Being a blonde, liberal musician has it's ups and downs on LI. Since the weather has been warmer, I've been playing out more and going to more open mics in bars around my island paradise to hone my act. (Tonight I have a big gig in a big club. what to wear.. what to wear?) Somehow bar talk with the locals always turns to politics. Boy have I had some interesting conversations this past week... hmmm... mmmm.
I had one drunk guy come up to me and a couple of folks 2 nights ago (cause we were talking about John Kerry) and he called us bleeding hearts and slurred something like "what'r'yoo'g'nna'doo'bout'the'wrld'yoo'bleeding hearts" Being the blonde I am, I immediately corrected him and told him I was no longer to be called a bleeding heart but an "intellectual elitist" or he could call me "fancy pants" if that was easier. Turns out he was a union man who just found out about Bush's plan to cut overtime pay. But he was a staunch Republican. Always was, always will be. After a bit of yelling (we had to cause he was yelling) we convinced him that Bush didn't give a shit about him and would do away with unions if he could... he seemed to calm down and staggered away.
A little while later another local but regular con dropped over to say hi and make fun of the liberals, we informed him about our new title and he asked us why we are always talking about Bush and why we are such wooses or something like that. This time it was my turn to reply and I simply asked him, "Remember during the Clinton years when you guys were irate and always mad at Clinton?" He confirmed that. I told him, "Well we are 10 times more pissed off at Bush! And there is no more Mr or Mrs Nice Liberal!" He got ascared and went to the john.
Oh this is good.... My friend introduced me to a man who was the dad of her son's friend. We were talking. Her husband came over and started in on the man about the Iraq war.. the man in defense started talking about Hesbolla and Hamas or something... and we were like.. "waaa? We're talking about Iraq here" We then explained that we were intellectual elitists and he didn't have his facts straight and we wouldn't even continue the conversation with such a retard. I think we were a bit drunk too at that point.
Did you see the Man Show episode where they got 2 guys legally drunk.. or even more than legally drunk (used breath-a-lizer) and made them talk about politics? Hilarious.
Another drunk guy at the bar exclaimed "I Hate Fucking Bush"
and then another smart guy, said "You do?"
Then the first drunk guy said, "Wait, I meant George Bush. I like fucking bush but I hate George Bush." We all laughed.
Usually amongst musicians and composers, there is no argument about politics. We usually share information and shocking stories about how we are being fucked sideways without any grease by the right wing. But last night, I was blown away by a particularly talented classical guitarist. He was a stocky Italian guy about 40.. Tony Soprano-ish but what a talent. I played his guitar after the festivities were over and we were talking about music and being classically trained and all that jabber. Somehow, of course, this blonde got to taking about the draft and how I was going to move to Canada. He told me to "Move to France!"
"uh oh" I thought.
"Not one of us!" I thought.
"A koolaid drinker amongst our troops?" I thought.
Suffice it to say, Tony Soprano thought all Muslims should be nuked and they were all evil doers. He can't wait until we invade Syria, France, Iran, Jordan(?)... I asked him about Pakistan and Israel.. and he said, "Yeah, them too" I kind of played along with him for a while about who we should nuke just cause I was so intrigued by his deep down hatred for a whole nation of people and utter disregard for innocent people who got in the way.
I went into my spiel about how come the US couldn't take out Saddam and his henchmen without destroying a beautiful ancient city ripe with historical documents, artwork and architecture.. and he was so matter of fact when he said, "Tough shit". That blew my mind.
The bartender was putting chairs up on the bar so we realized it was time to pee and head home. On the way out, I touched his shoulder and told him again how impressed I was with his musicianship, which was quite gentile and expressive, and I asked him to look into some prozak or zoloft to take some of the edge off his hatred because I could tell that deep down somewhere he had an artistic depth and love of beauty... what a shame. What a shame.
You see it really doesn't matter if some people here vote for Bush cause Kerry is going to take New York State anyway... but this Republican right wing hatred is what really worries me. We used to get along much much better.
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