Last week I embedded this video of a young lady with a forked tongue. All over town, I’ve gotten responses to that. Now I know exactly who among my friends and acquaintances reads my blog, because they greet me this way: “Oh my God, that video!” Tonight I found out that my teenage son’s entire class watched it today in school. I’m glad to shape the hearts and minds of our future leaders, but maybe not like this.

That video shows the young woman demonstrating her adroit facility with a forked tongue, which no doubt leaves lingering images in male minds. But everyone has speculated over what the surgery necessary for acquiring a forked tongue might be like. Well, speculate no longer: Here it is. Warning: I’m not embedding it because it’s not for the faint of heart, and not just because the soundtrack is by Nickleback. You’ve been warned.

And now I think I’d like to leave this topic for good. But not before adding that while I’m in favor of universal health care, this video reminds me that some things are better left out of the universe.

Yesterday I was re-elected to the California Assembly District 43 delegation to the state Democratic Party. Here’s the story from the Glendale News-Press (it’s also in the Burbank Leader).

I was also elected to the executive board, which means that in addition to attending the annual state convention as a delegate, I’ll be attending quarterly executive board meetings. Which means it’s my role in those meetings to represent the hopes and frustrations of Democrats in Burbank, Glendale, North Hollywood, Valley Village, Silver Lake, Valley Glen, and part of Van Nuys. It also means that for at least four weekends a year for two years I’ll be staying in hotels somewhere in the state while attending these meetings.

It was an honor to be elected and I’m looking forward to serving and I’m very grateful to all the people who voted for me. At the same time, I couldn’t help noting the comment of the outgoing executive board member I’m replacing: “Now you can spend between $3000 and $5000 a year doing this.”

I guess there is a price we pay for Democracy.

LA Weekly Theatre Editor Steven Leigh Morris has been removed from his position after 20 years. That’s because, now, there is no such position. The LA Weekly, which serves a town with 2000 stage premieres a year, now has no theatre editor.

This should not come as a shock, because the paper is owned by the same syndicate that owns the Village Voice, where it also recently limited the position of Theatre Editor. The Village Voice, it should be noted, is in that little theatre town known as New York City.

The loss of this position is a tragedy for everyone in LA who cares about the theatre. I haven’t always agreed with Steven’s tastes, but I have enormous regard for him as an intellect and a fiercely articulate champion of the notion that theatre is an essential endeavor that restores us to the root of the human experience.

There are theatre critics galore — we now call them bloggers — but almost all lack his wit and, importantly, the cachet of an important editorial perch. Once almost 15 years ago, I called Steven to politely say that I thought we had a great show at Moving Arts, and that his reviewer honestly had missed the point. I asked Steven if he would please come see for himself — and he did. Immediately after the performance he pulled me aside and said that his reviewer had indeed missed the point, and he followed this up by running a feature the following week about the play. A respected, well-informed theatre editor is capable of representing theatre in this way, and making judgment calls. Now, without an editor, whom would one turn to?

In my 20 years of theatre experience in this town, Steven has been our foremost ombudsman. Over time every time I made a request — to sit on a panel, or to please write a piece for LA Stage magazine, or to serve as a judge for the USC one-act festival I was producing — the answer was yes. That was just from me; imagine all the other invitations and solicitations he agreed to. He has been tireless in supporting the artform and helping to succor a community that desperately needed it. This is a devastating loss for all of us.

Now what?

Last year I attended a business seminar out of town. On the first day during lunch I found myself seated with five other guys roughly my age who come from worlds very different than my own. To wit:  When I said that I read between one to two books a week, they gasped. They couldn’t believe it. Some of their questions:

•  “When do you have time?”
• “What kind of books?”
• “How do you pick what books you’re going to read or not?”
• and, most penetratingly, “WHY?”

Because, you see, these guys didn’t just read fewer books than I do. They read NO books. Ever. Every one of them seemed smart and successful, but they read no books. Ever.

(In fairness, I watch no sports. Ever. Even in bars.)

Today on the LA Times’ site I came across this interview with someone who read 462 books last year. No, that’s not a typo. Four hundred and sixty-two last year. (So far this year, she’s above 10 books. And today is January 9th.) Reading this, my questions were remarkably familiar:

• “When do you have time?”
• “What kind of books?”
• “How do you pick what books you’re going to read or not?”
• “WHY?”

My immediate reaction was, “Well, certainly she isn’t retaining much.” But then I tried to remember the plot of the Brad Meltzer book I read two years ago and couldn’t. (What I could remember were the plot twists I saw coming from miles away — which says less about my cleverness than it does about my glee at the time about being right.) Is this Meltzer’s fault or mine? Probably both, but somewhat more Meltzer’s:  there wasn’t a memorable character in the book, and novels should be about people. Checking out Meltzer’s site also helped me feel better about this, because even after looking at the titles of his novels I couldn’t pick out the one I’d read, and even after reading the plot descriptions it was a toss-up until I remembered that the book involved brothers in a bank. Meltzer, who seems like a nice guy and who is a very successful writer with legions of fans, isn’t writing books for me. So I don’t find them memorable.

On the other end of the spectrum, I can remember large swatches of Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” and “Everyman,” as well as Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” “No Country for Old Men” and “All the Pretty Horses,” all of which I read in the same timeframe. So I’m not slipping into dementia.

I have to wonder if it’s good to read 462 books in one year. This would certainly help me tidy up my nightstand, where the stack of “books in waiting” has seemingly through meiosis become the two stacks of books in waiting.  I’m almost finished with the biography of Brian Eno (invaluable, although written by a sycophant) and the Inhumans graphic novel “Silent War,” I’ve made a good start on Julian Barnes’ latest (a meditation on death), and I’ve got only two stories left to read in the T.C. Boyle collection “Tooth and Claw.” But that still leaves the histories of Germany under the Nazis, the history of the Roman Empire, and God knows what’s waiting at the bottom. (And, atop it all, is last week’s New Yorker with Barnes’ latest short story, which I’m halfway through.)

But if I could read all of this times 60 in the course of one year, would any of it prove to be notable? And what would be the rest of the price paid? In 1795, someone named J.G. Heinzmann listed the physical consequences of excessive reading: “susceptibility to colds, headaches, weakening of the eyes, heat rashes, gout, arthritis, hemorrhoids, asthma, apoplexy, pulmonary disease, indigestion, blocking of the bowels, nervous disorder, migraines, epilepsy, hypochondria, and melancholy.”

Ouch.

No, this isn’t Spider-Man’s newest arch-nemesis. This is actually a well-known long-time fan who finally made the cover. I can’t wait to see what Scott Shaw! has to say about this.

I truly must be the only Democrat not attending the inauguration, given that even fictional characters now seem to be going.

You’ll see why in just a moment. (Brace yourself.)

Sam Shepard was arrested yesterday in Illinois for drunk driving. According to news reports, his blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit. I don’t have any sympathy for drunk drivers, and I hope that if Shepard is convicted a judge won’t either.

But what I really want to talk about is this mug shot, which propels Shepard into the rarified ranks that include, say, Nick Nolte.

Well, he certainly looks drunk. And I know we all age (if we’re lucky). But my first thought after seeing this was about potential future roles for Sam. It now occurs to me that if Sam Shepard writes a sequel to “True West” (as Albee wrote a prequel to “The Zoo Story”), then Shepard seems perfectly disposed to play Dad. Because he looks like a toothless old man who lives in the desert. Yes, Sam Shepard, early action playwright and former hipster and lover to Patti Smith has become… a coot.

Congress insisted that U.S. automakers present a plan for solvency before it would approve a bailout — and then didn’t approve the bailout anyway. Which I was actually cheered by. Then Ford decided it didn’t need a bailout, and again I was glad — partly because I drive a Ford (a Mustang convertible) and would hate to feel dragged down by association into bailout-hood. If there is no longer a stigma in insolvency, we should create one anew.

My first problem with the proposed automotive bailout was that it treated all three of the U.S. manufacturers the same, even though their circumstances were very different.

Ford makes a good car — a number of good cars — that have been selling very well, especially that Mustang and the Focus and the F-150 truck. Yes, Ford may have too many brands right now (Mazda? Volvo?), but the company has cash reserves and was making money. Ford’s problem was the sudden credit freeze of the second half of last year. The near-collapse of the economy panicked most buyers, and those who were left standing couldn’t get access to credit. That left only the people who were going to pay cash for a car — and as we know, those people live in China.

Chrysler is owned by venture capitalists. Here’s what VCs do: They make many bets in the marketplace, and some pay off and some do not. VCs seek a return of 10-to-20 times their investment, and they like to get in, and then get out, of these bets. So when the Germans (Daimler) were losing a bundle on Chrysler, Cerberus did what VCs do — they picked it up cheap and tried to turn it around quickly so they could unload it with a huge return. Unfortunately, they made a very bad bet. Why you and I should be forced to finance their mistake is unfathomable to me. We’re certainly not going to share in any good investments Cerberus made in the past. To really nail home the point, let me note that as a non-public company, Cerberus is incapable of issuing any stock to the U.S. government as a way of paying back the investment (if that were ever even to happen). Chrysler should just be allowed to fail.

Which brings us to GM. Compared to the rest of the marketplace, they don’t make good cars; even if you believe they do, almost no one else does, so that perception becomes the reality. Their manufacturing and marketing is remarkably inefficient. Compared against Toyota, whose sales are almost equal in the U.S., GM has about one-third too many dealerships. And their chief executive is an utter failure who lacks the good grace to go away. Bankruptcy might actually be a good option for GM, so long as the company emerges from it. Because GM is so large, and directly or indirectly employs so many people, that the idea of GM simply vanishing from the economy ought to give us all shudders.

So:  three very different situations.

But why write about this now? Wasn’t the failed auto bailout big post-election story of November?

That brings me to my second problem with the idea of running to the rescue of the automakers. While they did come up with plans that at least claimed to lead to financial success, all their new design ideas seemed retrograde:  Please save us and we’ll build hybrids and we’ll expand research into electric cars. How 2004. Remember when great American companies championed innovation? You don’t hear much of that coming out of Detroit.

So today I stumbled upon this in the New York Times:  some actual forward-thinking ideas of what U.S. automakers could build into their cars to make them more attractive. They include:

• dedicated short-range communication that could prevent accidents
• robot-controled driving to improve traffic flow and reduce emissions
• solar cells to reduce dependence on gasoline
• built-in smart-phone technology (if the car can drive itself, you can check your email)

These technologies already exist. And they sound like the sort of thing that Barack Obama means to invest in when he talks about putting money into infrastructure. This is what Detroit should be asking for — the proverbial hand up instead of the hold up (“Give us money or we’re going to close, and  you’ll be sorry.”).