Dirty Harry Hassle…For a few weeks now, Squid has had a difficult time coming out of the lair, preferring to rock Squidself to sleep in the darkness, all 10 tentacles clutching the pillow. First there was the insanity of the Republican National Convention, where the GOP is floating a presidential candidate who thinks middle-class salaries top out at $250,000 (and, Squid wonders, if that’s the top of the range, where exactly does Mitt Romney think the bottom starts?) and a vice presidential candidate whose professed love for Rage Against the Machine had the band’s frontman, Tom Morello, pointing out that Paul Ryan “is the embodiment of the machine our music rages against.” Then, there was the spectacle of former Carmel Mayor Clint Eastwood giving a rambling, 12-minute keynote speech to a chair, a piece of performance art that proved that no matter how high an office a black man might hold, white people can still pretend Barack Obama should be more like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.

Just when Squid thought it was safe to poke Squid’s head out of the lair came the great one-two punch: Colin Powell was shooting a commercial in Pebble Beach (maybe he and part-time Pebble Beach resident Condi “bought herself a really expensive condo” Rice are planning a line of golf wear for sophisticated former Bush cabinet members) and that charming little leaflet in Carmel ran a blow-by-blow account of Eastwood’s speech, with the man himself providing the blowing.

But still, there was hope Squid could at last leave the lair. After all, the first season of the reality TV debacle Mrs. Eastwood and Co. was over.

But no. On tomorrow’s Ellen show, sandwiched between interviews with that adorable Carly Rae “Call Me Maybe” Jepsen and Justin Bieber’s mom, Clint will talk to Ellen DeGeneres about his family’s new surreality show and his new flick, Trouble with the Curve. Interestingly enough, Eastwood, the avowed GOP supporter, is also a staunch supporter of marriage equality, so he and Ellen have a bit of common ground to cover. But Squid hopes she asks him how in the hell he can support a party that wouldn’t have allowed her to marry Portia di Rossi.

On second thought, maybe Squid will just hibernate until after the election.