Chovevei Torah is located on Eastern Parkway between Albany and Troy. Aunt Rachel has not missed a Friday night service in almost sixty years. She leads tours. When Stein first suggested it, two weeks ago, as a route of escape I laughed. What Rachel does not know, what Stein and Yossi Stern (head of the volunteer civilian patrol organization, The Shmira) do know, is that the worldwide Lubavitch headquarters is connected via a series of underground tunnels to all of the influential Orthodox synagogues in the area. The tunnels, if viewed from above, form a subterranean star of David.
The plan is simple. Stein sits on the executive committee and has invited me along with Stern to be the Ark guardians. It is an honor people like Stern receive regularly (Stern, for some reason, has elected to be my guide on this escape---gambling debts aside, I find this to be deeply unsettling. Unsettling in the coming home to find a stranger sitting on your front porch sort of way. However the prospect of missing the Palin/Biden smackdown is worth the risk.) For me to be in front of the congregation is suspect at best. But, religion being the house of ready made redemption, I have rationalized that people will see me as a symbol of the fallen returning, the unerring power of Judaism to inject prudence and meaning into the lives of even the most depraved. I digress. While Stern and I are flanking the Ark, Stein will be delivering an address to the congregation on the current economic crisis and its implications on the Jewish community. Stein has the advantage of being perceived to be completely insane in general, yet profoundly informed on the subject of economics. Stein will address the congregation and will make a slip, saying some as of yet undecided deeply offensive statement that will cause the upper level of the synagogue, where women sit, to be cleared. For decorum's sake, of course. In the general hubbub that accompanies the herding of the women towards the exit, Stein will feign fainting. Stein will lose no face as he has none to lose (outbursts are always the risk one takes when allowing him to speak in public) and Stern and I will slip unnoticed into the secret exit beneath Stein's lectern. By the time Aunt Rachel has attempted to locate me, and by the time she can't find me and call's Stern's Shmira, Stern and I will be driving towards St. Louis. Meanwhile, the Shmira will conduct a thorough and fruitless search of Crown Heights and the surrounding environs.
Stein is speaking now. Droning about short selling and mark to market accounting. Aunt Rachel is nodding off. It's not hot, but the humidity has painted the room with sweat. The time is nearly nine, when Stein is to make his gaffe. Then it begins. Stein stops and seems to lose his place. One of the Rabbi's acolytes starts gesturing to the point in his speech transcript where he paused. Stein smacks his hand. The gesture is grand enough to catch the attention of the congregation. Everyone stops.
Stein steps away from the lectern now, leaving our exit unblocked, and moves center.
"I have decided as of today to stop all personal donations to the state of Israel and I implore you all to do the same," he says.
Pandemonium! Recriminations! Spittle and rage lobbed from the fur lined mouths of the elders, indignation and spite spat from the fresh faces of the young believers. He's turned the synagogue into the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The women are herded out, the men are enraged. The Rabbi walks toward Stein and puts a hand on his shoulder. Stein bites his hand! Brilliant. The men are charging the bima like villagers from 'Frankenstein.' Stern looks at me and politely gestures toward the lectern as if to say 'after you.' I move quickly making sure not to look up and catch Aunt Rachel's eye.
We are in the tunnels now, the sounds of the synagogue melee receding.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
My Own Private Bailout
Aunt Rachel sits at the breakfast table rummaging through old recipe cards. The dull glow of fall rain and haze tentatively enters the room. The paper flakes in her hands. I sit opposite her, hands pressed underneath my thighs, waiting. Every morning the same thing, three weeks now. She sorts recipes at this time of year. She prepares for the New Year by sorting recipes. She prepares for the New Year sorting recipes by day light and reading during the evening by candle light. She does this because every year she cuts the power in her home in what she deems the holiest month. The power will be restored once all sins have been atoned for. One month to remind us (and all of her tenants---God only knows how they tolerate this nonsense!) of the privilege we are afforded living in this most modern of ages and how we regularly ignore said privilege in pursuit of our basest impulses.
Aunt Rachel is not a mean woman. There is a fierce and comical pragmatism to her annual power outages. Part of it is religious devotion. The other part of it is that, traditionally, there is no need to follow the Cubs during the month of September. So, she has suffered too. But, regardless of motivation, she has imprisoned me, watching my every movement. She has decided to keep me under her eye till Yom Kippur. And her will is God's will.
I had plans. Plans to travel the backroads of Ohio and Pennsylvania, interviewing the 'average' American, Tocqueville-style, and seeing what was actually happening in the vast swath of land between New York and California. Unfortunately those plans were going to be paid for by liquidating money invested primarily in AIG stock. So it goes.
But now it is too much. I have to bail on Aunt Rachel. Kastelbaum has offered me tickets to the Palin/Biden debate next week (he actually mailed me a letter telling me as much). I must find my way there. I am broke sure, but one more morning of the recipe cards and I will truly have sins to atone for. Big sins. Ones I haven't even conceived of committing since Venezuela.
I have sent a note to Menachem Stein. Aunt Rachel and I will be at synagogue tonight, for Shabbat. He will help me escape from Brooklyn, escape from the crazy clutches of what Jews refer to as hospitality. I have an idea for a book, a novel, simmering in my head. I must see the Palin woman upclose to know if this idea has any merit. But first I must escape. I have noticed Aunt Rachel watching me closely these past few days. I have never been good at keeping secrets. I wear them like Christmas ornaments tangled in my payot. So, I must be careful.
Tonight, I escape. Tonight with luck, I may be free.
Aunt Rachel is not a mean woman. There is a fierce and comical pragmatism to her annual power outages. Part of it is religious devotion. The other part of it is that, traditionally, there is no need to follow the Cubs during the month of September. So, she has suffered too. But, regardless of motivation, she has imprisoned me, watching my every movement. She has decided to keep me under her eye till Yom Kippur. And her will is God's will.
I had plans. Plans to travel the backroads of Ohio and Pennsylvania, interviewing the 'average' American, Tocqueville-style, and seeing what was actually happening in the vast swath of land between New York and California. Unfortunately those plans were going to be paid for by liquidating money invested primarily in AIG stock. So it goes.
But now it is too much. I have to bail on Aunt Rachel. Kastelbaum has offered me tickets to the Palin/Biden debate next week (he actually mailed me a letter telling me as much). I must find my way there. I am broke sure, but one more morning of the recipe cards and I will truly have sins to atone for. Big sins. Ones I haven't even conceived of committing since Venezuela.
I have sent a note to Menachem Stein. Aunt Rachel and I will be at synagogue tonight, for Shabbat. He will help me escape from Brooklyn, escape from the crazy clutches of what Jews refer to as hospitality. I have an idea for a book, a novel, simmering in my head. I must see the Palin woman upclose to know if this idea has any merit. But first I must escape. I have noticed Aunt Rachel watching me closely these past few days. I have never been good at keeping secrets. I wear them like Christmas ornaments tangled in my payot. So, I must be careful.
Tonight, I escape. Tonight with luck, I may be free.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Karma Chassid
Settling back into life in New York City is always difficult when you've been in other American cities for too long. Fortunately for me, the last two weeks of partisan rancor were such that being bumped on subway platforms and nearly run over by three consecutive bike messengers felt like a warm embrace. Unfortunately for me, my landlord saw fit to use my absence as occasion to change the locks.
The loss of residence allowed me to return to Crown Heights and possibly reunite with Menachem Stein and his nefarious underworld. But that would have to wait, as first I needed a place to stay.
Great Aunt Rachel owns and maintains a four story, rent-stabilized apartment building with two units per floor. It's in a relatively tree lined street not far from the Eastern Parkway. A clean building smelling of Murphy's Floor Soap and Lysol, it has no front stoop and no backyard and all the windows on the front of the building have tastefully decorated bars. She only rents to Chassids.
Rachel maintains the bottom floor as her own and has combined the two units into one sprawling space. She lives alone and keeps no pets. At eighty-three she still maintains the plumming and minor repairs of all the building's units. She sees no reason to pay someone else to do a job she, herself, has always been capable of doing.
At the end of World War Two, she was a young girl in Chicago. For that reason, she has always been an avid Chicago Cubs fan and was actually present during the last appearance in the World Series by said team. She is also a lifelong FDR/Truman type Democrat. So, last week was particularly tough on her.
Over a breakfast of the kind of colon stripping porridge more familiar to Russian peasants than Brooklyn Chassids (yet food she swears is the sole reason for her vigor at her advanced age) she explained much to me:
"Politics and baseball. Oy, William! To be a Democrat and a Cubs fan now, this, William, this is to suffer. Just weeks ago my beloved Cubs and that lovely young black from the South Side were doing so well. And now, in one week of indignity, those shmuck Republicans jump ahead in the polls and the Cubs can only manage one win against opponents inferior. I'm practically put out of my head." To make her point all the more emphatic she kneads her brow with her left hand and spoons gruel with her right.
"It's not enough to have not won a World Series in one hundred years..." Her voice often trails off when she speaks of this fact. It used to drive her husband wild. We all suspected that there was another man in those two wild years in Chicago right after the war. Her late husband, Benjamin, would always rant: "Why the Cubs, eh? We live in New York! Fifty years we're New Yorkers! Two years, two festunkena years in some town in the Midwest and I have to hear about it day in and day out! Enough!" It never was.
"But, William, to have lived these last eight with that goyische disaster Bush? These last eight years have felt longer than any hundred I could have ever imagined!" She stands slowly to pour herself more coffee. "But, William, this is what we must bare. It is our historical role, Democrats and Cubs fans alike. We will not rest until the final vote is counted, the final out officially recognized by the official scorer. And we'll worry ourselves bald up until that day. But this William, this is what it is to have a stake in history, to feel it in your bones. Because the Republicans, they don't care! They've got money and influence and that... that... attack machine, the one that chewed on Hillary for eight years like month old Matza... it will be just fine if they don't elect the shiksa and altacocker. They'll spend the next four years making sure the guy with the Muslim name is able to accomplish little and suffer greatly. The Republicans know what it is to know historical dominance. Life becomes mere sport." She coughs for emphasis.
"But, I see a great link in the events of the last week. I see the work of God testing us, the pathetically devout. This will be the year, but it will not be easy. The temptation now is to lament and blame the baseball Gods or the convention calendars. Circumstances, pheh! The economy is a disaster. This is on our side, eh? Zambrano is getting extra rest along with Harden, this is good, no? The last week has been hard on the Democrats, the schedule not in their favor, right? The next three weeks put the Cubs mostly on the road against playoff caliber teams. Unfair? Neither. I see opportunity William. I see fortification and tough earned experience. Invaluable experience. Because I believe, for once, I'm on the right side of history, this time. As long as we stopping bitching and whining and worrying ourselves bald, this may be a Fall to remember."
Still standing, she turns towards the back window that looks directly onto another back window and lifts her chin slightly upward.
The loss of residence allowed me to return to Crown Heights and possibly reunite with Menachem Stein and his nefarious underworld. But that would have to wait, as first I needed a place to stay.
Great Aunt Rachel owns and maintains a four story, rent-stabilized apartment building with two units per floor. It's in a relatively tree lined street not far from the Eastern Parkway. A clean building smelling of Murphy's Floor Soap and Lysol, it has no front stoop and no backyard and all the windows on the front of the building have tastefully decorated bars. She only rents to Chassids.
Rachel maintains the bottom floor as her own and has combined the two units into one sprawling space. She lives alone and keeps no pets. At eighty-three she still maintains the plumming and minor repairs of all the building's units. She sees no reason to pay someone else to do a job she, herself, has always been capable of doing.
At the end of World War Two, she was a young girl in Chicago. For that reason, she has always been an avid Chicago Cubs fan and was actually present during the last appearance in the World Series by said team. She is also a lifelong FDR/Truman type Democrat. So, last week was particularly tough on her.
Over a breakfast of the kind of colon stripping porridge more familiar to Russian peasants than Brooklyn Chassids (yet food she swears is the sole reason for her vigor at her advanced age) she explained much to me:
"Politics and baseball. Oy, William! To be a Democrat and a Cubs fan now, this, William, this is to suffer. Just weeks ago my beloved Cubs and that lovely young black from the South Side were doing so well. And now, in one week of indignity, those shmuck Republicans jump ahead in the polls and the Cubs can only manage one win against opponents inferior. I'm practically put out of my head." To make her point all the more emphatic she kneads her brow with her left hand and spoons gruel with her right.
"It's not enough to have not won a World Series in one hundred years..." Her voice often trails off when she speaks of this fact. It used to drive her husband wild. We all suspected that there was another man in those two wild years in Chicago right after the war. Her late husband, Benjamin, would always rant: "Why the Cubs, eh? We live in New York! Fifty years we're New Yorkers! Two years, two festunkena years in some town in the Midwest and I have to hear about it day in and day out! Enough!" It never was.
"But, William, to have lived these last eight with that goyische disaster Bush? These last eight years have felt longer than any hundred I could have ever imagined!" She stands slowly to pour herself more coffee. "But, William, this is what we must bare. It is our historical role, Democrats and Cubs fans alike. We will not rest until the final vote is counted, the final out officially recognized by the official scorer. And we'll worry ourselves bald up until that day. But this William, this is what it is to have a stake in history, to feel it in your bones. Because the Republicans, they don't care! They've got money and influence and that... that... attack machine, the one that chewed on Hillary for eight years like month old Matza... it will be just fine if they don't elect the shiksa and altacocker. They'll spend the next four years making sure the guy with the Muslim name is able to accomplish little and suffer greatly. The Republicans know what it is to know historical dominance. Life becomes mere sport." She coughs for emphasis.
"But, I see a great link in the events of the last week. I see the work of God testing us, the pathetically devout. This will be the year, but it will not be easy. The temptation now is to lament and blame the baseball Gods or the convention calendars. Circumstances, pheh! The economy is a disaster. This is on our side, eh? Zambrano is getting extra rest along with Harden, this is good, no? The last week has been hard on the Democrats, the schedule not in their favor, right? The next three weeks put the Cubs mostly on the road against playoff caliber teams. Unfair? Neither. I see opportunity William. I see fortification and tough earned experience. Invaluable experience. Because I believe, for once, I'm on the right side of history, this time. As long as we stopping bitching and whining and worrying ourselves bald, this may be a Fall to remember."
Still standing, she turns towards the back window that looks directly onto another back window and lifts her chin slightly upward.
Friday, September 5, 2008
The End
Back at Le Malentendu du Jura for a breakfast of jambon, croissant, and coffee. Apparently the restaurant's ambitions take the morning off. This is strict Parisian stock and I note, as I dine alone slowly, the irony of the twenty minute wait of hungover Republican revelers. We have come quite a ways in four years, haven't we?
My Palin-pique has subsided. The only remainders of my uncharacteristic outburst are my intentionally wide spread of newspapers at the bar, combined with an aggressive lack of bathing intended to keep the seats to my left and right empty. I have seen three solo diners return to the host stand so far. Bliss, my friends, is in the simple things.
The conventions are over and not a moment too soon. Initial poling suggests a tie or a slim Obama lead. Which considering all the bile slung his way this week would be not a small victory. Credit is due to the Republican machine who made damn sure that the Democratic National Convention ended as soon as Obama left the stage. And now, thankfully, we are left to ponder the questions of the coming months: Will Sarah Palin be allowed to speak to anyone not from The View or Fox News? Will the Vice-Presidential Debate draw more viewers a Survivor Finale? Will the Democrats come out swinging or wait to react to whatever Rovian mischief is being cooked up as we speak?
Kastelbaum read me the riot act yesterday. He felt my post represented the kind of anger best left to therapist's offices and punching bags. He argued that my readers (you few, you lucky few) in all likelihood agreed with me and needed no further reason for inflaming. And anyway, we knew it was coming. The hatefest was inevitable. Obama went tough so the Republicans went back to their basics.
Of course, what's going to be really interesting is the stuff that doesn't make the cable news. It's going to be how the house to house efforts of volunteers in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and, maybe, Florida fare and the who wins the registration drives for new voters. I'll be looking to talk to those people more in the next two months. They're the ones who decide these things anyway, not Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity.
I pay the check and make my way towards the exit, the airport, and my New York home. On the way out, the same Red Bull deprived chef from Monday's visit is arriving at work. His eyes linger on the concrete and do not look up. We all have a part to play in this strange country, I guess, even the loons.
My Palin-pique has subsided. The only remainders of my uncharacteristic outburst are my intentionally wide spread of newspapers at the bar, combined with an aggressive lack of bathing intended to keep the seats to my left and right empty. I have seen three solo diners return to the host stand so far. Bliss, my friends, is in the simple things.
The conventions are over and not a moment too soon. Initial poling suggests a tie or a slim Obama lead. Which considering all the bile slung his way this week would be not a small victory. Credit is due to the Republican machine who made damn sure that the Democratic National Convention ended as soon as Obama left the stage. And now, thankfully, we are left to ponder the questions of the coming months: Will Sarah Palin be allowed to speak to anyone not from The View or Fox News? Will the Vice-Presidential Debate draw more viewers a Survivor Finale? Will the Democrats come out swinging or wait to react to whatever Rovian mischief is being cooked up as we speak?
Kastelbaum read me the riot act yesterday. He felt my post represented the kind of anger best left to therapist's offices and punching bags. He argued that my readers (you few, you lucky few) in all likelihood agreed with me and needed no further reason for inflaming. And anyway, we knew it was coming. The hatefest was inevitable. Obama went tough so the Republicans went back to their basics.
Of course, what's going to be really interesting is the stuff that doesn't make the cable news. It's going to be how the house to house efforts of volunteers in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and, maybe, Florida fare and the who wins the registration drives for new voters. I'll be looking to talk to those people more in the next two months. They're the ones who decide these things anyway, not Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity.
I pay the check and make my way towards the exit, the airport, and my New York home. On the way out, the same Red Bull deprived chef from Monday's visit is arriving at work. His eyes linger on the concrete and do not look up. We all have a part to play in this strange country, I guess, even the loons.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
P is for Pandering
Holy Shit! Jesus Christ is a woman! And she showed up in all her glory on the stage at the Republican National Convention last night! Oh, wait, I have my stories wrong. Somewhere in the late eighties while Reagan was looking more and more like the doddering fool he always was (please staff, spend extra time and millions to make movies for me explaining the issues of the day, I'm just the leader of the free world and shouldn't be expected to be able to grasp issues by reading about them!), several key Republican advisors began to syphon off his charm and fight in liquid form and were systematically injecting it into a nice little beauty queen in Wasilla, Alaska. The Gipper has returned! With a vagina! All praise.
Sorry if I am being histrionic, I'm just trying to match the tone of my colleagues here in St. Paul. There is only one word to describe Governor Palin's address to her screaming acolytes last night: pandering. It appears McCain's sole purpose in bringing this unknown entity into the spotlight of a national campaign is to drag said campaign right into the gutter. Because his top aides are already saying this campaign is not actually about 'issues.' What a farce of a Democratic landslide it would be if it actually were. Because all Palin did was energize the fringe lunatics who felt slighted by a so-called independent minded Republican bearing the Party standard. And the only new element she added to the old noise was the kind of cutting cutesy humor that flies around when one too many martinis has been consumed. So, now we have a reform ticket, that consists of a man whose 'reaching across the aisles' for campaign funding reform has been part of the lead up to back to back bank breaking elections while the economy stagnates and slumps and a woman who wanted earmarks amounting to $4,030.00 per resident of US tax payer dollars for every person in Wasilla and was for the 'Bridge to Nowhere' until it became politically advantageous to be against it. And all this nonsense is just to re-ignite the two America's fight. 'I'm just your average hockey mom,' Palin says. Great and grand, now go back to being that and leave the ruling of this country to adults.
All last night proved is that this woman can read a speech. Which is quite an accomplishment on this presidential ticket, but that's beside the point. She hit all the Republican talking points that get Republicans elected and that they promptly forget until the next election cycle. The way they govern is to ceaselessly drive our country into economic and ecological ruin, roll back advancements in science and civil liberties, and wage one pyrrhic war after another.
If you actually listened to the speech (which was hard enough with the crazies vaulting out of their seats every two sentences) all you heard was noise. If you think Obama says nothing, then you should spend a few minutes with this one. Any and all salient points about governing may as well have been uttered by our current leader, the Bush man.
So, once again, it's us versus them. The elites versus the down home American values crowd (whatever those are). Serious discussion about serious issues out the window. Thanks Maverick, thanks a lot.
Sorry if I am being histrionic, I'm just trying to match the tone of my colleagues here in St. Paul. There is only one word to describe Governor Palin's address to her screaming acolytes last night: pandering. It appears McCain's sole purpose in bringing this unknown entity into the spotlight of a national campaign is to drag said campaign right into the gutter. Because his top aides are already saying this campaign is not actually about 'issues.' What a farce of a Democratic landslide it would be if it actually were. Because all Palin did was energize the fringe lunatics who felt slighted by a so-called independent minded Republican bearing the Party standard. And the only new element she added to the old noise was the kind of cutting cutesy humor that flies around when one too many martinis has been consumed. So, now we have a reform ticket, that consists of a man whose 'reaching across the aisles' for campaign funding reform has been part of the lead up to back to back bank breaking elections while the economy stagnates and slumps and a woman who wanted earmarks amounting to $4,030.00 per resident of US tax payer dollars for every person in Wasilla and was for the 'Bridge to Nowhere' until it became politically advantageous to be against it. And all this nonsense is just to re-ignite the two America's fight. 'I'm just your average hockey mom,' Palin says. Great and grand, now go back to being that and leave the ruling of this country to adults.
All last night proved is that this woman can read a speech. Which is quite an accomplishment on this presidential ticket, but that's beside the point. She hit all the Republican talking points that get Republicans elected and that they promptly forget until the next election cycle. The way they govern is to ceaselessly drive our country into economic and ecological ruin, roll back advancements in science and civil liberties, and wage one pyrrhic war after another.
If you actually listened to the speech (which was hard enough with the crazies vaulting out of their seats every two sentences) all you heard was noise. If you think Obama says nothing, then you should spend a few minutes with this one. Any and all salient points about governing may as well have been uttered by our current leader, the Bush man.
So, once again, it's us versus them. The elites versus the down home American values crowd (whatever those are). Serious discussion about serious issues out the window. Thanks Maverick, thanks a lot.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Labor Day 2008
St. Paul, Minnesota.
Le Malentendu du Jura is a popular restaurant specializing in Southeastern French cuisine here in St. Paul. It launches a two front offensive against the diner: on one front Le Mal (as it is known in local shorthand) proffers the traditional bistro-esque interior of tastefully smudged mirrors with specialites emblazened on the surface, the high ceilings and marble floors that amplify the clink of toasting glassware and the scratch of silverware on herring bone china, and the weird Toulouse Lautrec lighting that enhances merriment and drunkenness. From the other front swoops in dishes inspired by the mountains of Jura, a small range of mountains north of the Alps that separates the Rhine and the Rhone rivers. The food, a mix of the fish caught in those two rivers paired with the gamey elements of the mountains themselves, is a welcome change to traditional bistro fare. I, as always, am excited to eat.
Today, the restaurant is empty as service begins promptly at 5:30pm. Kastelbaum and I have two hours before we're needed at the wholly paired down first night of the Republican National Convention. We sip glasses of vin jaune and pop pieces of brochette Jurassiene into our mouths. The chef, a squat Napoleonic man with thinning hair and a pronounced squint is leaning on the corner of the bar looking out disapprovingly at the lack of diners. I'm sure they expected to be busy all week. He is sipping on a Red Bull and muttering to himself when, suddenly, he slams his hand on the table, screams 'Gustav!', pivots on one foot, and marches back towards the kitchen. He leaves the Red Bull perched precariously on the bar's edge.
"The great thing about being middle management in the News world is that I can skip out on days like today and let the senior figureheads and the young go-getters handle the brunt of the work." Kastelbaum is in much better shape than at our breakfast in Denver. He does not appear to have slept, but now that is not dampening his enthusiasm. I think he is also relieved that Ms. Dowd gave me a press pass as a parting gift.
I, on the other hand, am anxious to talk about Palin and what she means. I read this today: Tamar Fenton, 45, of suburban Minneapolis, said she admired Palin, a mother of five, and was not bothered by the governor's relative lack of experience. "If you can go up against a teenaged kid," said Fenton, "you could go up against a world leader." I now quoted these exact words to Kastelbaum.
"Well, that's pretty disturbing, Bill."
"Pretty disturbing?" I am enraged. A meteor shower of mostly chewed Jura cheese and ham sprinkle the table top. "This woman, who is not even a fan of Palin's, is basically saying that any parent who can lock horns with their wild child teenager is capable of leading the free world! Is that not shocking?"
Kastelbaum, all of a sudden unflappable, orders two more glasses of vin jaune and continues chewing.
"Bill, this is not news. The only politician to be elected president since Carter, who was nuts, that has had the kind of resume we all would call properly experienced is H.W. And he only lasted one term. The leaders who've succeeded the most were relatively new governors whose gifts were first and foremost rhetorical. Reason has no place in political campaigns. The polls are bullshit, the news coverage is publicly condoned masturbation, the punditry are by any means diagnosable bi-polars, and the electorate has taken to voting for people who appear to make them feel better about themselves." He is positively beaming as he picks up the wine list and starts deftly flipping through the pages. His cynicism makes him ebullient. He goes on.
"So, this woman was mayor of a town that you probably could drive through in less than a minute. So, she pulled a John Kerry on the whole 'Bridge to Nowhere' fiasco and her reformer streak may be purely political. And so what if she's outed in this whole Troopergate scandal. Until she falls flat on her face on the campaign trail or Biden eats her for lunch on foreign policy, she's going to energize a lot of surprising people. Because she is the real face of the American dream!"
The whole restaurant has, apparently, gone nuts. Kastelbaum is glowing and looking around for a waiter to order more wine, and the chef is back at the bar berating the bartenders because his Red Bull has gone missing. Between the noise of Kastelbaum repeating the words 'Burgundy' over and over again and the chef accusing his staff of being 'fucking liars making very bad decision' I try to make sense of Kastelbaum's logic. I feel like I'm screaming on an airfield when I finally ask:
"Morty, what the hell do you mean?"
"Bill, is the American dream to work hard at a trade for ten, twenty, thirty years day in and day out to be rewarded, eventually, with position, privilege, and salary? Or is the real American dream to wake up someday in Assfuck, Alaska to find out that hey, someone has just given you all of that on a platter not because of anything you've really done, but because of who you are? Which one really captures the old imagination?"
It is too much. The fierce illogic, the screaming Gaul, the noise echoing off hard marble and glass. I throw fifty dollars on the table and leave without saying goodbye. Kastelbaum can drink alone tonight. I head for the Convention.
Le Malentendu du Jura is a popular restaurant specializing in Southeastern French cuisine here in St. Paul. It launches a two front offensive against the diner: on one front Le Mal (as it is known in local shorthand) proffers the traditional bistro-esque interior of tastefully smudged mirrors with specialites emblazened on the surface, the high ceilings and marble floors that amplify the clink of toasting glassware and the scratch of silverware on herring bone china, and the weird Toulouse Lautrec lighting that enhances merriment and drunkenness. From the other front swoops in dishes inspired by the mountains of Jura, a small range of mountains north of the Alps that separates the Rhine and the Rhone rivers. The food, a mix of the fish caught in those two rivers paired with the gamey elements of the mountains themselves, is a welcome change to traditional bistro fare. I, as always, am excited to eat.
Today, the restaurant is empty as service begins promptly at 5:30pm. Kastelbaum and I have two hours before we're needed at the wholly paired down first night of the Republican National Convention. We sip glasses of vin jaune and pop pieces of brochette Jurassiene into our mouths. The chef, a squat Napoleonic man with thinning hair and a pronounced squint is leaning on the corner of the bar looking out disapprovingly at the lack of diners. I'm sure they expected to be busy all week. He is sipping on a Red Bull and muttering to himself when, suddenly, he slams his hand on the table, screams 'Gustav!', pivots on one foot, and marches back towards the kitchen. He leaves the Red Bull perched precariously on the bar's edge.
"The great thing about being middle management in the News world is that I can skip out on days like today and let the senior figureheads and the young go-getters handle the brunt of the work." Kastelbaum is in much better shape than at our breakfast in Denver. He does not appear to have slept, but now that is not dampening his enthusiasm. I think he is also relieved that Ms. Dowd gave me a press pass as a parting gift.
I, on the other hand, am anxious to talk about Palin and what she means. I read this today: Tamar Fenton, 45, of suburban Minneapolis, said she admired Palin, a mother of five, and was not bothered by the governor's relative lack of experience. "If you can go up against a teenaged kid," said Fenton, "you could go up against a world leader." I now quoted these exact words to Kastelbaum.
"Well, that's pretty disturbing, Bill."
"Pretty disturbing?" I am enraged. A meteor shower of mostly chewed Jura cheese and ham sprinkle the table top. "This woman, who is not even a fan of Palin's, is basically saying that any parent who can lock horns with their wild child teenager is capable of leading the free world! Is that not shocking?"
Kastelbaum, all of a sudden unflappable, orders two more glasses of vin jaune and continues chewing.
"Bill, this is not news. The only politician to be elected president since Carter, who was nuts, that has had the kind of resume we all would call properly experienced is H.W. And he only lasted one term. The leaders who've succeeded the most were relatively new governors whose gifts were first and foremost rhetorical. Reason has no place in political campaigns. The polls are bullshit, the news coverage is publicly condoned masturbation, the punditry are by any means diagnosable bi-polars, and the electorate has taken to voting for people who appear to make them feel better about themselves." He is positively beaming as he picks up the wine list and starts deftly flipping through the pages. His cynicism makes him ebullient. He goes on.
"So, this woman was mayor of a town that you probably could drive through in less than a minute. So, she pulled a John Kerry on the whole 'Bridge to Nowhere' fiasco and her reformer streak may be purely political. And so what if she's outed in this whole Troopergate scandal. Until she falls flat on her face on the campaign trail or Biden eats her for lunch on foreign policy, she's going to energize a lot of surprising people. Because she is the real face of the American dream!"
The whole restaurant has, apparently, gone nuts. Kastelbaum is glowing and looking around for a waiter to order more wine, and the chef is back at the bar berating the bartenders because his Red Bull has gone missing. Between the noise of Kastelbaum repeating the words 'Burgundy' over and over again and the chef accusing his staff of being 'fucking liars making very bad decision' I try to make sense of Kastelbaum's logic. I feel like I'm screaming on an airfield when I finally ask:
"Morty, what the hell do you mean?"
"Bill, is the American dream to work hard at a trade for ten, twenty, thirty years day in and day out to be rewarded, eventually, with position, privilege, and salary? Or is the real American dream to wake up someday in Assfuck, Alaska to find out that hey, someone has just given you all of that on a platter not because of anything you've really done, but because of who you are? Which one really captures the old imagination?"
It is too much. The fierce illogic, the screaming Gaul, the noise echoing off hard marble and glass. I throw fifty dollars on the table and leave without saying goodbye. Kastelbaum can drink alone tonight. I head for the Convention.
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