Could there be a hidden X effect?

With all the chatter about The Bradley effect (I’d link her but there are just too many articles to choose from, and besides if you don’t know what it is by now than you must have your head up your ass, which begs the question: how the hell are you reading this anyway?) and now McCain’s pollsters claiming that the race is actually, much, much closer than the signs indicate, I wonder if perhaps there is something that is being missed.

An X effect. By which I mean a GenX effect.

Please allow me to attempt to explain, even though I’ll probably fuck it up anyway.

Recently I posted that I was pretty much burnt out on this election. And it was true. I just felt as if I couldn’t take it anymore, and only wanted it to be over. Since then I have been plagued by bad dreams. Seems like I am waking up just about every night between 4 and 5 am. At least it isn’t 3:15am every night (a prize to whomever guesses that reference — here’s a hint James Brolin NOT Ryan Reynolds). Sometimes they’re just surreal; I dream about Maureen McCormick/Marsha Brady, no doubt because I’ve been reading her trash memoir, but they’re not the teenage boy wet dream kind of dreams, but that’s for another post. Just as often, if not more, I dream about the election in some way. Usually I don’t remember specifics, just vague impression. But not last night. Last night I remembered my dreams pretty clearly: I’d watched elections results and Obama won, then I went to bed, and when I woke up later in the night and checked the news breaking news reported that he had been assassinated, killed, whatever… It really freaked me out, even after I realized it was just a dream, and I’ve been on edge ever since.

I’m not sure why I’m having these dreams. Perhaps just because the election is getting ever closer. But I can’t escape this anxiety, not just about Obama losing, for whatever reason, but about him winning. In some ways, that scares me even more. And not because I secretly believe that Obama is or was or will be one day a Muslim. That has nothing to do with it.

I really think it has more to do with him being a GenXer. (And I know, I know. I can already predict the self-important Boomer response, insisting that he is not. But that is such a losing argument, I don’t even know where to begin. So skip that shit.) Yeah, now that it looks as if Generation X might actually have it’s first president I’m having a hard time dealing with it. I’m having a hard to believing it is possible. Something got to go wrong. Something will fuck things up. I just know it. Thus serving the biggest collective disappointment to Generation X yet.

Believe me. I know how whiny that sounds. I do. But I can’t help suspecting that I’m not the only one who feels this way.

How do I feel exactly? It’s hard to explain, really. I know I’m not doing a very good job of it. But I feel like participating in this election, casting my vote for Obama, wanting him to win so badly, is dooming his campaign to failure. Yeah, how fucked up is that? As if my wants and desires and participation has shit to do with anything. And yet….

Recently a fellow GenXer expressed a similar kind of ennui, for lack of a better word. And as a result is considering NOT voting. I confess I’ve considered this myself. Just not voting.

And so I got to thinking. Could there be a significant number of GenXers afflicted with this vague sort of doubt? Could there be some kind of GenX effect at work? I realize that we are small generation, much smaller than Boomers and Millennials, but still just possibly big enough. Boomers vote, we know that. And I got to tell you I think the Millennials are going to really turn out on election day, if they haven’t already. I already know at least a few that have voted absentee. Remember, the young vote that didn’t turn out in previous election cycles was Generation X.

But maybe I’m just wigging here. I don’t know.

Perhaps it seems strange that what I’m talking about here is not complacency but rather — what? It almost feels like a fear of finally getting what you want, you know. A fear of success. Something like that anyway. Do other GenXers suffer from this sort of mind set? Maybe it’s just me.

In any case, it’s got me thinking that it is time to stop whining, and stop moping. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to run out and start knocking on doors for Obama. Believe me I am not the guy you want doing that anyway. But I can at least make sure that I cast my vote. And let it never be said that I didn’t do the least that I could, one of my mottos, I suppose.

I suppose it is rather ridiculous to take the possible results of this election so personally, as if Obama’s failure, if he were to be elected, as my own failures. And yet, I can’t help feeling as if I will in some way. He’ll be the first GenX president, and so in addition to carrying the hopes of many African Americans into the White House and before the world, he’ll be carrying the hopes of a generation, at least as far as I am concerned he will.

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Forget about Maureen and Barry. What about Maureen and Eve?

Whilst googling Eve Plumb I came across some articles, like this one from the New York Post, that claimed Maureen McCormick was going to reveal a lesbian affair with Eve Plumb. Whoa! Baby!

Of course, if it sounds to good to be true then it probably is. If it was true McCormick seems to have decided to leave it out of her book. At least, as far as I can tell. But I’m only about half way into it. So there’s still a chance… Yeah, I know, not likely. But a guy can dream can’t he?

Hmm. That give me an idea: celebrity impersonators doing porn. What do you think? Yeah, probably already been done.

So I’m into the part following The Brady Bunch went off the air. At which point McCormick quickly found her way to moving out on her own, losing her virginity, having two abortions, and developing a wicked a cocaine habit. Apparently, she was hanging with some pretty big drug dealers and doing a lot of blow, enough to earn her the nickname “Hoover.” Was snorting coke the only reason, Maureen? Come on. It is a tell all after all.

Well, she did divulge that upon breaking up with her coke-snorting boyfriend that he dumped a milkshake over her head, after which they proceeded to scream and fight outside, which made me feel a white trash sort of kinship with her.

Anyway. I thought the writing got better when she was covering her drug use. It seemed more authentic, less affected or whatever.

Yes. I’m reading Maureen McCormick’s memoir

I admit it!

I have set aside David Foster Wallace’s amazingly, magnificently intelligent tome, Infinite Jest, the novel Blindness by the Nobel Prize winning author, Jose Saramago, which has just been made into a very cool-looking movie staring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, as well as Sarah Vowel’s latest nonfiction book, to read a tell-all celebrity memoir. So sue me. I don’t care. It’s Maureen McCormick, aka Marsha Brady. I mean, come on! She was like one of my first masturbatory fantasies — sorry Maureen, I know that’s creepy, but it’s true. The only celebrity memoir that could possible entice me more would be Kristy McNichols. But I got a feeling that that one is not going to happen. Even so, I’m holding out hope.

Typical of the genre, McCormick’s tale is big on revealing secrets, address rumors that have long festered into myth, or fact, or whatever. The writing is not always very good, or even good at all. But then how good does it have to be, really?

For the most part it I don’t find it all that interesting, but every once in awhile there will be something that will intrigue me. For example: Florence Henderson was big on going topless poolside at her Beverly Hills home where she lived while the show was being shot.

Also, according to McCormick, Eve Plumb (aka Jan) was the more vivacious one — she developed boobs sooner, much to Maureen’s chagrin, was “hippier” and apparently had a penchant for walking around the dressing room naked while they were on tour for their album. Oh, I think I just found me a new masturbatory fantasy. McCormick also writes that Eve farted a lot. Maybe that bothered Maureen and Susan Olsen (aka Cindy), who asked her to stop it, along with walking around butt ass naked, but it only makes her that much sexier to me. What guy doesn’t drool over a young, tan, flatulent blond?

Robert Reed was a stickler for realism, which must have been an endless source of frustration on a schlocky show like The Brady Bunch, and was constantly butting head with Sherwood Schwartz.

At 16, Barry Williams had a pack-a-day smoking habit.

Of course there are more salacious details, which I’m only beginning to get to, and while I admit I am eager to read that shit, I find some of the less dramatic details more interesting.

Ultimately, I’m not making any excuses. It’s not a very good read, but I like it at a certain level. But then I have a fondness for porn to, so….

Speaking of which, McCormick mentions how, in later seasons, she and Eve Plumb would try to wear their skirts as short as possible and in re-watching some scenes claims that you can see their underwear. Do you think she’s trying to boost sales of The Brady Bunch on DVD? Maybe she’s got a deal with the production company.

And finally acceptance….

Over the weekend I was privy to a conversation in which I heard what I can only assume was a Republican/McCain supporter concede that Obama was going to win the Presidential Election. Of course, in typical stodgy conservative fashion it was grudging at best. This guy (older white in a gray suit and balding, of course – not that his age, race, attire or follicle predicament has anything to do with this political leanings) was yaking about the election to I think an elderly woman. Basically he said that of course Obama was going to win because Americans (not including him and any number of other “Real Americans”, I’m assuming) require instant gratification and Obama, like Bill Clinton, is a good talker (the assumption being, I assume, that he is all style and not substance), which appeals to that sort of weak character. What else could be to explain for wanting Obama when you could have, and I quote, “some old guy that knows everything,” at which point I almost spit the drink in my mouth all over the table in front of me but managed to contain myself.

I suppose it is hard to give up the ghost, and no doubt this grump is way ahead of a lot of others of his ilk, and I was this close to feeling for the guy, a little, when he then said that, well, it was okay, because Obama would only be in office for four years and then we could get a real guy back in the White House.

Yeah. That’s right. Imagine my fucking shock to learn that Obama is not real. He’s fake. Some kind of cyborg or robot or alien or genetically engineered being of some sort. I mean, shit! This changes everything. What else can I do but vote for fucking Bob Barr!

Seriously, I hope that their are droves of Republicans who are living in such a deep state of, who need to delude themselves to throughly about Obama. They want to think he’s a marsh mellow, a light weight. Fine. Do that. It will only make it more likely that, upon winning election, he gets a second term. Beyond that, after his tenure in the White House, that he paves the way for Hilary Clinton to take her turn. If old buggers like this dude aren’t dead by then, they will be, instantly when they hear the race called for Hilary on the nightly news broadcast. And, oh, what glorious day that will be.

Of course, when you feel you’re sure you candidate it going to lose complacency is consolation.

I’m not sure Obama is going to win, despite what any poll says. I won’t be satisfied until I see him sworn in. And I hope that neither will any of Obama’s other supporters.

Does anyone else feel burned out on this election?

I can’t be the only one. Surely.

At first, I thought it was just the beginning of a cold. Some people at my work have been sick and I figured I’d caught the bug. It’s about that time of the year, right. But it soon became clear that I hadn’t contracted an early incarnation of the flu. It is just fatigue.

I think it really set in over the weekend when I was yet again contacted by the Obama campaign to volunteer for the final push leading up to the election. I got suckered into giving up my email and phone number when I went in to buy a couple of lawns signs, even though in terms of helping out a campaign they’re virtually pointless, at the local Obama office. I told them that they absolutely did NOT want me knocking on doors and making phone. And, that I couldn’t really take off time from work, which was bs, but hey, it’s a free fucking country and I don’t have to be political active if I don’t wanna. I’m voting for the dude. Ain’t that enough? Anyhoo… I agreed to bring in bagels and OJ on the morning of the election. I figured it was the least I could do for what seemed to be mostly young people, which really impressed me. And you know, never let it be said that I didn’t do the least that I could. I think that’s pretty much the Generation X slogan, ain’t it? So of course now these people are calling and emailing and none of them really seems to listen to me when I try to explain what I will and will not do. The last call was at 10 at night, after we were in bed. So. I’m done. No bagels and definitely no GOTV, as they liked to say. I’ll never make that mistake again.

Anyway, ever since I have been feeling well. I’m tired and I’ve got a persistent low-grade headache that will not go away. I try to tap some hidden reserves of enthusiasm but I just want this thing to be over with already.

Don’t get me wrong. I want Obama to win. And I will vote for him come hell or hight water. I know this isn’t New Orleans. It’s just an expression for crying out loud. But just in case, I’ve left instructions, in the event of my untimely demise, for my vote to be cast.

Maybe I just need a good nights rest for a change. That’s another thing. I seem to have a hard time sleeping. The closer we get to the election the more restless I become.

And don’t get me started on these fucking polls that have Obama up like fucking 10 pts in Indiana. 10 pts! In fucking Indiana? There’s no fucking way!

I would so never cut it in the real political world. Which is why I don’t get involved that way.

Name the movie

From this quote:

What if uh C-A-T really spelled dog?

Greg on Marsha

Or Barry on Maureen, I should say…

Or more acurately Barry not quite on Maureen…

With the release of Maureen McCormick’s new “tell all” bio of course comes the obligatory reactions and commentary from fellow cast memebers, especially from  Barry Williams, aka Greg Brady, who everyone knows had a thing with Maraureen while she show was going on. According to this CNN interview Barry confirms what Maureen writes in her new book, that though Barry and Maureen fooled around plenty Barry never quite sealed the deal, to put it crudely. Bummer, dude. But at least he got to plug his blog called The Greg Brady Project, which I’m going to have to add to my blog roll.

I blogged previously that I don’t usually read celeb bios but I may just read McCormick’s. I have the first hold on it here at the library where I work. We’ll see.