Steve Schmidt, Senior Advisor to the McCain campaign, questioned about a month ago, "Do voters want an American Idol contest for president? Is this supposed to be the political equivalent of Dancing With the Stars?" I agree with Mr. Schmidt. The candidates’ backgrounds and stands on the issues are what counts, but I find the personal stuff so darned enlightening.

As part of my odyssey in getting to know the Presidential candidates better, I decided to find out what they listen to. Plus, I wanted to figure out how their song choices would be rated on American Bandstand, if American Bandstand still existed (“Well, Dick, I couldn’t get into the lyrics, but it has a real catchy beat. I’ll give it a 7”).

Let’s review what’s on McCain’s and Obama’s iPods.

I hope people don't mind a plug. I'm having an art show this coming September in Gallery Saratoga in Saratoga, California. It'll be from September 2 to October 5. I'll have a reception on Saturday, September 6, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. If any of you are in the San Francisco Bay Area at this time, I'll be happy if you'd be able to see my art.

This year I did more ink drawings than paintings, and they'll be featured in my show. I do a weekly cartoon for a local California newspaper, the TriCity Voice, where I try to comment on what I see for a general audience.

I also put a more overtly political message in the cartoons that I've submitted for Z Magazine, a political magazine based in Boston. Each week I do cartoon of the Sunday readings for the Sunday bulletin of my church, St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Sunnyvale, California. If you like cartoons, you might enjoy my show...

I first discovered the artwork of Thomas Hart Benton from an article in Smithsonian magazine while I was in college in the 1980s.

I really didn’t know too much about the fine arts back then, and I knew even less about the great American artists from that time between the two great World Wars. I loved learning about new artists and great paintings, and Benton was a real revelation to me. He was one of the biggest influences on me as I was learning to find my own style and voice as an artist. I never get tired of looking at Benton’s paintings, and his attempts to capture the energy and rawness of the everyday American life left a deep impression on my own outlook on art.

A former Wall Street executive, Peter Salem, left prison and headed for the small town of Bunker Hill, Kansas, where his ex-wife and their children had started a new life, alongside a powerful local leader, Jim McLain. Bunker Hill is in Russell County in the central plains of western Kansas. The town's humble population numbers 101 citizens, according to the most recent federal census.

Soon after Salem arrived in town, all electric power went down. In short order, gasoline supplies were used up and new fuel deliveries never came. Energy was no longer available. Without outside communication, community leaders and the town sheriff were at a loss to explain what had happened.

Is it the rapture? A massive terrorist attack? Aliens? Cut off from the world, the town's historic "wild west" militant past quickly reawakened and new forces coalesced to protect Bunker Hill citizens from its unseen enemy - one represented to some by Mr. Farook, an elderly Pakistani immigrant who owns the local convenience store. The town's fear led to the creation of a posse of gunmen headed by McLain's brother Delmar. All of this resulted in torture, illegal searches and eventually murder.

Next month, the Kansas Governor is going to Washington D.C. to talk with people about this.

Back when I was going to college, I watched a low budget film that was different from anything that I have ever seen. It was called She’s Gotta Have It and it inaugurated the film career of one of America’s most important filmmakers: Spike Lee. He was saying things in his movies that no one else was saying about race and class. Since that time, I’ve seen Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Inside Man, and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. The films that I’ve seen of Spike Lee’s made me think about the complexity of the problems of race in America. He comes from a long tradition of American filmmakers, like Frank Capra, Charles Chaplin, and Oliver Stone, who used their films to comment on the ills of American society.

In September of last year, I went to the San Jose Museum of Art and saw a wonderful exhibit of eery cartoony art. The art exhibit was called “Tragic Kingdom: The Art of Camille Rose Garcia” and it featured a style of artwork that was seemingly influenced by 1930s Disney cartoons as seen through the eyes of the Addams Family. Look here. This exhibit was Garcia’s first exhibit outside of Southern California, where she emerged from a thriving Los Angeles underground scene called “Pop Surrealism”. What I like about her art is the combination of a dark Grimm’s Brother fairy tale feel with a strong political consciousness.

I’m not sure what it says about a person whose politics is shaped by a comic strip. The first political influence in my life was during my Junior High years, when I first started reading Doonesbury. Doonesbury, and later Bloom County, made me laugh at the politics of the time, and it gave me my first exposure to alternative views of the world other than those of the front pages of the newspaper.

Today, on my first work day back from vacation, I ran into a great PBS documentary series that is now out on DVD. The documentary is called Eyes On The Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement and it chronicles the landmark civil rights events from 1954 to 1985 in the eyes of the participants of the events. I watched this documentary series during the 1980s, and it had a profound effect on the way I thought and saw the world. I learned a lot about the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and the whole breadth of leaders and the unknown individuals who made up the movement. This American Experience series was produced by Blackside, and its creator, Henry Hampton, is recognized as one of the world's most acclaimed documentary filmmakers. This series was my first exposure to the intricacies of popular movements of change, and it cemented my liberal political point of view. I highly recommend this series to anyone interested in the civil rights movement and in movements of social change.

Pretty much the only thing I like to shop for are books. I could browse a bookstore for hours. Any other stores--clothing, grocery, trinket, or otherwise--pretty much drive me nuts.

So, it made sense that as I waited on my friend to make her purchase in World Market, I stumbled across a book.

A few months ago I listened to a Books-On-CD by Cynthia Lennon on her former husband John Lennon. It's a fascinating book for me. She doesn't see the Beatles as I do, like a fan. She knew them before the fame, and can see them in more human terms. A lot of what she said surprised me about the dynamics of the Beatles. According to her, John socialized most with Ringo, because Ringo was so laid back and funny. John's best friend was Paul, but it was a complex relationship. The two of them spent so much time writing songs, and it was such a pressure situation, that they needed time apart after writing a few songs. So John and Paul socialized relatively little. John's relationship with George was like that of an older brother/younger brother relationship. John was fond of George, but was also annoyed at him a bit. The four were very close until around 1968, when the fabric of their friendship started to slowly unravel. John was very affected by the loss of his mother. The loss of his mom gave him a protective shell. And he was always trying to please his Aunt Mimi.