Is it REALLy that new a day?

Before I get cooking on what I planned to blog about tonight, I realize I have to finish some unfinished business. (Which is really the only kind of business you CAN finish.) Some of you may have been confused by the title of yesterday's post--And then there were 6--though not too confused, since I didn't receive one comment asking what the hell I was talking about. I only realized just now that I had forgotten to include the one bit of information that would've made that post make sense. Yesterday we met our understudy/sound tech/house manager--a very nice young lady by the name of Flo. (NOT her real name--aliases, 'member?) I shall pause while you all take a collective Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh! V8 moment. (Pause) Thank you. Flo came in on the train from NY yesterday, and is rooming in the same cast house as Alice. (Hence the alias--I'm not even going to try to make you guess that one. I've been told my aliases are too obvious. Even though I would like to point out that not EVERYONE who reads this blog remembers the 70's....) Anyway, she seems very nice and has already jumped into running sound during rehearsals. She's picking it up pretty quickly, so that's good. We await only the electrician, who will be arriving tomorrow. I don't have much more to say about Flo at this time, since she just got here, but so far everyone's been able to handle both the increasingly slow and meticulous rehearsals ND my sense of humor, so I look forward to the tour with unbridled optimism. 

Rehearsal is still going well, though not as smoothy as before, due to the fact we are now working through the stories instead of just getting the basic blocking down, and Pat is very (as I believe I've said on more than one occasion) FREAKING SPECIFIC. Again, I appreciate it. It makes everything cleaner when we have beats and bits that are timed and worked. And it helps that everyone feels the same way about making sure those thing are clean. Sad to say, not everyone last time felt that way. (Though those people don't read this blog....no matter how had they tried.) So the days are getting longer. AND we have our first run for Spring on Monday. Yep--when they said accelerated rehearsal schedule, they weren't kidding. Eeek. Thankfully, I don't think Spring will have them turn off the heater during the run so she can hear us better like she did with the fans in August so we should at least be something akin to comfortable. Or as akin to comfortable as one can be with Spring Sirkin staring at your every move with her tiny beady evil-old-lady-from-Rosemary's-Baby-whose-name-has-temporarily-escaped-me-even-though-I-used-to-know-who-that-actress-was eyes. But people are already getting off book pretty well, and we're all remembering the basic blocking, so I'm not too worried about it. (Ask me again on Saturday...)

But none of that is what tonight's post is about. As you may have heard, we swore in a new President today. I KNOW--who knew? I mean, they've kept it such a secret. Hardly any press at all. Barely mentioned in the news or on TV. I won't bore you with attempting to discuss the historical significance or ramifications of tis Presidency, since many people far more qualified than I (and some less) have beaten us over the head with the the historical significance and ramifications of this Presidency over the last 3 months. (Preceded of course by the historical significance and ramifications of the election and before that by the historical significance and ramifications of the campaign.) Let me be very clear: I am overjoyed that Barack Obama is President of the United States. I think that his election IS historic, and I think it does signify some wonderful shifts in our national consciousness. And I am hopeful for the future. I also think that he has energized a population that had grown dour and cynical, and that he has visions and plans for this country that, realized, could push us forward by leaps and bounds and perhaps restore our ability to be more than the biggest consumer nation on earth with the biggest bombs and the worst TV. 

That being said, I have to also say that I think some of this energized population has gone a little crazy. And believe me, it is totally justified. Considering the situation this country is in at the moment, and what the last eight years has been like, euphoria at a change like this is understandable and allowable. BUT (oh yeah, here comes Andrew's inner cynic) Barack Obama is not the second coming. Period, end of sentence. Things are not going to change overnight. When we all wake up tomorrow, there will not be 99 cent gas, the mortgage crisis will not have miraculously cleared up, and the stock market is still going to suck. Suicide bombers are still going to kill Americans in Iraq, Israel is still going to blow the shit out of Gaza, and Hamas is still going to blow the shit out of Israel. Nothing Obama has to deal with is easy. Nothing that he has to deal with is going to go away without a shitload of hard work and (get ready for this, America, because it's a word we all hate to hear) SACRIFICE. To fix the problems in this country, Americans are going to have to GIVE a little. Some Americans' taxes are going to go up. Now, hopefully under Obama, the people whose taxes will go up are the people making all the damn money in the country, but taxes will go up. Why? Because research into alternative energy sources, and a national health care reform plan and ways to make sure people get a halfway decent education costs MONEY. And no, we can't just print more. So that money has to come from somewhere. And yes, we can get a lot of it by ending that billions of dollars a day debacle called the Iraq war, and yes we can get a bunch of money by cutting back wasteful government spending, but those measures are only going to go so far. And moving beyond the money issue, should Obama's plans come to fruition, we will have to make sacrifices in other ways. Guess what America--you're not going to get a huge-ass Hummer that runs on corn oil. You'll just have to compensate for your feelings of inadequacy some other way, like clinging to guns and the Bible.

Also, if you think that just because Obama is President and there's a majority of Democrats in Congress all these plans are just going to zip through like water through a goose (or is that shit off a duck's back? I can never remember) you're dreaming. Washington is still Washington, and even though everyone sees a need to do SOMETHING to make things better, people are still going to disagree on what that something is. Yes, there's a greater chance that things will move through in a less watered-down form because of the Democratic majority, but it's still going to take a while. We may not (and probably WON'T) see any of these ideas come to fruition within 4 years. The question for Obama's Presidency is how many of his plans can he get the ball rolling on before his term is up, and how much closer will we be to being in a better place? It took 8 years to take this country from prosperity to depression, from global respect to antipathy from even our allies. It's going to take more than 4 years to remedy that. Thankfully, even though he is an amazing orator, and has been running on a message of inspiration and hope and being able to do whatever it takes, Obama has never shied away from admitting how hard the road ahead is. He has counseled against expecting change to be swift or easy. He understands and appreciates the enormity of the challenge before him. And just for that, just for that awareness, that acuity, and that honesty to warn that it's gonna get darker before it gets lighter, I am overjoyed he was elected. Because it shows to me that maybe, just maybe, America is ready to take the first tentative steps out of the ignorant, uninformed, vapid haze it's put itself into for far too long and move forward into a future where we once again prefer to be led and guided by intelligence and clear vision, by rational thought and diplomacy, by dreams that remind us that we were and still can be a nation that can accomplish anything if we put our minds AND our backs into it, where we can disagree and still respect each other and still work together to find a solution where we both win rather than both receive something that is nothing of what either side wanted. I am optimistic because America elected the smart guy, and what that says about where we are ready to go makes me feel better about this country than I have for a long time. And while tomorrow may not be a new day, at least it'll be a day where we're looking in a new direction. So gird your loins, America, and start up those little grey cells up top. It's time to start thinking AND acting. And I think we just might be up to it.