…was all the “rage” Friday night, with group shows opening at the current CoCA space (across from the Hostess bakery on Dexter) and the Crespinel Gallery on Second.

The CoCA show, 101 Ways to Remove a President from Power, is a mixed bag creative-wise. The contributing artists are united in their loathing for the sitting President (and their consipcuous lack of attention toward his challenger). Some of the artists fused their rage with fun and/or insight; but others settled for the weary ol’ conformist-nonconformist cliches of square-bashing and Nazi-baiting.

Among the worst examples: Three performance artists (below) who donned thrift-store apparel and old-man makeup to appear as “typical” Republican voters, senile geezers who wheeze about family values while grabbing young ladies’ posteriors.

Our ol’ collaborator DJ Superjew gave a more intriguing contribution with The Disregarder, a four-page tabloid commenting wryly on corporate-news-media silliness. (She hand-printed the thing on a vintage letterpress, using coarse pulp-magazine style paper.)

Meanwhile, about a mile away at the Crespinel space, Larry Reid (who used to run CoCA) organized Art vs. Bush. It was a benefit for the previously-mentioned-here No Vote Left Behind organization. Many of the contributing artists donated pre-existing work, much of which had no overtly political content.

But we did get to see former ice-cream baron Ben Cohen’s PantsOnFire-Mobile, an art-car construction being towed across the nation, bearing smoke and artificial flame out the statue’s rear and flashing messages of “lies” across its front.

And Randolph Sill showed off his “877,” a collection of little ceramic coffins (one for every U.S. military death in Iraq as of June). With quiet dignity, Sill offers a more powerful statement against Bush than all the CoCA show’s contributors combined.

One day earlier, our ol’ pal Ross Palmer Beecher won her dispute with the powers-that-be at the Harbor Steps development. They’d asked her to contribute to one of its monthly art shows. Then they tried to rescind the invite when she presented an arrangement of beer-can parts that played on the similarity of Bush to Busch.

…a chart claiming a relationship between Bush’s approval ratings and terror-alert announcements:

“Whenever his ratings dip, there’s a new terror alert.Every terror alert is followed by a slight uptick of Bush approval ratings.

Whenever there are many unfavorable headlines, there’s another alert or announcement (distraction effect).

As we approach the 2004 elections, the number and frequency of terror alerts keeps growing, to the point that they collapse in the graphic. At the same time, Bush ratings are lower than ever.”

…has been felled the past 24 hours or so by a brief but nasty stomach bug. You don’t want to hear any more details; trust me. But I will say I tried to heal myself this afternoon by listening to an audio book by Vancouver new-age guru Eckhart Tolle about overcoming “the Pain-Body.” It didn’t work.

WHAT ALSO DIDN’T WORK: The traditional “bounce” in the opinion polls for a Presidential candidate after his nominating convention. Some polls showed little increase in John Kerry’s standing; others even showed him dropping a bit against Bush.

Why? For one thing, the convention’s TV coverage was divvied up into three dosages. The un-spun, uninterrupted coverage on PBS and C-SPAN was probably viewed mainly by political wonks such as myself. More apathetic viewers might have stuck with the measly three hours on the traditional Big Three networks, which contained only the big-name speeches and a lot of pundit-blather. In between these extremes, the three main cable “news” channels gave all-day coverage to their own (mostly Republican-leaning) commentators bashing what the Democrats were saying, with only brief cutaways to what the Democrats actually had said.

I must admit, though, that the Dems’ convention was a tuff thing to slog through in undiluted form. It was produced by a producer of TV awards shows, and felt just as long, dull, and self-serving as some of those shows are.

And, in keeping with a topic I’ve been researching of late, it relentlessly expressed a “positive” attitude. Very little speech-time was spent dissing what I believe is the worst US President since Harding; a sniveling suckup to looters and polluters who’s made this country less free and the world less safe. Instead, speaker after speaker (including, in short spots well out of prime time, our own Gov. Gary Locke and Rep. Adam Smith) recited the DNC-approved buzzwords about hope, help, strength, and respect. The effort throughout was to plug John Kerry as someone to vote for; not simply, as The Daily Show said in a fake campaign commercial, “Not George W. Bush.”

The problem with this strategy is it fits right in with the Bushies’ strategy—to make Kerry’s unproven qualities, not Bush’s proven failings, the chief topic of the proverbial horse race.

But there’s another front in this particular battle. The “527s,” independent progressive groups funded by the likes of George Soros and various Hollywood/Silicon Valley moguls, have gone where the timid Dem leadership won’t. Because these groups officially don’t work for any campaign, they can raise all the money they can to spread their messages. And because they’re not controlled by party bosses, they can tell the harsh truths in their ads. The big 527s (named for the tax-code line that defines them) include the famous Move On, Americans Coming Together, Howard Dean’s Democracy for America, and even Punk Voter.

Besides these fairly well-funded efforts, there are more thoroughly grassroots anti-Bush outfits as well, such as Seattle’s own “No Vote Left Behind.”

Then there’s the semi-satirical F___ the Vote, which asks “sexy liberals,” especially in the undecided “swinger states” (including Washington), to seduce and convert conservatives. Its home page claims, “Everyone knows liberals are hotter than conservatives—we look hotter, we dress hotter, our ideas are hotter, and we are infinitely hotter in the sack. We must use our sexual appeal to our advantage, as one more weapon in our already diverse arsenal.”

At last—a campaign tactic I can fully support. Sign me up today. I’ll show any Bellevue divorcee or Wenatchee church matron the road to a better tomorrow, metaphorically paved with multiple orgasms.

IN OTHER COMING-TOGETHER NEWS, a Seattle judge has ruled in favor of same-sex marriages. The case immediately goes to the State Supreme Court; there’ll be no official gay/lesbian nuptials ’til that court decides.

AND BY THE WAY, I’m feeling much better now. Sitting down to write always helps my energy level. So did the Hi-NRG music mix I’ve got on my iTunes right now—Serge Gainsbourg, game-show themes, Nina Simone, Petula Clark, Blondie, and more. I’m a word guy, but sometimes music can do much more for me than words.

…really doesn’t like the current president.

…that, 30 years after the media-driven fall of Nixon, “American journalism is at its nadir.”

…I can truthfully say I admire Linda Ronstadt— she sacrificed a high-paying Vegas gig by praising Fahrenheit 9/11 on stage.

Despite what you may hear, Jesus Christ is not necessarily a Republican.

Thanks in part, no doubt, to all your faxes and emails, the Homeland Security bureaucracy now sez it won’t try to abort the 2004 elections. We’ll see how truthful they are.

…or at leat I didn’t use to be. But I’m a wee bit perturbed by the Republican partisans’ media leaks of supposed “terror threats” to the Presidential election, which maybe, just maybe, would give the Bushies an excuse to try to cancel or postpone the vote. That would be the end of the World’s Oldest Democracy. Period. Don’t let the GOP even imagine they could get away with it.

…believes Fahrenheit 9/11 is too conservative; because it doesn’t go far enough to advocate overthrowing the “American empire.”

…in Ballard starts taking pictures of the Ballard Locks for a photography class, alongside dozens of shutterbugging tourists. He gets harassed, followed, and harassed some more by guys claiming to be Homeland Security agents, who’ve decided he was really staking out terror targets. Could it have possibly been because he looked brown?

…and a lot of hard work, last Sunday will have been the first July Fourth of America’s new independence movement.

Kerry’s election wouldn’t be the fulfillment of this new spirit, but it’s a first and most intensely necessary step.

The Fourth of Jul-Ivar’s management asked that no pix be taken of the on-stage performers. So you’ll just have to believe me that the Elvis impersonator was even dumber than most. (And claiming to be a wink-wink parody of a bad Elvis impersonator didn’t make him any less lame.)

Ahh, the two great tastes that taste great together….

This children’s break-dance competition was sponsored by Sprite, which also had a do-it-yourself DJ stratch-mixing booth.

For the big fireworks, we relocated to a high-rise rooftop party where, supposedly, both the waterfront and Lake Union pyrotechnics could be seen. It was a sort-of-just-barely case. Each show was mostly obscured by taller buildings. But we all had a smashing time anyway.

…to a Bush speech, get arrested.

…at least in Europe, need to start paying attention to the actions of neo-fascistic gay men:

“With the exception of Jean-Marie Le Pen, all the most high-profile fascists in Europe in the past thirty years have been gay. It’s time to admit something. Fascism isn’t something that happens out there, a nasty habit acquired by the straight boys. It is – in part, at least – a gay thing, and it’s time for non-fascist gay people to wake up and face the marching music.”

…this time against the new imperial Presidency:

“Our ingrained American distrust of concentrated power has very little to do with the character or persona of the individual who wields that power. It is the power itself that must be constrained, checked, dispersed and carefully balanced, in order to ensure the survival of freedom. In addition, our founders taught us that public fear is the most dangerous enemy of democracy because under the right circumstances it can trigger the temptation of those who govern themselves to surrender that power to someone who promises strength and offers safety, security and freedom from fear.”