It Ain't Easy Being Green

Greetings, gentle readers. I have returned, bringing with me this useful tidbit of knowledge. Blogging is wonderful, because believe me, ranting on a street corner results in all kinds of unpleasantness. Things have moving on apace in my life. I have opened "Black Comedy" to rave review. Sadly, the other reviews merely made the cast rave. But what the hell-it's a farce, and when you get down to brass tacks (I'm not exactly sure where brass tacks are, but it is apparently quite far down) farces elicit strong extremes in opinion. And the audience laughs, so really, what more can I ask for? (Well, I have a long list of other thing I can ask for, but considering most of them are either illegal, immoral, or both, laughter is going to have to be it.) I have also started rehearsals for the thriller in which I play a psycho. That should be fun. And I have rehearsals starting for a murder mystery I wrote on Monday (The rehearsals start Monday--I didn't write it on Monday....just want to be clear) It's 80's themed, and I am not in it, even though I believe I may be the only person involved with it who was actually alive and cognizant during the aforementioned decade. I don't really have time to be directing a show, but that never stopped me before, so why should I start now? 

I am very hopeful for this new theatre company I am trying to put together. The people involved want to do quite a bit with it--beyond murder mysteries, they want to book standup comics, cabaret performers, and also produce full-length plays. They are also open to a children's theatre arm as well. I'm sure it'll crash and burn like every other opportunity for advancement I've had in the last ten years but hey, it's fun during the honeymoon period when all things are possible. Please pardon my cynicism. I'm just working too hard for no money. It's been suggested that I join the union. Then I can skip the working too hard and stick with the no money. I guess that's progress. 

I guess what's really bugging me is twofold. First, I heard a story today about a federal census worker who was killed in Lexington, KY. Apparently he was found duct taped to a tree and asphyxiated. He was naked, his hands and feet were bound with duct tape, his census taker ID was taped to him, and the word "Fed" was written across his chest. Law enforcement authorities have yet to determine if this was a homicide or suicide or accident. Proving that the South really is stupid. And dangerous. Apparently, in this particular part of KY, there is a strong distrustful feeling toward the federal government, in part because in the section where this happened, there is a lot of moonshine and drug trafficking. (Yes, I'm not making up the moonshine thing. Apparently, they still fear the "revenooers") Also, they like to make meth up in that part of the country. It isn't known if maybe he stumbled into something he shouldn't have seen, or whether someone took his asking questions for the census to be a cover for attempting to push a progressive socialist agenda. Either way, he ended up dead. And the cops can't decide if it was murder. Really? I can see not wanting to release what you know about the scene to the press, or being reticent to suggest a motive. But you haven't decided if it was homicide or not? There's a QUESTION? I guess he could've duct taped himself to the tree, then written on his chest (upside down and backward), bound his feet, taped his ID card to his neck, wrapped whatever he used to strangle himself with around his neck, and right before he lost consciousness bound his wrists and welcomed the sweet release of death because he had lost his passion for census taking. But somehow, I doubt it.

And what of the people who did this? I can't even begin to imagine what was going through their heads, because I can't imgine what about the census would make one so paranoid or angry that murder would be their only recourse. "That feller asked me how many people live in my house, and I can't abide 'rithmetic. It's the tool of the devil. I guess it's time for a ritual tapin'." I was amazed by this until I actually looked through the book, "1001 things to Do with Duct Tape" and found that #997 was actually "Asphyxiate a nosy census worker up against a tree. (Kentucky Residents Only)" It was then followed by a definition of the word "asphyxiate" for the aforesaid residents. I want to make clear that I am not a proponent of the death penalty. The whole concept of using an act to punish that same act is illogical and stupid. Plus, it doesn't serve as a deterrent. People who PLAN murders do so convinced that they will escape detection, and therefore the punishment for being caught is not a worry. And people who murder in the heat of passion or due to some mental deficiency are not thinking straight to begin with, so consequences don't figure into their thought process. So all in all, the death penalty is less about justice and less about deterrence than it is about revenge. And I think that's just plain ridiculous. But, when i think of the kind of person it takes to think that someone working for the census bureau deserves the kind of death this man went through, then I want to take th group of them and get rid of them all. Not as revenge, not as justice, not as a deterrent to others. I want to do it to cut out a cancer. To remove a disease from society. Because I guarantee you, those people are the type that breed like rabbits, and they are more than willing to pass their dangerous stupidity and paranoia on to the next generation. So a small part of me would like to find a large hole, drop them all into it, and cover it up. Cut out the sick part and let the body heal.

But I can't get behind that idea completely, and part of that is due to the other reason I'm a bit melancholy. It was Jim Henson's birthday yesterday. He would've been 73 years old. This may not mean much to those of you gentle readers who were not alive at the same time as Mr. Henson, or at least not at an age that really could grasp who he was. But I remember when i heard he had died. I have lost both my maternal grandparents. I have lost a friend I went to high school with shortly after graduation. I shed no tears when those happened. I wept when i heard Jim Henson had died. I was a regular watcher of Sesame Street until I graduated college. I watched the Muppet Show growing up. I remember the awe i felt when i saw "The Muppet Movie" for the first time in a theater and saw Kermit riding a bike. They were amazing they were incredible. They taught me all the important things I needed to know, and they made me laugh. They also made me cry. I dare anyone to watch the Sesame Street episode dealing with Mr. Hooper's death and not cry like a baby as Big Bird learns what death really means. The Muppets were more than puppets with silly voices. They were fully-realized characters who it was impossible not to be charmed by. We recognized them as people that we meet when we're walking down the street. They're the people that we meet each day. We recognized them as ourselves; the popularity of Elmo (who I have to admit to not being a huge fan of, but then, I am an adult and a lifelong Grover fan) is a direct relation to how accessible he is to children. They see themselves in him, and as he discovers things, so do they. He is them, he is their little brother, he is their best friend. Just as I was drawn to the characteristics I saw in Grover, and Kermit, and Oscar. ll of them had things about them we all recognize about ourselves. That's why Sesame Street is still the best kids show on TV 40 years after it started. And Henson's imagination was boundless. "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal" are masterpieces. Perhaps not of cinema, but of imagination and creativity. I mean, a decade after I was amazed to see a Muppet ride a bike, I was doubly amazed to see one pee. And the characters in "Dark Crystal" scare the hell out of me now, and I'm 37. It's amazing what he accomplished. Jim Henson WAS my childhood. And he died of pneumonia. Quite possibly the silliest thing for an adult to die of. He died, and something changed. The Muppets still live on his legacy still lives on, and the quality of the product is still far surpassing the competition. But there's something missing. Jim Henson represented that childlike love and wonder about life. He by all accounts was a gentle man who loved what he did and had a great imagination and love of life. And when he died, that childlike wonder left. He was hugely successful yet didn't have to be a greedy cutthroat SOB to accomplish that. There isn't enough of that attitude in the world anymore. I always wanted to be like Jim Henson. I wanted to have that kind of job. Hell, when I first started acting, my big goal was to appear on Sesame Street just so I could talk to a Muppet. I want that kind of attitude to flourish i the world. So I cannot listen to the small part of me that wants to get rid of the people who did that to the census taker. There has to be a way for the attitude of loving life, of seeing yourself in the other people aroud you, of seeing things through a more innocent lens to make it in the world. We have to be able to see others as the people that we meet when we're walking down the street. They're the people that you meet each day....so be kind to them. Run up to them, yell HEEEEEEEEEEEY FROGGY BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! and slap them on the back. ASk them to join you in doing the Pigeon. And ask them if they'd like to see a frog ride a bike and a pig win a beauty pageant. If they do, then chances are you'll become friends. because no-one can stay mad around the Muppets.

Them's Fighting Words

Hello gentle readers! Another chunk of time has passed since we last spoke--well, since I last ranted and you last sat through it politely. Many things have happened in that time--mainly I have decided that to make up for the amount of time I was unemployed, I would allow myself to become as over-employed as was humanly possible, then throw in a couple of part-time jobs for good measure. "Blac Comedy" is getting ready to open at the end of next week, and I will soon start rehearsals for a children's production of Cinderella which will run from october-January, in the middle of which will be Christmas Carol. They're getting me an understudy because they love me so much. That's where I'm a rockstar--kid's theatre.  I'll also be appearing next in lake forest in a thriller called Murder in Green Meadows--paying a psycho--which seems like a stretch for me only to those of you who are NOT my exes. I am also doing a play reading in October of a new play which will be read for people from the Goodman and Steppenwolf, amongst others. Apparently, I come off very believable as an out of shape forty-year-old gay man. (Again, only a stretch to believe for those of you I never dated) And I found work for the spring. I will be playing the lead (one of them anyway) in a Ray Cooney farce called It Runs in the Family, and then after that playing a boxing manager in Heaven Can Wait. So my year is booked Now all i need is someone to tell me where I can go to get a job that results in money. Oh, and because I have so much free time, I've agreed to help a theatre company get off the ground by writing, directing, and acting in their shows. (Not necessarily all at the same time) So if nothing else, my marriage will survive because I'll never be home. I've always said employment is the best marital aid....

The main reason I'm writing, however, has nothing to do with me personally, but rather the alarming trend I'm seeing these days, which is the creeping ooze of stupid that is slowly but surely covering our country. It reared its moronic head most recently in the protests stirred up by the right wing over Obama's shocking and flagrant disregard for the sanctity of America's youth by planning on addressing the nation's schools over the White House web site to give a speech about the importance of education, hard work, and staying in school. Apparently conservatives were appalled by the notion that the President of the United States might discuss things like getting a good education with those getting it. The issue seemed to revolve around the after-speech discussion materials where the President asked the children to do such un-American and subversive things as answer the question "What is President Obama asking me to do?"  and "What is President Obama inspiring me to do?" He then goes on to require the children to write letters to themselves making pledges as to what they can do to help Obama help them meet their goals. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the right sees as indoctrination and brainwashing. And they made a big enough stink that schools are offering concerned (ie stupid) parents the option of keeping their children home during that school day so as not to be brainwashed by Obama asking their children to work hard and stay in school.

I wish i could laugh at this. i wish I could mock these people in a way that would have everyone who read the mockery rolling in the aisles and make the recipients of the mockery so ashamed of themselves that they would never show their face in the light of day and would instead crawl off to some uninhabited location where they could spawn their blank slate offspring in peace and teach them only good wholesome things like the fact that dinosaurs didn't really exist and science is only something to use when it helps you make gasoline out of oil. That cannot happen because a) The Duggars have already populated the last open bit of this country and b) these people aren't funny. Of course they ARE--read anything they write or listen to anything they say and you can't help but laugh at the sheer inanity of it. You chuckle at the fractured logic and disjointed scattering of reason that leads them to these conclusions. But that's the problem. Those of us who aren't of that ilk--otherwise known as the ones with brains--have been laughing at these imbeciles for years, while these imbeciles have slowly taken over the country. This creeping ooze of ignorance, anger, fear  and suspicion has permeated the country to a point where facts and truth no longer hold sway. These people actually are upset that their children might become part of social change. They might actually (gasp) help bring it about! How dare Obama talk to my children about his progressive agenda? they cry in outrage. When did progressive become a dirty word? Especially at a time in history when everyone admits that things need to change? I was hopeful when Obama was elected. I was hopeful that finally this country had had enough of the backwoods, good ol' boy, ain't had much book-learnin', but hey, I got me a load of horse sense approach to politics and government. I had hoped that after eight years of watching this country get broken almost beyond repair again and again, people were ready and anxious for things to get better. I mean, hell, even our last president's own party couldn't defend him any more! I even kept my hope alive as Obama preached bipartisanship.  But my hope is gone. The right has no interest in working in a bipartisan manner. And they have no interest in changing anything. The right is the guy who threw a bunch of silverware into the garbage disposal and turned it on, then bitches at the plumber when he says it needs to be replaced. They would prefer to keep using the same disposal, thank you very much. Just put some chrome on it so it looks like new.

From sabotaging debates on health care, to cooking up a birth certificate scandal, to now suggesting that a speech to school children is somehow a diabolical plan to initiate them into some sort of socialist cadre of mindless drones, the right has shown again and again that all it is interested in is making sure that nothing changes in this country. And it is our fault. We have allowed it to happen because we laughed at them, thinking no-one could ever take these blatant lies and idiotic notions seriously. We had faith in our fellow men, and our fellow men turned out to be gullible, uneducated, fearful, selfish, grasping and easily manipulated. The right has worked on insinuating itself into the minds of a certain part of society. They have ignored the rich and the corporations for the most part because those people are never going to back the left. But they have wormed their way into a part of society very aptly described by Obama during his campaign--those that during times of crisis grab on to their Bibles, their guns and their fear. These are people who do not think things through. They do not test concepts or analyze them. If someone appeals to their gut, or their God, then they must be right. If they warn of socialists coming in and taking what they have worked for, they will believe it, even though by doing so they are actually working against their own best interest. People marching in Tea Parties protesting tax hikes that do not affect them, AND a plan that would actually REDUCE their taxes. But did they take the time to find out what was happening? No. Someone just yelled "HIGHER TAXES" and they flocked like lemmings to a cliff. Public health care won't take away anyones coverage--merely give coverage to those who do not have it. Do they look into it? No, someone just yells "SOCIALISM" and they turn out to fight it, barely any of them realizing the police that help protect their right to protest are a socialistic force. They protest gay marriage due to the damage such a thing could do to them, even though it wouldn't affect them a damn bit. But someone yelled "SIN" and since they're already willing to accept a fairy tale as a blueprint for living their lives, why question the discrimination against a group? I mean, after Jesus was really big on that exclusion thing. And now they've yelled "BRAINWASHING" and these idiots will line up and insist that they be allowed to remove their children from being able to hear a speech by the President. And for some reason we take these people seriously. We give credence to their concerns and adjust accordingly. No-one was able to keep their children from having to listen to Reagan's speech to the school children, and if here was ever a guy who was nothing but a propaganda=spewing puppet, it was him--until Bush Jr came along. But other Presidents have made a speech and no-one blinked. But now, Obama is going to talk, and we've seen that he actually has an effect on people, so the right needs to stir something up. And the meek, unthinking, laughably unaware line up behind and decry the outrage of their children being told to stay in school and work hard. 

We need to stop taking these people seriously. We need to laugh at them, no question, but we need to laugh at them TO THEIR FACES. We need to tell them they are idiots, they are morons, and no, their opinion, while they are entitled to it, is not required, nor requested. We need to stop dumbing down our education to allow for the crackpot concept of "teaching the controversy" and "Intelligent design". Let me tell you what the controversy is--evidence supports science, your faith wants it to be something else. Guess what should win in a school? Yep--the evidence. You don't like it, tough. You think that offering health care to everyone, that treating all people with dignity and respect is socialism? Good for you. Duly noted. Now please stand aside while we fix the crappy system you broke. You think being gay is a sin and shouldn't be allowed to enter into the sacrament of marriage under any circumstance? Thanks for letting us know. Now if you don't mind, we have a country to yank out of the 19th century. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that doesn't mean every opinion is entitled to consideration. And when the opinions are come to without any kind of reason, rationality, or logic, then they should not be allowed to influence the actions of people who are trying to change what is broken. You want to live with a busted garbage disposal, you go right ahead. The rest of us would like the plumber to o his job. Pond in 2012--The Laughing Elite.