If only Cursebird, the real-time feed that tracks how people swear on Twitter, had been around then, the lanky railsplitter could have fed his speech through the profanity stream’s back end and walked away with a well-deserved standing ovation:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this cocksucking continent, a new nation of motherfuckers, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all motherfuckers—if not the cunts—are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a bullshit fucking war, testing whether that nation of motherfuckers, or any nation of motherfuckers so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that bullshit fucking war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those unfortunate cocksuckers who here gave their lives that that nation of motherfuckers might live. I refer, of course, to the Northerners, not those slavery-supporting jizz-faced douchebags from the South. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this, plus, realistically, what the fuck else can we do? You think I’m going to pick up a musket and plunge into this unholy fucking shitstorm? Blow me, you asshole-eating pussies.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave cocksuckers, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, because the world is filled with flaming assholes and jerk-offs, but it can never forget what these brave cocksuckers did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which these unfortunate cocksuckers who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead cocksuckers we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead cocksuckers shall not have died in vain—that this nation of motherfuckers, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the motherfuckers, by the motherfuckers, for the motherfuckers—if not the cunts—shall not perish from the earth. Which, as I previously mentioned, is filled with flaming assholes and jerk-offs. If you don’t believe me, wait until you get a load of the fucking teabaggers seven score and six years hence.

So in the interest of full disclosure (and an easy blog post), here are the 15 Reasons I Haven’t Been On Twitter As Much (Including Five I Made Up):

1. Girls’ softball — Both my daughters play, and I attend every walk-filled, interminable game.

2. Irish Step Dancing — My older daughter goes to lessons once a week and I take her because my wife works on Monday nights.

3. P90X — I’m in Week 5 of this intense workout system, which requires at least an hour six days a week. However, when Week 12 is over, nobody will be asking where I’ve been, they’ll be asking how I got those “guns.”

4. Drinking and whoring, whoring and drinking.

5. Running. I’m a competitive runner and this is the time of year when I’m out running a lot. Except when I’m hurt, like now, when I substitute time running with time complaining about injuries.

6. Seemingly ran out of interesting/funny things to tweet. I don’t like to force it; if it’s not there, I just can’t pull the trigger.

7. Recently scored bag of killer weed.

8. A relentless gauntlet of school concerts and shows.

9. Witness relocation program. I know things. Let’s just leave it at that.

10. Work recently has been consuming more time and energy. Yes, I know I should be happy I have a job, blah blah blah. I’m only conditionally happy. Sorry.

11. Bent out of shape from society’s pliers. (Reference, anybody?)

12. Foolishly agreed to be membership chair of my running group, a duty which includes collecting and depositing member checks and maintaining a database. If that’s not bad enough, embezzlement opportunities are nil.

13. Dog-walking responsibilities. Don’t laugh, this has been consuming almost an hour a day most days.

14. Purchased “Terrorist Hunting Permit” for vehicle and felt obligated to fulfill responsibilities.

15. House search. Things are getting a bit cramped in our current home as our three kids get older, so we’re looking around.

So that’s what’s been going on. I’m already getting back on track, though, so don’t write me off yet. The best of Bonedaddy is yet to come.

The thing is, being a socialist and freedom-hater and all, I’m not in it for the money. I just want to be part of something bigger than myself. So I thought up some T-shirt slogans for any enterprising merchandiser to run with. I’m giving these away! Consider them my gift to the teabaggers and those who want to financially exploit them. Especially the latter.

We Are Revolting

Want Proof Evolution Doesn’t Exist? Talk To Me!

Burn All Books. They’re Not Doing Us Any Good

Top Teabagger On Twitter

I’m Not Interested In Your Facts. Or Any Facts.

Glenn Beck Cries Like A Man!

I Get All The Learnin’ I Need From Fox Nooz

Gay Marriage Is So Gay

Obama Is An Illegal Alien, And So Is His Dog

God, Guns And Torture Made America Free

————————

Related Post: A Friendly Warning to Teabag Nation

Gillibrand, of course, was named by Governor David Paterson to replace Hillary Clinton as New York’s junior senator after Hillary was tapped by President Obama to be secretary of state.

It was a terribly misguided appointment; Gillibrand is a DINO’s DINO. Her father is a Republican lobbyist and she interned for former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato. Now there’s someone who will fight for oppressed people against the power structure. Move over, Emma Goldman. But the 20th is a solidly Republican district, and Gillibrand was the first Democrat to hold that seat since 1979 (having been fortunate enough to run against this fat, corrupt, drunken, wife-beating fratboy).

Which was the other reason it was a stupid move by Paterson. Why remove a Democrat from a conservative congressional district and give the Republicans a chance to retake it? I knew the guy was legally blind. I was unaware he couldn’t recognize simple logic staring him in the face.

The special election pitted longtime Albany political hack James Tedisco, the Republican minority leader of the New York State Assembly, against relative unknown Scott Murphy, a 39-year-old venture capitalist from Glens Falls, in the sparsely populated northern part of the district. Coming from more than 20 points behind in the polls eight weeks before the election, Murphy pulled slightly ahead in the final poll over the weekend before the election.

Babes, beer and weed (at least theoretically)

Now it was Tuesday night. I had voted for Murphy in the morning and had a chance encounter with him Tuesday afternoon at The Uncommon Grounds coffee shop in downtown Saratoga Springs, where he was dropping by to urge people to vote. We had a brief conversation in which he invited me to his campaign’s party at the historic Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Spa State Park. He said it would be a great place to “troll for babes.” (OK, I made that part up.)

I got there too early — about 8:30 p.m. — and really had to pace myself with the beer. (I went with Beck’s, a pricey choice at $4.75 — at least until the event went “open bar,” no doubt thanks to some siphoned stimulus funds.) I brought my BlackBerry so I could “live-tweet” the event, thrilling several followers with observations such as, “I appear to be at a table of Corrections Dept. personnel. Chances of scoring weed have skyrocketed.” You won’t hear that on the 11 o’clock news!

There was an awful lot of waiting around. Polls closed at 9 p.m., and because the race was so tight, it was hard for the crowd to develop a collective mood beyond tentatively hopeful — hardly the optimum backdrop for babe-trolling. What you really want is for the women to be drunk on the high of victory (and open-bar beer) or emotionally shattered and thus in need of consoling. (Being married, I couldn’t play either game; I’m just offering an objective assessment.)

By 9:30 or so the ballroom was packed with a healthy mix of idealistic young campaign workers and political veterans — labor people, state workers, etc. Large-screen TVs on either end of the ballroom kept party-goers updated on the votes in each district, while local TV reporters did their live spots on a raised platform in the middle of the room. (None of them seemed destined to rise much beyond the Albany market because, well, they aren’t attractive enough. Cruel, but true. Hey, I don’t make the TV journalism rules.)

As the night went on, Tedisco’s lead of several hundred votes slowly began to shrink. By 10:15 or so the crowd started to get excited because Murphy had pulled even with about 97% of the total vote in. He eventually opened up a lead of more than 100 votes as the counting neared the finish. Murphy’s lead settled in the 59- to 65-vote range by the time 100% of the vote was reported.

The silent sound of sleaze

Around this time Tedisco came on the big screens. The sound was turned down, so you couldn’t hear what he was saying. But the fact that he spoke to his supporters before Murphy spoke to his was telling. I knew he wasn’t conceding — the vote was too close — but clearly he wasn’t happy with how the night was turning out.

About 20 minutes later I heard someone say that Murphy was making his way down to the ballroom to speak to supporters. I fought my way toward the podium through the by-now SRO crowd and waited. Murphy came in to wild applause and cheers. Emma Goldman was with him.

Here’s a YouTube video of Murphy’s election-night speech below. The camera guy was right next to me, so you’re pretty much looking at things just as I was. I will say, however, that video doesn’t quite capture the feeling of being there in the crush of the crowd. It was pretty exciting.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6UirO0TiWI

Murphy was very eloquent and upbeat. At one point he made a reference to Gillibrand as being a great representative of the 20th and a woman in the crowd shouted, “The next president!” Apparently political delusion isn’t restricted to Republicans.

Other notes: Murphy’s wife is the brunette right behind him holding the young child. The numerous other waifs near her were bused in from a local orphanage to dress up the shot. Or they were his other children, nephews and nieces. I forget which.

The camera pan at 2:40 just misses me, but it settles on a nattily dressed gentleman in a well-tailored suit, yellow scarf, shades and checked Trilby. The guy was stylin’ like a motherfucker. My big regret of the night was not getting the name of his haberdasher.

Finally, the photographer in the right foreground for most of the video gave me a couple of dirty looks because I accidentally hit his head a couple of times while holding my BlackBerry up to take pictures. I was just trying to do my job, dude, just like you. Also, I’d like to point out that you got scalp oil all over my smartphone. So really, who’s the victim?

The election is far from settled. More than 10,000 absentee ballots were issued. They have to be postmarked by March 30, and the final results are due to be announced April 13. The National Republican Congressional Committee already is playing the “we can’t allow them to steal this election like Al Franken is trying to steal the election in Minnesota” card. It’s called counting all the votes, assholes. Oh, right, the Republicans consider that cheating.

And as unimpressed as I am by Emma Goldman, I’ll be physically ill if that Albany pukebag ends up as my congressman. Oh well, I survived (barely) eight years of the Texas Dunce in the White House. I can live through this. But I sure as hell don’t want to.

But I’m not happy about it at all. It looks like the work of a hack! I mean, granted, it is. Still, even bloggers with lesser tech skills than myself have better-looking Twitter boxes. There are at least two major problems:

1. WordPress doesn’t support the Twitter badge. WTF? It’s simple code! Get with it, WordPress. Instead, WP gives me this clunky workaround where I can put an RSS widget on the blog for my Twitter feed. No flash, nothing. It’s like one step above a pencil. No wonder I keep reading that TypePad is better.
2. My Web host, bluehost.com, doesn’t support TypePad.

Here’s how I see my options. I can:

1. Try to “make do” with the stone knives and bearskin with which I’m currently working. Then I run the risk of becoming the laughingstock of the Twitterverse. Again.
2. Find more Twitter tools for WP and see how they work. I already have uncovered a good article by some WordPress developer in Georgia named JTk who lists his “favorite half dozen Twitter related WordPress plugins.” I’ll probably give those a try, though at first glance I don’t see an option for making the Twitter feed more attractive on the blog page. And really, that’s what I’m about — superficiality and good looks.
3. Bail on WP and try TypePad. But can I do that if my Web host doesn’t support it? You know, just associate my TypePad account with the bonedaddyking.com domain name (so “typepad” isn’t part of the URL)? I don’t know anything about this stuff. I’m not a designer, tech guru or magician. I’m just a court jester in my own kingdom, who might have to run out and buy a bunch of pencils.

Any constructive suggestions or input would be highly appreciated.

Update: Things have gotten worse! I saw another WordPress blog by PBCliberal (highly recommended) that has a much better-looking Twitter widget than my ugly RSS feed thing. Powered by Twitter Tools. So like the foolish optimist I am, I download and activate Twitter Tools, expecting the same modest magic. Instead, I get this message after clicking the “Test Login Info” button in Twitter Tools Options:

“Are you kidding with this lame shit? Do you think anyone cares about your pointless blog or your inane Twitter feed? Stop wasting your life!”

Oh, sorry, that was an email from my wife. Here’s the message from Twitter Tools:

“Sorry, login failed. Error message from Twitter: This method requires authentication.”

Idiots, I am authenticating it. I’m the fucking authenticator. The username and password are correct. Don’t do this to me or I’ll issue multiple empty threats.

So then I realized I still had my trusty fallback; you know, the one I pointed you to (“on the right”) at the beginning of this post, the RSS feed? Except suddenly it’s not so trusty:

“An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.”

The feed isn’t down, but my spirits are. Speaking of spirits, did you know that in the colonial era people used to begin their mornings with a stiff drink (usually rum) to get things kick-started? I’m just sayin’.

Update No. 2: I finally got my Twitter Tools login authentication to work. Yes, it was operator error. Shut up. But then bedlam ensued. All my tweets were showing up as blog posts, even after I seemingly disabled that option in Twitter Tools. I deactivated Twitter Tools for now and deleted the tweets from the blog. When I have a few moments to concentrate, I’ll try to work out the kinks.

I also got the RSS feed to show up on the right again (using the correct URL can work wonders, I’m learning). Which means the blog is back to the unsatisfying state that prompted this post. And yet I feel good about it. The soft bigotry of low expectations.

– Bonedaddy King