Loose Cans

via Salon.com

Time to crack open the nearest unit of champagne. This whole CBS/forged document thing -- the mother of all campaign red herrings -- is finally over. Intrepid news anchor Jon Stewart has sorted it out. You can see the breaking news here.
And here's a partial transcript from the broadcast:

JON STEWART: Well Stephen, what do you think is going to happen now at CBS News?

STEPHEN COLBERT, Daily Show Senior Media Correspondent: Jon, there's got to be some accountability. Dan Rather is the head, the commander in chief if you will of his organization. He's someone in the ultimate position of power who made a harmful decision based upon questionable evidence. Then, to make things worse, he stubbornly refused to admit his mistake, choosing instead to stay the course and essentially occupy this story for too long. This man has got to go!

STEWART: Uh ... we're talking about Dan Rather...?

COLBERT: Yes Jon, Dan Rather. CBS is in chaos, it's unsafe, riven by internal rivalries. If you ask me, respected, reputable outsiders need to be brought in to help the rebuilding effort.

STEWART: ... at CBS News?

COLBERT: Yeah, at CBS news! What possible other unrelated situation could my words be equally applicable to?! Now people need to be held accountable. The commander in chief, the vice president, the secretary of defense, the national security adviser -- everyone at CBS News needs to go! Jon, I can tell you, Walter Cronkite is rolling over in his grave.

STEWART: Walter Cronkite is still alive.

COLBERT: Not according to my sources ... at CBS News.

I know this because two mornings in a row now I've bounced out of bed at 5:30, 6am, and stepped outside in a bathrobe to get the paper. I hate jetlag.

It's weird, I never get it going over there. I get there and there's no trace of la decallage horaire. Here, it stays with me for days. I made it till about 10:30 Monday night, but last night didn't even try and konked out at 9.

Nothing much to report. I am an utter mess, physically, from Sunday's return to Irish pickup. I enjoyed it, but my body is very sore at me. So to speak.

Oh, wait, what am I talking about, no news? Yesterday, huge news. You all know about my teeth problems. 8 1/2 years, 12 or so surgeries, bleeding and anger beyond telling, etc. Well, yesterday, it ended. The last surgery. I now have two largely permanent, real fake teeth in my head. I am now licensed to eat corn on the cob, whole apples and bagels. It's sort of, um, a gargantuan personal triumph. This thing that happened when I was 10 and has finally ended at age 19. Cheers. Drs. Levine, Weintraub, Sara, Rosenberg (actually, FUCK YOU, Dr. Rosenberg, you butchering twerp), Tarnow, and Feinberg, thank you.

Mom, did I leave any out? I think I left one out.

Tomorrow, Nick, Naughton and I take off for the Shtetl-warming party in Chicago, with a stopover at Oberlin. Jonah, I sent you an email but I don't think you got it. I'd call but I have no idea what your number is. Anyway, people will be needing places to crash at Oberlin, particularly our valiant driver (Naughton). I'm bringing two air mattresses. We'll only be there for a few hours, midnight to 9:30am or so, but I'll probably stop over for a longer stretch on the way back. I heard you have good bowling.

Content, sated, relieved, exhausted, we headed to Belfast. €48 for what is technically international travel (though for a two-hour train trip, 45 minutes of which, due to repairs, was actually a bus trip, it's a little steep, if you ask me). You knew it was international because the moment we crossed the border my phone stopped getting service. Stupid meteor. Can't take him anywhere. Oh, well. Get what you pay for. Anyway, we dropped off our stuff at Stephen's house, which, might I add, is altogether lovely, a marvelously appointed home, and I swear, I'm not saying this because it got me the first decent shower I'd had in nearly a week. I think I'm in a position to evaluate living spaces right now, having been doing just that all week. The bed in the guest room was also terrific. So he took me into town, about and around, and it was the funniest thing. All the youth of Belfast, it seems, have gone goth. I mean, all of them. First it was just a wee small coven blighting the otherwise excellent example of urban planning on the bank of the Lagan, among whom Stephen espied his friend's sister. She was weird. By weird I mean drunk as shit. This was my formal introduction to Belfast. "STEPHEN! Oh my God I'm TOTALLY not going to remember this in the morning!"

It was, incidentally, 5pm. Which is the wrongest time to be drinking heavily. 9:30am, so far as I'm concerned, isn't as bad as 5pm. 9:30am demands some real devotion. As well as real addiction. But 5pm is a choice people make: we've got fuck-all to do. Hmm. Let's see. I could get a life. Nah. Let's get ripped. So this left us shaken.

Furthermore, as we progressed, the goths multiplied. They emerged from doors and tunnels and swung from the trees in bunches like great black bananas. Shadowy clusters merged from the shadowy places, engaging in shadowy, occultish rituals like asking people of legal age to go into stores and purchase bad alcohol for them. Walpurgisnacht at happy hour. The volume was nothing less than astonishing. All between 13 and 17, all being indolent and unproductive. All, of course, dressed exactly the same, in true nonconformist fashion. Long I have said, ironic conformity is the new nonconformity. Funny how the more you say that word, the more it loses its meaning. Funny also how I don't really care. Is it never considered that mainstream might be so, in certain somewhat rare cases, as a result of its, um, quality? To say nothing of its democratic appeal? Nonconformist twits.

Anyhow, skinny, bleached-white gargoyles begirt in black oversized Limp Bizkit/Metallica/System of a Down/Kurt Cobain t-shirts, black-dyed hair and all the other iconic, juvenile trappings of gothdom (what is the word, anyway?) fairly swarmed the sreets. It occurred to me that whoever's controlling the eye shadow supply in Belfast right now must be making a killing. So is whoever took that stupid shaggy picture of Cobain. Wearing a shirt with a person's birth and deathdates on it looks more like necrophilia than anything else. Ugh. I think anyone who dresses goth after the age of 16 needs their head checked, smacked, or, as a last result, severed from the shoulders altogether. It's for the good of the country.

I queried, because I had to, because it's history, and the chance to touch history is never to be passed up, no matter how much of a fool one will seem, about the peace line. It's like ground zero. You go. You ask. Stephen replied that he would never go anywhere near it. Why should he, he's got no business there. There is indeed a wall between Shankhill and Falls (the Protestant/Catholic strongholds. Or maybe it's the other way around. Who knows), and any unknown individual who ventures in may expect some stiff questioning. Example: Alan Hevesi once told me a story about a colleague of his who had gone to Northern Ireland on a fact-finding junket. He was walking around when a gentleman came up behind him, placed a gun against his skull and inquired, "Be ye Catholic or be ye Protestant?" The former took a deep breath and replied, "My name is Sid Rosenberg, and I'm a Jew from Brooklyn." "Blimey," says the assailant, "then I must be the luckiest Arab in Ireland!"

I tell this story because four years on, I STILL have no idea what that means. And it keeps me up at night.

Anyhow, I was later shown the Europa Hotel, famous for being the most bombed edifice in Belfast (God, that's sure where I want to stay). I find the conflict interesting because of its wealth of symbols: colors (orange v. green), murals (crap ones, largely), actual "peace" lines in the street, etc. It has its own internal culture and tradition. Furthermore that culture and tradition is solely responsible for preserving the struggle that engenders it. The political reasons are all but gone; all that's left is the burden of history. Effectively, the struggle goes on because the traditions and cultures demand it, because that's the only history they have. What those people (and I do not, of course, mean all the Belfasties, just the morons in Shankill and Falls) will do if Northern Ireland is ever released from English dominion, I just don't know. Shit. We might have to get lives. Nah. Let's get ripped. It's unutterably senseless, but still, it makes perfect sense to me.

So that night, we went pub-hopping. Remembering my last experience boozing, I made the decision to stick exclusively to whiskey, least hangover-inducing of liquors. So I had an international night: whiskey from America (Wild Turkey), Canada (Canadian Club), Ireland (Paddy--very fine), Northern Ireland (Bushmills) and Scotland (Famous Grouse--famous CRAP). But really, more memorable than the drinking was the bartending. I had never watched closely how the Irish do it. I was appalled. I mean, really, really appalled.

The first place was by far the most deplorable. Wetherspoon's is a chain of superpubs known for extraordinarily low prices and standards: a £1.69 gin and tonic? Not even Fleishmann's Gin? Gordon's? Impressive. I was not drinking anything but whiskey, though (except for one Guinness in the oldest pub in Belfast, because one has to. Even Stephen had one, and he hates Guinness. Brain-damaged boy). So I asked for Wild Turkey on the rocks. I was met with the most appalling reply I could have imagined.

Firstly, allow me to describe this place. All the lights are on. It's hotel hallway carpeting everywhere. The place, two floors, is jammed. Very ugly drunk people in tracksuits mingle with people not in tracksuits and less minging. Tables are piled with glasses and bottles and no one is clearing them. Wouldn't be much point, they accumulate so fast. There isn't even any music, which is great in a restaurant, but a disaster in a bar. On top of this, the bartenders (I actually found this to be the unfailing norm throughout Belfast; this was just the first time I'd ever seen it done by a pro) are not free-pouring, but are measuring with SHOT GLASSES. Pour into the shot, dump it into the glass. In New York this would get you laughed out of town. Finally, the floor in front of the bar is incredibly sticky. So standing there, feet glued to the floor, I request a very simple Wild Turkey on the rocks.

I am told they are out of ice.

YOU ARE OUT OF WHAT?! I yell.

ICE! he replies.

It does not get worse than that. You cannot, I mean, you just cannot serve drinks without ice. It's insane. It flies in the face of every rule in the book, not just the rules of quality (clearly flung off the roof of that place years ago), but the rules of general human decency. I am stunned by this. Really, honestly floored. Shaken, I ask him to just give it to me neat and get out of my sight while I cry. We leave quickly.

The other places are better, but none of them have Dewar's, which strikes me as bizarre (especially since one of them had really done some research, picking up not just Maker's Mark but also Gentleman Jack, the Tennessee whiskey no one's ever heard of--consigned to war with the invincible Jack Daniel's) so on the tour of Scotland I'm reduced to Famous Grouse, which is flavorless colored water. Paddy turns out to be a real delight, though; I will be adding it to the apartment bar. I like it better than Jameson, which I've never much cared for. Finally we return home after a lovely night out with Stephen and his friends, all of whom I have decided may live.

I come home tomorrow at around 5:30pm, I suppose. I ditched my bag at the apartment after ultimate today (it was great, just great to play with Ireland again, even if I was a bit rusty), so I'm unburdened by checked bags. Sadie, this means I can sort of help schlep when we fly in on the 6th. Oh, and, would you mind buying your ticket? Please? Thanks. I'm at college at the 24-hour computer lab. I walk here 20 minutes so I can save a few euro. Now I have to walk back to Sparky's to clean up and go to sleep so that I can wake up at 6am. Marathon dancing doop-dee-doo.