I get it so often, and I got ‘nem ol’ Mitteilungszwang again Mama! Mitteilungszwang is German for “the need to tell something.” I seldom do anything about it. But tonight, white wine spritzer in hand, laundry in machine down in ‘nem basement, headphones on, a song is opening up a door into the explaining of the week that was and the persistence of memory.

It was the summer of 1991 in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Germany. George H.W. Bush was the president of the United States. I had fallen in with a certain crowd of Americans, the bad-boy/girl clique of our study abroad contingent, who were mostly nice people from Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan.

Not us, though, we went to shows by bands like Poison Idea, Big Chief, and the Sisters of Mercy, as they toured through Germany. I remember them all. I saw Poison Idea in Frankfurt, and they were three morbidly obese guys, so fat and worn out they gave the concert sitting right on the stage floor, positioned like panda bears. Meanwhile the audience did “Pogo tanzen” — slamdancing, but in Germany it wouldn’t be the same without lots of potential bodily harm, so the floor in the packed room was covered with empty bottles.

Like one of those big tents full of rubber balls that kids (used to?) play in at the amusement park, but glass bottles instead, in a room full of people in steel-toed boots. I was scared of dying, as I almost always was in Germany, so I just plastered my body against the wall and waited for it to be over.

Big Chief was a small show at some weird little art center in our l’il German university town. I remember talking to the lead singer, the guy with the long red hair and beard, for a while about how much I missed Michigan.

The Sisters of Mercy concert was in some big, brightly sunlit (hahahaha, for a goth/industrial band!) auditorium and it was hotter than a good… it was super hot in there, and every single concertgoer was decked out in black leather. So, the audience reeked of hot black leather. I asked my friend Linda, who had introduced me to all this music, what the deal was with the lead singer wearing sunglasses for the whole show. She said he always wore them. I found out later it was because he’s severely cross-eyed.

Which brings me to this week. Then as now, a Bush is in the White House for a while more. A recession is starting. I’m listening to the song “More” by the Sisters of Mercy and chuckling as I always have at the chorus: “And I need all the love I can get / And I need all the love that I can’t get too.” George H.W. famously said “I don’t do the ‘vision thing’” and Andrew Eldritch from the Sisters of Mercy made that the name of their last album.

Back then you had your Willie Horton, now you’ve got Rev. Wright. Seventeen years goes by so fast. As Bill Clinton said, regarding G.W. Bush, in 2000: “’’I ran a baseball team, my daddy was president.’ It’s all blur, blur, blur.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that then. Now I know.

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.

In the third act of the classic motion picture drama “Mommie Dearest,” an aging Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is shown at a meeting with the all-male board of directors of Pepsi-Cola, where her last husband had been president until his recent death. After expressing their condolences, the board tells Crawford she will have to repay the debt her husband incurred borrowing against his salary to rehab their 5th Ave. apartment, and they imply that once that is done, she will no longer be associated with Pepsi. Here is the dialogue* that follows:

CRAWFORD: You think you’re very clever, don’t you, trying to sweep the poor little widow under the carpet? Well, think again. I’m on the board of directors of this lousy company.

MALE BOARD MEMBER: We assumed that you would no longer want to be on the board.

CRAWFORD: Al and I helped build Pepsi to what it is today. I intend to stay with it.

MALE BOARD MEMBER: We appreciate your devotion and contribution, Miss Crawford. But we have retired you from the board of directors.

CRAWFORD: You drove Al to his grave, and now you’re trying to stab me in the back? Forget it! I fought worse monsters than you in Hollywood for years. I can win the hard way!

MALE BOARD MEMBER: (Nervously) We don’t want any hard feelings.

CRAWFORD: You don’t know what hard feelings are until I come out publicly against your product. You’ll see how much you sell.

MALE BOARD MEMBER: It’s hardly necessary to make threats you surely don’t mean.

CRAWFORD: (Ferociously) Don’t f*ck with me, fellas! This ain’t my first time at the rodeo. You forget the press I delivered to Pepsi was my power. I can use it any way I want. It’s a sword, cuts both ways.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXZ4Kd-faoM[/youtube]

MALE BOARD MEMBER: (After a big sigh) The board has failed to realize the extent of your interest in the company. We… misjudged. (With forced smile) We shall be pleased to have you stay on.

CRAWFORD: Thank you, gentlemen. Now, let’s get to work.

*Writing credits (alphabetical): Christina Crawford (book); Robert Getchell, Tracy Hotchner, Frank Perry, Frank Yablans.

Now I know some people don’t like strong women. But I for one was ON JOAN’S SIDE throughout the movie. I remember during the Lewinsky scandal, one of Hillary’s friends was asked on “60 Minutes” what she thought was going on in the White House between Bill and Hillary. After they pestered her enough, she finally said, in exasperation, “What do you want me to say? Is she capable of throwing a lamp? YEAH, she is, okay?” Let’s rewrite this “Mommie Dearest” scene for Hillary:

Monday, March 3, 2008

CLINTON: You think you’re very clever, don’t you, trying to sweep the poor little woman candidate under the carpet? Well, think again. I’m still running for president of this lousy country.

THE MEDIA: We assumed that you would no longer want to run against such a formidable opponent as Senator Obama.

CLINTON: Bill and I helped build the Democratic Party to what it is today. I intend to lead it.

THE MEDIA: We appreciate your devotion and contribution, Mrs. Clinton. But we have decided Mr. Obama is going to be the next president.

CLINTON: You drove Bill to quadruple bypass surgery, and now you’re trying to stab me in the back? Forget it! I fought worse monsters than you in Washington for years. I can win the hard way!

THE MEDIA: (Nervously) We don’t want any hard feelings.

CLINTON: You don’t know what hard feelings are until I come out publicly about the real reason behind your pro-Obama bias. I’ll tell the whole country how you guys in the “left-wing media” are really part of the vast right-wing conspiracy, and that’s why you want Obama as the nominee: so he can lose to the Republicans.

THE MEDIA: It’s hardly necessary to make threats you surely don’t mean.

CLINTON: (Ferociously) Don’t f*ck with me, fellas! This ain’t my first time at the rodeo. You forget that the scandalous stories I gave you all through the ’90s was my power. I can use it any way I want. It’s a sword, cuts both ways. Bill and I don’t have to provide you ANY fodder if I move back into the White House in ’09 despite your efforts. I’ll give you a very boring presidency, and that’s a promise.

THE MEDIA: (After a big sigh) The media have failed to realize the extent of your interest in the presidency. We… misjudged. (With forced smiles) We shall be pleased to have you stay on in the campaign.

CLINTON: Thank you, gentlemen. Now, let’s get to work. I’ll see you in Ohio.

“BITCH” IS THE NEW BLACK! GO, HILLARY! You’re bigger than him, you’re stronger than him, and you “WILL ALWAYS BEAT HIM”!

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.

[NOTE: This quessay is cross-posted on HuffingtonPost.com]

*Big ups to Crispin Glover, who really should’ve run for president this year, and who once wrote an “essay” called “What Is It?” composed only of questions, with a subtly discernible anti-Steven Spielberg thrust to it. Subtly discernible, the way the media’s anti-Hillary Clinton bias is subtle. I’m paying homage to Glover’s genre*** and giving it a name**: Quessay (question essay). (Actually, so no one accuses me of stealing anyone else’s words, according to Google as of today ONE OTHER person, someone named Rockin80sChick4ever, has used the term quessay. And I think she meant something else.)

Why have we seen Chelsea Clinton but not Bill in the audience at the recent one-on-one debates, and why don’t Michelle Obama and her daughters ever appear at them?

Isn’t it strangely prophetic that Barack Obama, in his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope, after admitting his own “unusually — and at times undeservedly — positive press coverage,” (p. 120) cites only these two people as an example of right-wing bias in the media: “A vote or speech by Hillary Clinton that runs against type is immediately labeled calculating; the same move by John McCain burnishes his maverick credentials” (p. 124)?

What would you say if you knew Hillary’s mom’s married name and Barack’s mom’s maiden name both end in “-ham” (Rodham and Dunham respectively)? Are the Rodhams and the Dunhams related? Isn’t Barack Obama distantly related to the current vice president, Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney?

Was Barack Obama’s maternal great-grandfather named Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham? Did he die on October 4, 1970, the same day Janis Joplin died? Wasn’t Janis Joplin a drug addict?

Were rock stars Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison (rumored to have been) killed by the U.S. government?

Do Hillary Clinton, Mamie Eisenhower, Spiro Agnew, Laura Bush, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, the late Bobby Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Scarlett Johansson, Condoleezza Rice, Billy Graham and Maria Shriver all share a zodiac sign (Scorpio)?

Do Barack Obama, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Rosalynn Carter, Marilyn Quayle, Tipper Gore, Lynne Cheney, Bill Clinton, Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Hill, Fidel Castro, Loni Anderson, Caspar Weinberger, the late Jerry Falwell and Arnold Schwarzenegger all share a zodiac sign (Leo)?

Do scorpions sting themselves to death when cornered by an enemy, rather than be killed? Do lions roar a lot (“variations in intensity and pitch, rather than discrete signals, appear central to communication”****)?

Is it interesting that Barack H. Obama Sr. went to Harvard and earned a doctorate in economics, making Barack H. Obama Jr. a “legacy” student at Harvard? Did both Barack and Michelle Obama receive law degrees from Harvard, and did both Bill and Hillary Clinton receive law degrees from Yale? Who else went to Yale? Did any of Bill or Hillary Clintons’ parents attend Ivy League schools? Am I an Ivy League graduate? Was Bill Clinton the only person in his family of origin to attend college?

Is Barack Obama allowed, constitutionally, to pick Bill Clinton as his running mate?

Did Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s fathers both die relatively young as a result of automobile accidents?

Do William J. Blythe III (Bill Clinton), John S. McCain III and Barack H. Obama II have numbers after their names that, all together, add up to eight (8), which is the same as the total combined number of books the three of them have been the top-billed authors of? Eight?

Does it surprise you that Hillary Clinton’s house in Washington, D.C., is the only one on the block with no house number displayed anywhere?

Where does Barack Obama live when he’s in D.C.? What’s his favorite restaurant? Is it the same restaurant favored by Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney? If not, why not?

In their youths, didn’t Bill Clinton meet John F. Kennedy and Hillary Rodham meet Martin Luther King Jr.?

Will Barack Obama respond to those calling for him to pick Bill Clinton as his running mate?

**When I was in grad school I would make up words all the time, but one of my sour-faced professors (a German) tried to rid me of the habit by writing in the margin: “It’s not necessary to invent a new word for the purposes of a term paper.”

***I’m also paying homage to the lists of intriguingly paranoiac questions that certain commenters from both fringe ends of the political spectrum like to insert into comment sections (again and again). Except my quessay is different because I can spell.

****Schaller, George B. The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations. University of Chicago Press, 1972. pp. 103-113. Via Wikipedia.

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.

I recently went down to my storage unit and got out a box labeled “1990s Memories” to get myself prepared to go on a trip back to the ’90s, and I found this list I wrote back then called “Self-Help Books Someone Should Write.” Remember self-help?

Remember the backlash against it? I must’ve written this during the backlash. After I had discovered and befriended my inner child, who ended up being a total asshole.

There were a lot of projected titles in the list, but still not enough, so I added some. So before the ’00s become the ’90s again and all lines between past and present are irrevocably blurred, see if you can guess which ones are new.

Communication

• “First Off, I’m Crazy”: How to Talk to New People You Meet
• Controlling Others for Dummies
• Daily Altercations
• How to Gain Stalkers by Being Nice to People
• Party Lies: 100 Elaborate Whoppers to Tell People When You’re Drunk

Personal Growth

• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Persuading Yourself to Get Out of Bed in the Afternoon
• Smile-Free… for Life!
• Choose the Right Personality for Every Occasion
• Find Your “True” Age (Hint: Subtract Your Birth Year from This Year)

Friends and Family Relationships

• Friendbusters
• Dare to De-Friend
• 100 Great Grudges and How to Hold Them… for Life!
• Speak When Spoken To: A Stern Warning to Children in the New Millennium
• What to Do When Your Family Is Stupid Looking

Love and Romance

• Date-Free Weekend Nights… for Life!
• Fall in Love… with Rejection!
• Fall in Love… with Rejection… Again!

Coping Skills

• It’s Your Own Fault You’re Alive
• The “Accidental” Overdose Handbook
• Real Men Suffer in Silence
• When Everyone You Love or Even Like Is Dead: A Guide to Coping with Old Age

General/Miscellaneous

• The Mood-a-Minute Guide
• The Empathy Myth: How Compassion Is Poisoning Our Culture
• Put Your OCD to Work for the Environment
• Show Me the Substance and I’ll Abuse It: One Man’s Inspiring Tale of Addiction
• “Carry My Baggage for Me”: Embracing Others’ Mental Problems
• Fun Is Dead

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.