"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Better Than Sex

Better Than Sex is the title of Hunter S. Thompson's book about the 1992 presidential campaign. As I find myself more steeped in the world of politics -- with fair to good results on my sum personal happiness -- I can't help but reflect where all this is leading.

Might I someday run for office? Michael Moore suggested it to the audience at Berkeley last weekend and that gives me the chutzpah to bring it up in public. I might be able to hack it at a low level, but that's rarely a paying gig and I don't come from money. Money is an obstacle to bigger things, but might be raised. But I tend to think that the seamy underbelly of my website might also be an issue.

It shocks me that people are still shocked that I put all this out there. I mean, why not? I did all these things, didn't I? No point in pretending otherwise. But it's a political liability, maybe. I sometimes do think I'm too radical a revelator to make people feel at ease. Perhaps that's just a lack of self-confidence. Sometimes I flip it and think, "fuck you and your obscurity; truth is a live wire dynamo that doesn't end." And then I think "Hubris, Koenig."

Maybe my role is more cultural. I wrote once in a fit of pique in my personal pen and paper journal, wrote as part of a lenghthy jag against Everything, the question, "where is the Hunter S. Thompson of my generation? Probably off somewhere blogging." I was thinking of Justin Hall, but maybe it's me. Somehow that doesn't seem right either.

I know that Frank and I (and others) have talked often enough about how public speakers at political events tend to really suck. I know that I care about a lot of things. I know that I'm halfway decent at articulating a vision if I take some time to figure out what it is before hand. I know that I can turn a pretty phrase, and have an abiding interest in humanity in all it's various kinky permutations.

The question is where does this leave me? I'm wary of the responsibilities of leadership, tending to hide behind my de-centralization mantra, the idea of being an inspiration to other people to be inspiring, to empower people to empower people. This kind of mantra isn't new; it's common to most hucksters. Not that I'm in it for the snakeoil by any stretch, but I look at the words that come out of my mouth and even I can't take them all that seriously. Too etherial. What about the last minute, the time when everything gets done?

No answers tonight of course, and none really needed. Just the stuff that's on my mind having no book to read. I finished Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun today... man does that guy spin out the romance. That triggers a whole other set of things to go on about, but most of it's predictable; think I'll leave it at this for now.

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