It was almost May. I knew that New York was getting warm now, that London was wet, that Rome was hot – and I was on Vieques, where it was always hot and where New York and London and Rome were just names on a map.
You have to be very mean to get a laugh on the campaign trail. There is no such thing as paranoia.
Superstar politicians and superstar quarterbacks have the same kind of delicate egos, and people who life on that level grow very accustomed to very thin, rarified air. They have trouble breathing in the lower altitudes; and if they can’t breath right, they can’t function.
It occurred to me one evening, as I sat by myself in Al’s patio, that a man can live on his wits and his balls for only so long. I’d been doing it for ten years and I had a feeling that my reserve was running low.
But instead of losing quietly, one by one, they have banded together with a mindless kind of loyalty and moved outside the framework, for good or ill. They may not have an answer, but at least they are still on their feet.
Sunday is not a good day for traveling in the South. Most public places are closed – especially the bars and taverns – in order that the denizens of this steamy, atavistic region will not be distracted from church. Sunday is the Lord’s day, and in the South he still has clout – or enough, at least, so that most folks won’t cross him in public. And those few who can’t make it to church will likely stay home by the fan, with iced tea, and worship him in their own way.
Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off.” – J. Conrad.
It is entirely conceivable – given the known effects of Ibogaine – that Muskie’s brain was almost paralyzed by hallucinations at the time; that he looked out at that crowd and saw gila monsters instead of people, and that his mind snapped completely when he felt something large and apparently vicious clawing at his legs. We.
Sending Muskie against Nixon would have been like sending a three-toed sloth out to seize turf from a wolverine.
The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories – not of things I have done but of things I have failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back.
This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling “conciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him... but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him.
McGovern is the only major candidate – including Lindsay and Muskie – who invariably gives a straight answer when people raise these questions. He lines out the painful truth, and his reward has been just about the same as that of any other politician who insists on telling the truth: He is mocked, vilified, ignored, and abandoned as a hopeless loser by even his good old buddies like Harold Hughes. On.
Whatever else might be said about Nixon – and there is still serious doubt in my mind that he could pass for Human – he is a goddamn stone fanatic on every facet of pro football.
Young George spent more money on one day of his Inauguration Ceremonies than Richard Nixon did on his whole Campaign in 1972 – and Nixon was crucified as a Criminal Spendthrift with the ethics of a snake.
When Nixon went into New Hampshire, he was viewed by the pros as just another of these stubborn, right-wing waterheads with nothing better to do.
The bulk of the crowd looked like professors and their wives from Amherst. One of the problems, according to a bushy young radical-talking non-student from Boston, was that you had to pay a “registration fee” of two dollars before you got a vote.
Betting against the point spread is a relatively mechanical trip, but betting against another individual can be very complex, if you’re serious about it – because you want to know, for starters, whether you’re betting against a fool or a wizard, or maybe against somebody who’s just playing the fool.
The Angels are not articulate about many things, but they bring a lover’s inspiration to the subject of bikes.
Nearly everyone who has ridden a bike for any length of time will agree. The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong ever done them by man, beast or fate.
I was so far beyond simple fatigue that I was beginning to feel nicely adjusted to the idea of permanent hysteria.