Support Local Artists

In my efforts to do something other than sitting in a dark theater every waking night of my life, I mustered up the energy to make it to the Velvet Lounge last night to see local singer/songwriter Meredith Bragg and the Terminals.

His brother produced the projections for my show, and a friend is producing their latest album. Meredith and company are extremely talented, and have the kind of sound that simultaneously reminds you of the good things about your favorite artists (he's been compared to Elliot Smith and Nick Drake - but he's alive, and not quite as tragic) but also manages to sound, well, just like himself. All of which is good.

Keep an eye out for his performances, or listen to his samples online. He's hard not to like.

The raging tide we held inside would hold no more

A visit to my blog by my dear JD has got me thinking about Lancelot and Guinevere.

It's a pretty dark story. Pretty grown up too. We were, what - sixteen or so - and my Lancelot and I sat on a bench onstage at Greece Olympia highschool singing about the raging tide of our love that would hold no more (wow. that sounds so much more riddled with sexual overtones than I ever realized back then). The love was forbidden, a betrayal both of Lancelot's great friendship with Arthur, and of Guinevere's deep love for her husband.

This is an extra-marital affair we are talking about.

We never really got into that aspect of it.

The fortunate thing in our production, I think, was that everyone sighed a small breath of relief when Gwen took up with Lance. That meant that I was to kiss my dear friend JD (who was, much to my chagrin, making out in the hallways with my best friend on all of our rehearsal breaks) rather than kissing my brother, who was playing Arthur.

Yeah. That would have been weird.

Sometimes, when I look back at my highschool years, where I always felt a bit of an outcast and never quite knew where I fit in or what to do to earn the acceptance of my peers (which, being sixteen, mattered to me) I have to wonder if pretending I was married to my (twin) brother for two years straight on stage didn't in some way encourage our classmates to ostracize us a bit. At the time, and I mean it when I say this, the fact that we were always playing opposite each other didn't strike me as unusual. But it was. It was totally weird.

Why didn't anyone tell me that?

Bright Spots

I am going through some stuff. I debated just leaving the blog alone for a while, because it seems dishonest to completely ignore the things that are going on in my life that I am not willing to write about, but at the same time, there are things in my life that I am just not willing to write about.

But since, for the most part, I keep my personal life out of this blog (except in cryptic, nonsensical posts that quote song lyrics) I will try to continue to do so, and write on.

It's been a rough two weeks.

Walking from the Metro to my work today, with a pit in my stomach the size of New Jersey and the lingering sense that my right hand or left kidney had been ripped out of my body, I could not help but experience the lightness and joy that comes with a beautiful fall day in our nation's capitol.

The weather today is no less than stunning. The sky peeks through the trees above, a breeze tickles the pedestrians streaming in and out of the Senate buildings and the Library of Congress, my bag was finally light -- not digging a groove into my shoulder since for once I wasn't carrying my laptop and three scripts in it -- and, almost in spite of myself, I smiled.

It reminded me of an exercise I used to do in my journal when I was eighteen and the world seemed much crueler and more difficult than it should be for an eighteen year-old. I had spent the year before not eating, and in my struggle to learn how to live and love life again, I started making these lists. Lists of things that made me smile.

Back then they included things like rainbow jimmies and Sark books and musical theater soundtracks and my highschool sweetheart's raven colored curls. Like I said, I was eighteen. And perhaps a rather young eighteen.

What would I put on those lists now?

Smile Incentives:

1. Sweeping the hardwood floors of my apartment.
2. Clean laundry that smells like fabric softener.
3. Sleeping on sheets made out of t-shirt material.
4. Realizing that my Ipod is charging (for a day it wouldn't, I panicked...)
5. So much music. This morning - Badly Drawn Boy. Last night - Kings of Convenience.
6. Beers last night with the lighting designer.
7. Jason Lott. Yeah, that's it. Jason Lott. Just knowing him makes me smile.
8. The baby panda. Of course, the baby panda.
9. Having a back up phone charger.
10. A haircut that has actually gotten better with time.
11. Being able to make it to the gym for the first time since the earth was cooling.
12. Randomly running into my stage manager from West Virginia and her sound designer fiance - both of whom I adore.
13. Chamomile tea.
14. A well made Cafe Americano.
15. A single changing leaf.
16. Loving someone, unconditionally, even after.
17. Breathing. Breathing is so useful.
18. Tuna melts. My ultimate comfort food.
19. The book I am reading. It feels like going back to an old friend each evening, already, even though I just started it three nights ago.
20. Friends who send me books, and who know me well enough to know that I will be moved and absorbed by said books.

Final Countdown

I have a headache.

I have to call my playwright and tell him we cut half of the projections from the show.

It had to happen. It was a wise idea. It was inevitable.

Lesson learned. Unless you are working with a theater with tens of thousands of dollars budgeted for multi media resources - these things are a headache. Even with tens of thousands of dollars, they sometimes fail miserably. And often, they weren't necessary in the first place.

These last few days before opening a show bring on both the headaches (see Lighting Designer who worked his way through a run with a migraine last night) and amazing clarity. When all of the pieces are finally (finally!) in place, the story suddenly emerges. This stands particularly true with a play like this, which relies heavily on it's technical elements. I sort of feel like I haven't actually known this play until just last night. And that I still have a lot to learn about it.

The actors are going through the same journey. We made a discovery last night that seemed at once completely obvious (Why didn't I realize that before!?) and like an absolute revelation. With the adjustment the scene became active, mysterious, even a little scary.

And it was all so simple. Recognizing the givens. Investing in the situation. Reacting honestly to the circumstances. Talking and listening to each other.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my Acting 101 for the day. You can do all you want with remembering the taste of your first kiss, with knowing the heat of a field of burning coals, you can Meisner all day and Strasburg all night, but it is amazing what that little adjustment will do.

Breathe. Listen. Know where you are coming from. Know what you want.

We will see how tonight goes. Things are still settling. I am suddenly extremely nervous to have the playwright in town. What if he hates every decision that I've made? That is certainly his right. I wonder what he thinks he is walking into. Even after working on this play long distance for over a year, I realized today that we may indeed have very different ideas about how it is supposed to work. And with him several time zones away, all I could do was trust my instincts and do what I felt served the story.

I am confident now that I have done these two things. Rather, that we have all - actors, designer, stage manager - done these two things.

We will see how he feels.

I have a headache. Still.

One Big Mindfuck

The worst thing one can do when coming near to the opening of a show is to obsessively read the reviews of other shows.

Which is, of course, exactly what I have been doing.

I read reviews a lot. Of other people's shows, of my own shows -- there really isn't a reason for a director NOT to read their own reviews, unless their psyche can't handle it (and sometimes, sure, I wonder if maybe that statement applies to me...) -- of shows in other cities, of other productions of shows I am working on.

I think it's genetic. My brother and father also read reviews compulsively. Of theater, of movies, of restaurants. We probably all give the critics too much power.

But doing that now completely freaks me out. Because I read things in reviews that I know could be picked at in whatever show I am working on. It makes the little faults and errors that I see when watching a runthrough blare in my head. I can even imagine the head lines they can come up with for a show.

It's not a pretty place to be.

And so, as a tribute to the institution of reviews, and in a stunning example of blatent and unabashed schadenfreude, I will post the first two paragraphs of my favorite theater review, ever, for the musical GOOD VIBRATIONS:

Even those who believe everything on this planet is here for a purpose may at first have trouble justifying the existence of "Good Vibrations," the singing headache that opened last night at the Eugene O'Neill Theater.

But audience members strong enough to sit through this rickety jukebox of a show, which manages to purge all catchiness from the surpassingly catchy hits of the Beach Boys, will discover that the production does have a reason to be, and a noble one: "Good Vibrations" sacrifices itself, night after night and with considerable anguish, to make all other musicals on Broadway look good.

-Ben Brantley

I mean. Wow. Ow, ow, ow, ow.

As if the show itself did a disservice to the theater. I did not see the show. I wouldn't argue that yes, it was probably as bad as he describes. But still.

Ouch.

In the News

Because, when it comes right down to it, we're all just looking for love.

Arrrgrghhhhhh! Come on! Really? I mean... nooo... really? Priorities?

And when all else seems wrong with the world, there is nothing like a baby panda swathed in tupperware to make you smile.

Burrowing

When I was little, and I was tired of sitting at the dinner table (family dinner time was honored at our home -- and pretty much obligatory until we got into high school and found it impossible to fit into everyone's schedules) I would turn around and burrow my head into the back of my chair so that my family got a shot solely of my "better end". In retrospect, I marvel that they let me do this, and continued to eat and converse with a little "coolie" (the word my Italian grandmother used for a rear end - not the non-PC term for Chinese day workers) sticking up from one end of the table.

I fit fine that way - I was small for my age until I hit puberty -- and could nestle quite comfortably into this very 1970's chair with wheels that turned and spun around on our 1970's linoleum. I would gaze down at the floor and think without disturbance. Without needing to talk to anyone. And as long as I actually stayed at the dinner table, my parents were okay. It was an unspoken contract.

There is something of that burrowing instinct that remains in me.

Right now, when nothing seems clear, about my show, about my life, about my future, about tomorrow, about three hours from now - I am struck with that same desire to burrow. But it's not an option.

I think that is the scariest thing about becoming a grown up. You can't ever just stick your head in the pillow. The world will still be there, waiting for you when you turn around. They need an answer.

There is nowhere to hide.

I am unsure about the show. Until I can see it in its entirely, with all the elements in place, I am not sure what exactly we need to fix. New plays are very hard in that way. One can't help but wonder - is this a play at all?

I am letting down a friend this week. A friend I love, and who deserves anything I can give her. But the thing she needs most right now, I just don't have. That is time.

I have been away from the work that actually pays. Rent is going to be a challenge this month.

Yes. Welcome to the glamorous world of the arts.

I wonder if I turned around and burrowed into my chair at my day job right now, if my co-workers would look at me funny...

Probably.

Boasting Rights

Since I can't bring myself to write anything having to do with my own life (things are too sloppy right now - in life, work, and heart matters) I am going to turn my gaze beyond my own little world and promote the satellites in my little universe.

Two of the most important men in my life have gotten good press this week.

My dear friend B has a profile in a Delaware paper about a show he is doing there. The interview is a trip - I wish I could see the cover that they are talking about in the sidebar questions. If anyone lives in Wilmington and has a copy, please send it my way.

I've written about B before. He was my Delaware beach hook up a few weeks ago, and has been a constant presence in my life for the past, geesh, thirteen years. I love him dearly and wish him nothing but success and happiness - he is an actor - someone who you meet and have trouble imagining doing anything else. His mind is sharp and vast, his interests run the gamut, and yet - he was born to grace the stage. I have no doubts about that.

He is also one of those friends who - if you ever take a moment to try and imagine a life without the person - you find that it is simply not possible. My memory bank is too heavily loaded with his image. He has shaped me now. There is no turning back.

And my brother A was just nominated for a Jeff Award for his work at the Northlight Theater in Chicago. The Jeff awards are Chicago's equilavalent of the Tony Awards in NY, or the Helen Hayes Awards here in DC.

I am sad to say I did not get to see the show that A was nominated for. But I am proud as a sister can be, and sure that the work was intelligent and sensitive.

In a weird stroke of fate, A and B actually met months before I ever laid eyes on B. It's a funny story to look back on. Both were final-finalists in the National ARTS competition (an arts competition for highschool students) so they actually hung out together in Florida during final rounds. When I met B during my first week as a student at University of Michigan (and literally, within minutes, I was smitten with the guy - it is impossible not to fall for his intensity and curls) he mentioned that he'd been there. It came up randomly, I don't remember why. I told him my brother A had also been there, and asked if they'd crossed paths. He dug out pictures of them in one of the finalists hotel rooms, eating pizza, I think.

The world is very small.

These things happen and they shape our lives forever. Chance meetings, random connections. When somehow the world knows exactly what you need (a friend, a love, a crush, a teacher, a mentor, a pal) and puts that into your rotation.

It is our job, I think, to recognize what is there in front of us.

I cannot help but wonder if for every chance grabbed, every gift recognized, I have passed over others because my gaze was focused downward, my ego centered inward, my mood shy or reluctant or simply because I was too exhausted to make an effort.

We can never tell.

I, for one, am thankful for the gifts I have been open and ready to receive.

Why do I do this again?

We moved into the theater on Tuesday.

Sort of.

We started load in and build as well.

Sort of.

Except nothing has really changed and it's Thursday.

Lighting Designer has hung a few lights, but until we have a set not much more can be done.

Hmmm.

I don't want to talk about it.

Modern Poets

I know. It's a total cop-out to keep blogging song lyrics. But they are the only thing that is genuinely resonating with me lately.

I think about this - how listening to a single song often moves me far more than watching a play or movie. Is it because a song, being a purely aural experience, better allows us to make our own associations? In a play or a movie, we are given much more direction about what we are supposed to think. In those mediums, the story is about the lives on stage. When listening to a song it inevitably becomes about our lives, our experiences.

The songs that move me most somehow combine lyrics and melody into a bittersweet cocktail. There are songs that, within the first three bars, have me in tears. And not necessarily because of associations they carry, or memories they conjure, but simply because they have found the perfect formula to reach in deep and twist my insides.

I wish I could harness that power in my work.

Today's Lyrics:

Foolish Love
by Rufus Wainwright

I don't want to hold you and feel so helpless
I don't want to smell you and lose my senses
And smile in slow motion
With eyes in love

I twist like a corkscrew
The sweetness rising
I drink from the bottle, weeping
Why won't you last?
Why can't you last

So I will walk without care
Beat my snare
Look like a man who means business
Go to all the poshest places
With their familiar faces
Terminate all signs of weakness
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love

I will take my coffee black
Never snack
Hang with the wolves who are sheepish
Flow through the veins of town
Always frown
Me and my mistress, the princess
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love

So the day noah's ark floats down park
My eyes will be simply glazed over
Or better yet
I'll wear shades on sunless days
And when the sun's out, I'll stay in and slumber
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love
All for the sake of a foolish love

Cause I don't want to hold you and feel so helpless
I don't want to smell you and lose my senses
And smile in slow motion
With eyes in love

I've written about this song before. I love the way it makes a complete journey through loving, losing, denying, missing, and still - loving. Melodically it shifts from plaintive to jaunty and back to plaintive again. It doesn't dwell in one place. It cycles though.

Just like life. We cycle through. We go through the rough spots, and later we strive to remember them so that we can better appreciate the happy times.

The lyrics are surprising. The metaphors are unexpected. And yet - the story he tells is one we can relate to. One that is extremely familiar.

Go to all the poshest places
With their familiar faces
Terminate all signs of weakness
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love

God - I mean who hasn't tried to shut down, close out, hide the weaknesses, squelch the vulnerability?

Hang with the wolves who are sheepish

Clever, without being too heady.

I drink from the bottle, weeping. Why won't you last? Why can't you last?

Simple. Honest. Effective.

Love Songs

If you had to choose the perfect love song, what would it be?

Wait, wait -- don't answer right away, think about it.

I listened to this on the metro on my ride home from rehearsal over and over again. It is a beautiful song. Doesn't it just make you want to meet the girl who inspired this? The woman, I mean?

I bet she's great.

The Luckiest
by Ben Folds

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

What if I'd been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?

And in a white sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

Better than Blonde Jokes

These seem particularly relevant in the light (no pun intended) of this month's Louisiana situation. Just take out "change a light bulb" and insert the words, "fix a levee" or "provide disaster relief" or "recognize a state of emergency" or "help impoverished people who live from paycheck to paycheck or are sick, old, or homeless"...

(Thanks to Arch Words for the jokes!)

Q. How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?

A.
1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;
4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of light bulbs;
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb;
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner: Light Bulb Change Accomplished;
7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally in the dark;
8. One to viciously smear #7;
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;
10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

Curb It

Cheryl David has the best lipstick.

I mean, really, the best lipstick.

Last night after rehearsal I indulged in one of my small pleasures, and watched two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And not only does Cheryl David look lovely and adorable, always, all the time (I know, I know, so would we all with a crew of HBO makeup artists and stylists) but I mean - these were two different episodes, two different shades of lipstick, and both of them were perfect. Perfect color, perfect gloss, perfect application.

Is there a way to find out the color and brand of someone on television's lipstick?

The episodes themselves were a bit disappointing. The thing with Larry David is, sometimes the episode sinks to a place where things just go so progressively wrong, so awkwardly bad, that the show becomes more painful than funny.

The first season was consistently great, from the inaugural "Pants test" to the "Beloved Cunt" episode, to "Porno Gil" which featured the very memorable "blowjobinthecar" moment.

But by the second season, having to follow Larry as he screwed up one deal after another on the Julia Louis-Dreyfus series became so... expected. Of course something was going to go wrong. Terribly wrong.

Of course.

The one thing I never grow tired of is watching Cheryl deal with Larry. She gets that tense look on her face and sets her jaw in this way - that you just know she is either trying not to laugh (out of character) or trying not to scream (as Cheryl). It strikes me as a pretty accurate portrayal of marriage. Learning to love your partner's foibles. Or at least to tolerate them.

But when Larry gets to a point where he is so pathetic or sarcastic or snarky (and at times - like in the episode where he trips Shaquille O'Neal - he totally went to that place) then you just wonder what is wrong with Cheryl for staying with this man. We all know that at times he must be the funniest man on the planet, and really - an affable guy. And you totally see that in the moments when he is trying not to laugh. But when our hero sinks too low, we wonder if we really want to go down there with him.

That having been said, I still have two seasons to watch on DVD, and I look forward to seeing them and Cheryl's stunning gloss.

FRIDAY

ONE OF MY BOSSES AT ONE OF MY DAY JOBS EITHER TYPES ALL IN CAPS or only in lower case without any punctuation at all ever

I'm not sure why she does that.

I read an article once where they analyzed the emails of people at different levels within a corporate structure:

The highest level (CEO'S, Presidents) tended to do what this boss does - little to no punctuation, no effort to proofread or edit -- generally emails written with the urgency of "I never have enough time in my day to waste time being careful about what I send to you! And you have to understand what I am talking about because that is your job!"

Mid-level employees (where I usually exist) are the most careful with their emails. They edit them as they would a formal letter, punctuate properly, give them paragraph form, and write in complete sentences. Perhaps this is owed to an underlying desire to impress, to prove themselves, and to move out of mid-level...

And administrative support (secretaries, admin assistants) are most likely to add foofy things to the emails. Colored backgrounds. Little jumping smileys. Unusual fonts. Emoticons. You really rarely see that at any other level. Which may be a result of: "This job is so boring that the only way I can keep myself sane is by choosing the perfect shade of lilac for the backdrop to my Outlook emails and more - the bibilical quote that will send people on their day feeling blessed for hours, days, even weeks to come."

I for one pretty much hate emoticons, and only use them when I need to be passive aggressive with someone.

So, yeah - I was very suddenly feeling kind of down and profoundly alone yesterday. It made me think of the people I miss in NY, and the people I miss in general - friends I've lost, or lost touch with. Which is where the post came from.

I form very strong attachments to people. Not to A LOT of people, but when I do, I really do. As a result, I have a great deal of trouble letting someone go. This is probably why my best female friend is someone I met when I was seven.

I have always been this way. When I was young and friendships ran their natural course (something that happens, especially, with adolescent female friendships) I would react so emotionally and extremely - lashing out towards a friend who had distanced themselves from me, or against myself for driving that friend away - that to read those journal entries now makes me wish I could go back and hug my twelve year-old self. I'm better now. But I still have trouble letting things go.

And I was wallowing in that for a bit, for a number of reasons.

I adored the movie ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND.

Because we try to do that. We try to write people out of our histories. And I loved that the movie proved that, even if it were scientifically possible to do this, the human mind will not allow it. Because once you have known someone they will shape the way you look at the world - even if only in very small ways and select moments - even if only once a year or once a decade - they are there, inside you, forever. It brings me some comfort.

The driving force of the play I am working on is the need to be remembered, to make a mark. It drives all of us, I think.

Dar

THE BLESSINGS

If you're gonna get your heart broke, you better do it just right,
It's gotta be raining, and you gotta move your stuff that night,
And the only friend you can reach isn't a good friend at all,
And you know when he says "Now who dumped who?" that you never should have made that call.

I had the blessings, there's nobody there, there's nobody home,
Yeah the blessings, at the moment I was most alone
And aimless as a fulltime fool, the joke was on me,
I got all those birds flying off of that tree, and that's a blessing.

And the blessings were like poets that we never find time to know,
But when time stopped I found the place where the poets go.
And they said, "Here have some coffee, it's straight, black and very old,"
And they gave me sticks and rocks and stars and all that I could hold,

I had the blessings, a moment of peace even when the night ends,
Yeah the blessings, can we meet? Can we meet again,
At the crossroads of disaster and the imperfect smile,
With the angel in the streetlamp that blinks on as I walk on a mile, the blessings.

And the best ones were the ones I got to keep as I grew strong,
And the days that opened up until my whole life could belong,
And now I'm getting the answers, when I don't need them anymore,
I'm finding the pictures, and I finally know what I kept them for,
I remember, I can see them, see them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

I was fast asleep at three in the morning when I got the payphone call,
And she said, "Did I wake you up," I said, "Hey, no, not at all."
And she said, "I got this suitcase and I don't know what to pack,"
And I said, "You can take anything you want, just wait and see,
It's not a release, not a reward, it's the blessings,
Its the gift of what you notice more,"
And I walked out and I watched her kick the big pile of the night,
And we sat down and we waited for that strange and empty light.
Yeah the blessings...

See them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

-Dar Williams
--------------------------------------------------------
I've done that night move. In the snow, not the rain. And then I had a friend to call, a good friend, who made it all okay, or possible, who made me strong. But I don't have that friend anymore, and the forecast calls for rain.

And I need to find that place that poets go, and I need someone to pour me black coffee, and give me sticks and rocks and stars, and someone to hold my hand.

Blink and It's September

(the picture is a turn-of-the-century Labor Day parade in Buffalo, NY)

I feel a bit like a Mack truck ran over me then backed up and made another go at it.

That about sums up my weekend.

It's times like these when I am reminded that I am, indeed, thirty. I can no longer survive on adrenaline and coffee alone. Nights with five hours sleep catch up with me. I get those dark circles under my eyes. My skin gets pasty.

Pretttyyyyy.

The reading on Sunday went extremely well. We played at the Millennium Stage which is a totally bizarre space. It is basically one end of the great hall of the Kennedy Center, so it is kind of cacophonous and expansive and conducive to nothing that remotely resembles an intimate moment. The songs played extremely well there, the scenes - not so much. It is just too big, so unless you are in the first couple of rows, any nuance is pretty much lost on you.

But we had a full house, and people didn't get up and leave during the show, so we must not have sucked. You can actually see a webcast of the performance here.

The sound is better than it was live -- watching it there we lost some of the dialogue at times, but the webcast seemed to pick it all up. The balance isn't so hot - we lose the band at times - but you can make out all of the lyrics, which for me is always the priority.

This show has really grown on me. Shawn (the writer) and I are chomping at the bit to get a fully produced performance, we are just not sure where and with what means.

Saturday night, after our show I ate pseudo thai food in Georgetown at Bangkok Joes (totally chi-chi yuppie rendition of Thai) but I will say my green curry was tasty and pretty spicy to boot. After that I crashed. We had plans to attend one of my actor's - for the show, show, not the reading - post wedding parties (he was married that morning - by the evening they were throwing a huge bash) and I just, simply, couldn't, do it. I had hit a wall. The warm coconut milk set in, I was in a singha daze, and all I could do was crawl into a bed and sleep.

Sleep.

The next day I had rehearsal for the show, show I am working on. The recent groom presented himself exceptionally well, considering he had made one of the most important life decisions one can make not 24 hours before we were meeting and wrestling our way through this kooky script once again, but that's actors for you. Life. Show. Life. Show. Blur. Blur. Blur.

It was a productive session. We will see how that all goes.

That night I ate at another new restaurant (new for me, sorta new for DC) and was pleased that Radius Pizza actually does manage to resemble a New York pizzeria experience. Like a Grimaldi's or Patsy's or John's (not like a slice shop) with family style salads and thin crust pies. I would return, for sure.

Because yes, it is all about food. It is always, all, about, food.

Afterwards the plan was to take a nap, sleep off the pizza a bit, and head to a friend's 40th Birthday Dance Party.

I never made it.

How shamelessly lame does that make me? Two missed parties in two days. Old. Lame. Tired.

Sleep.

Ah well. There will always be other parties.

Some Happy News

Link above.

Blog Bites (easy reading)

These excerpts are courtesy of my friend Joziu.

From the NY Times.

The White House battled a chorus of criticism throughout the day as bloggers made much of the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, vacationing in New York during the disaster, where she was spotted at a Broadway show and was to attend the U.S. Open. By Thursday evening, Ms. Rice had cut short her vacation and returned to Washington, where she headed to a staff meeting to discuss ways of coordinating offers of foreign assistance from more than 30 countries and organizations.
Bloggers also circulated a picture of Mr. Bush playing a guitar at an event in California on Tuesday to imply that he was fiddling while New Orleans drowned. In fact, the picture was taken when the country singer Mark Wills presented Mr. Bush with a guitar backstage at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, Calif., after Mr. Bush gave a speech marking the 60th anniversary of the Japanese surrender in World War II.

Later that day, as floodwaters poured into New Orleans, Mr. Bush returned to his ranch in Texas, then left from his ranch for Washington on Wednesday morning.

(The Post reported that Rice was booed at SPAMALOT, and was shopping for S. Farragamo shoes on 5th avenue when fellow shoppers began to shame her for spending thousands on footwear while thousands went homeless)

From the Chicago Tribune (which endorsed GW)

Unfortunately, the war in Iraq is directly related to the devastation left by the hurricane. About 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is now serving in Iraq, where four out of every 10 soldiers are guardsmen. Recruiting for the Guard is also down significantly because people are afraid of being sent to Iraq if they join, leaving the Guard even more short-handed.

The Louisiana National Guard also notes that dozens of its high-water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators have also been sent abroad. (I hate to be picky, but why do they need high-water vehicles in Iraq?)

This, in turn, goes back to the original policy decision to go into Iraq without enough soldiers and the subsequent failure to admit that mistake and to rectify it by instituting a draft.

The levees of New Orleans, two of which are now broken and flooding the city, were also victims of Iraq war spending. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, said on June 8, 2004, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."

This, friends, is why we need to pay attention to government policies, not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about our lives.
Also from the Trib

Congress in 1999 authorized the corps to conduct a $12 million study to determine how much it would cost to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane, but the study is not scheduled to get under way until 2006. It was not clear why the study has taken so long to begin, though Congress has provided only in the range of $100,000 or $200,000 a year so far.

Al Naomi, senior project manager in the corps' New Orleans District, said it would cost as much as $2.5 billion to build such a system, which likely would include a massive network of gates to block the Gulf of Mexico from Lake Pontchartrain and additional levees. If the project were fully funded and started immediately, Naomi said it could be completed in three to five years.

A project to build up the levees to withstand a Category 3 hurricane was launched in 1965 after Hurricane Betsy and was supposed to be completed in 10 years, but it remains incomplete because of a lack of funding.

In recent years, funding has dropped precipitously, which some officials attributed in part to the escalating costs of the Iraq war. Funding for a drainage project in New Orleans went from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in the current fiscal year, while funding for such hurricane protection projects as levees around Lake Pontchartrain declined from $10 million in 2001 to $5.7 million this year, according to figures provided by the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

Funding for these projects generally has trended downward since at least the last years of the Clinton administration. Congressional records show that the levee work on Lake Pontchartrain received $23 million in 1998 and $16 million in 1999. It was not clear how much the drainage project received in 1998, but records show it received $75 million in 1999.

Neither the White House nor the Corps of Engineers would confirm the numbers, nor would they provide funding levels dating to previous administrations.

It Only Gets Worse

It is overwhelming.

The anger, the pain, the loss, the destruction, the frustration.

How is this happening? Why is there no end in sight? Washington goes about its day as usual while thousands of people suffer, dying slow and anguished deaths 1,000 miles south of us.

Our people. One Nation under God.

One nation.

What?

It is baffling to watch this all unfold. It turns my stomach, it makes me sob, it confronts us all with the awful realization that everything we learned in school about our country being set up to protect its citizens, with plans in place for disaster and strife, with leaders ready to stand by their people, with a government invested in the best interests of its people - bullshit, all of it.

Every man for himself. Survival of the fittest.

Inevitably, that is the idea that this nation is built on. It is a platitude that has become a painful truth.

We don't give a shit. If you are poor in this country, we would rather not see you. If you are helpless, or sick, or old, or very young, you are at the mercy of whatever the elements hand out. If you are born poor, chances are you'll die poor.

Everyone I speak to is dazed. How are the images that we are seeing our country? How will we ever recover from this?

Why didn't anyone have a plan? Why has the government gotten as far as they have in diverting funds from systems and structures geared towards helping the people of the US to a war that wasn't founded, that wasn't our job to wage, that was initiated under false pretenses.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Sure, give 'em to me, but don't be surprised if I watch them drown.