Tonight while driving to the reading of a friend’s new play at Moving Arts, it struck me that two weeks ago was our theatre’s 16th anniversary. Sixteen years! It seemed astonishing: both that we had reached that milestone, and that no one had noticed. It simultaneously filled with a little awe and a little sadness.

Then I parked my car across the street from the theatre and got out and walked past the art gallery that opened there two years ago — except now it wasn’t an art gallery any more. It was a hair salon. When had this happened? At first I couldn’t believe it, and stood there looking in from the sidewalk at people getting their hair washed and cut until those people grew uncomfortable at me watching them in a place where just a couple of months ago there had been people looking at art. The gallery lasted two years. Somehow, we’ve made it to 16.

Some of us at Moving Arts have been so focused on what we don’t have — a larger theatre, a bigger bank account, much more of I don’t know what — that we’ve overlooked the simple accomplishment of staying alive and sticking to our mission of producing new plays. That has been difficult, and I don’t see it becoming easier any time in the future, but we’ve been doing it for 16 years now. Somehow. Seemingly impossibly.

I went inside and there it all was: the tiny stage, the creaking seats circa 1916 from a former silent movie house in San Francisco, the duvatyne drape that ripped when I moved it aside, and more. But I saw good playwright friends Dorinne and Ellen, and actor/director friends Darrell and Mark were in the reading, and so was Chuck, whom I hadn’t seen in several years, and four actors who were new to me and whose work was exciting, and then there was all the promise of this very good, very well-written, highly entertaining and provocative new play, and once again I lost sight of what we didn’t have. Because actually, we have a lot. And we’ve had a lot for 16 years. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we can keep having that for a while longer, and whether or not we do, we’ll always have the hundreds (thousands?) of actors and directors we’ve touched and worked with, and the hundreds of plays we helped shepherd into the universe. So for all we don’t have, we’re rich.

Happy Belated Birthday to us.

This just made me laugh.

Holy cow. Has it really been five days since I posted here? The reason is the usual one:  I was out of town again, and inevitably that means getting ahead on any number of projects and responsibilities so that I can be reasonably undisturbed while away, and then catching up when I return. But I didn’t realize it had been five days.

Where was I? Facilitating a retreat at a very nice resort just outside Palm Springs. There were about 30 attendees, and to a person they are good people who are actively engaged in their communities. And, so far as I can tell, they are all Republicans. (With the exception of one guy.) Here are the issues I heard about over dinner and discussions:  low taxes, a strong economy, a strong military, a smaller government, and personal freedom. My two thoughts about this:  1. Hey — those are my issues! (Along with some others.) 2. Then why remain a Republican? Because as far as I can see, the last eight years have equaled:  low taxes (okay, you got that one), a recklessly managed and now dangerously careening economy, a military stretched perilously thin with no strategy for success, a fantastically bloated federal government, and a federal government that demands to know everything about you in the name of security. If these are the things you oppose, why keep supporting the people responsible for it?

I’m speaking mostly with regard to the federal government. Here in California, the ingredients are different:  a Legislature that historically overspends, a 30-year-old proposition that drastically limits property taxes, a 2/3 requirement to raise taxes, term limits that ensure that experienced elected officials are forced to move on, an intransigent minority party, and a weak governor with no power over anyone (especially what is nominally his own party). Mix it all together and you get an $11 billion deficit, and a request from that governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to the federal government to please bail us out. And… why not? What’s another $11 billion among friends? Heck, AIG will need another $11 billion just to pay for lunch tomorrow, and GM needs $50 billion just to fill up at the pump.

Tonight my family and I went out to dinner with my brother and sister-in-law, who are visiting from New Jersey. We compared notes about how the economy is doing in our circles, and frankly none of us seems to know. The stories vary so widely that they seem like anecdotal dispatches from a postapocalyptic land. Business seems good over here, bad over there, and uncertain all across the board. I said, “Nobody knows, and nobody knows what to do. When you look at the actions the government is taking every day, you have to conclude that they’re just guessing. They don’t really know what to do.”

So here’s the one thing we can count on:  First it will get better (or worse). Then it will get worse (or better). Then the cycle will repeat. It’s just a question of which will come first, better or worse, and how quickly these things will happen.

In the meantime, I’m allowing myself to be irrationally exuberant about at least one thing:  evidently, one of President-elect Obama’s  priorities is to close Guantanamo Bay. The economy is important. So is the character of the nation.

I’m still wondering how the Republicans are going to steal it. Thoughts?

With friends Janet and David at the Democratic Club victory party.

These comments from members of The Free Republic conservative grassroots network are illuminating. What are they so, so angry about? Bush congratulating Obama. Apparently now on top of everything else, W. is a race traitor.

The image above is from Sheila Pree Bright’s series “Young Americans,” which features young Americans with their flag. I like the series enormously.

My wife voted when our polling place opened at 7 a.m. and told me the line was longer than she’d ever seen it, and that by the time she was finished it was longer. When I drove our filthsome chidlers (with apologies to Roald Dahl’s “BFG”) to school just after 8, I scoped out the line and it looked lengthy, so I went back home, got on the internet for an hour and a half and went back. Now it was almost 10 and the line was longer. I found a place to park — far away — and wound up as number 49 in line. Previously, the longest line I’d ever been in to vote in my 20 years in Burbank had been a line of 6. I wish my father were alive to see this. Yes, he would have been a McCain voter (as I once would have been), but he would have been delighted to see all those people waiting to vote and he would have befriended every one of them. All up and down the line those of us waiting to vote were engaged in conversation about politics and what the future holds; judging solely from this line, we need to retire the myth of the uninformed voter.

There are reports of long lines such as this across the nation. Here’s my conclusion:  George W. Bush and his disintegration have been very, very good at motivating people to go to the polls. In their third debate, Senator McCain said to Senator Obama, “If you wanted to run against George Bush, you should have run four years ago.” Maybe so, but whether he knew it or not (and I suspect he did), McCain has been running against Bush all year, with both of them losing. In a final irony that I hope has escaped neither of them, Karl Rove yesterday predicted an Obama landslide. He should know:  He will have helped to create it.

David Byrne just sent me (and, okay, thousands and thousands of other people) this message, which I thought I’d share.

Pardon the bulk mailing. I Can’t Vote. I am an immigrant with a Green Card and, therefore, I am not eligible to vote in a federal election. FYI – I can get drafted (luckily, Daniel Berrigan burned my draft board’s records) and I pay taxes, yet I cannot vote for President. On Election Day, I see my neighbors heading to the nearby elementary school to cast their ballots. The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood – rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky – they all turn out in one day.

But most of you can vote. What can I say? The Republicans have made us less safe than before 9/11, bankrupted this economy, started an illegal war they can’t – and don’t intend to – finish, removed what sympathy (after 9/11) and respect the world had for the US, and have robbed US citizens of many of their basic rights. Global warming? What’s that? Science and education? Investment in our future? No, thanks – we’ll stick with a good ‘ole hockey mom. Ignorant, and fucking proud of it, as is always the case.

Although it looks like a shoo-in, it ain’t over ’til Florida. And there are plenty of racists in this country who will vote against their own best interests. So please, get to your local elementary school, post office, town hall, or whatever, and cast your vote and make this a country we can all be proud of. We can get out of this mess, and life can be better than it is.

David Byrne
NYC

I wrote these thoughts shortly after completing the ING Amsterdam Marathon — well, shortly after hobbling from the finish line in the Olympic stadium back to the train, detraining at Centraal Station to walk 10 minutes back to the hotel, showering and then briefly collapsing — but trust me, these were very much my thoughts while doing the marathon. And yes, my thoughts were in kilometers, because that’s what I was counting (believe me, I was counting every one of them). These kilometer markers are, by the way, approximations, since  I could barely think straight.

Kilometer 0:  Let’s go!

Kilometer 8: Wow, I’m still cold.

Kilometer 10: There’s a Dutch windmill. I’m running past a Dutch windmill.

Kilometer 15: There’s that damn windmill again. (In other words, we had to run back around it again.)

Kilometer 18: Where did this wind come from? It’s slicing right through me.

Kilometer 20: Marathons are stupid. People are not designed to run 42 kilometers.

Kilometer 22: I’m stupid.

Kilometer 23: Where am I? Alone somewhere way out in the countryside in a foreign country. What in God’s name am I doing here?

Kilometer 24: Thank God. There’s the turn. Now I’ll have the wind at my back instead of running against it.

Kilometer 25: The wind shifted and now I’m still running into it!

Kilometer 26: Who am I?

Kilometer 27: Stop looking at me, stupid farm animals!

Kilometer 29: Who am I going to give all this running stuff to? Because I’m never doing this again.

Kilometer 31: My urine is orange. That means something bad. But I can’t feel anything any more, so it doesn’t matter.

Kilometer 32: If I could stumble over to that gentle slope of grass I could die happily right there.

Kilometer 34: I can chew this pretzel but no matter how much water I drink I can’t swallow it.

Kilometer 35: There’s Coach Jack! At this moment, he is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!

Kilometer 40: [Jack is running the final few kilometers with me.] I love Jack. We should all be more like Jack.

Kilometer 41:  There are other people I know cheering me into the stadium.

Kilometer 42:  I got a medal. They called my name over the loudspeakers in the stadium. I’m not dead. I have to call my wife.

Back in the hotel room, on the internet:  When is the next marathon?

A relative sent me an email with the subject line “Good Info.” Turns out it’s anything but. Here’s the content — and no, don’t read all of it. Just sniff around it so you can get the gist, then note my response at the bottom.

This email comes in three parts:

Part 1
Remember the election in 2006?  Thought you might like to read the
following:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase)
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate
(stock and mutual fund losses)
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars
6) 1% of American home s are in foreclosure
America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!  Remember it’s Congress
that mak es law not the President. He has to work with what’s handed to
him.

Quote of the Day……..’My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the
history of the world.  I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.
— Barack Obama

Part 2:
Taxes…Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics
enlightening and amazing.
www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Taxes under Clinton-1999                  Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K – tax $8,400          Single making 30K – tax $4,500
Single making 50K – tax $14,000        Single making 50K – tax $12,500
Single making 75K – tax $23,250        Single making 75K – tax $18,750
Married making 60K – tax $16,800      Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K – tax $21,000      Married m aking 75K – tax $18,750
Married making 125K – tax $38,750    Married making 125K – tax $31,250

The democratic candidate will return to the higher tax rates.
It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think
Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If
Obama is elected, he will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of
the people that fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to
happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam
somebody out of some money and they don’t even know what happened.

Part 3
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much?   Read this:
I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the
war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.
I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until
they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them.  I
have included the URL’s for verification of all the following facts.

1.  $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each
year by state governments.
Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2.   $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such
as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis..org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3.   $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis..org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4.  $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school
education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of
English!
Verify at:  http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the
American-bor n children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6.  $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7.  30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8.  $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare &
social services by the American taxpayers.
Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9.  $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by
the illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10.  The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two
and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens.   ;In particular, their
children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US .
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11.  During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens
that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens
from Terrorist Countries.  Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth,
heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report:  http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12.  The National Policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass
deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an averagecost of
between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.
Verify at:  http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf ant

13.  In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to
their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14.  The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes
committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.
Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

Are we that stupid?  If this doesn’t bother you then just delete the
message.  If, it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope
youforward it to every legal resident in the country including every
representative in Washington , D.C. – five times a week for as long as it
takes to restore some semblance of intelligence in our policies and
enforcement thereof.

My relative, someone I love deeply and think highly of, asked, “what do you think about this???????????????”

Here’s what I thought, and I figured I’d share it with you now just a day and a half prior to the election, not because I think there’s anyone left to sway, but because I just need to write it one more time and this seems like my last chance.

I looked everywhere for the “Good Info” promised in the subject line, but I couldn’t find it. Instead, I found a tissue of innuendo and bad argument, the main thrust of which is to conflate two separate dynamics:  the Democrats winning control of Congress in 2006, and, well, the seeming apocalypse since. One benefit of having studied logic is to understand that whether or not these things happened concurrently, it doesn’t follow that one led to the other. Otherwise, if a two-headed calf were born in early 2007, one could blame the Democrats.

Lee