"Hey!"
I hear the voice, a quite familiar one.   I turn around, and find an old Palmetto fixture, one Angelo Covelli.   "Angelo!"
"How've you been?"
"Fine!   What, are you visiting?"
"No, I'm back for good!"
Oh, this is great!   Angelo used to come in most nights, and provide a running conversation about politics that hasn't been equaled since he went down to live with his mother up in Rhode Island, three years ago.   "I'm glad to hear that!"
"This place hasn't changed much."
"Well, the juke boxes are gone."
Angelo, a stocky, middle aged man with a dark complexion and a buzz-cut, looks around, and says, "you gotta be shittin' me!"
"Donna's gone, too."
"Donna?   Really?"
"Breast cancer."
Donna was Angelo's favorite waitress.   A 40-year-old, vivacious Italian princess, who never grew up.   She passed away six months ago.   "God, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Dawn and Gladys and Frisco are still around, though."
"That's good.   Either of them here tonight?"
"No.   Leathea.   She's very quiet, but she's very prompt, too."
As if on cue, Leathea appeared, bearing my meal, which was the nightly special.   Tonight: filet of flounder, with wild rice and Brussels Sprouts.   "Leathea, this is Angelo, he used to be one of the big regulars here."
"Hello," she greets, in her monotone.
"Hi," Angelo replies.
"You ready?"
"Cheeseburger deluxe."
"Thanks."   Leathea breezes off.
"So, you gotta have some opinions about...things."   Boy, Angelo wants to jump in right away!   Not even a 'how's the wife?'
"Yeah.   Whoever choreographed this presidential campaign must've been high."
Angelo laughs his frequent, high pitched laugh.   "Hillary's amazing, ain't she?"
"Yeah," I say.   "I fully expected her to have her 'Checkers' moment, and the crocodile tears were like gravy."
"She cries on cue, just like her husband.   And so many people fall for this shit, they're complete fools.   They all would rather be complete fools than have any responsibility for thinking like intelligent adults."
"You know, I remember ten years ago, when I first discussed politics with my future wife.   She always hated Bill Clinton.   Irrationally.  She always thought he was the living embodiment of evil.   Well, as usual, she's right.   Have you seen him?   He wants to get back in the White House even more than she does."
"They're a team.   Poppy Bush tarred him with being young and inexperienced, and he and Hillary both hollared.   Now, they tar Barack with being young and inexperienced."
I spear the Brussels Sprouts with my fork.   "I'm sick and tired of the Clintons, I'm sick and tired of the bullshit and the lies, and the narcissism, and the complete lack of doubt.   I'm sick and tired of looking at Hillary and seeing Dick Cheney without a penis."
Angelo laughs.   "How about Thompson?"
The shift in gears leaves me a bit off balance; but then, that's how Angelo always conducted a conversation.   "What about him?"
"Is he really running for President, or what?"
"Sure!   He's running."   The satellite feed's playing a good Friday night cut: Earth, Wind, and Fire's 'Let's Groove'.   "He seems to think that constantly invoking the name of Ronald Reagan will win him votes and primaries.   He seems to have tuned out the only thing that invocation seems to have attracted...crickets."
"Yep."   Angelo drinks his ice water.   "It's true.   They all invoke Ronald Reagan, or you have Rudy Bulliani with his 9/11 till he makes you throw up.   They invoke people they don't know a fucking thing about, because they have nothing concrete to talk about.   If they're not invoking, they're demonizing."
"Right!"
"It's a lot easier to demonize your opponents with blood libels than defend giving tax cuts to people who don't need them."
I smile.   "Thompson was lacing into Mike Huckabee at the latest beauty contest last night.   He was so busy yammering away that he couldn't see Huckabee standing there laughing at him."
"He is a joke, you know.   His poll numbers are even smaller than the margin of error."
"I don't even know what the point was.   He quits TV so he can run for president, he has a barbecue for ten or twelve people in Iowa who had to be begged on hands and knees to attend.   He has his wife run the campaign, she can't even toast an English Muffin.   He stands there like a petrified cow turd on the stage with the other candidates, saying nothing, until last night, when he invoked Ronald Reagan forty eight times, without sprinkling holy water, and had absolutely nothing to say of any substance.   He's a clod."
"Meanwhile, there ain't much going on with Romney or Huckabee either."
I sigh.   The fileted flounder's delicious.   "There's this old Mac Davis song, I kind of updated."
"Really?"
"Yeah."

                                  Why don't we all just get stoned?
                                    ...and sing us some beer drinking songs?
                                    With Romney and Hillary,
                                     and Ron Paul and Huckabee
                                     we might as well all just get stoned.

"Cute!"
"Aw, it's nothing."
Leathea brings Angelo his dinner.   Earth, Wind, and Fire make way for Bobby Caldwell.   The political discussions with an old friend continue.   A very nice thing.