PhotoDude.com

Consider this, perhaps, comment spam, from a guy who is so blocked on his own blog, he hasn’t posted anything in weeks. But, hey, trust me, I’ve got my, uh, temporal issues at the moment…

I really like the new, non-political, Photodude.com a lot better than I liked the old centrist non-lackey version. And I’m sad as hell to say that. But here’s the deal:

I’m 53 years old, and I couldn’t get elected in America if I wanted to, and I doubt you could either, Reid. I couldn’t get elected because I’m flawed human being, and have been divorced 4 times. You couldn’t get elected because you resemble a defense lawyer of an unreliably liberal stripe, when you put on a suit, and because you’ve frequently demonstrated that you might think something original, at any moment, without any warning whatsoever. And this country has, for reasons I don’t begin to get, no tolerance for people who don’t have a marketable appearance of having all the answers, in advance.

I don’t know when I started to get glassy-eyed with political stuff, but I guess it was around the time Reagan squared off against Dukakis. There was a meanness in that campaign on both sides, that was way out of whack with what I felt was the human nature of the men involved, and it was maybe then that I first found myself actively avoiding political conversations. And the course of American politics has gone straight downhill since, in my estimation.

I had breakfast yesterday morning, as I have a couple of times a week in recent months, in a small town cafe called Steamboat Lily’s, in Hilliard, FL. It gets a crowd of regulars most mornings, in that small town, and on Saturday mornings, the old men kick around a lot of stuff, but lately, no politics. Although I generally avoid eating in places where there is a T.V. running, at Steamboat Lily’s I make an exception, because the Georgia style fried fish and eggs breakfast is damn good, and they make man-sized biscuits and smother ‘em with good sausage gravy.

At any rate, the Cindy Sheehan thing was on Fox, and up to a couple of weeks ago, somebody there would have kicked something off on that, just to get a rise out of someone else. But Saturday, nobody there paid a bit of attention, and the talk was all about trolling rigs on bass boats. And it was civil, and men laughed together, and hung around for third cups of coffee, and plotted together the death of big fish.

All of which is to say, there is life after The Big Issues, my friend.

Comment spam has an ulterior motive detrimental to the site. You fail to qualify by several miles.

“you might think something original, at any moment, without any warning whatsoever”

It tends to keep my wife on her toes, but that’s about it.

As for your trip to Steamboat Lily’s, that’s the sense I’ve gotten lately, too. People are pretty sick of the tit-for-tat, or blissfully unaware of arcane partisan fights over small bones.

Or maybe it’s just because I don’t pay as much attention to it anymore. It’s transparently partisan, predictable, and silly.

And while I appreciate you saying you like the “new, non-political, Photodude.com,” I’m not exactly sure of the ingredient mix. There’s going to be something here on Iraq soon, once the constitution issue settles out today (hopefully). And it seems like unless you write about software and music, it’s easy to twist the topic to partisan intent.