I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I do think that tonight's election will be called after midnight east coast time for ratings purposes, but what the fuck do I know anyways?

Quick catch up on me personally: A lot of people don't know this and think it's completely crazy when I tell them. It almost sounds like "I have a confession to make." For over the last year, my wife has been getting her master's degree in Memphis. So I split my month between Memphis and Boston (I get on a plane at 6am tomorrow morning)-and they're culturally dichotomous places to say the least. I registered to vote in Tennessee-a liberal dickhead like me would just be throwing my vote down the pro-gay marriage, tax & spend well in Massachusetts, so why not register and throw my pro-gay marriage, tax & spend socialism down a freedom-loving, "real-America" red-state well?

Quick catch up on Memphis socially: 70% black. Long history of dealing with race openly, but still has a pretty distinct race divide. If you live in Memphis, we can talk about "the other side of the tracks" pretty openly-much more open and much less cloak and dagger and hidden language than other places I've lived (no offense, Massachusetts, but the Irish and Italians still hate each other over who's the better Catholic-they haven't even got into the "colored" category yet). If you want to talk about the cultural hot-bed of American race relations, you have old cotton money and the city where the former slaves went because in the 1800s and early 1900s Memphis was THE central American town. Then fast forward to the Civil Rights movement and MLK-and you have a very long history of American civil rights here.

This morning-up at 6am. The picture up above. South of Southern & Spottswood-it's the other side of the tracks-literally. The railroad runs on a raised track through town and the cliche was never more on display. That's where my voting precinct was.

Voter location #1 on Spottswood. Show up at 7am on the nose and there's already a VERY long line of some very excited African-Americans who had never voted, a few sparse white liberals scattered in there, but a general vibe of many people voting for the first time. It was pretty incredible to see some elderly folks in wheelchairs or in provided chairs at the location who, you knew, were extremely proud to be voting today because fact is-many people don't leave Memphis. And if you're in that wheelchair-you were here in the 50s and 60s. Even if the vote is in this state guaranteed to go McCain, not a single person there cared about that because historically-this is a huge moment for America.

But then a buzz started at about 7:20 amongst the line.

No one had voted yet.
The machines weren't working. THERE WERE FOUR voting machines. FOUR.
"Turn off your cell phones, the phones are screwing up the machines."
7:30. Nothing.
7:40, people at the front of the line leave "I have to get to fuckin work, man."
7:45....no votes cast.

People start getting REALLY upset-one guy goes on a minute long rant to another calling him a "dumb "n***a" for using his cell-phone in the building-when the person intended for his insult was at the end of the line and didn't hear the technologically idiotic explanation for the voting not working.

No one has any clue what's going on.

We get to the front of the registration line at about 7:55 only to find out we were at the wrong building on Spottswood. One block down, same side of the street, different building. Us, and the four people behind us (all white) go down to the new location.

I couldn't believe my fucking eyes when I walked through the door.

One block away.



SEVEN perfectly functioning voting machines.

Four people registering voters.

Three aids showing you which line to go to.

OH-and there was a grand total of maybe TEN or fifteen non-white people in the room (one Asian and the rest African American).

We were done in 45 minutes of pure efficiency.

Just so I didn't go on some sort of crazy tirade later in the day, I checked back at the other polling station on the way home. The machines were working. The line was LONG as hell, but people were excited to vote and they'd get their chance and at least the machines were working.

You could tell where the Orange Mound vs. Chickasaw Gardens/Buntyn lines were drawn plain as day nonetheless.

This is the first big election where my vote feels like it's going to go to the person who's going to win-or at least looking that way. In 2004, I was on tour and got stuck in an ice storm in-where else-TEXAS. But even then, the apathy was so overwhelming that as we drove through Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri watching the returns in the van-none of it was surprising or any more disappointing than the previous four years. Just more of the same, America is a crazy country that makes no sense to me and here's the proof, and get me the fuck out of this van-that was my thought process.

I guess the point in all of this is that it, in this one situation, the voter disenfranchisement was limited to the guy who left while I was in line at the original station should he not come back later in the day. The real problem and what hit me the most is that it gave me tangible, eyewitness proof that the machines might not always be working somewhere else in America and that is something that is just scary. They might not be as lucky. The quantity of voting machines, the quality of assistance, the clarity of information-ONE BLOCK AWAY-the demographic and equality was so disparate it was shocking. It makes it obvious that there are still some very questionable issues in America's political system that cause me to worry about the validity of Democracy here, but that's the name of the game. Surprise surprise-America's not perfect. And while I'm at it-we're not perfect as a label. Nothing's perfect. But amending and changing should be on the fore-front of everyone's minds as I'm sure this is going to be the first time in over 40 years when the majority of Americans are hanging on every day and every change in America's government.

Let's just not have this be close enough to where some weasels can take the popular vote winner out of office.

In closing let me say this-

President Obama sounds awesome and looks great written out.

And Minnesota-Norm Coleman better be politically unemployed next January. Wellstone FTW.