A New York Punk Rocker's Definitive Assessment of Mitt Romney

Dateline New York:

It's after midnight. I'm tired. I have to go work another 10 hour day tomorrow. But a good friend of mine asked me to help make this video about Mitt Romney go viral. Folks, I hope it does. The friend in question is none other than Hal Ruzal, a long-running CBGB's regular when the Lower East Side had rock-n-roll character through and through. Now the frontman for Kilifax, he still plays up and down New York City with his unique style of punk rock, blues guitar, and a funnier, louder, angrier version likeness of Phil Ochs.

A rare shot. Hal doesn't normally air guitar because it's obviously beneath him.

Prompted by candidate Romney's admission that he doesn't care about nearly half the American public, Hal released this video from a recent show at Desmond's Tavern on Park Avenue and 29th Street. Curiously enough, Ruzal actual wrote the guts of this song in the 1980s about Ronald Reagan. Listen and you'll agree: it works on just about any Republican presidential candidate!

And let's really do our work to make sure this song goes viral. Yes, Romney will go down in flames come November, but before Mittens becomes a historical footnote, let's have some fun with him.

Dick Cheney's backtrack on the Disaster from Alaska: Why it's good for society that Sarah Palin stays in the news

Ah, Sarah Palin, how we've missed you.

Not for your views on government, not for your television shows, or your ghastly ghost-written memoirs.

No, we miss you because every time we see you, we are reminded as to what a total laughingstock the Republican Party has become.

 Please--don't retire from whatever it is that you supposedly do.

Laughingstock, like Woodstock, but instead of Hendrix, the Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, you've got Romney, Boehner, and Palin. The very notion that any Republican could win a national election with their outwardly extremist views and cartoonish public personas is laughable.

Lobbyists may have succeeded in preventing Federal action on climate change, meaningful financial reform and instilling a progressive income tax, but when Dick Cheney is afraid to speak ill about Sarah Palin, at least we have something to laugh about.

Yes, Palin. The half-term Governor of Alaska who hasn't held elective office in some time--and most definitely won't ever again. If she were to run, George McGovern would steamroll her in a landslide.

That probably won't happen. But it's fun to see her straw-man character in the news. After all, it makes great fodder for satire. I spoke with Hal Ruzal, a legendary CBGB's rock 'n' roller who currently fronts Kilifax. He told me that his band will play his "Sarah Palin" song at his next  show on August 17th at Fontana's. The original CBGB's may be long gone, but Fontana's is in the heart of the Lower East Side, located on  Eldrige Street between Delancey and Grand. I strongly urge all fans of satire and music to attend.

Am I plugging Kilifax? Heck, I just think everyone should share the joy--the joy of mocking the disasta' from Alaska!

That's Friday, August 17th. If you've already made plans, change 'em!

In the meantime, see if you can figure out why this video didn't go viral back in 2008. Maybe it just needed better recording quality? You be the judge!