I lost a good friend to politics. I almost died from politics. Politics suck. And I love it.

The title is a paraphrase of the distinguished line from ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones in a commercial for the ironic 1980's campaign "Rock Against Drugs" (as the late Sam Kinison once said, "Isn't that sort of like 'Christians Against Christ?'). There is no better way to sum up my feelings about the game of politics, the dichomatic game that despite it's vast entertainment value unfortunately causes the most massive casualties among those who don't play.

The minutiae of the political game is more compelling than the oeuvre of "24." Granted I don't watch "24", but I hear it's pretty good. Politics is funnier than every episode of "Top Gear" and "Monty Python", of which I have seen most. Okay, maybe not Python, but it's pretty close. It is even makes for better viewing than the 1989 Ric Flair/Ricky Steamboat match at WrestleWar in Nashville (where Flair regained the gold!). But politics also infuriates as much as a Flair/Steamboat 2009 rematch, brought to you by Depends and Cialis, would.

After I discovered Rush Limbaugh in the Fall of 1990, I became a committed conservative and actively sought to help Republicans beat the snot out of Democrats. Some friends and I were in the extreme minority when wore mournful black armbands on the campus of Jacksonville State University (Jacksonville, Alabama in case you are wondering) the day after Bill Clinton beat H.W. Bush in '92. Then sometime between '92 and 2000, it occurred to me that most Republicans weren't actually conservatives, and on some issues neither was I.

There was no single 'Road To Damascus' conversion moment. Perhaps it was the lame excuses made by Republican Members of Congress (henceforth known only as Members) for spending my tax money on things that would be named after them, manicures, research on rabbit dung, or whatever else tickled their fancy. Their favorite reason seemed to be "if we don't give out pork, these 'worthwhile projects' will never get money via the federal bureaucracy." Translation, "recipients of pork money are the hookers and we, the Members, are the pimp daddies, and it feels goooooooood." Prostitution minus the farking* (or in some cases with the farking.) In their rare moment of honesty, many Democrat Members were at least up front in saying they wanted to bring home the bacon for their constituents. Deficit? What deficit?

Perhaps it was hearing for the 8,745th time that our public schools would be fantastic if only Jesus (or Juh-EEE-sus depending on where you live) were allowed in the schoolhouse door. To paraphrase my friend, diehard conservative and devout Catholic Michael Graham, do you really want a government employee telling your kids how to pray? It could have been the country's ridiculous war on drugs where the purveyors of the illegal stuff are always three steps ahead of those trying to stop them while, simultaneously, some believe that my enjoyment of a perfectly legal cigar puts me in the same class as the Roman soldiers who led Juh-EEE-sus up Golgotha.

When my right-wing passions cooled, however, that did not mean I became a liberal. Anyone who is willing to trust the government to take care of them in any way, especially their health care, might be in need of a lobotomy. (You better hurry up and get that Starbucks brain stir stick quick, as there might be a Webster's Dictionary-sized waiting list this time next year.) I tried to relax and watch both sides drone on and on about how much the other party was making the Founding Fathers drink even harder in their afterlife than they did on earth (yes, they consumed. A lot.). But now, though I want to continue to enjoy the Washington cock and hen fights, it is getting ever more difficult to do so.

Every time I log on to Facebook, someone's ridiculous status is yet another uncreative effort to tell me how much President Obama sucks. This is usually followed up by the worn out comments that Obama is a socialist, that he is really a Muslim, that he was actually born on the planet Felspoon where the mountains sway in the breeze (hat tip: Doctor Who), that he raises his pinky when he drinks his tea, or worst of all, is a secret Tennessee Vols fan. If you disagree with this line of inanity, The Pope immediately reserves a place in Hell for you.

Then there is the other side, the Olbermanns we will call them, named after the man who is simultaneously one of the most gifted writers and one of the worst TV hosts in the country. You think Obama sucks? It is the fault of George W. Bush. Don't like the health care plan? Bush's fault. Have painful gas because you ate too much chili last night? Hang that one on W as well. In the world of the Olbermanns, everything wrong with the world can be six-degreed back to the previous president, and judging by most of his speeches so far, Obama is a dedicated Olbermann. One more diatribe about the "mess" he "inherited", as if he accidently became president through no fault of his own, will cause a major upchuck of my morning PB&J. And then I will blame Bush.

So, sadly, politics is usually a taboo subject, lest I lose the ability to converse with most of the people I know. It is sometimes difficult watching from the sidelines as the Dems, who are concurrently terrified of ticking off Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and people making decisions for themselves, take on the GOP, who are concurrently terrified of ticking off Glenn Beck or the producers of "Meet The Press" and people making decisions for themselves. But living a life of talking and writing about baseball, old movies, beer, college football, beer, cigars, and beer is a pretty good one. "But you aren't making a difference in the world" the lefty and righty nut jobs would say. Sure I am. I hope to help cure the aneurysms you nut jobs cause. But if I don't, you could always see if a politician will get you a "grant", then you should blame Bush, then see a doctor. Well, hurry and see a doctor while you still can.


*God Bless Drew Curtis, founder of FARK, the greatest web site.....in THE WORLD!

The future of Lady And Sons; Organic Bean Sprouts and Pomegrante Mineral Water

Sure the title is supposed to sound stupid, as ludicrous as the thought of Bob Barker donning wrestling tights for Vince McMahon, though that reality was perilously close to occurring a week ago. However, just as insane as the thought of Paula Deen doing a yoga headstand while Jelly Roll walks out of the kitchen with a plate of fat-free bean curd, rice and watercress hoecakes was a headline in the Savannah Morning News Exchange section Sunday: "The future of car buying in the U.S.: Don't supersize me." Please, don't make me choke on my bag of cracklins.

To be fair to the Morning News, the article was not penned by one of its scribes. It was written by Tom Krisher of what has rapidly deteriorated into one of the sloppiest news organizations in the world, the Associated Press. No, that is not a commentary on (cue the timpani and deeper- than-whale-dung voice guy) "liberal media bias", so please, the "Obama is Josef Stalin in black face" crowd should refrain from commentary. The A.P. has, like many traditional news organizations, simply become lazy, and Mr. Krisher was too lazy to even make a cursory glance at history and human nature.

The gist of Mr. Krisher's argument is that "American car-buying habits have changed forever. Scarred by the worst financial crisis since the 1930's and still leery of high gas prices, people are walking into showrooms intent on spending less." While Mr. Krisher acknowledges the exact same thing happened in the 1970's, which is when the actual last "worst financial crisis" occurred, this time things are different thanks to the biggest group of self-serving individuals outside of Members of Congress and the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990's; the Baby Boomers.

The Boomers, who all of a sudden are as young as 44 according to Mr. Krisher (which would also make them eligible to be Young Democrats and Young Republicans, at least in Chatham County!), make up one quarter of the population. They drove the economy out of recession in the 1980's, but now Mr. Krisher says the poor babies are too "scarred" by what happened a year ago, so they aren't spending money this time around. If they are spending money, they are buying smaller, more fuel efficient cars and aren't going back to the muscle cars and SUV's of the past because this time, Mr. Krisher assures us, gas prices are staying high (cue the kid with the glasses from "The Sandlot") FOR-EV-ER!

If Mr. Krisher had told us that South Carolina would never, ever win a mythical national championship in football, that we could believe, but to say that gas prices will never again be low, relative to inflation, is absurd. It might never be 89-cents a gallon, but just as economic highs and lows are as sure a thing as Kanye West going ballistic because he was accidentally served a vanilla milk shake at a McDonald's drive-thru, gas in the next few years will be affordable enough for most of us to go out and get that BMW 5 Series with the 4.8 liter V-8 cranking out 360 horsepower.

"But but but", you stutter, "surveys show we all want 'green' cars now, cars that get 87 miles to the gallon and run on cow farts and distilled water." You would be correct but for one cruicial fact; we lie. We lie and we like doing it. "Sure, I'd LOVE a hybrid car." "Oh, yes, more public transportation is a GREAT idea." "I LOVE going to non-Thirsty Thursday Sand Gnats games. No I wasn't disguised as an empty seat!" Those phrases are among the many that should bring forth the fire extinguisher for your trousers. We like lying so much that we elect people to public office who lie, then we re-elect them until they die and, at their funeral, we forget about their pathological career and hail them as the greatest thing since sliced white bread...oops, sorry Kanye...and ice cream. We tell people what we think they want to hear because we are terrified of causing offense.

The truth is that we Americans love our cars, and we love driving them even if it takes us three hours to travel down Bay Street and five hours to find a parking space. Guys also love fast cars and, yes, so do gals. "Oh, come on Ray, the stereotype of the woman from 'Grease' who loves a guy because of his fast car died 50 years ago." Um-hmmm. And super dentist Brad Durham's next trendy creation will be permanent installation of "Bubba" teeth. You put any woman behind the wheel of a Bugatti Veyron that goes zero to 60 in two-and-a-half seconds and they'll sound like they're on their honeymoon with Brad Pitt. Yes, outgoing Chief Berkow, too much speed kills. But it is also sexy, and we love it as well as the gallons upon gallons of gas it burns.

We could make life easier by telling the truth so writers like Mr. Krisher wouldn't embarass themselves, but since we won't cooperate, get ready for more "news" stories telling us how much we love our hybrids even though they aren't being bought in great quantities, how much we long for the days of the AMC Pacer, and how we Americans are "green for good." Just remind me to tell you I told you so when, in a few years, the same news writers are "shocked" and "stunned" at the enormously successful comeback...of the Hummer.