Baby Rattle #72

Finished Hunter’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail the other day. Suppose I was curious about the volatile political circumstances surrounding my childbirth.

The period documented in the book parallels my time in the womb. You might even say the placenta looked eerily like Hubert Humphrey by the third trimester.

Richard Nixon was re-elected, my Mother relaxed and I catapulted into the arms of Venus Di Milo! (cue Television guitars) two days later. Actually she voted for McGovern. Nixon would get 86’ed a couple years later and Hunter never would reclaim the balls-out mastery and endurance that produced this 500 page marvel.

As my Mother would say about my childbirth, I now say about this excellent piece of reporting: it’s a serious rollercoaster ride. As explosively lucid an explanation as you’re likely to find about voting, campaigning, strategizing, subterfuge, intrigue, now I am just making words up, I still scratch my head over electoral votes and delegates. Campaigns are a terrible confusion. Felt like I was lost in a woman’s department store full of women impersonating my Mother. If someone would pay me for it I would write an entertaining story about being born then and how this year’s feetuses are as similar to me as that political contest was similar to them!

I bought two more Hunter S Thompson books yesterday to go with Gonzo, the PLimpton style bio I’m devouring at a rollercoaster rate. I picked them up at my new favourite secondhand book and records shop on Johnston Street. The guy in there has really good taste and everything is so well organised. He’s nice too like he told me that the Billy Squier record I picked up was the guiltiest of pleasures. I responded in the most lugubrious tone, it’s irrefutable genius.