Secure Your Rights

Liberal Pragamtic, with horrible spelling. Discussion and venting on the arts, politics, and the future of America.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Debate Night

I realize that I may be one of a few who watched the democratic Presidential Debate last night. So I feel that it is my duty to go over it with you a bit.

1) April 2007 is way to early for a presidential debate. But if your gonna have one this early, al east get out there and make it exciting. Brian Williams was more spontaneous - and that guy is literally made of cardboard.

2) Thank God for Mike Gravel - this guy is totally insane! Never answered the question he was asked, but boy can he yell! He is willing to pull out all the "old coot" rhetoric too, the "I won't hold my opponents youth and inexperience against them" stick. Never mind that he only served 2 terms in the Senate. Back in the 70's and 80's. This guy will make these debates worth watching, until the top tier candidates stop coming because, well...for some reason politicians think crazy is contagious.

3) No one was answering the questions. I hate that about debates. Particularly when there are 8 candidates. It's bad enough to have tow people not answering the question, but when all 8 answer a different question and then try to explain why they are answering a different question - well, some car crashes I saw on tour come to mind.

4) Email questions of the candidates? Really? Really.

5) I will now attempt something the candidates did not seem to be able to do: Follow directions.

I will make a "blank and blank" statement about my impression of each candidate's over all performance (feel free to add your own.)

FMR Sen Mike Gravel (Alaska) Loud and Crazy
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) Genuine and unelectable outside of Cleveland
Sen. Joe Biden (Delaware) Brief and a suck up
Sen Barak Obama (Illinois) Sounds Good and Says Little
FMR Sen. John Edwards (North Carolina) Relaxed and Contemplative (usually this disqualifies one to run for president though)
Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York) Quasi-Visionary and Repetitive
Sen Chris Dodd (Connecticut) Present and ,uh...Present?
Gov. Bill Richardson (New Mexico) Sure of his Identity and Eager to answer everyone else's question.

I saw an AOL poll this morning that had Obama winning the debate 31% to Clinton's 30%. Edwards was down at 14%. Frankly from what I saw, Kucinich did the best in terms of a debate, followed closely by Edwards, Obama, and Clinton to a certain extent. But I find these AOL polls to be a good barometer of what "real" people in America are thinking. I mean, they still use a terrible internet provider or they are stuck like me with an address they have had so long it make no sense to change it. So idiots and practical people - that sound like the American People to me. There is also this Survey USA poll, which has Obama with the same numbers but Clinton further down. Though the fact that Edwards and Obama polled well with Republicans is interesting.

All in all I'd say - no change. Edwards and Clinton will have to do something in the next, oh say...9 months to kill Obama's momentum, with out killing the party.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

I just can't stand it...but I called it months ago.

Rush Limbaugh is a fat, stupid, talentless, fuck stick, feltch mongering, drug addicted, criminal, ass hat motherfucker, with no love for his country, the law, government, people, or himself. Someone should put this sad sack of wasted diseased flesh out of his and our misery. Better yet, how about he go to jail like should have, where he can be anally raped for 5 or six years like he's in a never ending episode of Rome.

The reason for this out burst brought to you by....

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The reality of it is...

Giuliani said this week that electing a Democrat as president in 2008 will increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack on this country.

The truth is that electing a president in 2008 will increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack on this country. Clinton first term, Bush (II) first term. Both terrorist attacks. Same target.

They want to test the will of our president, every time we get a new one. The Soviets did the same to us in the Cold War - as we did to them.

The issue is not party. It would also seem that the "arrest and prosecute" method applied by the Clinton Administration was more effective at saving American lives. Six people died in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. 2,973 died in the attacks in 2001 -however, one has to include all the Soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan as well, in fact I would not even count the deaths in the attacks, in Iraq the latest number I've got is 3,334- in Afghanistan 181. That's 3,515 under a republican administration. No deaths were reported in the apprehensions of the bombers in 1993.

Don't vote for party. Of course that means you should probably vote Democratic.

Monday, April 23, 2007

check it

Friday, April 20, 2007

It's Offical

The Woodpecker is going up at the Eugene O'Neill Playwright's Conference -along side Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa no less. So if your free July 11 and 13th get on up to Connecticut and see the most hilariously disturbing thing this side of our actual government! OK, the government isn't so hilarious anymore.

By the by, if your looking for my thought on VA Tech-they remain unchanged from last month's gun control post. Tragic, senseless, preventable.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

I WON!

That is all. Thanks to everyone involved in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. And too everyone else nominated in the Ensemble category, congratulations! Everybody wins!

Friday, April 13, 2007

See ya Sam


So in the world of progressive talk radio Sam Seder, former co-host of The Majority Report and later the host of the Sam Seder Show, is being buried by Air America Radio on Sundays from 4-7pm. Let see a show of hands as to whom listens to the radio from 4 to 7 on Sunday evening...yeah, that's what I thought. And being replaced with the male version of Randi Rhodes, Lionel (who did at least have the good taste to put MB on the air once.)

Being a big Jeannine Garofalo fan, I did my darnedest to listen to the Majority Report as much as I could, until it was canceled and turned into the Sam Seder show - since Jeannine had better thijngs to do (ie. The West Wing) and it moved to 9am-12pm. Since I am in may car during that time I can't stream AAR, and have to listen to whatever is on Progressive Talk 1260 - Stephanie Miller(who is very funny too.)

But during the cold and artistically challenging winter of 05-06 I pod-casted Sam's show - and damn if it wasn't great. He also introduced me to John Perkins and his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which if you haven't read, you have very little business reading this blog.

But mostly I love Sam because of a segment he did on the "war on Christmas," on CNN. He became a real hero to me, I love someone that will speak truth to nonsense and I will miss that voice, cause lets face it, I'm not listening to the radio on Sunday. Oh yeah, he was also the first person I hear call for a challenge to Joe Lieberman the Democrat killer. Nice try Sam.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Nappy

Well, it's been a while and I thought that I might have more time for the blogging once my show closed, but that hasn't been the case. The past two weeks I've been working just as much as when I was doing theater, it seems everyone is auditioning for the fall right now - and since I'm not doing anything until the fall that means more work for me. And more driving in horrible, horrible traffic. So of it seems to have paid off, but I will discuss that when there is more "officialness" to discuss.

Now I want to get into to Don Imus. I just saw that he's been fired. Good, but I don't really think he should have been fired for what he was fired for.

I've been racking my brain to figure out when the word "nappy" became a racial slur. I have certainly referred to myself as "nappy" - particularly when I had long hair in college, but no hair brush.

I have no intention of defending Don Imus, but shouldn't 30 years of being an ass hole be more reason to give him the ax? I guess I have to admit that I dislike the mooring "shock jock" genre that Imus was instrumental in creating. My freshman roommate in college forced me to listen to "the Greaseman" every morning when I got up and it left a rather awful taste in my mouth.

Howard Stern (not to be confused with not the father of Anna Nichole Smith's baby) has never held place in my heart either - except when the fake Imus in Private Parts insulted him, I felt for Howard there.

So I don't like what Imus does. Does that mean it shouldn't be on the radio? How is different from the Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity radio shows?

Moreover; upon watching the footage from the MSNBC simulcast on youtube, I did find a racial slur in the commentary. The word was jigaboo. I really hate that word. But Imus didn't say it. I was one of the other talentless hacks he surrounds himself with to make him appear to be the smart one. So should Imus really lose his job, or just the nameless faceless dude who actually said something awful?

Ok, the misogyny was pretty bad though. But didn't we have the "ho's" conversation throughout the 90's? Was Imus trying to speak to a hip hop audience, and now is he being persecuted for trying to reach people? The answer to that is probably not. But I will say this for him. He has not come out swinging on this. He has apologized, expressed regret and remorse, done everything one would want hi to do, an no one will forgive him. Seems, I don't know...sad?

I won't miss him, but I take no satifactin in this being a victory for race relations or free speech.

Friday, April 06, 2007

I hate writers

I've been much busier than I intended to be this week. Among other things, I have gotten a new work computer sending me through several different hoops trying to recover all my passwords and bookmarks so for a while I couldn't even sign on to blogger. I'm also back to doing actual work at work. It's been a while but now I get to look at the same crappy movies in HD! Nearly twice the mediocrity!

So over here there is a discussion about something called the Dash Riff. If I am not mistaken, I am one of the aforementioned actors in City Mouses example - if not, I can defiantly say that I was on stage during the scene. Having read all the accompanying material, I can say that 1) In a commercial audition if there is another actor reading with you then you can pay around a bit, 2) the chick reading with that guy was a pain, 3) don't do that stuff when you get on set or in the recording booth unless they ask you to.

As a stage actor I know the value of improvisation, and it increases ten fold on film - but editors hate it. Unless it is a wide shot and is perfect. Then we love it, less editing - and more "real."

Now for City Mouse and friends, we've had these conversations personally, but I can not stress this enough: Not every writer who writes a play is a genius. Nor are they all talented, nor are they all competent. The vast majority of people writing plays today don't know how to use the punctuation, let alone all agreeing on what it means.

I believe that Shakespeare has the right idea, put those stops in the rhythm, the verse, and no one will question what it should be. Instead now a days we have one writer from the West Coast who uses the ellipses and another in the Midwest the dash - but they both mean the same thing. The next thing I will hear is that if the writer is from the East Coast, then there will be a special way to say "FUCK."

As someone who works with writers everyday (oh, God help me) I can tell you, they aren't as smart as you think, and they need someone to break there ideas apart. Sometimes they write that junk in because that is the way they hear it in their head - don't let them tell you that is the only way to hear the text. If they are right, fine, good for them, but if they are wrong and you do nothing about it...it becomes your problem.

This could all be coming out because the bad movie I am editing was directed by it's author - so writers arn't my favorite people right now.