Punch it in.

My vote is cast. I thought the wait would be much longer here in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, but in spite of the line around the block, the pace was determined and the energy was palpable. No matter what happens, I feel confident that I will look back at this day and know that I stood on the right side of history. I hope you’ll be there, next to me.

Regular posting will return soon.

Somebody I used to know.

Five years ago today, Elliott Smith took his own life. A couple of days after I heard the news, I posted a short vignette about Elliott to Nervous Acid. It’s not the most eloquent piece of writing with my name attached to it, but it was from the heart. I remember thinking that I wanted to write something to counter — or at least balance — the ubiquitous portraits of a tragically depressed artist that were being published in the wake of his death. The Elliott Smith I met in 1997 was more complex than that: For one thing, he was much more fun than journalists ever gave him credit for. I’ll always be endeared to him.

The following is an edited excerpt from my original post, published on October 23, 2003.

In the next couple of years, Elliott’s life changed considerably. The venues got bigger, he sold more records, the Good Will Hunting soundtrack was released to critical acclaim, he was nominated for an Oscar, and perhaps impossibly, I saw him holding hands with Celine Dion on TV. Soon after, he moved to New York City. One of the magazines I was writing for at the time asked me if I wanted to write a piece on Elliott and, of course, I obliged.

We reconnected at his apartment in Park Slope, conducted a formal interview and photo shoot, and then hung out for a while — talking about the Beatles, Ry Cooder and Paris, Texas, Portland, and his new life in New York. I met him later that night at a Pulp show, where he gave me his phone number. I never really had to call him, though. At that time, in 1998, I was living on the Lower East Side — right around the corner from Max Fish and the Pink Pony Cafe. Elliott was always in the neighborhood.

I remember running into him one night at the Pink Pony. I mentioned that I saw him walking up First Avenue a few days earlier, but that I didn’t say anything. Elliott looked confused.

“I tend to just look at my feet when I’m walking,” he said. ”Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because I tend to look at my feet when I’m walking, too,” I replied, somewhat sheepishly.

Elliott arched his brows. “So how did you see me?”

“I saw your shoes. By the time I figured out they were yours, you were already halfway down the block.”

He shook his head, softly, in the manner that Elliott did practically everything.

“You know what?” he said, leaning in as if he wasn’t sure anyone else but us might understand. “I do that a lot.”

The wooden Wall-E.

Before you get too excited, there’s only one, and it belongs to Pixar honcho John Lasseter. My combined love for wooden toys and lovelorn robots is so thwarted here, dude.

The Straight Talk Express.

There’s been a lot of talk about concealed racism affecting the election, so the New York Times went out to find some real racists. The result is both amusing and terrifying:

When asked about [Obama’s] background, a substantial number of people interviewed said they believed his racial heritage was unclear, giving them another reason to vote against him.

“He’s neither-nor,” said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. “He’s other. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.”

Ah, yes. It’s good to know we’re still using the Bible to discriminate. That way, when the liberal elite gets “uppity” with us, they’ll be messing with God himself!

Dear Lord, help us all.

(Illustration courtesy of the Straight Talk Express — a collection of “John McCain factoids to show people exactly who he is.”)