Deep In The Heart Of Taxes

Never has there been a greater lie than 'EZ.'

I’ve never quite resented paying my taxes as much as, say, the Tea Party does. That is, I don’t resent the paying part – I do, however, resent the large amount of math-oriented paperwork that leads up to the paying part. Actually, when I get to the paying part, I usually don’t pay anything – the one benefit to not making loads of money is that, just like a bear ignoring a human he thinks is dead, the government doesn’t want to mess with your money if there isn’t a lot of it there.

I got pretty serious about taxes this year, because this was the first year that my parents were no longer claiming me as a dependent on their taxes, which meant I could claim myself as a dependant, which is both a cause for philosophical introspection about the degree to which a man must depend on himself and also a chance to get a fat tax refund in the middle of a cash-strapped couple of months.

As previously mentioned, I started saving my receipts with the compulsion of a schizophrenic collecting newspapers and keeping careful track of the mileage on The Mystery Wagon in hopes of milking as much money as possible out of my tax return. In retrospect, I guess it’s kind of shady to try and grab as much money as I can from our dysfunctional, bankrupt government – like taking money from an overweight guy with a huge credit card bill who keeps trying to pick fights with shifty Middle Eastern dudes – but for the time being at least, I need it a lot more than they do.

Normally I just print out the necessary form and spend the better part of an afternoon sweating my way through it with help from the online tax guide and my first grade math skills, but this year, based on recommendations from my friends Dylan and Holly, I opted to try TurboTax, the online tax software that… Yeah, you all know what TurboTax is.

Dylan, as it turned out, had gotten a huge refund, because filing through TurboTax he’d discovered that he technically owned his own business last year when he shot a bunch of TV commercials for local Eugene businesses.* If he’d been filing on paper, he would’ve just reported his income and been taxed on it, but because TurboTax knows all the loopholes, he was able to write off the cost of his camera as a business expense.

*Technically, though, Dylan should’ve received a grant from a charitable organization to do that, because before he started making them Eugene had arguably the worst local commercials anywhere in America – nay, the world.

This got me started wondering just how many potential refunds I’d missed in the blur of confusion, tears, ink smudges, and fears of an audit that accompanied my pen and paper tax preparation in the past. The American tax code is huge with lots of loopholes, but you have to know about them to exploit them – for all I knew, there could’ve been a gaggle of Bush-era tax credits for white people with good hair still in the system just waiting to be found.

I hit up the TurboTax website, got the free version of the software, and went to work figuring out how much money the government was going to give me. I’m in no way trying to shill for TurboTax here, but I actually caught myself having fun using it, because basically the whole process is answering a lot of pretty easy yes or no questions and looking to see if your answers will get you money or not. It’s sort of like a really boring, simplistic, low stakes quiz show where the big winners generally have disabled children or a truck large enough to write off as farm equipment.

I had a pretty solid $179 bonus coming to me when I hit a snag – one of the jobs I’d worked hired me on as an ‘independent contractor’, which required me to fill out separate forms that my basic version of TurboTax didn’t have access to. Figuring that independent contractor status might bump me into pretty cool writeoff territory, I shelled out $20 for upgraded software, considering it to be an investment in a higher refund.

My shiny new version of TurboTax ran the numbers and told me that my independent contactor job meant that, according to the IRS, I was self employed for nine days in August. I figured this was probably going to turn out to be a good thing, even though in the Capps family the words ‘self employed’ are usually our way of delicately implying that someone is a prostitute.* Then I glanced at the upper right corner of the screen and realized that my $179 refund had turned into me owing the government $10.

*That said, I do degrading jobs because I need the money, so technically maybe I’ve been ‘self employed’ for way more than just those nine days. And then there’s the matter of the two weeks I spent living in a brothel…

I moved on to the credits and writeoffs section of my taxes, hoping undo the damage, and started throwing down everything I could – mileage on The Mystery Wagon, every receipt in my large envelope full of receipts, the four dollar LED flashlight I bought at Rite Aid and used two times on a PA job… But no matter what I gave TurboTax, it insisted that I owed $10. What’s more, it told me I owed $30 to the State of Oregon.

So this first year that I’m not a dependent, I owe $40 in taxes out of the $6500 I made – or 162.5% of my annual earnings.* Don’t forget, on top of that, the $20 I spent on an upgraded version of TurboTax.

*That can’t be right. I think I did the math wrong. How do you find percentages, again?

I can understand how using tax preparation software can save you money – it knows the loopholes and it can tell you if you’ll fit through them. But let’s imagine for a moment that I didn’t use TurboTax. I never would’ve known that I was technically self employed, and thanks to my mathematical limitations I probably wouldn’t have even been able to figure out that I owed money. It wouldn’t have cost me a red cent, and if the government had come after me for its $40 I could’ve legitimately pled ignorance (and probably some sort of learning disability in the numbers department to boot.)

As it turns out, ignorance is bliss – or, at the very least, it’s cheap.

Truman Capps just got you to read a blog update about him doing his taxes. SUCKER.

LA Craigslist Revisited

Craigslist went APESHIT for the lamp and leftover mattress.

I am at a point in my career where I have very little to offer anybody. I’ve been in LA for around seven months, which to me feels like a long time in spite of the fact that it isn’t, I didn’t go to film school, which means I’ve got limited connections and on-set experience, and all the experience I do have only qualifies me to be a production assistant, which is the film production equivalent of one of the redshirt security officers on the Enterprise only without benefits or cool uniforms.

Of course, I’ve got my writing, but the problem is that the number of people who want to be writers greatly outmatches the number of paying jobs for writers, so to apply for any writing-oriented job or job that’s even close to writing I have to compete with literally hundreds of other people with more or less the same aspirations and qualifications as me.

For example, I spent the past several months waiting with baited breath to see if I’d gotten a writer’s room PA position on a basic cable mystery/comedy TV show – and take it from me, several months is a long fucking time to have your breath be baited. The reason I had to wait so long to find out that I ultimately didn’t get the job (my response) was because while it was very important to me, it was of minimal importance to the people doling out the jobs – production assistant positions are pretty much the last to be filled.

This, more than anything, has become the bane of my existence – I apply for a lot of permanent jobs that I’d really love to have and then simply hear nothing, as though I’ve fired my resume into a black hole. Getting a prompt ‘no’ would be far preferable to this, because it’d at least give me closure; hearing nothing only leaves me uncertain and reminds me that I’m of so little importance that the people I’ve sent my resume to can’t be bothered to think of rejecting me until the last second.

It’s kind of frustrating. I mean, given half a chance I’m sure I could explain to these people that I am, in fact, quite important and worthy of a prompt response, but since the people I’m sending my resume to barely have time to say ‘no’ to me I doubt they have time to watch my ninety minute one man musical revue about my employability, tentatively entitled Truman!

Recently, though, I was granted an incredible opportunity to visit the opposite side of this issue – one of my roommates had moved out, so I created a Craigslist ad to search for a new one.

I’ve previously covered the unchecked insanity of Los Angeles Craigslist pages during my search for housing before I moved down here. For those of you who don’t remember and are too lazy to click on the link I so courteously provided you, I discovered that something about 340 days of sunlight per year makes people incapable of writing a posting that isn’t either stupid, unintelligible, or the ramblings of a serial killer.

I set out to do better with my ad – I took a number of in-focus, well-lit pictures of the room and apartment, then wrote up an ad that was as detailed as it was funny and grammatically correct. I posted the whole business on Thursday night at around 8:00 PM and then promptly went to bed so I could get up at 4:30 AM for the shoot I was PAing on the next day.

When my alarm woke me up, I had around 20 emails in my inbox already. By the end of the day, it was over 50. When I had a spare second at work to check my email, I found that a few people had emailed me twice – once in the wee hours of the morning, when they’d first found the ad, and then a second, more desperate inquiry later on in the afternoon, asking whether the apartment was still available and requesting in the politest terms possible that I hurry the fuck up and respond to them.

It’s really a strange thing to wake up one morning and find that lots and lots of people suddenly want something from you and are willing to bend over backwards to get it. Having people fill my inbox with polite requests and outright pleas for a chance to rent a $630 a month room in my apartment is probably as close as I’m ever going to get to having sex appeal. Honestly, I don’t know how Christina Hendricks deals with it.

I resolved that as soon as I was off work on Friday, I’d send prompt emails to the people who I wanted to meet, as well as gracious denials to everyone else. But after work on Friday some of the other PAs and I wound up going out for a drink, so I resolved to respond on Saturday. But then on Saturday I was pretty tired and mostly wanted to watch How I Met Your Mother, so I figured everybody could wait another day.

Ultimately, I did what all of the job interviewers I’ve emailed have done – that is, the bare minimum necessary. I emailed the guy who had sent me the sanest, funniest, and most grammatically correct application, invited him to come meet us and see the place, and then, judging him to be cool and hygienic enough for our high standards, invited him to live with us.

I know that I should email everyone else to let them know the room has been filled, but I’m reluctant. Craigslist masks my email address on the posting so applicants don’t know who they’re emailing, but replying to their emails reveals my true address – for me to send a mass response would be giving my email address and, by proxy, my name to around 70 complete strangers, any number of whom could be serial killers.

I suppose it’s wrong of me to engage in the same practice that gives me such a headache when I’m on the other side of the table, but I wouldn’t even say that leaving people in limbo is necessarily malicious or wrong. I can’t reasonably expect my search for steady employment to be important enough to warrant a prompt and hasty email from somebody who has a lot of other stuff on his plate, nor should a bunch of people who I’ve never met expect me to mass-email them that the room they applied for is now occupied – seeing as it’s been four days and LA Craigslist postings are auto-deleted after seven, I think the answer should be pretty clear by now anyway.

The sad fact is, if everybody’s primary concern was of primary importance to everyone else, nothing would ever get done and the storied institution of waiting in line would immediately cease to exist. There simply comes a point when it just makes more sense to leave somebody hanging for a little while. If I learned one thing from Inception, it’s that being caught in limbo, sometimes, is just a part of life.

Truman Capps will come to regret these words when he sends out his next job application.

Three Cameras

Consult this diagram later in the update to better understand what a 'three camera sitcom' is. DISREGARD THE FOURTH CAMERA.

Things women say to me a lot:

1) "Please stop texting me."

2) "Do you watch How I Met Your Mother? It’s so good!"

3) "Oh my God, you mean… Wow, this whole time I thought you were gay. That’s really weird! Uh, but actually, I have a boyfriend, so no. It’s really sweet of you to ask, though!"

Let’s focus on #2!

The show How I Met Your Mother has been recommended to me dozens of times by dozens of people, usually women who have huge crushes on Neil Patrick Harris.* And, as I do whenever people recommend something to me, I usually respond by saying, “Yeah, I’ve heard that’s really good! I’m definitely going to watch/read that as soon as I get some free time,” and then promptly not doing that thing when I do have the free time.

*I also have a huge crush on Neil Patrick Harris, but the difference is that I have a way better shot at getting into his pants than any of you ladies.

It’s not like I’m deliberately avoiding your advice – it’s just that in my spare time I’ve always got something that I want to do, and the things that I genuinely want to do usually trump the things that other people tell me I’d like doing. Long story short, I’m probably not going to read the fucking Hunger Games already, so maybe you should all just stop telling me to.

Such was the case with How I Met Your Mother. I even ranked it pretty low on the list of TV shows that I was meaning to watch, and this was with full knowledge that it featured Neil Patrick Harris, one of my favorite people.* I was doing this because I’m a gigantic TV snob – and for that, I apologize.

*Honestly, do we even need to say that we love Neil Patrick Harris anymore? I feel like that’s pretty much a given these days. I’ve never heard anybody say, “FUCK Neil Patrick Harris. I HATE that guy.” The only reason that gay marriage is still controversial is because Neil Patrick Harris hasn’t gone door to door in the Bible Belt having friendly chats with everybody.

How I Met Your Mother is what we enormously successful industry types call a ‘three camera sitcom’ – it’s pretty much the slang term for a show like Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Seinfeld, Home Improvement, or Two and a Half Men: a couple of cheap sets, a live studio audience, and action that cuts between three fixed camera angles. Shows like 30 Rock and Community are ‘single camera sitcoms’, which basically means their budgets are way higher, their stories are more intricate, there’s no studio audience, and, since they’re on NBC, there’s not much of an at home audience, either.

As a TV snob, I’d thought that the time of the ‘three camera sitcom’ had come and gone – I loved Seinfeld and Frasier, and I still do, but I prefer rapid fire comedic pacing, and three camera shows can’t really do that because actors always have to pause while everyone laughs or goes Awww or Woooooooooooh! whenever something sexy happens. Three camera stories tend to be on the weaker side and are generally more one-liner driven to play to the crowd. I looked down on that from atop my high horse, which, in and of itself, was at the top of an ivory tower.

Furthermore, I knew that How I Met Your Mother was not really filmed in front of a live studio audience – the show is built to look like it is, but because of how many different sets they use they just shoot the thing in an empty studio and then edit in pre-recorded laughter afterwards. That, again, upset the snob in me.

See, the people watching at home hear the laughter, which in turn cues them to laugh themselves – it lets them know that what they just heard was funny and deserving of laughter. A comedy writer’s job is to make people laugh, so for a writer to write a joke and determine in the editing room how many virtual audience members are going to laugh at it and for how long it is like an architect designing a building that’s already there. And that bugged me, because that’s an awful lot of power for a writer to have. If I had a magic button to make you all laugh at everything I wrote, I’d be mashing the fuck out of it every week. But I don’t, so like an honest schmuck I just do my damndest to write funny stuff and fail roughly 60 percent of the time.

But then one night a few weeks ago I happened to be in the living room, drunk, with my roommate, also drunk, and he turned on How I Met Your Mother on Netflix.

And holy shit, guys, How I Met Your Mother is so good! It’s totally hilarious! Why did nobody ever tell me about this show?

In that one drunk night, my roommate passed out on the couch beside me, I watched pretty much the entire fourth season, episode after episode, cackling and unable to tear myself away. And I realized that I was wrong to be snobbish about the three camera sitcom.

It’s not outdated or inherently worse; it’s just a different template upon which to lay your TV show that has a bunch of eccentric roots in TV history. The laughs are piped in because the scripts are written with them in mind. Watching the show now almost makes me nostalgic for the afternoons I spent watching Frasier as a child while everybody else was out developing the social skills that would allow them to lose their virginities at a reasonable age – the comedy is really good, and it just happens to be wrapped up in a different package than I’m used to.

Networks benefit from three camera shows for a number of reasons – for one, they’re much cheaper to produce, but they’re also much easier for audiences to jump into. Community is hands down the funniest and most groundbreaking show on TV right now, but if you don’t start watching at the beginning you’re probably going to be pretty confused. A three camera show like How I Met Your Mother, with its emphasis more on laughs than intricate long form storytelling, is a lot easier for audiences to get onboard with whenever with little backstory, and as a result it’s easier for them to pick up an audience as time goes by.

It’s a friendly show that you can just hang out and watch – and what better format for a show that’s about a bunch of awesome friends hanging out and doing stuff?

In fact, watching all those happy young people living in the big city, making their way in the world, and being together through thick and thin has galvanized me to put together a similar team of awesome friends. I’ve already got a Power Couple, but I’m taking applications for a serial womanizer and quirky, amicable ex-girlfriend. Over 30 need not apply; must be willing to go to a bar every night and engage in shenanigans at a moment’s notice.

Truman Capps still isn’t going to take all your other recommendations, damn it.

Turning The Other Cheek

How could I post a picture like this if I didn't support the troops and love America?

I’ve been seeing this fucking story on the Internet for the past six years and I think it’s about time we talked about it:

A MARINE was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU. One day he shocked the class when he came in, looked to the ceiling, and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.” The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am God; I’m still waiting.”

It got down to the last couple of minutes when the MARINE got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The MARINE went back to his seat and sat there, silently.

The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence.

The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the MARINE and asked, “What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

The MARINE calmly replied, “God was too busy today taking care of America’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole. So, He sent me.”

I’m an atheist and an ACLU supporter, my best friend is in the Army, I support the crap out of our troops and love my country beyond reason. This kind of shit pisses me off. Let’s dissect the story bit by bit.

One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

I hate that this is like the part in the horror movie where they realize that the phone call is coming from inside the house! The fact that this professor doesn’t believe in God and is a member of the organization that fights for the Constitutional rights of all Americans immediately translates into him being a moustache twirling villain, holding these poor students in his viselike secular grip and forcing them to listen to NPR.

One day he shocked the class when he came in, looked to the ceiling, and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.” The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am God; I’m still waiting.”

What the hell kind of class is this, anyway? I had a fair number of professors at the University of Oregon who probably would’ve openly challenged the existence of God if they’d had a couple of Rennie’s Lemonades before class and were feeling sassy, but I didn’t have any professors who would’ve been willing to blow 15 minutes of class time staring at the ceiling just to prove a point.* Either the evil atheist professor in this story just got tenure and wants to test the limits or he was hoping to cover for the fact that he hadn’t prepared enough material to last through the entire class.

*I did have one professor who spent large portions of every class staring silently into space, sometimes midsentence, but he was actually brain damaged as a result of a bicycle accident, and nobody ever tried to punch him.

Also, if anybody at the University of Oregon did state that they were going to stand perfectly still and wait 15 minutes for God to punch them, I guarantee you that 75% of the class would’ve left, and the rest of them would’ve been texting and checking ESPN on their laptops the entire time.

I mean, why are these students so utterly transfixed by a dude standing on a podium asking God to punch him? What is this, the fucking Dark Ages? These students can’t think of anything more entertaining than watching a guy yell at the ceiling? The Christians in the class know that God isn’t going to offer any conclusive proof of his existence no matter how hard the professor begs, because my understanding is that that’s kind of God’s deal, so why watch? The atheists in the class know that God doesn’t exist, so why bother sitting around waiting for nothing when they could cut class early and get back to work fighting the War on Christmas and practicing their abortion tactics?

It got down to the last couple of minutes when the MARINE got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The MARINE went back to his seat and sat there, silently.

Not to take anything away from the Marine here, but this professor doesn’t strike me as the most worthy or fearsome opponent. Admittedly the story is fairly vague, but from the sound of things the professor stood still without moving while an imposing, muscled figure walked up and attacked him. He’s either stupid, blind, or trying to make a statement about passive resistance.

The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence.

Did these students drink a quart of Robitussin before class or something? So far all they’ve done in this story is sit in shocked silence without moving or saying a word. Right now they just watched a cut and dried case of assault and none of them so much as make a commotion, let alone try to leave or call the cops.

Now, if this Marine were active duty at the time he’d be in uniform, so maybe the argument is that the students respect the right of members of our armed forces to punch people with impunity. If it were me, though, I’d be pretty freaked out if anybody punched one of my professors, uniformed Marine or not – that said, I’m a Subaru driving gay rights supporting abortion loving Obama voting evil atheist, so I guess I’m pretty out of touch with what real Americans do and think.

The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the MARINE and asked, “What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

So the entire class sits there, watching this unconscious man who may or may not have a concussion, and just waits for him to come to? Nobody does anything to help him? Man, if only there was some sort of really old book that outlined a number of moral imperatives directing people to help one another…

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Romans 12:10

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25:35-40

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

Well, okay, maybe that applies to everybody except those vile, stinky atheists.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

Hmm. Let’s just move on.

The MARINE calmly replied, “God was too busy today taking care of America’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole. So, He sent me.”

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. … Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. … Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Beatitudes 5, 7, 9

You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matthew 5:38-42

America’s soldiers put their lives on the line every day protecting our First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of religion, and the Marine in this story is doing a grave disservice to his brothers in arms’ sacrifice when he punches someone in the face for saying something that he personally disagrees with. That’s not freedom of speech; that’s censorship.

The Taliban used force on people who said things they didn’t agree with, as did Saddam Hussein – if the Marine in this story had really fought in both of those countries to liberate oppressed people from governments and religious fanatics who sought to silence dissenting viewpoints, why is he using those same tactics in the country he defended?

Religious faith is a beautiful thing that brings people together, forms loving and accepting communities, and provides for the poor and underprivileged. Fundamentalism is what makes people start holy wars, kill abortion doctors, and fly planes into buildings. It’s the notion that if you’re not one of us, you’re one of our enemies. Fundamentalism starts with stories like this one.

This story says that people who don’t believe in God are un-American rabble rousers who are only tolerated because the Constitution says so. It’s bigoted, ignorant, and I find it highly offensive – and I hope that a lot of Christians do too. I love my country and the soldiers who fight for it, many of whom are also atheists. My lack of faith in no way makes me less of an American or less of a good person.

I’d ask that if you’re a Christian and you encounter this story that you not pass it along – but then again, our military is out there fighting to protect your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole, so if you want to, I guess you should go ahead. I’ll be right here, turning the other cheek.

Truman Capps gets that this isn't a true story - even fiction can be offensive.

Rick Santorum Is A Homosexual

FAAAAAAABULOUUUUSSSS

Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator and full time douchewhale, is a homosexual. I’m not saying this to slander him, because at least as far as I’m concerned being homosexual isn’t anything to be ashamed of – I’m saying this because it’s a fact. Rick Santorum is a gay man. He is aggressively gay. He is gay with a force and intensity not previously thought possible by gay scientists. If homosexuality were a source of energy, Rick Santorum alone could free us of our dependence on foreign oil and keep the lights on in Portland for a year – two, if you give him a copy of a bodybuilding magazine.

I say this because I have known a number of gay people in my life, some more flamboyant than others, and not one of them has been as single-mindedly obsessed with gay people and gay sex as Rick Santorum is.

Rick Santorum knows he’s gay. He doesn’t want to know, mind you, but he’s well aware, deep within his spectacularly gay brain, that he’s sexually attracted to other men. And because that idea clashes with his beliefs and the environment in which he was raised, he’s repressed it, locking himself in a Fort Knox style closet to try and keep a lid on the roiling cauldron of rainbows, pink feathers, and Lady Gaga buried within his psyche.

Rick Santorum is equal parts frightened and fascinated by his own sexuality, but because he can’t discuss it openly, he does the next best thing and tries to subjugate and dehumanize gays as much as possible – because at least he’s talking about it, right?

When my mother was 7 years old, she had a crush on a boy in her class named Robbie Oscland, who dazzled her with his ability to belch the alphabet. She couldn’t think of any way to express her affection for him short of running up to him at recess every day and kicking him in the shin, which she did for several weeks until losing interest in him and embarking upon a path that would ultimately lead her to the somewhat questionable decision to marry my father.

It really hurts me to sully my mother’s good name by comparing her to as vile a piece of shit as Rick Santorum, but this is the best analogy I can think of – Mom couldn’t understand or express her feelings for Robbie, the boy who could belch so artfully, so she responded with a childish show of force, because at the very least it brought her into contact with him. Rick Santorum can’t understand or express his feelings for other men, so he responds by comparing gay marriage to bestiality, by alleging that children with parents in prison are better off than children with gay parents, and saying that unions between loving same sex couples are somehow going to erode the moral fabric of a nation where people aren’t ashamed of the fact that they watch reality TV.

There’s a precedent for this.

Idaho Senator Larry Craig was a big supporter of the Federal Marriage Amendment and an opponent of a bill that would’ve extended the federal definition of a hate crime to cover gay people. He was vocal in calling for openly gay Representative Barney Frank’s expulsion from Congress after news of his affair with a male prostitute broke. In 2007, Craig was arrested in a bathroom stall at Minneapolis International Airport for trying to solicit sex from an undercover cop.

Florida State Representative Bob Allen was a big supporter of Florida’s law preventing gay parents from adopting children, a political position that was complicated when he was arrested in a park bathroom for offering to perform oral sex on an undercover cop. Allen defended himself against allegations of homosexuality by pleading racism, arguing that he’d thought the muscular black cop was going to rob him and that a defensive blowjob was the only way he could get out of there alive.

Senator Strom Thurmond hated black people so much that he filibustered Congress for over 24 straight hours to try and stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and throughout the 1960s fought integration and the Civil Rights Movement at every turn, at one point saying, “ all the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, into our schools, our churches and our places of recreation and amusement.” After his death, it became public knowledge that at the age of 22 he’d fathered a child with his family’s 16-year-old African American housekeeper.

I’m not saying that all people who oppose gay rights are themselves closeted gays – I’m saying that people who spend so much of their life getting hot and bothered over the lifestyle choices of others might be getting hot and bothered because they’re a little jealous.

Rick Santorum won big in Missouri and Minnesota yesterday, proving that his form of Aw shucks! prejudice and hatred can still find an audience depending on how far away you are from the nearest ocean. On the one hand, this is great for Barack Obama, because the Republican Primary is now split between a super-rich megaliar with no charisma, a serial philanderer whose ethics violations forced his resignation from the House of Representatives, and Rick Santorum, a man who needs no introduction.

What worries me, though, is that until someone finds the treasure trove of gay porn hiding on his computer, Rick Santorum is the one candidate with the cleanest record, ethics wise, and by far the most charismatic. The Republican Primary is going to be a really dirty, no holds barred, all male three way, and I think that’s exactly the sort of situation where Rick Santorum can thrive.

And if he gets the Republican nomination? I’ve heard a lot of people say that he’s so divisive that Obama would clinch the election, but I’m not so confident about that. Santorum is divisive, yes, but so is Barack Obama – large quantities of voters believe he’s a Muslim, the Antichrist, or both, and it’s not a longshot to say that even Republicans who take issue with Santorum’s stance on some social issues might vote Santorum regardless because as far as they’re concerned he’s a better option than the alternative. I voted for Barack Obama even though he didn’t support gay marriage, and I’m going to vote for him again in spite of the fact that he’s been ordering prodigious numbers of Predator drone attacks against people who the CIA can’t even conclusively identify, because he’s a way better bet than any Republican now that Jon Huntsman out of the race.

I don’t think a vote for Santorum is a vote for Obama – I think a vote for Santorum is a vote for an LGBT White House, albeit a self-loathing one.

Truman Capps made it through yet another blog update without a joke about what happens when you Google the word ‘Santorum’.

Head of State

"Wait. You're telling me NOBODY asked for your birth certificate?"

When I studied in England, I had the good fortune to be there during the election for a new prime minister. Our English professors went to great lengths to explain how the UK general election worked, showing us campaign literature, documentary films, and diagrams, and despite their best efforts to this day I understand how the United Kingdom picks its elected officials about as well as I understand how to win at cricket. My best guess is that in both cases they’re just sort of making it up as they go along.

What really struck me about the UK election, though, is that the candidates there are assholes to each other and especially whoever the reigning prime minister is – even by the remarkably high standards for dickery set by American democracy.

The thing is that in America, when talking face-to-face, politicians have some sense of restraint and respect for one another. Mitt Romney can say a raft of horrible and factually dubious things about the other candidates to the news media, but when he gets to the debates where he’s talking to the other candidates in person, everybody smiles and shakes hands and at least tries to act cordial going into it.

Politicians in the UK, however, have no trouble saying terrible things about their competitors in the media or in person – honestly, from what I saw over there, I’d say they were saving up all their best zingers for debates and parliamentary procedures with the Prime Minister, just so they could really nail him in person and get all of their friends to clap and cheer for them. This is the sort of aggression you build up living in a country where soccer is the most exciting sporting event.

After reading about an extended public flogging in Parliament of then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s public and private life by a group of opposing politicians and then seeing his name similarly dragged through the mud in the media, someone in our class asked one of our professors why the people in the United Kingdom seemed to have so little respect for their elected officials.

Our professor responded by pointing out that the UK, unlike America, has both a head of state, the Queen, and a head of government, the Prime Minister. The Queen represents traditionally English values like monarchy, alcoholism, and cute colloquial phrases, while the Prime Minister represents the government that makes people pay taxes for their free healthcare and outlawed the British tradition of public urination.

This way, our professor explained, it’s possible to show your undying love and support for your country and its culture by praising the Queen while venting all of your frustrations with that same country by attacking the Prime Minister, the lightning rod of his peoples’ hate. Honestly, it sounds like a pretty crap job to me – I don’t get why people don’t run for Queen more often, because that sounds like a lot more fun.

Our professor went on to opine that that might be America’s problem – our head of state is also our head of government. The President represents American values of democracy and representative government, and he’s also the guy who has to explain why taxpayer dollars keep getting sent to Pakistan.

That’s why, he said, our election cycle is so exhaustingly patriotic – everybody competing to wave more flags or wear shinier flag lapels to show that they really do love America in spite of the fact that they’re attacking the President.

I have to say, he’s got a point – how much a candidate loves America has actually become a talking point these days. Take a look at this screengrab from the campaign website of the Worst Person On Earth:

See, he has to say, out loud, that he loves America and will fight to protect it from terrorists. To me, the idea that a person running for office would want to protect his country from harm seems kind of like common sense, but in America how much we love our country has become a part of our political dialogue.

Politicians even attack one another over it – Newt Gingrich accused Obama of wanting America to fail. Why, for Christ’s sake, would the guy responsible for America not failing want it to fail!? What could he possibly gain from that? Why would any American want the country they are currently in to fail?

There’s so much posturing and needless patriotism in our elections when I for one would much rather see all the politicians involved ruthlessly attacking one another over their voting records and issues, England style. That’s why we need an American head of state, one separate from the President, someone who symbolizes all that is right and good about our country and way of life so that we can love him and hate our elected officials without accusations of being anti-American. And who better to fill this role than…

Tom Hanks.

Do I even have to explain? Tom Hanks’ approval ratings are sky high; admittedly, I have no facts or statistics to back this up, but if you can find me one person who genuinely doesn’t like Tom Hanks, I’ll withdraw my statement immediately.*

*Westboro Baptist Church doesn’t count.

He’s a friendly, goofy rich guy who hasn’t let fame go to his head; he went on a Spanish language morning show and danced while reading the weather report and donates generously to public radio in his community. He named his youngest son Truman, for God’s sake – it doesn’t get much more American than that. He’s the sort of American that all of us want to be.

So what I’m saying is, we build him a palace in Washington D.C. and give him an extensive schedule of entertaining visiting dignitaries, ceremonial parade viewings, and apple pie contest judgings. The palace would be funded through a tax hike, which, I imagine, would be roundly supported, because what kind of rat bastard idiot wouldn’t want to give a little bit of his paycheck so that Tom Hanks can become the official symbol of how great America is?

Please don’t attack my patriotism for suggesting that our politicians are too patriotic, or that our country should act more like Britain, of all places. I just think it’d make our awesome democracy that much better if we could all trust in our love of Tom Hanks (and, by extension, America) and talk about the shit that actually matters.

Truman Capps exercised considerable restraint with regards to Rick Santorum jokes.