GK: Election Day is upon us, a proud day for all Americans, when we go to the polls to exercise our right as a free people to choose our representatives. An inspiring day, a day to feel patriotic, even though so often we see the process subverted by demagogues and we see wonderful candidates defeated, humiliated, thrown down in the dust, by agitators and rabble-rousers --- good people defeated by half-truths and character assassination ---
SS: Oh shut up.
GK: By smears and slanders and misinformation.
SS: Oh, go stick your head in a toilet. Who asked you?
SS: It's time for all good working folk to rise up in disgust
And haul them buggers off their thrones and hurl them in the dust
And kick em in the butt and take the riches that they stole
And give em each a shovel and shove em down the hole.
CHORUS: Glory, glory, revolution,
That's the only good solution.
Workers of the world unite against the filthy rich
And throw them in the ditch.
GK: Democracy is a beautiful thing, and yet, when people are ill-informed, good working people get fooled and instead of using the democratic process in their own interest to achieve good for themselves, they use it to punish people who are --- who knows how ---- who become scapegoats....targets of their resentment....
SS: Oh, just stuff it. Take a hike.
It's time for all you working stiffs and ordinary joes
To overthrow the lawyers in their fine imported clothes
And the bankers and the brokers and the hosts of radio shows
And poke them in the nose.
Glory, glory, revolution,
That's the only good solution
Workers of the world unite against the filthy rich
And throw them in the ditch.
GK: Scapegoating the wealthy is so common in an election year --- and just when there are serious issues to be decided and the electorate needs to make reasoned informed choices about policy, instead the voters express their resentments, and an election turns into a witch trial, and it's always the achievers in a society who are made the targets, it's the ones who've had the wit and the ambition to do something....
SS: Oh, sit down. If I want to hear from you, I'll stick a nickel in ya.
(SAXOPHONE PICKUP)
CHORUS: It's time for working people now to rally and defeat
The wealthy and the powerful and haul down the elite
And all the educated bums in panelled office suites
And throw them in the street.
Glory, glory, revolution,
Income re-e-distribution
Take away their vintage wines and let em all drink beer
And stick it in their ear.
GK: I hate to see this divisiveness, this animosity, this ---
TK: Shut up.
GK: What?
TK: Shut up.
GK: But how can you say that?
TK: Shut up.
(SAX PICKUP)
CHORUS: We'll snatch them from their country clubs and from their big resorts.
We'll snatch them from the sailboats and from the tennis courts
We'll take them out of first class and with a mighty cheer
We'll send them to the rear.
Glory, glory, revolution,
That's the only good solution.
I am not a laying hen, I'm not a dairy cow,
The time to rise is now!
GK: I think that if you people were thinking of your own self-interest, you wouldn't take this attitude... if you were focusing on the issues...
CHORUS: We'll grab ahold of Gingrich and we'll run him out the door
And make him work the night shift in a 7-11 store,
And when he begs for mercy, we will make him scrub the floor.
The truth is marching on.
Glory, glory, insurrection.
We are marching toward perfection.
We'll haul him out of Congress, the dirty little crook,
And give the bum the hook.
GK: Someday you're going to look back on this and you're going to feel pretty silly about this. Pretty silly....
SS: Your day is over, wide ride. Pack it up and get out of here.
GK: What are you doing?
SS: The door's that way. I want to see something get smaller and I want that thing to be you.
CHORUS: And then we'll get the media, those mighty millionaires
Who weave their little fictions sitting on their derrieres,
We'll grab them by their flabby hands and make them say their
prayers
And kick them down the stairs.
Glory, glory, liberation,
Let us seize communication.
Let us all rise up and conquer public radio
For it is ours, you know.
GK: Public radio is very well managed, thank you very much, and I don't see the need for this kind of----- (STRUGGLE) What? What are you talking about? I'm your friend....(STRUGGLE) Why can't you see that? --- Okay. I'm leaving.
(MUSIC UNDER)
(FOOTSTEPS. DOOR OPEN, CLOSE. FOOTSTEPS.)
GK: I can't believe that happened.
TR: It was terrible.
GK: After all I've done. They've cast me aside. Dumped me. I'm--- PFFFTTT.
TR: No, you're not.
GK: No?
TR: They love you. They've always loved you.
GK: They do?
TR: Give em a few weeks. They'll get over it. All I have to do is rewind the tape. (TAPE REWIND). And I press....Erase. And Fast Forward. (TAPE REEL WHIRR. STOP.) There. It's gone.
GK: It didn't happen? TR: Never happened. GK: Good.
(MUSIC OUT)
©1996 GARRISON KEILLOR