I'm Back...and Think Obama May Be Behind in the Polls

(Cue music. “Try Again” by Aaliyah and Timbaland.)

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’ta left you…(left you) … without a dope blog to read to. Read to …Read to Readto….and you get the point.

I’ve taken a long hiatus from blogging. I sit at a computer the better part of 9 hours Monday through Friday. I sent out roughly 75 – 100 professional emails every day (in addition to 10 or so personal, and Gmail chatting)…so you can imagine that the last thing I want to do at the end of every day is go home and type some more.

But…since I find myself writing blogs in my head all the time, I figured I should get back on the horse…whereas the horse is a keyboard…but I’m not physically on the keyboard or anything, but my fingers are. And I’m typing and not actually riding my computer, or anything like that. Just regular typing.

Anywho, the point is, I see and hear too many funny things to not be blogging. Really, I’m doing it for you people! And even though the book is still something I want to write, it’s kind of right now in a holding pattern that I’m hoping will spring to life if I’m blogging again. (I’m still counting on your financial backing, Kaplan.)

So to begin again, I think I’ll start with a story that combines good old New York City racism with the elderly population that lives in my community.

My story begins last Saturday. It was a warm and sunny 125 degrees, and GC and I were in the midst of freeing him from C.U.N.T. (Claudia’s UpperWestSide Neighborhood Territory. Get your minds out of the gutter!) Walking, ever so slowly and delicately in front of us, was a little old East Village woman.

For those of you who may need clarification, old East Village women tend to clothe themselves in house dresses, complete with mis-matched socks AND slippers, handkerchiefs firmly in places on their hair, Eastern European lineage firmly asserted via glaring looks and body posture.

Walking next to her was the typical East Village girl.

For those of you who need clarification on her, she’s about 5’9” and if her hair is brushed, it’s probably somewhat frizzy. Her sunglasses are large and she’s probably wearing the same (or a similar) house dress as the old East Village woman, but she bought hers at a “vintage” store and paid $300 for it. She also probably has on slouchy socks and ankle boots.


So..our cast of characters complete, GC and I walking and talking behind them…when out of nowhere, our characters interact.

The little old woman stops, spins and turns to the hipster, grabs her by the arm and asks, “ARE YOU GOING TO VOTE!?”

The hipster turns, broken out of her iPod/emo revelry says, “What?”

The old woman, looking annoyed, repeats, “I SAID…ARE YOU GOING TO VOTE?”

The hipster replys, “Um, yes I think so.”

The old woman yells, “GOOD! BUT DON’T VOTE FOR THE BLACK ONE!”

I thought GC’s head was going to snap off, the way he threw it back and laughed. It was totally absurd. I should also mention at this time, that the woman was very hunched over, and using a walker.

The hipster, annoyed to have been bothered with such trivial matters as our presidency, moves on without so much as batting an eye. GC, however, not so much.

Without missing a beat, he turns and asks the old woman, “Are you going to vote?”

And she looks at him completely blankly, like she didn’t just ask that question of someone else 10 seconds prior. She says, “Huh?”

And GC says. “Are you going to vote in the next presidential election?”

And her eyes get clear for one second and she exclaims, “Oh yes…!”

And he asks, “Who are you voting for?”

And she proclaims “Hilary Clinton!”

And he says, “Not the other Democrat?”

Her eyes got dark and she said, “No. We need a woman in the White House. The other one seems fresh.”

And then her eyes clouded over once more. And we turned to go. But, the little Eastern European woman is not voting for Barack Obama because he “seems fresh.” I wasn’t sure, but now I can firmly state, that racism is alive and well in the elderly, female Eastern European community of New York City.