The Former Six Million Dollar Man: The Prelude To The Kong Manifesto

"You did what you could kid, it didn't work out. You just live with it."

"What if you can't?"

"I don't see as you have any other options."

"There're always options, and when there aren't enough you just make more."

I think I've spent every moment of the forty-two hours since NBC called Ohio for George W. Bush thinking about how I would blog about what has to be one of the most severely disturbing incidents of my life. If you know me you understand that my life is really just a series of disturbing incidents so that's saying quite a bit.

I spent all night, and all day, and all night again thinking about what I would say until I realized I didn't have to say it at all...so many other people would say it for me, so here we go:

Forever Haunted More Than Afraid - I don't know this kid, but his blog kicks ass, and his post-election post is pure gold.

Who Do You Work For? - Don't know this kid either, but her pre-election thoughts about this country are pretty damn insightful.

Nocturnal Vizion - A fellow Rutgers alumn who's thoughts on non-voters are spot on.

The Julmeister - Another Rutgers Alumn who is rarely wrong about anything.

One By One The Vultures Pick Away At My Sanity - A mother and a military wife, someone who seems to really understand what's at stake in this country right now and whose opinion probably should matter a little more than the rest of us at a time like this.

And there are so many more, so many thousands and thousands of more. But these are just a few.


I can't not say anything. I can't not say it all. Here's the thing. Just because I am absolutely convinced I am right, doesn't mean everyone else has to be wrong. Maybe George will do better, it's possible, it's at least something to hope for. Hell maybe he did great these past four years. Maybe with someone else in office there would have been more terrorist attacks, more wars with worse casualties, millions of more people without jobs. Maybe Al Gore would have gone skitzo-apeshit and nuked half of the Middle East by now. Maybe John Kerry would have started to catch 'Nam flashbacks in the middle of national defense meetings and begun to drop napalm on Baghdad. I don't fucking know. All I can go off of is how I feel, and what I think. I think this country just made a huge mistake, and I know that millions and millions of people agree with me. But can the 59,329,883 who voted for George Bush be completely wrong? Wouldn't it be easier for the 55,788,192 of us who voted for John Kerry to be wrong? I don't get how any of those people could say with any certainty that they are absolutely right. I think the best any of us can say is that we're pretty sure we're not wrong. But anything's possible...and hell that's about as much comfort as the 55 million who agree with me can hope for. That anything's possible, and maybe these next four years won't be that bad.

___

But I won't put all my eggs in the basket of hope...no, no. I'm writing a manifesto. I'm calling it the Kong Manifesto and it's all about a way to create a third party that actually has a chance to make a difference in what has become a two party system. As I told someone from the Nader campaign on Election Night, "A third party only makes a difference if it can find a way not to suck."

Hence The Kong Manifesto, which is coming quickly, and will be here for all of you to see and share and improve upon till even if it's still nothing, it's more than what I started with.
___

And now to the root of my title. The Former Six Million Dollar Man. I need to explain, but in as roundabout way as possible. As usual.

On Tuesday night we covered the election for WRSU down in Rutgers, I went into Tuesday night assuming that it was our last show. The plan always was that we would pack it in when Matt got a job, and last week Matt got a job in radio (as has Julie, and as has Mark which means that there are jobs in radio out there, they just aren't meant for me). So with Matt having a job I assumed we were done right then and there. But we weren't, seems we have at least one more left, and when I found out about this I was reasonably pleased...except that I know I'm just prolonging the inevitable.

So much of my memories of the best year of my life are tied to that place, and some of the greatest people I've ever met came from that place. So I'm sure you can see why I am not looking forward to leaving.

I remember arguing with a ticket clerk at an airport in Tulsa because she wouldn't let me on an earlier flight. I remember getting on that plane and making it back into New Brunswick just in time to catch the new news crew coming out of the studio. I'd heard their broadcast and they were fantastic. And there they were coming out of the studio with me, a relative stranger, waiting to congratulate them. They had no idea it took an argument with a ticket clerk, a connecting flight in St.Louis, a bribe to a cab driver, and me pushing the Pontiac at a hellacious pace to make it back in time to be there when they came out of the studio.

I remember driving all night, straight through back from Atlanta to get back in time for a show that ended up being cancelled. And I remember being glad I made it back in time anyway.

I remember spending nights in bars so nervous that I could barely stop shaking and so shot that I could barely hear a word anyone said just so I could feel like part of the group. I remember shaking, and vomitting, and bleeding afterwards...but rarely regretting a minute of it.

I remember getting the call that my step-grandfather died ten minutes before we went on the air. I remember punching the wall, then shrugging it off thinking, "We have a show to do." I remember slipping out the back door of the wake early, changingfrom my suit in my car, and speeding down Route 1 to make it to a graduation party because I didn't know how many more times I would get to see these people.

Most of all I remember sitting in that studio and thinking that if the rest of my life could be just like that, it wouldn't be great, it wouldn't be perfect, it wouldn't be much, but my God I could have lived with that.

I rarely explain why I make the choices I make, but as I begin to change some of those choices I think I should.

I never say exactly what the bus company is worth. Never. I give hints, ideas, clues...enough to let people think that I'm only doing it for the money. People can seem to deal with that. They are ok with thinking that someone is giving up on their dreams because there's enough money involved to change misery into happiness. Except I've always lied about how much the company is worth. Always intentionally given people the wrong idea.

It's worth more than I've let on.

But I'm not in it for the money. I've always been in it because I'm afraid. Afraid of what else is out there. Afraid it might make me happy. People can't deal with that.

I'm so damn afraid of getting what I want because what happens if I get it, and then I'm still not happy? What then? At least this way I could think that if I ever got what I wanted I would be happy. It would give me hope.

It was a stupid fucking idea and I'm realizing it now when it might be too late. I knew all along that it was probably the wrong idea, but I thought that if anybody could make it work it would be me.

Whoops.

So here's where I'm at. I don't know what to do next. I don't know how to, or whether I even want to, get out of the mess I've gotten myself into.

All I know is that I spent a whole week preparing for a personal disaster on Tuesday night, and when I didn't get it that little part of my mind that doesn't work so well decided it couldn't let all my preparation be for naught. So it went and created a whole new disaster.

I would have to give up my car, my home, most everything I own and more money than most people can regularly imagine. I'd have to be crazy to do it.

I'd have to be crazy.

But has anything up to this point led you to believe that I'm anything but?