My historic discussion with out nation’s third President continue.
After getting Jefferson some more Chamomile to calm his nerves after again getting all riled up over the Brits, he settled down and I resumed in my attempt to get his thoughts about the recent Democratic party struggle and the upcoming election.
Me: Ok, let me take another approach. How did you feel about a woman and a black man running for President and knowing one will fight it out in the national election in November? Their British stances aside.
T.J.: You ask me to put aside gravest matters as if some other healthy topic and idea can grow of such poisoned soil. It is an affrontery to all we hold sacred….and self evident, to ask any man not deranged in his senses to put aside that most likely to destroy him. You may sooner ask me to put aside the wolf that howls at the door in order to concentrate on a rain gutter than to ask me to put aside the British issue. You say you seek to move on in the service of conversational novelty, an idea quite ironic and singular coming from such a trope filled and scandalous muckraker as yourself, but you do not ask me to move on scribe. Nay, it is not a new topic you ask me to jump to. Instead you ask me to countenance. You ask me to abide. You ask me to stand by and watch my descendants immolate themselves. Oh putrid and rank scrivener of fatuous and bankrupt words what you ask me to do is to suffer the Devil himself into my own backyard!
I guess the tea wasn’t working as well as I thought.
Me: Dude I know you’re like an ex President, and one of the better ones at that, but pardon the affrontery to your great dignity and all but you really need to get over this British thing. If we can’t move off it I’m out of here and you can rage against the Anglo machine back where you came from.
He must have seen how annoyed I was and how much attention we had started getting. That and knowing I was his only medium back to the world caused him to throw me a bone. Or maybe it was the hot barrista who was back and smiling at his stockings. He cleared his throat, sipped some tea, and starting bringing the answers.
T.J.: Yes it is historic. Truly the Father’s efforts and mine to bring about a more democratic land that recognized all humanities equality, though slow in it’s growth, has found ripe fruition in the past two centuries.
Me: Would you vote for either?
T.J.: Oh hell no.
Me: Understood. You can take the inequality and oppression out of the era but you can’t take the era out of the man.
T.J: You are an idiot. Do not attempt to be other than that. Idiot.
Me: I’m just saying.
T.J.: Stop, saying. You have nothing to say.
Well he was sort of bringing the answers.
Me: But you get how important and positive this is right?
T.J.: Indubitably.
Me: But you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to serve under a woman or black man am I right?
T.J.: Not even if she hadn’t devolved into such a bitch. Not a chance.
Me: Indubitably. And Obama?
T.J.: He would make a fine assistant. An advisor even. But he owns no land.
Me: Dude, I’m sure he owns a house.
T.J.: Bah. One must own a plantation to truly understand how to manage a large plot of land and what larger plot than this country.
Me: You’re old stomping grounds, Virginia, particularly West Virginia just stomped all over Obama. Polls and interviews indicated pretty clearly it was due to racism. How do you feel about that?
T.J.: We who framed the constitution took it as self evident that changing mens minds were not like climbing a mountain but building one. Just as the creator took his time building the landscape of this world, a fact all science subsequent to my death has verified, building ramparts in mens minds from which they can gain a better view of the world consisting of their own minds and the minds of others, is a lengthy and epic struggle.
Me: It’s been 200 hundred years dude. They don’t even accept the science yet. They think those mountains were put there a few hundred years ago when time and the bible began. Even you guys knew that was bullshit.
T.J.: All men are not only entitled to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, but many to ignorance as well.
Me: But you wouldn’t even vote for either.
T.J.: Not ready dude.
Me: Shouldn’t 200 years be enough. For you and them?
T.J.: Mountains, dude.
Me: But there’s so much more science the past century. It’s not opinion anymore. It’s being awake.
T.J.: Let it go, dude.
Me: You got a problem with the way I talk?
He just laughed kind of snobbishly at that point as if it was, you know, self evident.
Me: Give me something here Mr President?
I said that real snide like again. Touche founding father.Touche.
Me: People in Virginia were all like, “I can’t vote for a Muslim,” and “His name is Hussein. We don’t need another Hussein to worry about.” Another one actually said “we’ve had problems with them black people.” They really said this. And in that annoying banjo twang accent.
T.J.: And it angers you?
Me: Indubitably motherfucker!
T.J.: And you blame me because I lived there?
He saw I was pissed and let me get away with calling him a motherfucker. I think he sensed the malleability and utility of this great word and took no offense. He was a wordsmith. A cunning, cunning linguist. He understood masterful verbiage when he heard it. He did the Presidency like a motherfucker and he knew it. But I was still angry and kept at him. I was gonna nail this guy Colbert style.
Me: No man I blame you because if you pansy asses had had the gumption to tackle the slavery issue a lot earlier and discuss your religious views openly maybe it would have raised the bar on the discourse and snapped us out of this Puritan ignorance.
T.J.: And how many countries have you united?
I didn’t answer. Not because I wasn’t sure of how many but out of principle.
T.J.: How many?
Me: None….
I said grudgingly.
Me: ….That I know of.
I rimshotted the edge of the coffee table.
T.J.: And how many constitutions have you framed?
Me: More than your mother.
T.J.: I see.
Me: Ok I get your point. You did what you thought you could. I get that. Let me ask you this. Was Betsy Ross hot?
T.J.: Compared to your mother.
Me: Touche Mr President. On a different note do you think a more thorough approach to the slavery issue on the part of the founding fathers could’ve done anything to avoid the Civil War?
T.J.: That was a battle for another generation.
Me: But you still used blacks as cannon fodder. And the poor, although they stood to gain little from your revolution. It seems that kind of inequality or hypocrisy wasn’t a battle for another generation.
T.J.: You use too many contractions sir.
Me: We don’t have the kind of time you all had back before cable and dvr.
T.J.: No, indeed we had to give up weeks and months of our lives just to travel from state to state or country to country. It was clearly a fault for which we are truly chastened. May you and your fluidly peripatetic generation forgive us our improper dalliances will you not?
Me: Will we not? See that’s what I’m talking about. “Won’t we,” would’ve saved us all kinds of time. But you gotta make a horse drawn carriage ride from Virginia to Philadelphia out of it.
T.J.: Again, speaking for all gentlemen of leisure of my time, I beg the pardon of such a proud era’s temporally challenged, I believe the term once in vogue not not long ago was, jet set.
Me: Yeah, like maybe in the 70′s.
T.J.: Again I stand dutifully corrected and in awe of your great knowledge and accomplishment?
Me: You’re being sarcastic right?
T.J.: However did you guess? My god but you are surely as to innuendo and conversational nuance as Ben Franklin was to invention and diplomacy.
Me: You kind of suck.
He just kind of shrugged and looked pretty damn content with himself. I continued, having had enough of his evasions, I cornered him thusly:
Me: Enough of your evasions! Mr President, back to my point. Wasn’t it, your revolution I mean, just a revolution for the aristocracy sir?
At this point the 3rd President of these Untied States imitated what I said in baby talk.
T.J.: Iminit ust a wuhvulooshin or da awistocwasy. Wah wah wah.
Me: Pointed rebuttal indeed sir.
I was proud of myself for sounding more like him. And having reduced him to acting more like me. I felt like I could be President. And not just compared to Bush.
Me: What do you think of Bush by the way?
T.J.: My good friend John Adams once wrote that he and his brethren had given so very much to create a democratic country and that if you who we left it to did not do right with it he should turn his back on you in Heaven. I will just say that I have it from the utmost authority on john Adamas, that is the man himself, that he will not be doing any interviews with you or your contemporaries anytime soon.
Me: Bummer. But I feel that. I really do. You know Bush is a Republican. Even though that party wasn’t around in your time Lincoln’s era’s creation of it came out of many of the ideals of your own party. So Bush is sort of politically related to you.
T.J.: THis interview is over.
Me: Sorry man. Really. That was uncalled for. But it shows how marked a change there has been. That’s what I’m saying.
T.J.: Though somethings require much time to change, apparently some do not.
Me: Not you father’s Republican Party you mean? Or at least Lincioln’s.
T.J.: Bush and his ilk are as far from the brand of thinking we believed right for this country and representative of what we considered Republican ideals as Battlestar Galactica is from the original series.
Me: Oh you watch?
T.J.: Indeed.
Me: Who’s the 5th Cylon. I think it’s Hera. I’m like the only person in the entire world saying this. Can’t find a one on the internet even.
T.J.: Well you have found another.
Me: Get out!
I put my hand up and over the table for him to hit me up top but he kind of just looked at me over the bifocals and went back to perusing History For Dummies.
Me: Not familiar with the high five huh?
T.J.: I know what it is.
Me: Oh…..I see.
I cleared my throat and looked around a bit embarrasedly.
Me: Well as long as we’re on pop culture: favorite band?
Jefferson straightened, took a sip of tea, then rubbed his hands together as if warming them by the fire of my question.
T.J.: Well it all depends on what era we are talking now does it not? If we are talking of modernity I will say Schubert. If we are talking the classics I will say Mozart.
Me: Schubert’s been dead for almost as long as you. Can’t you give me something from my lifetime?
T.J.: Van halen.
Me: Van Halen? Really?
T.J.: No but it’s what you want to hear is it not scribe?
Me: Okay but you guys know a lot where you come from. On eternal terms you have to admit Eddy was a master shredder.
T.J.: When his time comes he will take his rightful throne beside the Guitar Gods.
Me: Cool. Beatles or Stones?
T.J.: In matters such as these when one is comparing and contrasting levels unpareil so little of what we choose to distinguish between them can or should be counted germaine outside of the subjectivity of the contemplate himself. But it is also self evident that just because a reputation has been established does not mean is has been earned and in this matter we have good example of this. The Rolling Stones, while iconic, and even important in their era, have long since lost all traces of those characteristics while the Beatles imprint their brand on one new generation after another.
Me: Right on.
T.J.: I am not finished.
Me: Alrighty then.
T.J.: While I recognize the aforementioned qualities of Mick Jagger and his musical hooligans, I must also staunchly aver that much of their reputation as such had to do with timing more than the quality of the music. Even more pointedly must I declare that said music, while having it’s moments and illustrations of memorable, even enjoyable interludes, most of their musical output can be said from any viewpoint not jaundiced by closeness and kinship in their period of greatest output and iconoclastic frame of mind-a mind that would put them in position of alignment with what that band came to mean in their heyday-I put before you and thusly all present Americans that the greater mass of the works of that band, and let me be quite clear about this, I mean the band known as the Rolling Stones; the greater output of said band including most of their singles even when taken apart from the even more declaratively included album output; the vast majority of what that venerated and well spun band issued throughout the decades that include their youth and apex, the majority of it all can be said to give itself charitably to major suckage of the largest possible posterior area known to your generation.
Me: Far out.
T.J.: Indubitably.
Me: Yeah man. Indubitably. The stones suck ass.
I was relieved to hear his opinion on this matter even though I kind of passed out half way through his answer.
Me: Yankees-Red Sox rivalry; your position?
T.J.: I am not finished sir!
Me: K.
T.J.: Now while I must go on to admit the greater and indeed opposite qualities of the Beatles I must do so with the caveat that their influence and popularity was not a boon but rather a blight. ONe only slightly less insidious than that of the Stones so that what is everred is that though they be the clearly better players thyer were, in large part due to this, the worst band!
Me: Wow dude. Because of the drugs? Sex?
T.J.: No! These are of no matter. What was ushered into the consciousness of mankind through the Beatles music, delivered so much more effectively than the Rolling Stones could ever do was dressed in sheeps clothing so as to better fool us from letting leave of barring our gates against tyranny and opression.
Me: Oh shit man. You mean because they were British don’t you?
T.J.: Oh course!
Me: Seriously? So were the Stones.
T.J.: Were you not listening? Due to the more pervasive, and undoubtedly better music made by the so dubbed fab four, a greater and softer route for British ideas and influence than the stones would ever have was created.
Me: Ideas like love and peace?
T.J.: The British know of no such things but only mean to make us into slithering house pets keening for more of their silken laced poison which tries to ready us for invasion by lulling us into pacifistic and lovelorn simpletons!
Me: We’ll have to revisit this. The Yankee Red Sox thing. I need your thoughts on this.
T.J.: While of course always dubious to the Yankee cause herein neither of these organizations, great in their own right and way, can divorce themselves of that geographic designation. But being human I find the constant reminder within the former teams very nickname an obnoxious and unnecessary reminder. It is indeed self evident to me and so to all learned men that it not be as insulting a in its designation in memory to refer playfully and appropriately to the color of the socks a team wears. THis is both charming and aprapos; a far more benign and fitting tribute in light of the nature of the game.
Me: Yankees fucking suck man.
T.J.: You know that sir.
No sarcasm in his tone with the use of sir. It seemed as if me and the president were bonding.
Me: Favorite writer all time? I’m gonna guess it’s not Dickens.
T.J.: You sir are an idiot! A knave. A scoundrel. All these things and more reflected beyond question in your abhorrent taste.
Me: Yeah I like Dickens. What’s wrong with Dickens? His stuff is masterful if a little soap opera-ish. He’s a great writer. I can understand if he’s not your all time favorite but don’t dismiss him because he’s British.
T.J.: What else is there?
Me: Dude. Did you red any of his stuff after your death?
T.J.: We are aware of all things.
Me: And you see no value in his work beyond them being British in origin and for the most part in setting?
T.J.: They are oppressive, trite, juvenile apologia’s for monarchy!
Me: No they’re not.
T.J.: They are!
Me: They’re not.
T.J.: They are!
He pounded the table and I thought it best I let this one go.
Me: But you like the Beatles?
T.J.: Compared to the Stones. Do not compare them to an American band or let them stand of themselves or I shall have to lash out at them as well.
Me: And Lennon was no Royalist.
T.J.: Indeed. His self imposed exile to this country redeemed much of their music in my mind and ears.
Me: Ok, speaking of which, being here got him killed due to the gun issues England doesn’t have. Good question for you. Do you and the rest of the Founding Fathers still think the 2nd Amendment germane?
T.J.: They are all germane scribe.
Me: Germane is a perfectly respectable word dude. But was the amendment meant to encompass machine guns, ak 47′s, and other instruments of easy and mass destruction?
T.J.: Not on this continent certainly. But I would not want to keep my fellow citizens from arming themselves for greater external threats that can only be defended against with whatever means the times allow.
Me: Meaning the British?
T.J.: Damn right!
Me: We should keep rapid fire machine guns around this country to defend ourselves from invasions of the British?
T.J.: I would keep a nuclear bomb in my basement for such occurrences.
Me: Because they might want to take their country back?
T.J.: They still believe it theirs.
Me : I don’t think they do.
T.J.: You are not unused to being wrong are you not scrivener?
Me: About some kinds of things sure.
T.J.: And you have never suffered through a British attack upon your home soil.
Me: Wasn’t even alive for the British music invasion.
T.J.: Then who are you to speak?
Me: Lennon sang about revolution. You said a nation needs one every 15 years or so. Should Americans revolt against this government?
At this Jefferson leaned back, made thinking noises, sipped some tea, smacked a barrista’s ass and resumed.
In a different coffee shop. We got kicked out. T.J. had a lot to learn about modern women. FOr now I will let this enforced break mark and end to part II of these discussions. The final part will be forthcoming shortly.
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