huckabumble

Music: Labradford: Mi Media Naranja (1997) I went to the recently opened Blanton Museum with a friend today and, of the many things we saw, we were perhaps most taken with Claude Vignon's David with the Head of Goliath. The guide to the collection said that Vignon's Caravaggian homage was "problematic" because of the attention grabbing garments and David's androgyny, not to mention the fact that Caravaggianism had fallen out of favor by the 1620s in France. I think what we found appealing about the painting was contrast (big manly head; barely adult boy), what seemed like an obvious commentary on masculinity: one stereotyped masculinity had clearly decapitated the other. In this cock fight, the queer one gets head. What isn't delicious about this painting's "problems?" With that sword's curious vector, it's a seventeenth century skull-fuck!

[jump-cut] At a friend's behest, I just finished reading this week's issue of Newsweek largely devoted to Mike Huckabee. Apparently the chosen [republican] one by current polls in Iowa, Huckabee characterized himself as "a young David, 'putting that little smooth stone in a sling' and taking aim at Goliath---played by, you guessed it, Romney." It's the Pat Robertson playbook, of course, but with a much different spin: as Goliath, Romney represents a different kind of masculinity. So the question is, what kind of masculinity is it? Who's the queer?

This "got God?" showdown among the republicans is pretty damn interesting to me. Think "sublimated righteousness" and you'll know what I mean. The opening article in Newsweek on the god-shaped hole problem in politics is good journalism: it makes the case that the divine butt-plug dueling for that void is, as David Byrne puts it, "same as it ever was," Madison versus Jefferson. This form of political debate---you're a cultist, I'm a better Christian---is older than dirt in American years. What's interesting is the code, the doubled-voicedness of it all. In his statement on religious beliefs, Romney said, basically, the doctrine separating church and state is flawed. This message designed to win over Huckabee converts was super-scary. Now Huckabee is saying that Romney is the equivalent of a Scientologist (wealthy elite who got love-bombed into a cult)---in other terms, a John Kerry (evil Catholic) who worships Ming the Merciless. Vignon's David is surely exiled.

In an ad that Huckabee is running in Iowa, he says: "Faith doesn't just influence me; it really defines me. I don't have to wake up every day wondering, 'what do I need to believe?'" As much as Romney scares me, this sort of statement is even more terrifying. Those who are the most convinced of their righteousness, the true believer, have doubt centermost, but refuse to acknowledge it. As an undergraduate I was a rabid reader of Kierkegaard, who taught me much about my upbringing and my loss of faith. Basically, I watched a man whom I considered a second father (my neighbor and my Scoutmaster) die of cancer; sitting bedside with his real children as he died was probably the most formative experience of my life. I renounced the certainty of my religious faith then and there, and the Christian God I had been taught to believe. When I read about that person who wakes up confident that s/he doesn't have any more questions, that s/he walks in a path of certainty, I am troubled.

Never in my life has a presidential election meant so much to me personally, morally. Never has the religious issues of the elections troubled me so much. Bush ran on the evangelical line, and I think he was elected largely from that base (seriously). I'm not saying evangelicals are evil; I'm just saying that they are opposed to the separation of church and state, and I think that line is a horrific one. I think Barack Obama, warts and all, is the closest to the kind of leader I would support; Clinton is a neo-liberal clone, lets' face it.

Today my friend and I topped off our visit by going to "The Oasis," a usually bad restaurant perched on the beautiful Lake Travis (it looks like a California coast scene from Santa Cruz). We talked about deity. I'm an agnostic, perhaps a deist, but far from certain faith. She admitted she was an atheist, but that "the question of God is still important to be asked." I said that I worried some atheists were as dangerous as theists, that certainty in the matter of the ineffable was an attitude of destruction (perhaps an appetite for destruction, with nods to Axel Rose). She agreed. Getting up in the morning with the certain knowledge of your beliefs about something beyond human comprehension seems like the worst sort of arrogance. Please lets not elect another arrogant president. Please. Please. Please.

I've just returned from a poetry reading. I stood by an open fire in a backyard, sipped Irish Whiskey, uttered cliches in the name of Levinas. I'm home, tired, but not wanting to go to bed just yet. Politics rarely troubles me, but I worry about trying to sleep. I want a queer David. I think Obama is the closest to a queer David with a chance. Let's hope folks aren't distracted by the exaggerated colors of his clothing.