| This means more to me now than it did
back then. An Open Letter to President George W. Bush by Kurt Hernon “Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” - Johnny Rotten, 1979 Dear Mr. President, With all due respect: Step down
now. Resign! This request comes not because of anything you did or did not do (because,
quite frankly, I believe that you’re a nice guy and all), it comes because your
predecessor has left us with the tease of the American century - and a foul taste in our
mouths. You see, he wanted to be, and he mostly pretended to be someone he wasn’t.
And along the way of his beautiful charade he took the whole lot of us - the American
people damn it! - for one king-hell of a weird, wild, and wholly pointless ride. Like some slick hillbilly used car salesman William Jefferson Clinton sold us a big fat lemon. He played us like fiddles and hinted at being something he never could be. And now, through no real fault of your own Mr. President, we need to know what it could have been like had Mr. Clinton actually been the man he (and we) thought he was. So, I believe, in the very best interest of your beloved country, it’s time for you to step aside. It’s high time you make room for (hell, you can lead the way big boy!) some wiggling of the old Constitution just a bit in order to give the people the man they thought they were voting for back in ’92. George Walker Bush leads America - the world! - by moving aside to make way for the one, the only, the man Bill Clinton wished he were - Kris Kristofferson! It is (and I know you are way
into these sort of semantics) the right thing to do Mr. President. Step aside now! Think
about it. Hell, it’s perfect! The Monument/Legacy label has just re-released Mr.
Kristofferson’s 1970-debut record Kristofferson. So your immediate resignation
would be unbelievably timely. You, of course, remember that record don’t you? Kristofferson?
Or, perhaps you owned a repackaged copy of the same record. The label re-released it a
year after the original pressing under the title Me and Bobby McGee after the
popular song (it scored some points with a Texas chick named Janis something in the early
70’s, did you know her?). My most sincere apologies if you aren’t familiar with
the platter. It certainly isn’t my intent to make such a powerful man feel uneasy, it’s just that, unlike so many of my colleagues, I sort of took you for a hipster underneath those blue drab suits (fashion tip from someone who has avoided fashion for a lifetime: the red ties suck). It’s a winner of a record, recorded by an, um, very intelligent (re: smart) guy (Rhodes Scholar…ask your secretary, she’ll explain) who also happened to become (you’ll like this!) an Army Captain (what branch were you in? you and he might have something in common - war stories or something you know?). And the damn thing contains more brilliant hippy wisdom and passion than most any baker’s dozen of the drug-addled slop that rolled of the presses on either side of it at the time. So, if (and that’s a mighty big “if” - because I’m truly diggin’ you as a hep-cat in hiding) you haven’t heard it, well, you ought to give it a whirl. And hey, to top it off, it’s even (sort of) country (so put yer boots on cowboy!). But most of all, it seems to me
that Mr. Kristofferson is exactly who former President Clinton was sadly toying at being
for those eight strange years. Kristofferson is the guy we thought we were getting, but we
never knew it (psst! - just between you and me; you know how Clinton was always hanging
around Babs Streisand? Well this cat did a movie with the girl, hehe, wink, wink,
nudge,nudge - so make what you will of that!). Anyhow, given the chance, I believe the
American people would embrace the idea of a smart, good-looking, and wildly talented guy
who could drip sublime sarcasm like Kristofferson did when he penned and sang “Blame
it on the Stones”. Christ! The guy’s a realist! What a refreshing change in our
nation’s highest echelons! I mean come on: “Mr. Marvin Middleclass is really in
stew / wondering what the younger generation is coming to / and the taste of his martini /
it doesn’t please his bitter tongue / blame it on the Rolling Stones” is some
seriously prescient shit. Excuse my language Mr. President, but as silly as those thoughts
sound thirty years later, even you cannot deny (having been a punk kid of said generation)
the very real implications of those words. And the fact of things is that they still
apply! Maybe not in such an obvious socio-political manner (again - ask your secretary),
but covertly this same wickedly bent attitude that Kristofferson poked fun at still haunts
our country. Now this’un will probably remind you of those great storytelling eves with your Granpappy Prescott, but listen to this story - there’s something going on deep underneath what you’re hearing on the surface. Being the sage politician I know you are, I am damn sure you can relate to Kris K. when he winks and nods at the folks with his chilling tenor and tells ‘em: “I ain’t saying I beat the devil / but I drank his beer for nothing / then I stole his song”. No wonder these damn songs drove none other than Johnny Cash himself to poetry (see the liner sleeve). Christ man, just loosen your lousy red tie, dig this stuff for a few days out in some cabin on the Texas south-forty, and you’ll come out wanting to vote for the man yourself. I don’t have to tell you how damn historic “Me and Bobby McGee” is (“freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” - Jesus man, think about that for a good minute!). Hell, I’d say that song might be the most completely American song ever laid to tape. You shouldn’t even be allowed to run for office in this country until you’ve listened to that song! (Something to think about while we have the Constitution opened up for repairs.) I can go on and on and on… “Help
Me Make it through the Night” - I mean, come on now, this is an eternal country rock
classic in its most fantastic form here! “The Law is for Protection of the People”:
just another song that explains more about our country than most folks would care to
believe in these silent Days of Fear (you say “that was then” - I say “this
is now” as much as it was then). “Casey’s Last Ride”, “Darby’s
Castle”, and “Duvalier’s Dream” are all smart social commentary of the
sort that seems entirely unfashionable these days, hell, the way I see things going they’d
probably bull-whip Kristofferson if he got on stage to sing this shit today. But get into
these songs and you soon know that this isn’t just your run-of-the-mill lyrical lip
service. No, you just can’t sing with the kind of intense and direct passion that
Kristofferson does on these performances and not mean every word you are saying. No siree!
Although, I realize that all of the sideways political speak that is the norm today can
really twist a man’s brain like an old damp rag, so much so that you can get all
turned around and flip-flopped from reality. So maybe you’d better get this disc soon
and let it sink the fuck in for awhile. Cuz, even Presidents need a little real life
religion every now and then. “Then I headed back for home / and somewhere a lonely bell was ringing / and it echoed through the canyons like the disappearing dreams of yesterday”. Disappearing dreams of yesterday, evaporating faster and faster and faster…. I’d thought originally that maybe it’d help things along if I just sent a copy of this Kristofferson record your way. But over the past month or so my doubts as to whether anything from me would actually reach you have swelled. So I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe, Mr. President, you just ought to get a copy of this record for yourself and give it one good listen, and then quickly resign. We can work out a way to appoint Mr. Kristofferson President, and then, after these themes on Kristofferson sink in, maybe you can come back and we’ll try this Mr. President thing again. Maybe… Like I said earlier, this is by no means a personal thing, and is in no way a reflection on you and your effort. It’s just that, from the looks of Bill Clinton’s pretty sharp recent popularity poll numbers, I think the country still wants the guy who Clinton said he was. That guy is Kris Kristofferson Mr. President (actually, this sort of thing could probably boost your numbers too - and make you really hip with us in the music set!) The bottom line is: We were duped! What an unholy mistake we made! We put the wrong fellow in office in 1992 and got cheated. Ten years ago William J. Clinton grabbed a brass ring and carried it to Washington D. C. pretending - or better yet, portending - to be the avatar of change. We wanted that change - we really did. What we really got was a guy who turned out to be an opportunity squandering opportunist (is that possible? With Clinton of course it is, anything is); a bloated fairly selfish frat-boy (no offense to your Frat house sensibilities Mr. President - he was one of those other sort of frat boys); and a great communicator who knew what to say and when to say it. We ended up with a guy who wanted to be someone he wasn’t - someone he probably never could be. He was a phony rock and roll star politician; a glorious and personable ladies man who the guys all loved; a fellow with a big heart and whip-smart intellect but no acumen; the Captain of a smooth sailing ship who quickly figured out that it is better to go for the ride than to try and grab hold and steer. All of which is just fine by me - an avowed non-political stooge - if it just weren’t for the bucket-load of maudlin media reverence that had accompanied the Clinton flotilla to office. But it becomes three-dollar steak stuff when you finally get around to realizing that the real deal - the swaggering personage that Bill Clinton fancied himself - wasn’t embodied by the man himself, but rather was always out there being aped by the man who ruled the world. It turns out that we voted in an enigmatic and captivating façade of the man we should have had. We, as a nation, blew it, and the so-called Baby Boomers, as a generation, squandered the moment. And to think, all the while, he was out there…waiting. Kris Kristofferson - the man Billy Clinton wanted to be. Ultimately, Mr. President, I find no use for tying politics to my music. None whatsoever. However, again, I have found that most thinking and feeling peoples have no room in their hearts for any sort of polarizing dogmatic political bigotry. In today’s day and age of the “muddled middle” I find that most of my cohorts share a cafeteria version of the American Ideal, politically speaking. They take the things that they truly and deeply believe and are willing to tweak those truths with doses of practical realism that seem to frighten those situated too far to either side of the political scrap heap. It is in these margins that I find the debate sometimes worthwhile, but still not applicable to me explaining away any fervor I may have for the new Ass Ponys disc, or the recent Dwight Yoakam show I saw (another cow-poke fer ya!). So this plea, this urgent begging of you to step aside, is not politically motivated. It really isn’t Mr. President, it’s just that we suffered through eight years of false promise with a guy who stole the identity of the man we really wanted and needed! And I believe that you have the courage of leadership to fix this horrible, horrible wronging of the American people. Mr. President, your country needs you, more than ever on this one. So I beg of you, please, pass the torch to Mr. Kristofferson and we’ll forever be indebted to you (isn’t that why you folks get into politics in the first place?) With the utmost homage (um…yes, ask your secretary!), Kurt V. Hernon |