Friday, finally, and Day Two of the Great NY State Fair. Today’s free entertainment includes Grand Funk Railroad. I think only Don Brewer and Mel Schacher are left from the original group that I went to see back around ’74 or ’76 or so, smuggling pints of Mad Dog or Boone’s Farm into the War Memorial (I remember getting dropped off by my dad, and picked up by my buddy Warren’s – whose dad was the SU basketball coach at the time – mom). Not that I’ll be attending. Going to the Fair was fun when I was a kid (back then they had moon rocks on display (under military guard), and a guy flying around in a very cool (and very noisy; sounded like a steam line ruptured) jet pack (that I was certain we’d all have by this time in “the future”).

As I moved along to my juvenile delinquency phase, my friends and I would wander around the midway getting hammered on beer from plastic cups, and checking out the crowd (mostly the girls, of course, who were no doubt very impressed with us as we stumbled past). When I got older and was running movies for a living, we’d close the bars after work, and then head out to the fairgrounds. The Fair was technically closed at that time, but a couple of the food places would stay open to feed the people who worked there, and we’d hang out with the carny people (nothing like a greasy sausage sandwich after a few pitchers of beer). Some very interesting folks.

Now, though, I’m old, and the thought of being packed in with thousands of people doesn’t really do it for me. Plus, I’ve been there, done that; it really hasn’t changed in the past 40+ years (I mean, you see one butter sculpture, you’ve seen ’em all). My gut doesn’t have what it takes to ride the rides anymore (never mind the sausage sandwiches, which are best avoided when only public rest rooms are available), and, while I like cows (the first time I saw a calf being born, I had no idea they came out in a big bag of pink taffy) and horses and chickens and rabbits and whatnot, I don’t like them enough to go walk around looking at them (I mean, it’s not like cows are an exotic find up here in the Great White North), and the “big name” concerts these days tend to be either country music rednecks (not that there’s anything wrong with that) or people I’ve never heard of (but am sure are quite popular).

Otherwise, out there in the real world, this tiresome health care “debate” goes on. Democrats bought off by the insurance companies pretend to disapprove of the “public option” on fiscal grounds (DINO Mary Landrieu says “no” (probably) to a “public option, and of course Connecticut’s favorite son, Joe Lieberfuck is already on the “no” side), while those who represent the ignorant, batshit-crazy racists don’t need to invent any rationalizations, ‘cuz they can just say they don’t wanna kill grandma.

Speaking of ignorant, batshit-crazy racists, a Republican wingnut from Idaho says he’d be up it if they were to sell licenses to hunt the President of the United States (but that people should just lighten up about it, ‘cuz it’s only a joke). Imagine the hilarity that would have ensued, had someone suggested hunting Dubya (something tells me they’d have gotten an insider’s look at the marvelous health care provided for detainees at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base).

Speaking of superior foreign healthcare, if you’d like to hear an interesting interview, check out TR Reid on Fresh Air. Reid toured hospitals and doctors’ offices around the world in order to find out how how every other industrialized country seems to be able to provide affordable, effective universal health care. He’s also got a nice piece at the WaPost, debunking the “5 Myths About Health Care Around the World.”

Not that anybody here remains unconvinced, of course. Hell, most of us geezers are in the same boat as the original members of Grand Funk, eagerly awaiting our appearance before the Obama death panels.