In the meantime, I would drink, rest, and ponder the meaning of this mob.

Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.

Ah, lives there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said As he hunched and rolled in his comfortable bed: To hell with the rent . . . I'll drink instead!

That is the problem with this rich and anguished generation. Somewhere a long time ago they fell in love with the idea that politicians- even the slickest and brightest presidential candidates- were real heroes and truly exciting people. That is wrong on its face. They are mainly dull people with corrupt instincts and criminal children.

The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don't mind admitting it.

I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

You almost have to be a rock star to generate the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.