Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone(45)
A Muskie-Lindsay ticket could be one of those “naturals,” a marriage made in heaven and consummated by Larry O’Brien ... Which gets us back to one of the main reasons why the political wizards aren’t counting on much of a “youth vote” this year. It is hard to imagine even a zealot like Allard Lowenstein going out on the trail once again to whip up a campus-based firestorm for Muskie and Lindsay ... particularly with Gene McCarthy lurking around with that ugly mouth of his, and those deep-bleeding grudges.
There is probably a lot of interesting talk going down around Humphrey headquarters these days: “Say ... ah, Hube, baby. I guess you heard what your old buddy Gene did to Muskie the other day, right? Yeah, and we always thought they were friends, didn’t we? [Long pause, no reply from the candidate . . .]
“So ...ah ... Hube? You still with me? Jesus Christ! Where’s that goddamn sunlamp? We gotta get more of a tan on you, baby. You look gray. [ Long pause, no reply from the candidate . . .] “Well, Hube, we might just as well face this thing. We’re comin’ up fast on what just might be a real nasty little problem for you ... let’s not try to kid ourselves, Hube, he’s a really mean sonofabitch. [Long pause, etc . . .] You gonna have to be ready , Hube. You announce next Thursday at noon, right? So we might as well figure that crazy fucker is gonna come down on you like a million-pound shithammer that same afternoon. He’ll probably stage a big scene at the Press Club—and we know who’s gonna be there, don’t we Hube? Yeah, every bastard in the business. Are you ready for that, Hube Baby? Can you handle it? [Long pause, no reply, etc.—heavy breathing.] Okay, Hube, tell me this: What does the bastard know? What’s the worst he can spring on you?”
Jesus! This gibberish could run on forever, and even now I can see myself falling into the old trap that plagues every writer who gets sucked into this rotten business: you find yourself getting fascinated by the rules and strange quirks of the game. Even now, before I’ve even finished this one article, I can already feel the compulsion to start handicapping politics and primaries like it was all just another fat Sunday of pro football: pick Pittsburgh by 6 points in the early game, get Kansas City even with Oakland later on ... win one, lose one ... then flip the dial and try to get ahead by conning somebody into taking the Rams even against San Francisco.
After several weeks of this you no longer give a flying fuck who actually wins; the only thing that matters is the point spread. You find yourself screeching crazily at the screen, pleading for somebody to rip the lungs out of that junkie bastard who just threw an interception and then didn’t even pretend to tackle the pig who ran it back for 6 points to beat the spread.
There is something perverse and perverted about dealing with life on this level. But on the other hand, it gets harder to convince yourself, once you start thinking about it, that it could possibly make any real difference to you if the 49ers win or lose . . . although every once in a while you stumble into a situation where you find yourself really wanting some team to get stomped all over the field, severely beaten and humiliated . . .
This happened to me on the last Sunday of the regular NFL season when two slobbering drunk sportswriters from the Alexandria Gazette got me thrown out of the press box at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. I was there as a special guest of Dave Burgin, sports editor of the Washington Star ... but when Burgin tried to force a bit of dignity on the scene, they ejected him too.
We were halfway down the ramp to the parking lot before I understood what had happened. “That gin-soaked little Nazi from the Gazette got pissed off when you didn’t doff your hat for the national anthem,” Burgin explained. “He kept bitching about you to the guy in charge of the press box, then he got that asshole who works for him all cranked up and they started talking about having you arrested.”
“Jesus creeping shit,” I muttered. “Now I know why I got out of sportswriting. Christ, I had no idea what was happening. You should have warned me.”
“I was afraid you’d run amok,” he said. “We’d have been in bad trouble. All those guys are from things like the Norfolk Ledger and the Army-Navy Times. They would have stomped us like rats in a closet.”
I couldn’t understand it. “Hell, I’d have taken the goddamn hat off if I thought it was causing trouble. I barely even remember the national anthem. Usually I don’t even stand up.”
“I didn’t think you were going to,” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I knew we were doomed.”