Gift of Fury

2003-10-08 - 12:27 a.m.

Thanks a lot, California. Now there'll be no Conan III, or they'll "re-invigorate" the franchise by making a bargain-basement production without the director, the scripts, the supporting cast, or the score that helped make the first one so great, and the second one so amusing, if less great.

I'm not blaming you for wanting a charismatic actor who ducks all concievable tests of his ability to discuss the issues over an uncharismatic, unsympathetic schlub that did nothing to help ease the pain of what Bush's national policies have done to your ecconomy (by cutting off a lot of funding to the states (bankrupting the majority of state budgets, not just yours,) to help pay for his tax cut, which he never did end up paying for, but who was suprised there, and by letting Enron off the hook so easily when they engineered brownouts in your state so that they could jack your energy costs).

Parenthetical big picture asside, you still have to face what you've done to the big screen. Your state government is in bad shape, sure. If anyone will, the state legislature will take care of that, since balancing the budget and passing regulation or deregulation is their job. The governor is supposed to make executive decisions and to influence what the legislature does in the legislative decisions. He's not the sum total of the state, and in California the Speaker of the State Senate is at least as powerful and influential in terms of local affairs. Or so I hear.

The fact of it is that I don't care. You're one of fifty states in a nation that's 200 million out of six or so billion. Schwartzenegger may help you. He may hurt you. He'll be campaigning against a recall to the recall or fighting court challenges and abstract legitimacy challenges for the whole time he's serving this term, so more than likely he'll have very little impact at all in your actual day-to-day governance. I think you voted the way you did because you were pissed off, you wanted somebody, anybody different, and you wanted to cash in on the old Minnesota marketing genius that is

the T-shirt that says "My governor can beat up your governor."

Sorry, California. That's not a good enough reason to rob me of Conan III, Predator III/Alien vs. Predator II, or whatever enjoyment there was left in Arnold's movie career. And Jesse Ventura can still kick your governor's ass, both physically (Navy SEAL trumps bodybuilder, guys,) and politically, (that "embarassment" was a mayor and ran a political radio call in show for years before he ran, and he ran in a full-on election rather than a 75-day commercial). I hope you lose Arnold in a court challenge, so he can really get back to work for the people.

And I hope that the whole recall idea dies with you, because I want governors who govern rather than worry about re-campaigning every time there's enough signatures, and I want action stars who do most of their own stunts, and half of their own syllables.

Music for the day is "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag," by Country Joe and the Fish, for Bush, his leaks, and the Iraq quagmire, and "Gift of Fury" off the Conan score for the Governator. Did the title give it away before this rant? If it did, good for you for owning the score. It's great stuff.

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