NO ONE'S LISTENING....

I walked into a packed Angry Wade's bar last night hoping to find John McCain's speech from the Republican National Convention on the T.V I lucked out. It was on all of the big screen T.V's and the volume was cranked up, but what amazed me was that no one was listening. Well, that's not exactly true. Some people were listening, including me.



Down the bar, some ditsy girls were giggling over something, their eyes firmly planted on the frat guys doing shots at one of the tables. One guy was so drunk, he was conked out, head down on the bar. Four people were playing darts. Two others were playing pool while about a dozen patrons looked on. Every stool was occupied.



Those who were interested in McCain's prime-time speech were a healthy mix of supporters and opponents, albeit a small group. Some cheered, others nodded in agreement while a few shouted something along the lines of, "war monger." One guy was trying to engage me in an argument over politics, while McCain was speaking. It was annoying. He finally shut up.



There must have been 60 or so people in the bar and I was amazed at how few really cared about what he was saying or that he was saying anything at all. I'd venture a guess when Barack Obama gave his speech, they didn't pay him much attention either. These are the people who perhaps will never be concerned about politics. They probably haven't even given much thought to the direction our country is going or who would be best to take us there. Like most bars, a majority of the crowd was young. That's still no excuse. What's really sad is, the next day someone will probably ask them what they thought of the speech. They'd probably reply, I didn't watch it. That's not exactly true. It's just that no one was listening!