I guess the title is a bit morbid sounding, but it’s not going to be a sad entry.  I promise.  

Of late I have a lot of time on my hands.  Let’s say my professional home has been imperiled by a certain short fingered vulgarian, thank you Graydon Carter for that, if you read this blog and I know you do.  

Since I have all of this time, I get to think about what I might do now that pursuing pipe dreams isn’t such a pipe dream.  I’ve dreamt of traveling across America, in one way or another but not in a vacation way, but in a sort of “there’s a purpose to this” kind of a way.  Maybe it’s romantic, but the idea of traveling across America as a part of a political campaign has just always stuck in my mind.  

Herman and I had this favorite movie of ours called Primary Colors.  I guess this is the real source of that dream.  

Let’s go back to a simpler time.  Al Gore had just invented the internet.  Cell phones were for making phone calls and little else.  Gas cost a dollar.  And we had a president named William Jefferson Clinton.  Oh we loved Clinton.  The economy was good and no big international crises.  Life was good.

But then there was Clinton.  When I tell the young people about Bill Clinton, I tell them about when he got on television and said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”  And as a nation, we all laughed.  As a nation, we all laughed.  

Every president has the honor of getting made fun of and Clinton had the honor of being made fun of by the dearly departed Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live.  When Clinton started his presidency, he tried to jog around DC, with his security detail.  He had a habit of jogging to McDonalds.  On SNL, Clinton jogs to the Golden Arches and the secret service agents tell him that Mrs Clinton has said they cannot let him go to any more fast food restaurants.  And then Phil Hartman delivers the following Clinton-esque line: There’s gonna be a whole bunch of things we don’t tell Mrs Clinton about.

As far as Clinton went, we were all in on the joke.  Needless to say, the man was utterly loved.  

Well, I guess not by everyone.  In 1996, “Anonymous” wrote “Primary Colors,” a roman à clef as the French say about a charismatic, telegenic southern governor who had a way with the ladies and ambitions as big as they come.  In 1998, the movie Primary Colors came out.  I doubt the movie is well known anymore, as novels don’t rock the world like they used to and now political news is broken via memes.  No joke.  People reported finding out about the short fingered vulgarian’s assassination attempt via a meme about getting your ears pierced at Claire’s.  

But back to a simpler time.  “Anonymous” turned out to be written by Joe Klein, a columnist and acolyte of Bill Clinton.  

The story is told through the eyes of Henry, a wide eyed campaign aide, who gets to see how the political sausage gets made and let’s say he doesn’t like what he sees.  It stars John Travolta as Clinton, Emma Thompson as his Mrs and my favorite character, Billy Bob Thornton as James Carville, the architect of Clinton’s rise and a man whose thanksgiving dinners probably consist of hand to hand combat.  He is a Democratic strategist and his wife is Republican strategist.  I do not want to be around THAT dinner table. 

I love two things about that movie.  Number one, there’s the travel through these weird corners of America that aren’t the ones that are in the tourist brochures.  You gotta eat a lot of pancake breakfasts and kiss a lot of babies if you want to be elected president of the United States.  

The second thing I love is the Billy Bob Thornton character’s absolute dedication to saying the funniest, wrongest things at the worst times.  At one point in the movie, he’s in the room with two aides, the aforementioned wide eyed innocent and another aide who has a more cyclical view on things.  The campaign is going badly.  They are dealing with another one of the southern governor’s scandals involving a member of the opposite sex.  They are in some random place, the three of them sitting on a bed.  Billy Bob asks “can I sleep here tonight?  Your room is so much cleaner than mine.”  In unison, the other two tell him no.  Billy Bob departs and says — a pro knows how to say goodbye.  

I can’t explain why I found this so incredibly funny.  How messy could Billy Bob’s room have been???  How many times had he asked to sleep in that room??? WHY was he asking?  

Herman and I might have seen ourselves a little bit in this movie.  Herman had worked for Senator Robert Torricelli as young person.  I think he envisioned himself being a “body man” for politician.  To my international audience, a “body man” is a person who manages the life of a politician.  That guy clearing out the path for the little political prince to walk through?? That’s the body man.  

Me, I liked the whole weird wandering around the country aspect of the movie.  Mississippi today, Missouri tomorrow.  We’re going to Louisiana tomorrow.  Did I mention we’re hitting California before Ohio.  

Somehow this was one of the most quoted movies between Herman, especially the line “a pro knows how to say goodbye.”  One day I emailed Herman after one of my Copenhagen escapades and he emailed me back one singular line.  A pro knows how to say goodbye. 

As I write this entry, I’m rewatching Primary Colors for the millionth time.  There’s no one in my life now that gets this movie or has even seen it or has even heard of it.  Now it’s just memories of Herman and I watching this movie together and yelling the lines out at random times.  We had a kind of shorthand that we spoke in.  There’s no way to say this but I do still wish Herman was here so we could yell out the lines and laugh.  

Herman never got to be a body man but I still wish I could travel America with a political campaign.  With how things are going, weirder things have been known to happen.  Oh and do I have some photos??? Well, yeah.  I have seen a chunk of the country, here’s a little sampling of them.  You are welcome.