Weekly Dose of Dangle

Last week’s cartoon was inspired by a line I read in the New York Times, probably by the useless Matt Bai, who said something to the effect that there are dangerous elements on both ends of the political spectrum. I immediately thought of my neighborhood because my town represents the extreme end of the political spectrum. It’s arguably the most liberal county in the United States. When I look around at the “far left” I’m certain that there couldn’t be a group of more soft and harmless people anywhere. Contrast that with the people who show up at tea party rallies with guns strapped to their legs and t-shirts with jokes like, “liberal hunting permit,” and “water the tree of liberty.” I’d say there’s no equivalence between the two groups, and, hence, the cartoon. Anyway, that sparked a lot of discussion about guns here and on my Facebook page that’s been fun to read but hasn’t changed my mind. It’s that same old, guns don’t kill people, people do, argument the NRA must publish on the back of the membership cards. You could kill your spouse or brother-in-law with an ice pick but a gun is so much easier and more convenient. I also posted a porny sketch of a guy getting off on a gun as a sex fetish. Potential corporate clients are going to love that. “Let’s not hire that sick Dangle character,” they’ll say.

I remember when, as an adolescent, I used to go to a rifle range, the ROTC range and the University of Michigan. My friend Mike Krebs and I were competitive in every sport, whiffle ball, bowling, tennis, billiards, you name it, so we decided to compete at shooting guns at targets. Of all the sports we played shooting guns was the most boring. It’s probably more fun when you’re firing a Glock or an Uzi that blasts the target into little bits, but we were shooting 22s, which just make little holes. The instructors and people there reminded me of the church youth groups I used to crash for the girls and pizza. I didn’t like the atmosphere. The people were very upright and religious about their guns.

Speaking of Michigan, my friend Geoffie is still juggling his thirty projects and hounding me to go to work for him. Now he’s going to make records (he has bands lined up) and movies (he’s got twelve ideas that are fully formed, he just needs me to write them) in addition to the nightclub he’s opening in Ann Arbor. He told me that of the top fifty ideas for economic development in Michigan the thirty-five best ones are his. A couple weeks ago he was trying to get me to go to Detroit for the auto show so that he could announce the launch of his media company (and take all the attention away from the new car models). This is a guy who spent a few nights recently sleeping in his car. I didn’t go but he attended the show without me. First he went to a hip hop store and got all pimped out. Everybody was coming up to him and introducing themselves because he looked so cool. He says he’s coming to California next week and that I should open up a few days to sit around and brainstorm with him.

Hae, our friend Irene, and I took Oscar to see a vault print of Walt Disney’s Fantasia at the Paramount Theater Friday night. Oakland has become hip quite recently, so downtown was bustling, but we still found a parking place. I didn’t see any guys with guns at all in the theater. Fantasia is pretty amazing and it runs the whole gamut from dinosaurs, to satan, to Walt Disney’s peculiar ideas about sexuality. We also watched The American, kind of a lame hit man drama but with George Clooney’s chiseled mug. Also watched the Scorsese documentary on Bob Dylan, No Way Home. It was way more fun than Nazis a Warning from History. We also took Oscar to see the Harlem Globetrotters. There were some fantastic stunts and a few yucks. Good for the kids.

My zodiac sign changed from Taurus to Aries. What is that going to do to my personality?