This week's big event is the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. I watched some of the later speeches tonight. I caught a war buddy of John Kerry's, Hillary Clinton and then her erstwhile husband Bill, who can still deliver on the stump. He looks like he's slimmed down too. Good for him. He must have watched "Super Size Me".
I have been a Democrat for life since mid-2000. I was a registered Libertarian, until, in their paranoid zeal, they warned people not to answer the census. Perhaps they saw the Patriot Act coming, but after I saw George W. Bush become the Republican nominee, I felt it was more important to keep a complete buffoon out of the White House than it was to take a stand. I've been a Democrat ever since the Great Theft of 2000.

I could have more patience with the Republican viewpoint if they weren't SOOO ignorant. They seem to take their verbal cues from the Limbaughs, Hannitys and Gingriches of the world, which is truly a shame. I think Bill Maher said it best when he was on Larry King last week. When you watch the conventions, bear in mind that at least the Democrats show their true face at their conventions. I lived outside Philadelphia in 2000 when the Republicans had their convention there. It was a ludicrous dog and pony show. They marched out every ethnic or near-ethnic person with the barest minimum of Republican ties in a quixotic attempt to show Republican diversity. Nevermind that these people were talking to so many old white men that the smell of Center City Philadelphia was masked with the stench of Old Spice, which is no small feat. They also drew the lamest of celebrities. In addition to tired war horses like Chuck "Cold Dead Hands" Heston, they drew the ever-bodacious sometime nude model and bad actress Bo Derek. She has her head up her ass politically, but hey, nice tits honey!

There will be more convention frivolity to follow in the coming days, but tonight I have a special song from Spencer's Writ Of Common Wisdom. I write a lot of songs based on dreams I have (when I think they sound good; last night an original country song popped into my head with vocals that sounded like Emmylou Harris; I can't sing like Emmylou harris [who can], so the song is lost in near-sleep for the rest of time). I had a dream once where I was in a park at dusk. I walked over to a picnic table and sitting there was the child actress Anissa Jones. I was aware that she had died barely into adulthood of a heroin overdose. I used to watch the TV show "Family Affair" as a kid, to the best of my knowledge her only TV credit. In my dream, Anissa was frozen in time as that child I had watched so many years before. She had a hypodermic needle in her hand, and in my dream I took it away from her. When I woke up, I wrote this song. Anissa met an ignominious end, like one too many of her contemporaries in that time period. I've written a lot of songs that I think have staying power, but this is probably one of the few that I would like to know that people are singing 50 years after I'm dead. It's also hoped that those who read or hear the song and know an addict somewhere are spurred to action. It's not easy to intervene between a human being and their addictions, whatever they may be, but if successful, two lives get better. Anissa is frozen in my mind as that innocent child actress holding the Mrs. Beasley doll on "Family Affair". This one's for her. I hope she's somewhere peaceful.
There is one line that always causes confusion "There's a reverend eating women in the city" refers to the savage crimes of Gary Heidnik, a self-styled mentally disturbed minister who lived in Philadelphia and was later found to have chained up women in his basement and eaten the ones who died. He was executed a few years ago for his dreadful crimes. As far as the human condition, how could it get much worse than that as a reference point?

Could Anissa Have Been Saved?

                       
How did this darkness all begin? It’s much too early for the lights to dim
                                                     
I’m sittin’ in the dark all by myself, like an antique clock on a dusty shelf, and if
   
Only somebody would help me along, then I wouldn’t have a need to write this song
                                          
I feel the distant echo of where we’ve been, or maybe it’s these four walls a-closin’ in
                             
And I wish I knew someone who’d rescue someone, but no one I know’s that brave
                                                                
Could Anissa have been saved?

Could Anissa have been saved?

  
I tell somebody how the world has turned; they’re easily distracted and hardly concerned
                                                     
You can see a cemetery in their eyes, when a stare is never a good disguise
                 
And the world has more people than it’s ever known, how come so many are so alone

You can’t make a friend if you’re feelin’ mean, and you can’t get love from a movie screen
                          
There’s a reverend eating women in the city, what makes people so depraved?
                                                                 
Could Anissa have been saved?

Could Anissa have been saved?

         
I close my eyes and start to dream, tries to kill herself and she don’t even scream
          
A doll in her lap that she loved so much, a needle in her hand just about to touch
             
The skin in her arm, she’s white as the frost, I convince myself she was never lost
                                    
Then I wake up alone in the cold again, with a 2-day beard and a bottle of gin
              
I’ll catch her on the second time around, after I’m showered, drunk and shaved

Could Anissa have been saved?

Could Anissa have been saved?

I truly, TRULY love that one. I think I always will.
Enough of this frivolity. My cat just walked into the office, she's probably hungry, but little does she know that I'm going to bed. She's in for a shock. May everyone eventually be saved in the best way possible.