Undulations

Living in West LA, the reality of the mortgage meltdown tends to remain an abstraction I’ve read about in the countless stories devoted to it in the last couple of years. Sure, there are homes up for sale with “bank owned” signs and people I know are out bargain hunting for homes they can actually afford now. But the fabric of the culture in such a large city remains by and large untouched.

I encountered lots of empty houses during my shifts this weekend, which made the desert feel more deserted during certain stretches. The telltale signs of a vacated home (no doormat, dusty windows, weeds growing in the cracks of the sidewalk) were prominent, and more than one person I encountered reminded me that Clark County is one of the worst hit by the housing crisis in the country.

Which, of course, meant that not many of these minds needed changing. It’s all about building enough excitement to get them to cast their vote now.

It’s about 85 degrees and sunny out here. The energized worker bees buzzing out for Obama in this desert fall day are quite a sight to see. Getting news that the crowd for the St Louis rally that happened earlier is estimated at 100,000 just makes me want to knock on a whole bunch more doors after I finish this jug of Gatorade.

“Is that water in the distance?”

“Nah, that’s The Mirage.”

Har-har…

Well hello, gaudy, over-the-circus-top weekend home...

I have neglected Undulations pretty much since its inception, posting only the most sporadic tidbits over the last year. But that is all changing this weekend! I’m in Vegas to volunteer for the Obama campaign, so I thought that would be a good time to kick start the blog for real.

I drove up with a cold (woohoo!). I was trying to set the mood for the weekend by listening to AM radio when I hit Ontario, but it was a little too surreal to be snaking up Hwy 15 hearing half-baked talk radio rants while my sinuses throbbed. The nonsense spewed in the AM dial is astounding. I could only take it for about 15 minutes and wound up switching to one of the Joseph Campbell CDs where he’s being interviewed by Bill Moyers instead. It says something about my state of nerdom that I kept rewinding choice bits about “the hero’s journey” and “the role of myth in morality” to let them soak in some more. Oh yeah, my car was bumpin’.

This morning I’m setting off to “area 6” in southwest Las Vegas, where I’ll go through a short training session in whatever it is I’ll be doing (please let it be door to door in the barrios!). I installed the WordPress app on my iPhone, so I may be doing minor updates as the day goes on – especially if something fun happens, like we get chased out of a parking lot by a mob of McCain supporters waving torches and pitchforks. There I go fantasizing again…

Likely it won’t get that salacious, but I’ll definitely post in the evening with more thoughts and impressions. And remember: “please your mama, vote Obama.” Well said, H. Linn.