Sunday, November 30, 2008

Milk



I saw the movie Milk last night and I think it's great. Although I have to say that the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk I found more powerful. But Sean Penn does a great job of playing Milk. watch the trailer on YouTube.

You can watch the opening of The Times of Harvey Milk here.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Thanksgiving cancelled this year!

My daughter is sick!

I will pray to the robot God-Jesus for a better Thanksgiving next year.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

My Frenchy-French Thanksgiving



Well it's Thanksgiving again, and that means oo-lah-lah, time for la belle cuisine francais!

Since I moved to the NYC metro area lo these 10 years ago, I have had Thanksgiving dinner at Capsoutos Freres every year, except in 2005 when my ex wanted to try something snootier, and we went to One If By Land, Two If By Sea - which I was not impressed by. It seemed to me like a very over-priced and snobby TGIFridays, complete with servers singing happy birthday to a customer. The waitstaff was extremely unctuous, which my ex adored. Well, we are very different in many ways, which is why he is my ex.

But he did introduce me to Capsoutos, and I owe him for that. Capsouotos is a "nice" restaurant without being snobby and uptight. The Freres seem like a pretty laid-back group of guys (although there's one Frere I've never seen cause he's in the kitchen.) It's all the way in TriBeCa, so it tends to be frequented by a loyal fan-base with not alot of walk-in traffic - although that's probably changing since the neighborhood seems to get more upscale and fashionable each year.

And I must come clean here - it isn't like I have foie gras and snails for Thanksgiving each year - they do have turkey with traditional cranberry sauce (although not directly from the can like Mom used to serve) and veggies. And for dessert, pumpkin souffle! I'll have to do my traditional post-dinner 3-mile walk after that - THIS year in Central Park, which is now in my neighborhood - wheee!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

calling Harriet the Spy

Wow, Harriet the Spy would love to live in my apartment. Many of the people in the big fancy building across the street don't believe in covering their windows and you can see right inside. I guess they are proud of their apartments or whatever, but I think it's kind of weird. Also I own a pair of binoculars and it's very tempting...

oh yes I am back online

Wow, that was a long time without home Internet access... what did I used to do before the Internet anyway?

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

free Internet wifi cutoff

So blogging will be very light until Time Warner hooks me up tomorrow afternoon...

Monday, November 24, 2008

Got my jobs program!

Oh President Obama, you are not even in office yet, but you are well on your way to becoming the Best President Ever.

First making Hillary your Secretary of State. And NOW doing what I've been calling for since July - a jobs program. But not just any jobs program - a GREEN jobs program!

In the Democrats’ weekly radio address, Mr. Obama said he would direct his economic team to craft a two-year stimulus plan with the goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs. He said it would be “a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face.”

Mr. Obama said he hoped to sign the stimulus package into law soon after taking office on Jan. 20. He is already coordinating efforts with Democratic leaders in Congress, who have said they will begin work next month.

Advisers to Mr. Obama say they want to use the economic crisis as an opportunity to act on many of the issues he emphasized in his campaign, including cutting taxes for lower- and middle-class workers, addressing neglected public infrastructure projects like roads and schools, and creating “green jobs” through business incentives for energy alternatives and environmentally friendly technologies.



More at the NYTimes

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Snagglepuss!.wmv

Heavens to Mergatroyd! Snagglepuss was on SNL last week!

(He uses the tag phrase from whence this blog gets its name too!)

I'm a New Yorker now - you gotta problem wid dat?

Well I had planned to get rid of my car anyway, and now I'm doubly sure of that plan of action. Parking in Yorkville is BRUTAL. I thought Weehawken was bad. I drove around for literally an hour without finding any parking spots. And maybe I was getting punchy after awhile, but it sure seems like there are more fire hydrants here than anywhere else. Does the fire department really need like 10 hydrants per block? Oy!

That being said - I love my new neighborhood. It has everything, in addition to being a 20 minute walk from the Met and Central Park. Why did it take me so long to move here? Oh yeah - so many reasons. But I'm glad I finally moved on up to the East Side, to a three-floor walkup near Carl Schurz Park.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Slacker (Ending) - Directed by Richard Linklater

The last half of this clip is the best - with "Skokiaan" playing and then the guy throws... well, just watch it!

I am Heathcliff

That's what Catherine, the object of Heathcliff's obsessive love says about him, in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. But to a certain extent, we are all Heathcliff, which is what makes him a Byronic "hero" even though in fact he's kind of a monster. But who among us hasn't wanted some serious revenge on people who have hurt us, out of their unshakable belief in their own superiority and our inferiority.

I was never much for grudges or revenge until I met some of the truly nasty, loathsome creatures in the New York City off-off Broadway theater scene. Only in the last 3 - 4 years have I really come to understand how freakishly evil some people can be, and responded with simmering anger and occasional flair-ups. And there's only so much comfort you can get from sublimating your feelings into art.

But Heathcliff goes way overboard into pathology. Emily's Heathcliff is sometimes compared to Charlotte Bronte's Edward Rochester from Jane Eyre, both being dubbed Byronic heroes. But Rochester is a much better man than Heathcliff. While you can't help but feel badly for Heathcliff in his anguish over losing Catherine, it's impossible to like or forgive him, because not only does he take his revenge on those who have done him wrong - and it's arguable that Linton, Catherine's husband, ever meant to do Heathcliff deliberate harm - he also takes his revenge on children who had nothing to do with him, just because they are related to people he hates.

Compare that to Rochester - he is cuckolded by Celine Varens, his French opera-dancer mistress, and when she abandons her daughter he takes her in, although he's pretty sure she isn't his child. He has little affection for Adele, but he does the best he can by her.

More on Wuthering Heights soon. I wasn't a big fan of the book when I read it in my early 20s, and while I understand it better on an emotional level now, I still don't like it as much as Jane Eyre, and I'm not ashamed to say it's because I don't really like any of the people in Wuthering Heights, whereas I can't help but like Jane and Rochester, and forgive Rochester as Jane does.

And then there's the violence of Wuthering Heights - wow, I haven't seen any adaptations of the novel, but I bet none of them presents the violence on screen the way it's presented in the book. That's what someone should do - adapt Wuthering Heights with all its violence. I'm tempted... I think that the focus should be on Cathy, the daughter of Catherine and Linton. And you'd pretty much have to include that meddling Nelly Dean. Hmm...

Friday, November 21, 2008

Brokers with hands on their faces



The news media loves to illustrate bad days at the stock market by running photos of brokers with hands on their faces. So someone decided to turn that into a web site, called Brokers with Hands on their Faces

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Jason & Phoebe


Phoebe Summersquash has agreed to play Jane and Jason Alan Griffin has agreed to play Rochester in the upcoming December 21 reading of JANE EYRE which will be at the Penny Templeton Studio, 261 W. 35th Street

You can watch Jason's reel here (watch out, there's a sexy scene in the mix).

And the Philly band Scary Monster asks the musical question Do You Like Phoebe Summersquash? And yes, they really mean our gal - but then, how many Phoebe Summersquashes do YOU know?

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Jane Eyre reading

Coming in mid-December at the Penny Templeton - a reading of JANE EYRE in preparation for the next production. More details soon...

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Yule County reading



My play YULE COUNTY was part of the Mergatroyd Playfest this weekend. Since it turned out that none of the actors is Equity I was able to videotape the whole thing.

See a clip of the Yule County performance here. Quicktime format.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

What I look for in a 10-minute play

As the producer/director of the Mergatroyd Productions 10-min. Playfest, I was responsible for the final selection of plays for the show. Over 500 plays were sent in. Is it possible to read that many plays, even ten-minute plays in less then a month – especially when you have a full-time day job (technical writer) and run a theatre group (NYCPlaywrights) that meets every Friday night?

It is possible. Here’s how I did it.

First, all the improperly formatted plays were thrown out. A playwright should know enough to use standard playscript formatting. And I made a big deal, in the call for submissions, about using standard playscript formatting. I even provided a link to formatting samples. So any plays I got that were not in standard playscript formatting I took as one of two clear messages from the author to me: “screw you, I’m too big of an innovative important artiste-genius to abide by the rules of you common mortals.”

Or:

“I’m not smart enough to read submission guidelines or figure out how to format text. I should be taking classes in reading comprehension or Microsoft Word, not writing plays.”

Is that harsh? Too bad. If a play is improperly formatted, guess who will have to fix the script so that there are page numbers, a character list, and contact information for the author. Me. Not gonna happen - this is New York, Jack, I have stuff to do.

So I automatically threw out the improperly formatted plays – that took care of about 15% of all submissions.

What’s next? Well one of the things I said I wanted to see was plays in which something happens. In my opinion, far too many plays – and not just 10-minute plays – are about people sitting around bickering. So I look at the stage directions. If the stage directions consist entirely of “(pause)” then probably not much happens besides two or more people sitting around talking, bickering or arguing. Sorry but even arguing – even an argument in which people yell at each other – is not interesting drama by itself.

That’s another 20%. So 65% of the submissions remain. Now the process slows down a little, as more reading is required. Now I look at plays in which the characters don’t have names, but are just called “Woman”, “Man”, “Husband”, “Wife”, “Father” etc. I like my plays to have vivid, individualistic characters. Not giving your character a name says to me that your character isn’t an individual but some two-dimensional steotype. This is especially annoying for “Husband” and “Wife” – I don’t want to watch a play that portrays a “typical” marriage. Plays about how men and women just don't understand each other really irritate me. And have already been done to death.

OK, so that’s another 10%. Now I look for good parts for women.

It never fails to amaze me that in a time when women are astronauts and senators and serial killers and managers and soldiers and computer programmers there are still few interesting parts written for women. The thinking seems to be that unless the character is performing what is deemed a female function (sex, nurturing or needing to be rescued) it should be male, by default. I’m pretty sure that many of the plays submitted to the 10-min Playfest originally had fewer female characters, but since I made a big deal out of wanting good parts for women in the submission guidelines, some of the characters had been rewritten as female. Good. If I made one playwright realize that male is NOT the default gender for humanity I’m making the world a better place. Women are not a minority or special interest group – we make up half of all people on the planet. Theatre (of ALL places!) should reflect this. A playwright who gets that deserves extra consideration for his or her plays.

I am not looking ONLY for plays that have female characters, but female characters definitely help. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

So what do we have at this point? About 40% of the submissions, or about 200 plays that are properly formatted, aren’t just bickering, have individualized characters, and have a tendency towards good roles for women.

These last 200 get close scrutiny. I read them a couple of times at least. Some more things I look for:

• Does the play get right into the action?
• Is it really funny, or really touching?
• Does it present a novel world or situation?
• Does it have solid internal logic?
• Does it have that certain je ne sais quoi?

The last one is of course the most elusive of all. Je ne sais quoi is French for "I don’t know what" – meaning some undefinable, ineffable quality. A happy synergy of factors. Which is completely subjective. And of course much of the quality of the play depends on the actors performing the roles too. A bad performance could ruin a good play, although from what I’ve seen, far more often a good performance can rescue a bad play. But even if you carefully select your material, director and actor the results might not be the happy synergy you hoped for.

This we call “the magic of the thee-aa-tah.”

Friday, November 14, 2008

Jobs Program

I've been suggesting that we will need a jobs program since July 20. Not that anybody listened to me. Me and Krugman.

Krugman:
All indications are that the new administration will offer a major stimulus package. My own back-of-the-envelope calculations say that the package should be huge, on the order of $600 billion.

So the question becomes, will the Obama people dare to propose something on that scale?

Let’s hope that the answer to that question is yes, that the new administration will indeed be that daring. For we’re now in a situation where it would be very dangerous to give in to conventional notions of prudence.

more at the NYTimes

Jobs Program. Just remember I called it first.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

10 min. Playfest press release

Finished at last!

Mergatroyd Playfest Press Release

Better late than never! We're almost sold out anyway, so I'm not sure how much I should promote the show at this point.

to the Met!

I am so excited by the fact that the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be in my very own neighborhood - I plan to be there all the time. I'm especially looking forward to getting to see some actual Ingres drawings - whenEVER they decide to finally display one - and the new Greek and Roman Galleries.

I wonder if they'll display one of the many pornographic red-figure Greek vases in existence - I'm sure they have at least a few in their collection. They probably won't - I mean we are talking very explicit stuff, including homosexual and kinky stuff. From relatively vanilla straight sex - cowgirl style - to gay three-way, to the ever-popular satyr orgy. I'd venture to say that before the Internet, the largest collection of pornographic images ever created were on the pottery of the ancient Greeks.

Although other cultures certainly created their share

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

NYTimes prank



More here

Wow this would be a wonderful world! From the spoof NYTimes:

The President has called for swift passage of the Safeguards
for a New Economy (S.A.N.E.) bill. The omnibus economic package
includes a federal maximum wage, mandatory “True Cost Accounting,” a phased withdrawal from complex financial instruments, and other measures intended to improve life for ordinary Americans. (See highlights box on Page A10.) He also repeated earlier calls
for passage of the “Ban on Lobbying” bill currently making its way
through Congress.
Treasury Secretary Paul Krugman stressed the importance of the bill. “Markets make great servants, terrible leaders, and absurd religions,” said Krugman, quoting
Paul Hawken, an advocate of corporate responsibility and author
of “Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came
into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.”
“At this point, the market is our leader and our religion. No won-
der the median standard of living has been declining so much for so
long.”
Krugman said that the new Treasury bill seeks to ensure the
prosperity of all citizens, rather than simply supporting large cor-
porations and the wealthy. “The market is supposed to serve us.
Unfortunately, we have ended up serving the market. That’s very
bad.”

Monday, November 10, 2008

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Harriet the Spy

I just discovered a really neat fact about the new Manhattan neighborhood I'm moving to - Louise Fitzhugh, the author of Harriet the Spy lived on the very block I will be living on, at the time she wrote Harriet, and Harriet's neighborhood will be mine.

If you haven't read "Harriet the Spy" do so at your earliest convenience. It's classified as a children's book - but then so is "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" - both books can be enjoyed just as much - or possibly even more - by adults than by children.

But a sample of "Harriet" proves its greatness much more than all my praise:
The cook put cake and milk in front of her.

"What you always writing in that dad-blamed book for?" she asked with a sour little face.

"Because," Harriet said around a bit of cake, "I'm a spy."

"Spy, huh. Some spy."

"I am a spy. I'm a good spy, too. I've never been caught."

Cook settled herself with a cup of coffee. "How long you been a spy?"

"Since I could write. Ole Golly told me if I was going to be a writer I better write down everything, so I'm a spy that writes down everything."

"Hmmmmmmmph."

Harriet knew the cook couldn't think of anything to say when she did that.

"I know all about you."

"Like fun you do." The cook looked startled.

"I do too. I know you live with your sister in Brooklyn and that she might get married and you wish you had a car and you have a son that's no good and drinks."

"What do you do, child? Listen at doors?"

"Yes," said Harriet.

"Well, I never," said the cook. "I think that's bad manners."

"Ole Golly doesn't. Ole Golly says find out everything you can cause life is hard enough even if you know alot."

"I bet she don't know you spooking round this house listening at doors."

"Well, how am I supposed to find out anything?"

"I don't know" - the cook shook her head - "I don't know about that Ole Golly."

"What do you mean?" Harriet felt apprehensive.

"I don't know. I just don't know. I wonder about her."

Ole Golly came into the room. "What is it you don't know?"

Cook looked as though she might hide under the table. She stood up. "Can I get you your tea, Miss Golly?" she asked meekly.

"That would be most kind of you," said Ole Golly and sat down.

Harriet opened her notebook:

I WONDER WHAT THAT WAS ALL ABOUT. MAYBE OLE GOLLY KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT COOK THAT COOK DOESN'T WANT HER TO KNOW. CHECK ON THIS.

"What do you have in school this year, Harriet?" asked Ole Golly.

"English, History, Geography, French, Math, ugh, Science, ugh, and the Performing Arts, ugh, ugh, ugh." Harriet rattled these off in a very bored way.

"What history?"

"Greeks and Romans, ugh, ugh, ugh."

"They're fascinating."

"What?"

"They are. Just wait, you'll see. Talk about spies. Those gods spied on everybody all the time."

"Yeah?"

"'Yes,' Harriet, not 'yeah.'"

"Well, I wish I'd never heard of them."

"Ah, there's a thought from Aesop for you: 'We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.'"

Ole Golly gave a little moo of satisfaction after she had delivered herself of this.

"I think I'll go now," Harriet said.

"Yes," said the cook, "go out and play."

Harriet stood up. "I do not go out to PLAY, I go out to WORK!" and in as dignified a way as possible she walked from the room and up the steps from the kitchen.
It was also illustrated by Fitzhugh and her drawings are classic.

My daughter, who turns 30 years old today (we are doing brunch at Capsoutos Freres), plans to get a tattoo of Harriet the Spy.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Playfest next week!

Play festivals are alot of work. We're doing 20 plays by 20 writers next week and we just had a marathon rehearsal today and wow - tired! Although I am always tired after a directing session - concentrating so hard for hours will wear you out - and I can just imagine how rough it is for the actors. Luckily I found a very good stage manager and that makes things flow much more smoothly than otherwise.

Hopefully it will all be worth it - the lineup of plays is here.

Friday, November 07, 2008

It's official!

I'm moving to Manhattan soon - weehoo!

Thursday, November 06, 2008

OutKast - Hey Ya!



They disabled embedding but you can see it at youtube:

Hey Ya!

And I love that Andre 3000 (aka Andre Benjamin) - he just loves to dress up - he played all the dudes in his Hey Ya! video and you know he loved to wear all those different costumes. And now he even has his own line of fashion.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

I've never felt so patriotic in my entire life


WHOOHOO!

WHOOHOO!

WHOOHOO!

WHOOHOO!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

He's outta there not a moment too soon!

Bush Aides Say Religious Hiring Doesn’t Bar Aid

In a newly disclosed legal memorandum, the Bush administration says it can bypass laws that forbid giving taxpayer money to religious groups that hire only staff members who share their faith.

The administration, which has sought to lower barriers between church and state through its religion-based initiative offices, made the claim in a 2007 Justice Department memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel. It was quietly posted on the department’s Web site this week.

The statutes for some grant programs do not impose antidiscrimination conditions on their financing, and the administration had previously allowed such programs to give taxpayer money to groups that hire only people of a particular religion.

But the memorandum goes further, drawing a sweeping conclusion that even federal programs subject to antidiscrimination laws can give money to groups that discriminate.


More at the NYTimes

And for the record, I predicted that the Bush Administration would go down in history as the worst ever in January 2001.

This is a very good sign...

Obama Wins in Earliest Vote in Tiny Dixville, NH
DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. (AP) -- Democrat Barack Obama came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch, N.H., where the nation's first Election Day votes were cast and counted early Tuesday.

Obama defeated John McCain 15-6. Independent Ralph Nader was also on the ballot, but received no votes.

The first voter, following tradition established in 1948, was picked ahead of the midnight voting and the rest of the town's 21 registered voters followed suit in Tuesday's first minutes.

Town Clerk Rick Erwin says the northern New Hampshire town is proud of its tradition, but says the most important thing is that the turnout represents a 100 percent vote.

President Bush won the vote in Dixville Notch in 2004 on the way to his re-election.


I can't believe that idiot Ralph Nader is on the ballot.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Autumn Reading videos

One of the fun things about our NYCPlaywrights fundraiser readings is that actors often get to play very different roles in the same evening. That was the case with me when I filled in for sick/missing actors - I got to play a British executive assistant named Mindy in a play about a corporate Peter Pan, and the ghost of a TAROT READER's bubby with a Yiddish accent. I also got to play an old hard-of-hearing lady, but the clip I used doesn't have me in it, a successful business woman, but again, don't show me, and I got to play the evil adulterous wife in my own play HAPPILY MARRIED but alas, the damn camcorder battery died before my performance.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

The book is better...

Assistant: This is Bexy [?].
MA: Hello, Bexy. This is Frank L'Ouvrier, I'm with President Sarkozy, on the line for Governor Palin.

Assistant: One second please, can you hold on one second please?
MA: No problem.

Assistant: Hi, I'm going to hand the phone over to her.
MA: Okay, thank you very much I'm going to put the president on the line.
Assistant: Okay, he's coming to the line.

SP: This is Sarah.
MA: Okay, Governor Palin?

SP: Hellloooo...
MA: Just hold on for President Sarkozy, one moment.
SP: Oh, it's not him yet. I always do that. I'll just have people hand it to me right when it's them.

FNS: Yes, hello, Governor Palin? Yes, hello, Mrs. Governor?
SP: Hello this is Sarah. How are you?

FNS: Fine, and you, this is Nicolas Sarkozy speaking, how are you?
SP: Oh... So good, it's so good to hear you. Thank you for calling us.

FNS: Oh, it's a pleasure.
SP: Thank you sir, we have such great respect for you, John McCain and I, we LOVE you and thank you for spending a few minutes to talk to me.

FNS: I follow your campaigns closely with my special American Advisor Johnny Hallyday, you know?
SP: Yes! Good!

FNS: Excellent! Are you confident?
SP: Very confident and we're thankful that the polls are showing that the race is tightening and--

FNS: Well I know very well that the campaign can be exhausting. How do you feel right now my dear?
SP: I feel so good. I feel like we're in a marathon and at the very end of the marathon, you get your second wind and you plow to the finish-

FNS: You see, I got elected in France because I'm real and you seem to be someone who's real as well.
SP: Yes, yeah, Nicolas. We so appreciate this opportunity.

FNS: You know, I see you as a president, one day, you too.
SP: Well... maybe in eight years. [laughs]

FNS: Well, ah, I hope for you. You know we have a lot in common because personally one of my favorite activities is to hunt too.
SP: Oh very good, we should go hunting together.

FNS: Exactly! We could go try hunting by helicopter, like you did, I never did that.
SP: [laugh]

FNS: Like we say in France, "on pourrait tuer des bébés phoques aussi" [We could also kill some baby seals].
SP: [laugh] Well, I think we could have a lot of fun together as we're getting work done, we can kill two birds with one stone that way.

FNS: I just love killing those animals. Mm, mm. Take away a life, that is so fun!
SP: [laugh]

FNS: I'd really love to go as long as we don't bring your Vice president Cheney.
SP: No, I'll be a careful shot, yes.

FNS: You know we have a lot in common also except that from my house I can see Belgium. That's kind of less interesting than you.
SP: Well, see, we're right next door to other countries that we all need to be working with, yes.

FNS: Some people said in the last days, and I thought that was mean, that you weren't experienced enough in foreign relations, and you know, that's completely false, that's the thing I said to my great friend, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stef Carse [a Quebecois country singer].
SP: Well, he's doing fine, too, and yeah when you come into a position underestimated, it gives you the opportunity to prove the pundits and the critics wrong. You work that much harder-

FNS: I was wondering because you are also next to him, one of my good friends, also, the prime minister of Quebec, Mr. Richard Z. Sirois, have you met him recently? Did he come to one of your rallies?
SP: Uh, haven't seen him at one of the rallies, but it's been great working with the Canadian officials in my role as governor; we have a great cooperative effort there as we work on all of our resource development projects. You know I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally and your beautiful wife - oh my goodness! You've added a lot of energy to your country, even, with that beautiful family of yours.

FNS: Thank you very much. You know my wife, Carla, would love to meet you. You know even though she was a bit jealous that I was supposed to speak to you today.
SP: [laugh] Well, give her a big hug from me.

FNS: You know my wife is a popular singer and a former top model and she's so hot in bed. She even wrote a song for you.
SP: Oh my goodness! I didn't know that.

FNS: Yes, in French, it's called "Du rouge à lèvres sur une cochonne" [Lipstick for a pig] or if you prefer in English, Joe the Plumber: [sings] "It's his life, Joe the Plumber..."
SP: Maybe she understands some of the unfair criticism but I bet you she is such a hard worker, too, and she realizes you just plow through that criticism like..

FNS: I just want to be sure, I don't quite understand the phenomenon "Joe the Plumber," that's not your husband, right?
SP: Mm-hmm, that's not my husband, but he's a normal American who just works hard and doesn't want government to take his money.

FNS: Yes, yes, I understand, we have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France, it's called, "Marcel, the guy with bread under his armpit," oui.
SP: Right. That's what it's all about, is the middle class, and government needing to work for them. You're a very good example for us here.

FNS: I seen a bit about NBC even Fox News wasn't an ally, an ally, sorry, about as much as usual.
SP: Yeah that's what we're up against.

FNS: I must say, Governor Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life, you know, Hustler's "Nailin Palin."
SP: Oh, good. Thank you. Yes.

FNS: That was really edgy.
SP: [laugh] Well, good.

FNS: I really love you. And I must say something, so, Governor, you've been pranked.
By the Master Avengers. We're two comedians from Montreal
SP: Oohhh, have we been pranked? And what radio station is this?

FNS: This is for CKOI in Montreal.
SP: In Montreal? Tell me the radio station call letters...

MA: Hello? If one voice can change the world for Obama, one Viagra can change the world for McCain.
Assistant: Hi, I'm sorry, I have to let you go. Um, thank you.

listen here

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Obama Is Up, and Fans Fear That Jinxes It

Glad to see I'm not the only one with election anxiety
Richard Schrader, a senior staff member for a national environmental organization, lives in Amherst, Mass., where politics start liberal and traipse left. He is fairly liberal, but his neighbors worry that he does not worry nearly enough. "They wake up, drink that pot of coffee and hit the polling Web sites," Mr. Schrader said. "Too much good news has to be a lie."

Recently he sat down with a friend who was sweating about Minnesota.

"Minnesota?" Mr. Schrader told his friend. "What, are you kidding me? Obama's up 14 points there."

The friend shook his head sadly. Take off seven points for hidden racial animus. Subtract another five for polling error. It is down to two points, and that is within the margin of error in sampling, and that could mean Mr. Obama might be behind.

"It was perversely impressive," Mr. Schrader said.


Our country's fate is hanging in the balance - Obama has to win.

If Obama does win I think a big factor will be those who prefer McCain, but can't bring themselves to put Sarah Palin in line for the presidency, won't bother voting at all.