Seeing that this issue brings the annual, always insufferable package of endorsements from The Stranger's "Election Control Board," I decided to skip ahead to the music section, hoping for something soothing. What I found instead were the jarring, no-doubt amphetamine-induced rantings of one ERIC GRANDY, who apparently transported himself across state lines recently (I would assume there is a chargeable offense in that act alone) in order to view a "performance" by some people who call themselves, nonsensically, "Of Montreal." Why Mr. Grandy needed to travel to New York City to see a man "gently stroking" a horse onstage, backed up by five accomplices—whom Mr. Grandy describes as "dressed in a tutu, a tuxedo, cowboy attire, an Afro, and a vaguely shamanic cloak, respectively"—boggles the mind. Here we are in the midst of a financial crisis, and this debt-ridden rag buys a plane ticket for a maladjusted writer to go on a junket with a bunch of degenerate maniacs? Would it not have been one of those prudent "cost-saving measures" that Mr. Keck is always enacting these days (like firing the woman who used to empty my ashtrays, a service I dearly miss) to have Mr. Grandy stay closer to home and report on the goings on in this office—which, in any case, regularly feature a man "gently stroking" a horse (Mr. Mudede), a man dressed in a tutu (Mr. Savage), a man-child wearing a tuxedo (the pompous Mr. Frizzelle, of course, and it is a ratty one at that), a bedraggled woman picking at an Afro (Ms. Barnett), and a spindly character sporting a vaguely shamanic coat (Mr. Kiley, who of course is more snake-oil-salesman than shaman)? I shall take this up with the travel office. When I was at RAND, we had a phrase for people who traveled to New York to see bands named after Canadian cities. It starts with a Q and rhymes with "queer."
In other irritations to my acid reflux, I subsequently perused the aforementioned endorsements and am dismayed to report that they hew strictly to the Weather Underground line, promoting un-American terrorists (Barack Obama), vaguely American terrorist sympathizers (Joe Biden), and that wrinkled old Hussein-hugger Jim McDermott. Here are my endorsements, for the legions of readers who have asked for them as a counterweight to what they knew would be an unprecedented display of cerebral carnage by the so-called Election Control Board: John McCain, Dino Rossi, Rob McKenna, Sam Reed, Doug Sutherland, and anyone else with the good sense to boast "GOP" next to his name in these uncertain times. Also: No, no, and no on efforts to raise my—excuse me, your—taxes.
Finally, a word to ELI SANDERS, who offers yet another pathetic attempt at local political analysis in his piece "Red Scare." Mr. Sanders, I lived through a red scare. In fact, I helped orchestrate a red scare. You, sir, are not worthy of attempting to whip one up. I await your apology for wasting my time and this paper's (hopefully finite) supply of ink. 
