Happy Harry Hardon ruined me & all the good themes have been used up

It started out like this:
"Did you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up? You know that feeling that the whole country is like one inch away from saying 'That's it, forget it'. You think about it. Everything is polluted. The environment, the government, the schools, you name it. "

I didn't see "Pump Up the Volume" when it came out in 1990. I had to wait for it to hit video. Then watch it in secret. Southern Baptist are like that. We like our sinning done in the dark so there are no witnesses. Maybe that's why I like "talk hard" so much. "A dirty thought in a clean mind".

I did, at one time, care about politics. Oh, I was a little Campus Republican (they had the best parties). I was a volunteer on the campaign trail. I could whip out the Reagan and bring you to your fucking liberal knees with my jedi-mindtricks of voo-doo economics and SDI/MAD diplomacy. - Then I met Ralph Reed, who creeped-me-the-fuck-out when I shook his hand. A week later I met Nadine Strossen of the ACLU on campus and I burned my contract with America and went out and hugged some trees. I even started thinking Bill Clinton was kinda sexxy hott. And that summer that Monica was interning, well, uh, that was the summer I was supposed to be interning too. Though I ditched that to spend the summer with my idiot boyfriend at the time. F'n boys. - Still though, part of me thinks Bill would have liked me. We'd have gotten along. As anyone who has funneled with me knows, as all good Southern girls do, I know how to drink and I always swallow. It would have been good times.

Somewhere though, I've lost it. I just don't care. Maybe it was Clinton proving he was a real-boy after-all with the faults that go along with that. Then Bush did not help. Maybe it was the year or so spent agonizing over the daily casualty reports from Iraq. Relieved that it wasn't my baby brother or my friend Adj. Then realizing that it was someone else's someone. Maybe not mine today, but someone's heart was ripped out so I would cry anyway for being selfish and for their pain.

I know Barack is inspirational. I've seen theater. I've seen religion. I've even bought tickets to both. And I know Hillary has experience and contacts and knows how to get things done. I also know that John McCain is a good guy. Really. I can't imagine the shit he went through over there. - Still though, I can't help but think that what was true in Harry's 1990 is still true now. How sad is that?

Don't get me wrong, here. I WANT to care. Really I do. I've been letting this play out gladiator-style and we are coming down to the final contestants. President of the United States. Yeah, I should care. But really, I'm not feeling the warm and fuzzies for any of them. No one is making me want them. No one has licked me right and set me off. And I want that. I WANT to be in love with one of them. I want to believe that my teenaged view of isolation and melancholy hasn't come full-circle. That there is hope. Problem is. I'm old enough to know that hope is air. That's it's something you believe in when you don't have anything else. It's all that keeps you going when you're drowning in the shit and flotsam of life. Maybe I'm not drowning just yet. Or maybe I'm already under and I just don't know it.

As Harry says, "All the great themes have been used up and turned into theme parks." And right now, I don't feel like dealing with the crowds just to toss my cookies on the 3rd loopty-loop.

But then again, maybe my political soul can still be saved. Go ahead. Give it a try. Seduce me. Show me what you got, little mama. Show me what you got, big baller. - - - Until then, I'm breaking out the Leonard Cohen and mellowing to "Everybody Knows". Talk to me hard, babies.

Here are a few "Pump" clips for your enjoyment (1st two: 27 and 33 secs). Including the yummy Cohen song, which is a bit longer at but very enjoyable :)