{"id":1286,"date":"2014-11-03T08:49:42","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T16:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slowsuburbandeath.com\/?p=1286"},"modified":"2014-11-03T08:49:42","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T16:49:42","slug":"1286","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/?p=1286","title":{"rendered":"Daddy teaches me how to to eliminate Public Enemy No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"raygun\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My father forced me to go to the polling booth with him every year.\u00a0 Dressed in my Catholic school uniform, I would walk with him to the local polling station, where he would force me to stay in my spot as he moved towards a heavy apparatus that looked like an essential part of Frankenstein\u2019s laboratory. My eyes travel along the route of the snaking black cords that looped on the floor and into the voting machines, where my father seemed to pull little black levers.<\/p>\n

When it was all over, my father would mutter something about Governor Ronald Reagan.\u00a0 He hated Ronald Reagan, whose first name I once believed was \u201cGoddamn\u201d.\u00a0 My father would do anything to eliminate the earth of Reagan, Nixonand even San Francisco\u2019s Mayor Joseph Alioto.<\/p>\n

Voting, he used to tell me, was his way of trying to stop the advancement of tyranny.<\/p>\n

This was an act of patriotism that my father passed on to both my sister and I.\u00a0\u00a0 When I was old enough to vote, my father insisted on coming with me to the local voting precinct.\u00a0 I prepared my list of candidates and propositions after perusing the local newspapers and the thick San Francisco voter pamphlet that seemed to be part joke book filled with the colorful names of cab drivers, club owners, strippers and artists who were in search of a seat in local office.\u00a0\u00a0 I finally settled upon my chosen lists of candidates to reflect my life as a young University college student caught in the romantic throes of toothless punk anarchy.\u00a0\u00a0 I wanted Jello Biafra of the \u201cDead Kennedys\u201d to become mayor over Dianne Feinstein, and I wanted California to leave gay people alone.<\/p>\n

It was simple.\u00a0 I had spent my high school years participating in marches protesting the reduction in education spending, attempts to build a nuclear power plant on a fault line and Robert Dornan\u2019s repeated attempts to terrorize the gay community.\u00a0 Voting would now allow me an official voice to shout into a vast canyon of ideas that would be molded into laws and leaders.<\/p>\n

My father, however, was bitterly disappointed that I had cast my Mayor vote for Jello Biafra, the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are stupid,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cWhat if he wins?\u201d<\/p>\n

I tried arguing my point, letting rebellion and angst lace my vitriol.\u00a0 My father closed his eyes when my hair had gone purple and the clothing began to become weird and wicked.\u00a0 On this point, however, he was immovable.\u00a0 He had taught me the importance of voting, and now believed that his general failure to communicate had produced the country\u2019s latest imbecile in fishnet stockings.<\/p>\n

Like him, I wanted a better world.\u00a0 My idealism and politics was expressed whenever I sat in cafes with friends, helped put on benefit concerts at the local clubs, wrote about music and film and in college, where my friends and I filled the late night San Francisco airwaves with punk music.<\/p>\n

As I grew older, my father frowned when I began to skip the smaller elections.\u00a0 I could hardly juggle work, school and an active social life, and the polling booth only became important for the big issues and candidates.<\/p>\n

He began to go alone to the polling station for many years until it was the very last one of his life.<\/p>\n

Now blind and in the final stages of\u00a0 mesothelioma, which made breathing impossible, I spent election night with my father.\u00a0 He was far too weak to make it to the polling booth but was desperate to erase all legacies of Ronald Reagan\u2019s presidency from office.\u00a0\u00a0 With the help of a volunteer from the Democratic party, we spent the next hour helping my father walk the half block distance to a Karate studio so he could cast his final vote.<\/p>\n

We would return my father to his favorite chair so he could listen to the television.\u00a0 Participating in his favorite patriotic duty had exhausted him, but he was proud and happy for the few seconds it took for the television to warm up and announce that the Republican candidate had won the presidency.\u00a0 I watched as my father slumped, shook his head and become swallowed in bitterness.<\/p>\n

On elections nights, I still picture my father struggling to hold onto my arm as he made his way up the small hill, shuffling his puffy feet that had pulsed like half-filled water balloons in his slippers.<\/p>\n

I got the message.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(c) 2014 Slow Suburban Death.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My father forced me to go to the polling booth with him every year.\u00a0 Dressed in my Catholic school uniform, I would walk with him<\/p>\n

Continue readingDaddy teaches me how to to eliminate Public Enemy No. 1<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,10,37,39,43],"tags":[333],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annapirhana.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}