I wish I had gotten a better pic, but since I had an actual camera, it seemed distracting. We met Headley and Jenny at this Thai place across from the venue. Not the Blue Orchid (which I like), but this other one that was all right food, but had some reservations.

The venue was nice. An old theatre which reminded me of where we saw Brian Wilson at in Chicago, sans the balcony seating. Rollins talked about everything I hoped he did. I knew he had gone to North Korea and hoped to hear about that and he did. But mostly I was excited for this being an election year and most news sources don't cover it like they should and treat them more like lame celebrities as opposed to world leaders. And most who do just regurgitate stuff they hear and don't take into question biased, America-centric news sources who ruin any source of viable information. Along with being more TMZ-like rather than news-reporters. I miss the Dan Rathers and others who just informed rather than propagandized.

Like when Paul Ryan was announced as the VP nomination all you heard was how good looking he is (which he's not - he's pretty awkward) and how he does P90X, rugged (which Rollins, without directing it, went on a long bit of being "rugged" and being as cultured through real-life experience as he is sees Ryan's image as fucking stupid.

Jim Lehrer sucked as a moderator and I think Obama expected him to regulate more and Mitt sounded like I thought he would after rehearsing so much he came off way to excelled - especially compared to how he normally is - he had his talking points down; it was so contrived it was hard to sit through.

Anyhow, the things Rollins talked about that I liked is what I've been arguing about the last 8 years or so about the way our country is going. He talked about community in Punk Rock (when it's done right) and Lincoln's presidency. The only American he truly hates is John Wilkes Booth because if Lincoln had a second term, our country and its way of thinking would be in a way different place.

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I always liked how Lincoln did things like put opponents of his in his cabinet to learn from them. Rollins brought up how in his second day of office, Lincoln had citizens line up and visit him in the Oval Office to gripe to him. His people said he needs to be a president and not do this. Lincoln replied that he was by listening to what the people wanted and that they don't want much.

Other speeches pointed out was about where they were at the time as a nation in that right time and place and area and they inherited it and should feel good about it and respect it, because it's the great people before them who did things to allow them this luxury. Lincoln supported slavery? Yes, but not in that way. At that time, he saw it as preserving the Union because he knew there was no worse destruction than us against ourselves...which happened later in the Civil War. We're our own worse enemy if we don't work together, which is going on now; which makes me laugh about Romney talking about bi-partisanship.

I'm also glad he brought up how Iranians love Americans and were scared of Bush and hate Ahmidinijad (sp). Bill Maher once said as well how Iranians love us and we want to blow them up. Americans don't know the difference with other countries' cultures and history and state of being and use that to understand them and not just think of them as savages. My argument with people against Muslims for the reason that they thingk they're all violent is they don't understand the difference between culture, religion, and historical context along with poverty and being brought up in wars and no real democracy. Americans also need to realize that their brand of conservative fundamentalism without knowledge and respect towards other countries context that they need to approach them in that respect. When fundamentlist go there to tell these tribal countries that homosexuality is evil, they kill people.

People need to start growing up and not be so dependent on network news, especially in America. Can you imagine a world with Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson? Think for yourselved and get educated and motivated.

The funniest thing Henry said was, while talking about the stark constrast between his conservative, homophobic, racist, sexist dad and his uber-liberal mom, was, "the only thing left to [his] mom was Joan Baez and a wall."