Old Green Party Comrade on the Train + Sonic Youth's Washing Machine

I ran into an old pal tonight on the train. He had just finished refereeing one soccer match and was on his way to officiate at another. In 2004 Chris ran as a Green against incumbent Dem Jim McIntire (now the august Washington State Treasurer) in the 46th Legislative District. Despite raising a decent amount of money and having a legitimate campaign apparatus with volunteers and the whole nine yards, Chris and the Greens finished third in that race behind McIntire and a kid who ran as a Republican (the kid was just a name on the ballot; he had absolutely no campaign presence in the district -- they don't call our political system a "duopoly" for nothing). That year -- 2004 -- was the last hurrah for the Greens. The party split nationally between those (like myself) who remained loyal to Ralph Nader (who in 2004 refused to run as a presidential candidate exclusively on the Green Party line) and those who bought the snake oil being peddled by a charlatan named David Cobb.

As I recall, Chris was a great fan of Sonic Youth's 1995 album Washing Machine: