The Sorcerer's Apprentices

What a dream I had. The Republicans had taken over everything and the country was spinning entirely out of control. I have to say, it didn't feel personal at all. This was new to me. It used to always feel personal.

I cut my teeth on Jesse Helms in this regard. He was the first politician for whom I felt visceral loathing, super-personal. Since then there have been so many loathe-worthy Republicans I have lost track, so you learn to take defensive measures. Dissociation, that is, in order to dull the pain and awareness.

The danger of dissociation is that you can't understand what's going on well enough to counteract it, having walled it off. No normal person wants to go there. The interior life of Jesse Helms? Shudder. But someone has to do it, be a Van Helsing to Helms's Dracula, to protect us and ensure our survival.

I volunteered for this duty once in an effort to get close to Winona Ryder, but they wouldn't have me. I think she's really attractive. I see no one currently out there in the role, which isn't to say our Van Helsing isn't among us, looking like Anthony Hopkins or not. Will he please stand up? Maybe he's waiting for his moment. I sure hope so.

Meanwhile the Republican sorcerer's apprentices have let loose a raft of evil. It's impersonal in that they're screwups, weaklings, incompetents, and novices. They've stepped out of their appropriate role so they're kind of not responsible. They shouldn't have been entrusted and left unsupervised. It's a reign of error, not terror, but this could change.

Because there's no sign of a conscience anywhere. It's easy enough to loathe Mitch McConnell and his boys and the Boehnerites, they're so loathable, but why bother. In the dream I saw clearly that all these Republicans are like children, playing with forces they don't understand and can't control, which is scary as hell because there's a suspicion.

That the Master, the Sorcerer, won't come back in time to save us, or that he will but we'll already be screwed because in the bigger picture we didn't really matter. We'll still be functioning but really messed up, because our problems didn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Forced to give an opinion I'd say that this is the case.

So let's just have a party, an Irish wake, which is to say we'll look directly at our worst fears and thumb our noses at them and have some fun, with a lot of alcohol and good fellowship and sentimental singing. Anybody have a better idea? If not, it's on, a wake for America.

See you there.