2004-03-02 | 1:46 p.m.
he tried to vote, but to him there's no solution

Despite lovely weather and lots of wonderful long walks about town, this weekend was pretty sucky. The Oscars were boring, I almost had a fight in the bakery (until I realized a handful of rudies were at fault and everyone else was as annoyed as me) and I was cold dissed twice on Saturday. Yes, you read that right. Me, cold dissed. What? Exactly.

I didn't vote today. I can't vote in primaries as I am registered as an independent. I do think, in many ways, being registered as an independent is a waste of time and I do always consider switching, but I never do. Anyway, there is a story behind it.

I was registered to vote by Rudolph Guiliani. No, really. At a St. Patrick's Day parade, seven months before my 18th birthday. He was meeting people and smiling and shaking hands and registering voters. I was one such voter. I certainly wasn't going to register as a republican, but standing there with my lifelong republican Nana (an Irish-Catholic working-class, NYC-native republican -- there aren't too many) and talking to ol' Rudy, I didn't really want to register democrat, either. And I've never been a fan of the two-party system. So I opted to register as an independent, and right around my 18th birthday (months later) I got my card just in time to vote crazy Giuliani into office. He was a law & order candidate, you know. And I just love law & order.

While he was mayor, some very vocal people hated Guiliani for reasons ranging from his bizarrely hardline quality of life enforcements to his (terribly personally-motivated, but still enlightening) questioning of the crappy (ho ho!) art in city-funded institutions. They called him a nazi. He took it personally too often. He was little bit of a lunatic, but damn, did he safe up this city.

I watched "Taxi Driver" recently, and I remembered very vividly the city really being just like that. As much as I whine about how soft it is now, about how anyone with money can hack it here now, I don't miss those times. Sure, 42nd Street is like a shiny shopping mall, but I can walk there at night. I haven't been mugged in 12 years. I feel safe most of the time. A lot of people who complain about the family friendliness, who long for the gritty reality were sitting in their suburban dens watching "Taxi Driver" on cable after garage band practice. Dens. What the fuck is a den? If you've ever had a den — or a garage, even — you have no say. Love, Jane.

So yes, it kills me to hear rumblings of a Bush/Giuliani 2004 ticket on (the ultimate news source) "The View," because I just don't think of Rudy as that kind of lunatic. He's a lunatic of the people. Don't break my heart, Rudy.

And yeah, if I were to vote today, I'd go against everyone who is voting for Kerry because he's the frontrunner (a city of Yankees fans, man) and pick Rev. Al Sharpton. Sharpton? Really? Why? Because, as one lady on the local news said, "He's for us!"

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