you have AIDS!”

Not surprisingly I have got at least a year’s worth of anecdotes but I know you are busy.

By quick count this is something like the sixth or seventh time so far in which I should have been killed (the others would have been instantaneous) so I am pissing off both family and friends by being totally relaxed about the whole thing.

If a fever can be called a Bar Mitzvah – I got sick as a boy and got well as a man.

I cannot tell many people this but I would not trade the last month for anything and I still managed to listen to your entire show on Sunday August 24 while having an elbow drained without anesthesia.

My sense of humor never deserted me so I was relaxed the entire time.

Still your biggest fan “Old Slippers.”

Alec

p.s. You have no idea what a relief it has been to find out that even though I am no longer a NYC Cab Driver I am apparently going to continue to have a life that is more interesting than most. I think we both know that middle aged men fear becoming boring.

So that’s what happened.