Voter Turnout in Senate Hits All-Time Low

tories of voter apathy in this off-year election have more merit following Monday's vote in the Senate for an $87.5 billion budget for Iraq reconstruction. The spending package passed with a 5-1 ratio, but only received an estimated 6 votes among the Senators in attendance.

Using the cop-out, or "strategy" known as a voice vote, the Senate skipped the usual procedure of recording who votes for what in the record so as not to embarrass apathetic Senators and possibly damage their chances for re-election or campaign contributions.
Using the voice vote, a verbal "yea" or "nay" or "no fuckin' way nay," Senators kept their names off an official record as being for the Iraq war or against it, so in due time when the majority of the populace reaches consensus on the wisdom of the war they can finally tell us how they really felt.

Some theorize the miniscule number of Senators voting had more to due with disillusionment and disappointment in Congressional legislation, rather than a despicable show of cowardice and political tightrope-walking. For the Senators, the "seniors" of the D.C. school, they've been around the block and seen how the game is played, and their cynicism is manifesting itself in voter apathy.

"It doesn't really matter anyway," said 39-year-old Hunter Whepley (D-SC), "no one ever listens to me. It's not like one vote in the Senate ever made a difference anyway."

The words express what many feel is an unwritten truth in the Senate: Voting is for nerds. Actually, it is a written truth, if you check out the men's room in the Capitol building. But instead of being the attitude of underachieving legislators or a handful of stoner congressmen, many point to the voting record as proof the Senate no longer thinks voting is cool.

"I'm not saying anything against voting," said Montana Republican Rooton Hardsandal, "but when was the last time anybody even passed any good laws or anything? You can't change nothing. The president just does what he wants. The states all do what they want, you can't make a difference. And those assholes in the Congress, they'll vote for anything you put in front of them. Gaylords."

Pennsylvania Senator Eli Keith expressed the lack of power many Senators feel.

"Sure, you can 'yea' or 'nay' a bill until the cows come home, but you know it's got to get approval from the House, and then the dorkwad president has to agree to it. And by that time, like, a hundred riders have been attached to it making it so it's illegal to smoke frogs or something, whatever some jerks in the back think is funny. Then, if you actually do show up, and nobody does, all the other Senators hear about it and get on your jock about it. I don't really care what everyone else thinks, but I don't want to be the only guy voting besides Robert Byrd. That old fossil votes for everything. I guess when you actually get Medicare you give a shit whether it passes or not."

Some peppy strategists on other congressional committees have proposed ideas to win bored Senators back to voting, including a Senatorial "Rock the Vote" special on C-Span, with guests like Nelly and Coldplay, or luncheons with motivational speakers like Tony Robbins to espouse the virtues of showing up to vote. The problem, according to Senators who wished to remain anonymous, is all those ideas are super-lame, and organized by king dinks of Dinktopia, doing more against voting than for it.

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This column marks day three of my lawsuit with my neighbor Hamms over Guanica, the masterpiece I painted on his bathroom wall in axle grease, batshit and chicken blood. Before you start freaking out, let me explain that the chicken blood part was an accident, since the guy at the pet store never told me that chickens are stupid enough to run straight into a live fan just because they're excited you put "What a Feeling" from Flashdance on the stereo again.

I'd originally bought the chicken to make sure I wasn't going to get cancer from the grease fumes in Hamms' bathroom while I was painting, sort of like the canary in the coal mine idea, only with a bigger bird. I figured canaries are pussies so I wasn't real worried about canary-killing levels of fumes, but if it was enough to put a chicken down I'd probably have to install some ventilation or invest in some scuba gear or something. "Safety First" has always been my motto. But then I had trouble finding a pet store that carried chickens, turns out those places are lousy with canaries, I guess because of the demand from local coal miners and hungry cats, but you ask for a chicken and those pricks try to sell you a goddamned Lhasa apso or something. Like I'm going to take a dog's word on dangerous gas levels. I've already got a dog that puts out enough gas to drive the dodos into extinction, thanks.

That's when I had the bright idea to just go straight to the source and buy a chicken from KFC. I figure they're swimming in the birds and wouldn't mind cutting me a deal on one, since I'd be saving them the trouble of killing the stupid thing and shaving all the feathers off with a chainsaw or whatever they do in the back before the customers come in. But you know my luck, I get a real "by the book" type behind the counter and end up having to break into KFC at three in the morning, only to find that they must let the chickens out at night, or maybe each of the workers takes a couple home for entertainment, but they sure as hell weren't anywhere in the kitchen or coat closet.

I briefly considered sneaking into work and making off with the commune's own Mazie the chicken, but I didn't want to take a chance on getting roped into one of Red Bagel's lame after-hours adventures, plus I didn't want to risk any confusing voodoo bullshit as a result of stealing a mystical chicken.

Finally I found a pet store that had a chicken, though they only had one because some fast-talking traveling salesman had duped the owner into thinking it was a rare Polynesian dancing bird, and the guy was still pissed off that he'd traded a purebred Shar-Pei for a chicken and a handful of magic beans. I must have made the guy's day when I took the chicken and the beans off his hands, but it was all for a good cause since now I could get back to painting and had some magic beans to sell to Boris Utzov for lunch money this week.

The chicken only lasted about a half an hour in the end, since the fan I'd brought in to push out the grease fumes and Foghat's B.O. didn't come with any warnings about keeping it away from extremely stupid birds. It did do a remarkably efficient chicken-killing job, however, and I've considered trying to sell it to the guys over at KFC once I've determined that they don't have my fingerprints on file. And really, the random spray of chicken gore did nothing but good things for the bathroom wall painting, adding some interesting texture to the smeared grease and caked on batshit already there.

Truth be told, the batshit part was partially an accident as well, since I hadn't realized that leaving Hamms' bathroom window open all the time so I could get in and out was going to mean the place would become infested with bats in no time flat. But it did give me a name for the painting, and I hear guano is good for wallpaper, though I'm not sure where I heard that. Probably from the "cigarette ash is good for your carpet" school of home improvement, something dreamt up by a clever Deadhead who wanted to get out of cleaning up after his stanky ass.

But anyway, the painting turned out great, whatever the department of health or Hamms might think about it. As one local alcoholic art historian has observed, "it's like Picasso's Guernica, without all the crappy parts." Which was cool by me, since I was just trying to finger-paint Lynard Skynard rumbling with a gang of tough nuns. Now the question is just to determine who really owns that bathroom wall: Hamms, whose house it's attached to and surrounded by, or Omar Bricks, who provided the blood, sweat and tears that made it into a work of art that may or may not be dangerous to the public health. The courts will have their say, but I leave the true judgment up to the art fans, who I've been charging $10 a head to use my ladder to get into Hamms' bathroom.

Bricks out.

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"Fight, men! Like you've never fought before! — Try winning this time."

I was just in my first fight yesterday. Well, the first fight I ever won. It was closer to a draw, maybe, but I didn't get the shit beat out of me. Unless you saw it. In that case, it was the first fight I started on purpose, but I fought the good fight, like the saying goes.

After you fight it takes a long while to "come down." You walk around on edge, ready to jump on everybody. It's like all your senses are heightened and shit. You're some kind of kung fu maniac just waiting for an excuse to tear someone a new ass. This five year old kid set off a firecracker and I spun on him with the hands of death ready to kill. That was the second fight I ever started. I felt better about that one, I think I'm getting close to a win with every punch.

There are some people who don't fight, no matter what happens. Like Gandhi. He wore a toga everywhere because he was a real party animal. People would get drunk at parties and always want to start shit with him, but he would tell them to settle down, he wasn't going to fight them. They would kick his ass and he still wouldn't fight back. Eventually it paid off because he got a free Indian. They made a show about it, you may have heard of it… Kung Fu? Of course, in the show he had to fight because they don't do TV shows about pussies.

When I first heard of Gandhi, I thought it sounded real familiar. Then I remembered Kenny Rogers did that "Coward of the County" song about him. Kenny Rogers must have been a big fan of Gandhi's. And I love that song, when they keep calling the guy a pussy and eventually he starts to leave but he finds the door's locked, so he has to fight his way out. That's like the story of my life, except I haven't gotten to the last verse yet.

When someone fights when he doesn't want to, he's called a pacifist. That's what he calls himself anyway. There's good reasons to not fight, like you could get killed. There was a famous saying some teacher told me once, about not fighting: "It takes more muscles not to fight than it does to fight." I'm not sure what muscles she was talking about, she asked me to leave the class before I got to that part.

As good as pacifism is, I think I'd rather fight. In fact, if I had to do it, I'd probably like to fight a pacifist. As long as you don't lock them inside with you they can't fight back, it's against their own personal legal code. So you could really kick some ass, and get it on tape. Then I'd show it to the guys who whupped my ass before and just tell them I didn't fight before because I was a man of peace. Hopefully they wouldn't ask why I kicked the pacifist's ass then. I haven't thought of that part of the lie yet.

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