Lou Dobbs may run for President.

In other news, there’s still no Democrat running for governor of California.

Forget “2012.” The true disaster epic set in California is the state budget. It’s already out of whack (again), it’s been out of whack, and it’s only going to get far, far worse.

Meanwhile, here’s how many Democrats are declared in the governor’s race:  none. Jerry Brown is still asking for money, but he’s not running for anything. Of the three Republicans running, two are fantastically wealth, and as such can afford to be deluded about what would fix our state budget. Predictably, they’re vowing to  balance the budget through cuts. News alert to them:  If you cut all the discretionary spending out of the state budget, it won’t balance. The third Republican, Tom Campbell, is someone I’ve met several times and someone I respect, and his determination to balance the budget is serious. For one thing, he’s proposing some tax hikes. But there’s little likelihood the state GOP will nominate him, precisely because of those tax hikes.

Today at a political luncheon I wound up seated with an Assemblyman from Los Angeles County. (No, not the one I’ve often written about here.) I was bemoaning the lack of gubernatorial candidates — again, the Democrats have none declared — and he floated the notion of running.  He figured he’d get 25% of the vote just for not being Jerry Brown. (I figure that number may be low.) I tried to talk him into it, but got nowhere, and then he tried to talk me into it, and got nowhere. And then we talked about all the other people who aren’t running and won’t run:  the state controller, the former state superintendent of schools, either of our senators… oh, the list is endless.

Our projected deficit over the next two years is $41 billion. And almost no one will stand up and do something about it. That’s a sad statement. It makes me think that with similar leadership 230 years ago, we’d all still be subjects of the British crown.

I’m sorely tempted to get my name on the ballot. Just to be a nuisance.

Overheard tonight, as my 7-year-old and his 11-year-old sister came across a television commercial for the new teen vampire movie:

Him:  “Why doesn’t he die? He’s a vampire. Vampires can’t be out in sunlight.”

Her:  “I don’t know. He just doesn’t.”

Him:  “Why not?”

Her:  “I don’t know. I know one way to kill them for sure. Rip them apart into pieces. They did that in the first movie.”

Him:  “Why don’t they use acid? That would work.”

Her:  No response.

Him:  “Why don’t they use acid?”

Her:  No response.

Him:  “EMMA!!!!! Why don’t they use acid?”

Her:  “I DON’T KNOW!!!!”

Later, he told me that he had “a plan to put an end to her diabolical ways.”

There’s a joke that goes, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

Which seems apropos, having just come from seeing “Better Angels,” a play about Mr. Lincoln, at the Colony Theatre in Burbank.

At this point, I think I’m pretty well-versed with Mr. Lincoln and his story. Above my desk at home I’ve got a miniature bust of that president, and throughout the house I’ve got countless biographies and studies of the man, and collections of his writing. I’ve been to his memorial several times, and I respectfully refrain from comparing other, lesser politicians to him, no matter how close they try to sidle during election campaigns, no matter which party they come from.

Still, this play tonight did just what you hope the theatre will do, every time you step inside one: it awoke me to the reality. There is Lincoln the monument, and there was Lincoln the man. In order to remove Lincoln from the reliquary, the playwright (Wayne Peter Liebman) arrives upon the device of a framing sequence concerning Lincoln’s secretary, John Hay, as played by David Dean Bottrell. At the play’s beginning,we encounter an older Hay, serving as secretary of state in the early 1900’s during the administrations of McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. This Hay now realizes that with Lincoln he was in the presence of greatness. The younger Hay, seen throughout most of the play, like so many other contemporaries mistakes Lincoln for a lucky and talentless buffoon. He, like the third character in the play, a female petitioner to the president, grow to understand his depth. And then, in the moment of his triumph, having won the Civil War and passage of the Thirteen Amendment, which abolished slavery, Lincoln suffers his tragic end. But this is offstage, and Hay, the older Hay, 40 years after the fact, one of the last few wh knew Lincoln personally, is the one to tell us, except he cannot fully tell us, his voice cracking as he says about that evening in the theatre, “You know the rest.” The moment was like a depth charge. Almost 150 years after the death of a man I never knew, I started to well up.

This was the second play I saw this week. The other, sadly, I didn’t like at all. I took a good friend with me and we spent the next day exchanging emails picking the play apart (and the direction). I could go on about why it didn’t work, but they’re the usual reasons:  no real conflict, no real investment in the characters or the milieu, long and self-important monologues, late-arriving themes and complications. Rather than go on about that, I’d just like to say this:  There’s a reason we’re drawn to art. Art is the expression of someone else who was here, someone who is connected to us, someone who left this trail. The cave paintings at Lascaux are the earliest and most vivid proof of this. In an age when we are bombarded by sensory overload and traffic jams of the freeway and of the mind, when a producer has to remind audience members before the performance that they can indeed forego Twitter and email for 90 minutes and to please do so, it’s art that has the power to reroot us in the ground we all stand on, the ground of our common humanity, and to remind us of its potential and its impossibility, its exultation and its awfulness. That’s what art is for.

According to a news story on MSNBC.com, “Tiny insect brains can solve big problems.“

If you’d like to see what “The Prisoner” really looks like, click here.

The new one doesn’t even have cool theme music, let alone Patrick McGoohan’s penetrating glare (which I practiced for hours back in high school).

I’m not the only one seeing more people in restaurants. In another good economic portent, even the restaurants in Indiana are showing signs of life.

 As a fan of the original series, which spoke so directly to my rebellious teenage self, I was looking forward to the remake of “The Prisoner” running on AMC this week. Sadly, it’s unbearably bad. Really, truly, tediously, awful. I would go on about why, but this fellow has already enumerated all the reasons, with one exception:  There’s nothing at stake. No stakes = no conflict = no story. In its place:  dolorous music accompanying logy acting. If there are terrorists in the village, I’m rooting for them.

The New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year is, fittingly, “unfriend.”

I used to have this very close friend. He was a big part of my circle for years. He and another friend and I smoked cigars together and went to Mexico together and did theatre together and did all sorts of things together. Great times.

Then he fell into a deep conversation with an actress at one of my parties and soon after they moved in together and then he drifted away. Which happens. I understood it then and I understand it now.

I did try to maintain the friendship, though. I mean, I have other friends who suddenly have love interests who remain my friends. And shouldn’t that be what you want for your friends? If not, maybe you’re not such a friend.

So I would call him and he’d sure-sure me, but then not call me back or not show up. The final straw was in 2004 when I was at the launch party thrown by Nike for the Rockstar energy drink. They took over the Music Box (aka The Henry Fonda, home of that recent Devo concert) and threw open the taps and bottles and generously dispensed appetizers. The rooftop speakeasy provided a great venue to smoke cigars and take in the night time buzz of Hollywood. So I got on my cellphone and invited my friend because I knew I could get him in and because I knew he lived close by — in Hollywood, mere blocks away. He said great, thanks for the invite, he’d be right over. An hour later I called him back and he answered his phone at home and then I knew it was the last time I’d be talking to him.

Me: “You’re still there.”

Him: “Uh… yeah. Sorry.”

Me: “I called you an hour ago and invited you and you said yes and now I call you and you’re still home. So you’re not coming.”

Him:  “Yeah. Sorry.”

Me: “No. It’s okay. I get it. I got it.”

Him:  “No. It’s not like that.”

Me: “Yeah. I think it is.”

Five years went by.

Two Fridays ago I got a call on my cellphone. It was him. “Hey, it’s [name here]. Uh… I’m going to call you at your home number too.”  Five seconds later, my home phone rang and he left a message there too. Asking me to call him.

So here’s what I’ve done:  Nothing.

Oh, I’ve been tempted to text him and say I’m going to call him right away, and then do nothing. But that seems petty.

As soon as I told our third friend that our former friend had called, he said, “He wants something.”

When I told my playwriting group this story, a friend in the group immediately said, “He wants something.”

Wants something as in, wants something that will benefit him. And that’s my thought too.

I deleted both messages and forgot about it until five minutes ago when I thought I’d post it here for posterity. And, who knows — maybe he reads this blog.