Monday, September 17, 2007

Steaks Alive!

Harkin Snake Fry

When the stakes are high with candidates begging to be grilled by pundits fired up by metaphor, the media return like swallows to Indianola, Iowa, home of the Blog Party News Network (BPNN) headquarters and (as Dave Barry says, "I'm not making this up") the Hot Air Museum.* Actually, it's a hot air balloon museum, but the allusion worked for Senator Tom Harkin's (D-IA) Snake Fry, a chance for party faithful to get drunk while roasting what might possibly be the next President of the United States plus a half-dozen future losers. During the quadrennial Kiss-the-Senator's-ring-and-win-a-caucus event, hungry candidates smile 'til their cheeks ache and promise "Change" 'til their noses reach the White House.

Senator Johnny John Edwards, esq. (D-N/SC) set the tone in his direct examination of the crowd by announcing that the '08 election was over, and that Democrats should quit bickering among themselves and kick the tar outta former President Hillary Clinton. Whereupon, Clinton, unrecognizable at first without her husband hovering overhead, said, in cross-examination how much she enjoyed being President and to show her gratitude, showered the 12,000 attending fans with cash, which they were forced to return upon FEC investigation immediately following the concert.

As the sun set over the subdivisions rapidly replacing farmland in this once bucolic Des Moines suburb, Senators Joey Bidentime (D-DE) and Bill Blain Richardson III (D-NM) drank beer and told long jokes that no one got. Barack Obama (D-Chicago) looked concerned but cool throughout his guitar solo, which went well, until during his finale he tried unsuccessfully to light his guitar on fire, at which point both the Indianola fire chief and Mrs. Obama demanded to know where he got the lighter and was he secretly smoking again. Obama deflected the queries with a universal health care plan and a call for troop withdrawal.

Closing act, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), rhymes with 'God,' wowed the crowd with a reading from Adam Smith in Spanish while changing a diaper. The 3% of the audience remaining applauded with polite constraint in lieu of hope.

Notable by his absence was Dennis Kuspinich (D-OH!), an admitted vegetarian campaigning in a state renowned for its pork. Dennis, instead, participated in the competing Melon Fry held in Muscatine, Iowa, a town known for its Muscatine melons, tongue piercing salons and the Max Allen Collins Mystery Writer's Workshop, held every fall inside the refurbished Road To Perdition Amphitheater along the Mississippi River.

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*There really is a hot air museum in Indianola, Iowa. For more go to: http://www.nationalballoonmuseum.com/

Dateline Indianola, Iowa, Artie Azzetti, editor-at-home-for-once, The Blog Party News Network (BPNN), (c), all rights, rightfully acclaimed.

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