Free State Observer

I had my Bill Graham moment last week when I served as promoter of a standing-room-only standup comedy show in ManchVegas. It gave me a few new grey hairs (actually, they just plain fell out), but at least it was a new experience.

Way back in July, a fellow LPNHer who was organizing the annual convention contacted Libertarian comic Doug Stanhope and asked him if he’d be the keynote speaker. If you’re not familiar with Stanhope, here’s an excerpt from his official bio:

Stanhope has been described as a free-thinking nihilist, a vulgar miseriblist, a self-indulgent, drunken washout and a deviant, misanthropic Charles Kuralt. His material ranges from true-life graphic perversion to volatile social criticism. He’s also a bit of a boozehound….He has compiled a wide-ranging television career of dubious achievement.

Now, he is an unabashed big-L Libertarian, and a “famous” (in an incredibly un-PC sort of way) one at that. But if you’ve ever attended an LPNH convention, you know that the average age of the attendees is over 50. Some are quite socially conservative on issues such as abortion, religion, the war in Iraq (in the LP? Please, don’t get me started…). I’ve seen one of Stanhope’s videos, and frankly, I had horrified visions of certain individuals clutching their withered chests and keeling over with shock-and-outrage-induced heart attacks somewhere between the buffet lunch and commencement of the Wonderful World of Robert’s Rules of Order.

Fortunately, Stanhope knows his audience, and declined the invitation, saying “I believe that if I were to do the convention, you’d be asked to leave the party.” He did, however, graciously offer to do a benefit show on behalf of the LPNH, splitting the proceeds 50-50. As my compatriot was already committed to working on the convention, he asked me to spearhead the Stanhope fundraiser, to which I witlessly agreed.

Stanhope would be in the area for a few days in October. My mission: find a cheap (or, preferably, free) venue with a stage, a sound system, and alcohol. I know a few people in New Hampshire who manage or own such venues, and a couple of them are even small-l libertarians. I went first to a fellow Free Stater who opened a bar in Manchester earlier in the year. While not exactly a club, I had heard through the grapevine that he was constructing a private room in the back that might serve my purposes. After face-to-face discussions, it sounded absolutely perfect. There would be a stage, a built-in sound system, and more than enough seating for the expected audience. He wouldn’t even charge me anything, just keep what he made on food and alcohol sales. We made a handshake agreement to commit to one of Stanhope’s available nights (preferably on the weekend), and I left on cloud nine. This was easy! I was brilliant! Score one for Stanhope, my friend’s bar, the LPNH, and me! Just call me Ziegfeld.

to be continued…

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[Note: I'm swamped, getting ready for the Doug Stanhope Fundraiser for the LPNH, amongst other things. I therefore shamelessly dug up a used pre-blog rant for your viewing displeasure.]

I’m pissed.  If harsh language or frank discussion of human sexuality disturbs you, please go away now.

You’ve been warned.
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I give blood sometimes; it seems like the right thing to do.  I’m not afraid of needles and I can handle a little pain, although to be honest I hate the sight of flowing blood and never look at the tubes in the donation room. I don’t even like the sight of fake blood spurting in violent movies. So anyway, I’ve been donating periodically for at least 10 years now. I like to think that if someone I care about needed a transfusion, there’d always be a ready supply.  I wonder, though… I’ve been to blood drives where a room full of nurses are sitting around bored stiff, waiting for anybody to walk through the door.

So why, when blood is needed and a lot of people choose not to donate for a myriad of reasons, does the American Red Cross try so darned hard to screen people out? I find their questions embarassing, and impertinent, and invasive, and irrelevant, and just plain STUPID.  And they ask the same ones every single time, because even though they have my record (with Social Security Number) in their database, and I’ve answered all these questions several times before, most recently just a couple of months ago, they insist on asking them again and again. And after I give the correct answer to every question, they’ll test my blood for all the diseases that the questions are designed to screen for anyway.

I don’t give the nurses a hard time; I know they don’t write the questions, they’re just trying to do their job and maybe even help someone in the process (the guy in the chair next to me today did not seem to know this, and was being quite testy to the poor girl taking his blood).  But to those in the upper echelons of the American Red Cross, the NIH, the CDC, the AMA or whatever the hell is the source of this idiocy, this is how I’d REALLY like to answer your g-d questions:

Q. What’s your first name? Spell it. What’s your last name? Spell it. What’s your address? What’s your phone number?
[repeat three times]

A. Am I donating blood or have I stumbled into a POW camp?

Q. How much do you weigh?

A. Oh come now… I think any nurse can easily see I weigh more than 110 pounds.

Q. How many days have you spent in any of these Western European countries since 1980?

A. Are you kidding me? I’ve been to Western Europe many times. But I was only 11 years old in 1980! I’d be lying if I pretended to know the answer to that question.

Q. How many days have you spent in this list of Eastern European countries?

A. OK, I know Yugoslavia’s not a country anymore… is one of the ones on this list a place I’ve spent time in? Do you have an atlas handy?

Q. Have you ever had sex, even once, with a man who has ever had sex with another man?

A. Did I MENTION I’m from San Francisco?

Q. Have you had any tattoos or piercings within the last 12 months?

A. Did I MENTION I’m from San Francisco?

Q. Have you ever accepted cash in exchange for sex?

A. I’ve accepted DINNER in exchange for sex; does that count?

Q. Have you ever given someone cash in exchange for sex?

A. As a female, I’ve always been curious as to how exactly that works…

Q. Have you ever had sex with a man who has ever given someone cash in exchange for sex, or has ever taken drugs intravenously?

A. Why no, of course not.  I demand a notarized list of all previous sexual partners and illicit recreational activities of every man who wishes to see me socially.  Well, OK, not really. But I ASK them. And hey, a guy with a hard-on would never be less than 100% honest and forthcoming with me, right? 

Q. Have you ever had sex with anyone from the following (African) countries…

A. That sounds pretty racist to me!

And the things they DON’T ask… like,
Q. Have you ever had a medical procedure in a third world country?
A. Yes!

Q. Have you ever vacationed in Thailand, where the children know things children shouldn’t know, and the pretty ladies do awe-inspiring things with ping pong balls?
A. More than once!

Q. Have you ever been so drunk, you couldn’t remember the next day what exactly you’d been doing the night before?
A. No… which I do believe puts me in the minority of my high school and college classmates.
[note: this rant was written prior to PorcFest 2006   ]

!@#$ me for trying to do the right thing. 

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The Deerfield Fair bills itself as “New England’s Oldest Family Fair”.  It’s big… really big.  So big, people have been known to lose their cars in the parking lot and take hours to find them again.  So big that it can easily take 30 minutes to walk from the entrance to the opposite side of the fairground.  It has carnival rides, old-timey agricultural happenings, dog trials, a horse show, acrobats, a beauty pageant, magicians, live music, dancing… and, of course, fried dough, the official junk food of New Hampshire.

I attended the 131st occasion of this epic event to help man person the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance’s booth.  The NHLA is a mere babe in the woods in relation to the fair, having only been founded in 2003.  Booths at the fair are hard to come by, but the NHLA has been fortunate enough to share a booth with the Gun Owners of New Hampshire for the past few years.  My booth partner was a New Hampshire native known in some parts as “the blond bombshell”.  In between bouts of foisting NHLA Legislative Report Cards on hapless bystanders and fielding oddball questions from gun owners, we discussed matters of import: the Ron Paul campaign; men; dieting; Michael Savage; work; triple-L’s wedding; the heinousness of the aging process; alternative medicine; and assorted Free State gossip.  “The Don”, outgoing Political Action Director of the NHLA, ambled by periodically, offering words of wisdom and bottled water.  One guy who stopped by the table, upon learning about the legislative report card, said with mild interest “Oh! I wonder what grade my dad got.” 

Due to the strange geophysical forces at work in New Hampshire [see "can't get there from here" -- anon; "i can't drive anywhere without taking at least one wrong turn" -- jones], one is bound to run into people one knows at the Deerfield Fair, despite the teeming hordes.  I spotted a former State Rep with whom I’ve chatted at a party.  The BB saw her hairdresser and at least two other acquaintances.  The Don saw his neighbor.

Duty served, I joined the crowd in search of greasy, non-nutritious food.  I had been quite psyched about getting some old-fashioned kettle corn, but oddly enough, couldn’t find any for sale.  I went for my old standby of an Italian sausage with all the fixins, and caught part of the tractor pull.  I’m not quite sure what is the point of a tractor pull, and even Wikipedia’s definition didn’t help much.  I await the day when SRL comes to the fair; now THAT’s entertainment!

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