Bedtime for Democracy (REDUX)

11.2.2016 (first published this week 2004)

You ever get that "board-upside-the-head" feeling? For example, mebbe you live in a country you love and you respect your countrymen and have confidence they are pragmatic, intellegent people only to have the fact that the vast majority of them are ... um ... "not?" That is the "hit-by-board" feeling. Yeh, well I sure had that feeling, just the other day. I had me an idea about something and all of a sudden - BANG! - right upside the head. Here's the tale:

Not too many weeks ago I heard a news radio report that there was a DRAMATIC shortage of pole workers in the US. I thought: How horrible! I also thought: "Workers?" Pole "workers?" Since when did they call themselves "workers?" Perhaps they formed a national alliance of sorts, much like the strippers did in SF when they "Unionized." (I wondered if, in their unionization, the strippers considered a name-change too, something like, "Suggestive Erotic Clothing Sheddists (SECS)" or "Onstage Lingere Peelers.")

Union or not, the country seemed to be in a bad way for professional pole workers and report after report went across the radiowaves explaining the fact. I heard one report that ladies as old as 70 or 80 were coming out of retirement to answer the call. I thought: Good for them! Then I shook my head and thought: Ye Gods! An 80-year-old pole worker? One, I bet the tips won't be pouring in, and two, she better be careful up there or she could fall and break a hip!

The radio reports continued to say that, while the volunteership had helped, there was still a great shortage and some communities would suffer. I though it sad. Communities SHOULD be supported by enough pole workers.

THEN! and here's where the 2-by-4 comes into the story, then I switch on the torture of Election Day coverage on the TV this time (not the radio) and lo, there's a report about the pole workers. Only this time it's not POLE workers, it's POLL workers. WHAMMMM-O! Right in the bean. Then I thought: Fucking homonyms.

Tonight - Club Deluxe (by request)
Little Minsky's Burlesque and Variety Show - $7 cover / show at 10pm


bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!