Day 2

Travis and his might.

Doc, who yesterday was Dock, but now is Doc, because I know

him a bit better.

Alright.   Today we made some votes folks!  We made some votes. Other people actually made them but we enabled them. I am exhausted in the greatest way one can ever be exhausted.  And this is because there are people, glowing humans that are giving me the strength to write these words of praise.  They are Keysha, Travis, and Doc.  They were my team today, with blazing diligence, heart and ingenuity.  These are the sorts of people that make one exhausted in the best way possible.  Now I will go to sleep. I am sorry there isn't more but tomorrow there will be. Yes.

Day 1

-Left NYC around 10 am, got to Cleveland round 8, had meeting/training, got to sleep places (thank you all our generous hosts) at about 11:30 (Kids), 12:30 (Adults)-


Alright. I'm in Ohio---Cleveland. In a neighborhood called Lakewood Heights. This is the first night. We haven't begun anything yet or we've just begun. We met at the library until 9, it closed, we got bounced. We moved to the coffee shop, 10 o'clock, it closed, we got bounced. But we tried to squeeze some things in between those hours.

The Kids rehearsed how they are going to approach a potential voter. Let me tell you first who the Kids are. There are Kids and adults in our crew of 11. The Kids are all magnetic, unique excited individuals with nicknames like Dock. Wendolay is the leader of the Kids, she is a Kid, but she is also not a Kid, just like Wend[ola]y in Peter Pan. She is a few years older than the rest of em. Wendolay is 20, they are all 17 or 18. They say Wendolay looks older than her mother. They are all more or less from the Boogie Down Bronx. You can tell.

So the Kids each with fantastic spirits rehearsed what they are going to say to a potential voter. Some key things are:

-You only have seven days (During Golden Week you can both register to vote and vote in a polling place on the same day. We are here to facilitate you doing this. We have to remind you dear sir that this all- special Goldenness ends on the 6th of October and after that you can only register until October 14th and then you will have to cast a ballot and then vote in absentia or vote on November 4th and stand in a line and get voting day dementia, probably. Alright so you only have seven days, so you got to do it now.)

-If you are in a hurry, it ain't going to take but a few minutes of your time. Not 2 minutes though. Maybe a little longer. We will entertain you while you wait.

-What else.

-Flash the smile at 'em if they start getting racist or combative. We are here to get voters, not convince McCain tricks to vote for Obama or listen to Obama tricks talk our ears off about voting for Obama (you got to see this Kid Travis' chipped tooth, and the smile that emanates from it. I wonder if we shouldn't just fly his ass over to Israel right now for him to flash that chippery on the West Bank and Gaza borders because I think that would solve some stuff in a hurry. As I told you the Kids are very powerful.)

-Though it is true we are transporting them in A Van try to not mention "The Van" they are worried that saying the words "The Van" is going to scare people. We have to mention it as gently as possible or try as often as possible to call it a shuttle. This does sound a bit more space age and cool. (Of course, I think of The Van Down by The River when I think of The Van and its glamour and lack thereof, and then I remember that all I really want to do here is channel everything that Matt Foley taught us. The Kids and Wendolay probably have not seen Chris Farley moving his arms in the giant upside down bow motion, jerking like a giant steroided boar, and then of course destroying the requisite table, but we Adults have, Joseph and Jill and Dara the Champ and I and we know that we are here for the same reason Matt Foley was--- to slam our bodies onto the tables of the streets and disintegrate barriers and grab these three million mofos who didn't vote in the 2004 election by the scruff of their necks and allow them to grab the world by the seat of its pants and VOTE, YO! And this is really really important that in 2004 Bush won Ohio by 10,000 votes and 3 million people that could have voted for him (or maybe for someone else?) didn't vote. Were they all buried alive momentarily for twenty four hours under some Karl RoveSod?

[See this if you are wondering about who Matt Foley is or would like the pleasure of reacquainting yourself with him---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppN-Q4fCpoQ ]

-What is also important is that if have been imprisoned at some point because you are a convicted felon from Ohio, and you find yourself suddenly free from your chains, with a burning urge to snick that little silver needle right into the Obama Biden hole, just wonder this my brothers and sisters--- "Am I walking tall on the outside because I am on probation, paroled, waned by the warden, discharged by the district, released by the beast, OR am I running through the free fields today because a few years ago I and my friend Morgan Freeman hatched a fantastic plan to escape and today is the day I realized the fruits of our labor.... If it is any of the former and you have not just escaped from prison then guess what you multi-criminals (Dock, another Kid taught me this great word tonight). You can vote! And we are going to take you by golly, in our shuttle, and lastly...

-when you are inside our Van Down by the River, in our clutches finally after we have wooed you with our chipped tooth of blazing bi-partisan peace, we are going to ask you calmly if you would like to be a volunteer just like us. We are all volunteers and we want more and we need more but we are eleven strong and that is greatness (this is the last important thing that I can remember now because I am insanely, angrily tired. Thank god we all went to our respective temporary homes in a strong rainstorm. And thank god I am still coherent enough not to edit this, but to repeat why it is that we, the Kids, the Adults, and Wendolay and roughly 189 other people are here. To get as many people as possible to cast an early ballot, during Golden Week, betwixt September 30 and October 6th, in the 2008 presidential election, with the sole and essential and sacred purpose of electing Barack Hussein Obama to the Office of the President of the United States. This is our mission, tomorrow it begins.)

WHY? **This writing contains graphic descriptions of an animal dying**

So why this blog, why now, why today. Why oh why oh why. All the fodder is out there, so what in god's name could make this blog special, what should it be called, what should it contain. To what end shall it aspire, to what beginning? Who are you, who am I?

I will tell you I have been thinking about this since three years ago, four years ago, when, lost in New York City, I wondered if I would be happy or at least happier if I wrote regularly and that in this day and age, a way to write regularly and have people see it, which I think is pretty important, is to have a blog. Yes, I'm telling you nothing new. I am older than some and younger than others and though I once believed it akin to selling one's soul to Darth Vader, I now firmly believe blogs are good news. I have been thinking about creating a blog for a long time.

On March 4th, 2008, two days ago, my mother's cat, Tula, was killed by a white man in a white BMW. I arrived home and got out of my mom's car in the beautiful late afternoon and the man in the white BMW was stopped in front of our house and as I got out of my mother's car he said, DID YOU SEE THAT? And I said NO. And he said AW SHIT I THINK I JUST HIT A CAT. That is what he said he said AW SHIT I THINK I JUST HIT A CAT. And I ran to the front of his car and saw Tula on the ground in a pool of blood with one of her greenyellow eyes crushed back into her little blackfurry Queen Thundercloud of a skull and blood had sprayed and gushed from both of her ears (later when I cleaned it off the curb it was in two distinctive places, meaning there was a place, and then for a few feet it was clean, and then there was another place). She was lying on the warm spring pavement where children learn how to ride their bicycles and worms sometimes crawl all the way across unimpeded and where I had just stepped moments ago, lightly into the afternoon, carrying facts deep in my soul. Facts of golden lava that flow at all sorts of speeds, facts like this--- my mother is at work, my father is at the JCC, my sister is writing, my love is on her way to yoga class, and Tula is out there somewhere, probably on the hill across the street, probably stalking a bird or a lizard.

So when I saw her in front of the white BMW and collapsed on the street, collapsed on my knees in the late afternoon sun, this fact of mine suddenly rushed away. And it is a feeling to have a fact of golden lava disappear so fast.

Tula-- from "gattula," which means little cat in Greek-- my mother's Tula, my sister's Tula, my Tula, but most of all Tula's Tula-- the greatest whirring Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Queen Thundercloud of a cat. The feistiest little glint who loved love as much as anyone else and got it when she wanted it, and went hunting when she didn't. And if you actually got to pet her, better believe you'd done something right in this life.

Ceased.

Ceased by the foot inside a penny- loafer, pressing its gas pedal, sending a machine on its way, but now standing next to me and Tula. Me 'n' Tula. Lying in the street together with the penny- loafers looking over us. In the seconds before I got up and desperately drove with her body in my lap down to the vet, I thought about grasping one of those loafers. Maybe because I thought he was sad too? --- Of course he was. He had killed Tula! He had to be sad. Well I should grasp his loafer so he'll know I'm here for him.--- Or maybe I just wanted to feel something that would move underneath my hand. Like all those nights on the way out of the kitchen after I was done with the dishes. I'd turn the lights out, stand over her chair for a moment, and almost know that a magic little blackfurry cloud was sleeping right there in the dark. But I'd have to reach out to smooth the perfect warm fur, just to be sure. And when I leaned down to nuzzle her forehead, she smelled like oak trees.

An hour later when her body was lying in our laundry room swaddled in a white towel the vet had wrapped her in, and I was wondering whether to call my mom or my sister or my dad or my love but couldn't call any of them yet, I looked inside her mouth and saw that maybe her tooth was going through her tongue and then moved her mouth a bit and saw that it wasn't, it just looked like it was because half the tooth was chipped (that's the same principle those plastic pretend- to- be- stabbing you toy Halloween knives work on). How long had her tooth been chipped, though? Had she had this little handicap those nights she was sleeping in the kitchen? Why didn't she tell us?

Ghosts work fast. As I crouched over her body in the laundry room, Tula's ghost asked me about this life I lead and she said, with a hunter's whisper of a voice, so as not to scare off the birds, NAFTALI, YOU HAVE TWO CHIPPED TEETH, ARE YOU DOING EVERYTHING YOU MUST IN THIS LIFE? And I surprised myself with my answer--

ALMOST, TULA. ALMOST. THERE IS THAT ONE THING I ALWAYS THINK ABOUT DOING THAT I'M NOT DOING.

WELL? She said. I gazed at the worlds that still remained inside her one greenyellow eye. DO YOU THINK THAT WHITE GUY AND HIS ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINE OR LIFE OR LUCK OR GOD OR NOTHING AT ALL CRUSHED MY CHEST, BROKE MY LITTLE NECK, POKED OUT (RATHER, IN) ONE OF MY SACRED GREENYELLOW EYES, MADE MY BRAIN EXPLODE INSIDE MY SKULL, AND THEN MADE YOU LIE IN THE RED VISCERA THAT FLOWED FROM IT ALL FOR NOTHING?

We carry certain facts in our souls. We walk with them through our days. These are the facts of golden lava, and they are very simple. Each fact of golden lava says this: someone or something that you love is alive, out there, somewhere-- in front, behind, a million miles, a few inches away across the bed, down the alley, across the street on the hill near the oak trees.

I have never encountered such a fast and red and violent disappearance, and here I try to understand it as something as integral and essential as the peace that preceded it. What follows is a blog without a plan, but dedicated nevertheless to these facts we carry in our souls-- facts that flow, like lava, at all sorts of speeds. May we step lightly into the afternoon believing we have nuzzled them endlessly...

Thank you for reading.