When your heart sings, what is the tune?

From time to time, I've searched for what I believe to be the perfect love song.

A song that says what I want to say, in a way that I would say it.

For those of you who know me, this should be pretty close.

Turning plowshares into swords, and then back into plowshares, and then maybe into some kind of folk-art lawn ornament, but not a jockey.

I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage;
I've found that just surviving is a noble fight.
I once believed in causes, too;
I had my pointless point of view;
And life went on, no matter who was wrong or right.....

Last night, I had a chance to escape from the endless dreck of FAUXNEWS and I rebelled; I turned over to MSNBC, which apparently stands for MORE SAME NASTY BULLSHIT COMMENTARY, and was terribly disappointed to find that these two networks are now just making it a habit to snipe one another at every opportunity.

Ranting from what is considered the Right these days makes me want to scream; but I listen in the off chance that I'm wrong about everything; and these days, those are even odds.

Ranting from the Left reminds me of the kid from THE SIMPSONS; that high pitched "HA HA!" that comes from a lopsided victory and an ever pervading smugness that only the huge victor can pull off; and to hell with all the "nice nice" they were going to make when they came to town.

Things I never want to hear about again:

Nancy Pelosi. Seriously. Thank you for your service, could you PLEASE do it more quietly?

Carrie Prejean.

DICK Cheney.

The concept that torture is good if it gets us what we want. When did this argument actually start to make sense to people?

Whether or not he laughed at the joke. On a side note, did anybody NOT see that Wanda Sykes was going to be a trainwreck? Has nobody EVER SEEN her act?

To paraphrase The Joker, "This news cycle needs an enema."

What is that ball of fire in the sky?

For those of you not following my life:

I presently sit in an office from somewhere around nine pm until somewhere around 5 am. I do this to keep my part of the world safe, or at the very least informed about things that could go from safe to unsafe faster than you can say "hello" into a telephone at four am without sounding like you've been up all night waiting for the phone to ring.

If that sounds rambly, it's only because the phone rang at 4 am. And when I'm sitting at my desk and the phone rings at 4 am, it's NEVER a good thing.

Come to think of it, it's been my experience that 4 am phone calls are never good, period.

So.

Being up all night at the age in which I find myself feels roughly like having your brains dashed out by a slice of lemon surrounding a large gold brick.

So.

The phone rings.

I quickly make sure I have something to write on, because chances are things are going to require notation.

I realize that I haven't actually spoken for around seven hours (yelling obscenities at Bill O'Reilly in my head doesn't count) and I quickly make sure that all systems are go for positive verbal communication.

I briefly panic, trying to remember how I'm supposed to answer the phone. Acronyms are not my friends.

I pick up the phone.

I try to say, "This is blah blah blah at blah blah."

It comes out all screwy.

There is a pause.

The caller says, not unkindly, "You want to try that again?"

My response is, "I'd better not."

And we laugh and go on from there.

And how was YOUR day?

If you're ticked before breakfast, you'll be really pissed before dinner.....

It's amazing what I choose to be ticked off about.

And, even as I write this down, I know intellectually that it's a waste of what valuable time I have left on the big blue marble to be ticked off about it....

But....

I've been going to the gym lately, trying to put things back into place and perspective; it's not that I'm unhealthy, but I am not getting any younger, and if I want to get older I should take better care of myself. I'm not trying to impress anybody, truly. That would open a whole new can of "the things I choose to worry about at this point in my life."

But it's a small gym, and it has televisions just about every square inch of space not covered with exercise equipment. So, you really can't avoid looking into the images and seeing things that tick you off.

Now, I'll admit that there are a LOT of things out there to truly be ticked off about; a lot of talking heads out there on various channels, trying to convince us that they are actually talking out their heads and not their asses.....

But Rachel Ray ticked me off this morning.

She was interviewing Lauren Graham, a very nice looking and seemingly talented individual, who is, I'm assuming, starring in the most recent revival of GUYS AND DOLLS in NY.

Fawning all over, asking all sorts of questions, and marvelling at the fact that she's still alive after doing 8 shows a week on Broadway.

EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK.

What ticks me off is that most of the people I know who are still working the business DREAM of ONLY doing EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK.

And they get paid crap wages. AND they have no understudy.

So.

Told you.

Stupid thing to get ticked off about....somebody bragging about being a theatrical wimp.

In my day......

Where. Is. My. COFFEE!!?

Somebody recently asked me what I would like people to say about me when I've taken the curtain call and moved on to the next gig.

In a nutshell:

"He could make me laugh."

or

"He could realllllly piss me off sometimes; but never for very long."

or

"He was the smartest lunatic I ever encountered."

or

"I hope he took some ice; he's going to need it where he's going."

Facial Paralysis Brought On By Too Much Night; Or, You Do WHAT For A Living?

On the plus side, I've been getting to the gym after work.

On the opposite of plus side, I've been getting off of work at 0500.

On the plus side, the job plays to my misanthropic nature.

On the opposite of plus side...well, FAUXNEWS CHANNEL.

On the plus side, the sleep is deep.

On the opposite of plus side, I can't remember what day it is, and I can't seem to get anything accomplished until my system acclimates....

IN OTHER NEWS....

An old professor of mine retired last weekend, after 30 years of service. James Panowski would be considered by some to be the no-nonsense, black and white taskmaster that gave us the necessary dose of discipline that every wannabe performer type really needs. He didn't put up with the crap that comes with being an eighteen-to-twenty-one-I'm-just-a-misunderstood-genius-and-oh-can't-you-see-me-suffering-for-my-art? type. He spoke truth to ego. Often, in public. And his arrows more often than not hit home, and the lessons remain long after the glitter faded.

In private, however, he was a gregarious man; if you needed, he provided. I hope that everybody had a chance to see that side of him.

Or maybe, given the fact that I was one messed up pup at that particular signpost on the lifeway gave him a chance to stretch those empathy muscles....but I'm not here to analyze Caesar, I'm here to praise him.

I had a chance to see him at the beginning of February, and it had been over twenty years since I had seen him last. And he recognized me, and he shook my hand that turned into an embrace, and for just a minute I was nineteen again. And that in itself was awkward; but only for a moment.

After that, it was like home.

SEEMINGLY RANDOM COMMENT:

This morning, I had the opportunity to see a re-make of SLEUTH, with Jude Law and Michael Caine. I looked a bit forward to it, because it's a really good play (which I've had the pleasure of doing) and great in it's original film form (with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine).

They managed to update it, take all the fun out of it, change the subtext of both the characters, and turn it into something it should never have been.

I realize that the "thumbs up" thing is trademarked, so I'm giving SLEUTH the finger.

STATEMENT OF FACT:

I'm hungry and so I'm done here.

EXIT LINE:
Thank you, and good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.....

It's like a trainwreck; I want to turn away, but I can't.

Things I think about after a night of being forced to watch FOXNEWS for nine...straight...hours.

And this should be #1 in a series, for alas, my new job requires monitoring FOXNEWS for nine....straight....hours.

Okay.

First of all, let us consider that the population of the ENTIRE United States in 1780was a bit over 3 million people. The economy was agricultural. The food you got was the food you could take from the environment, so every family had a gun and it was the prized possession. The gun was necessary for food gathering and survival. The people who came to this continent originally were fleeing all sorts of religious intolerance. And the revolution itself was because the citizens of the colonies were tired of being used as a cash-cow by the English government.

That being said, you must realize that the Constitution was written with all of those things in mind, by gentlemen farmers who were, for the most part, flying blind. Creating a country out of whole cloth had never been done before.

So, it would seem that the Constitution is a great document to find the starting point; but I cannot actually see how you can apply the rules SPECIFICALLY to our day and age. The founding fathers NEVER EVER would have imagined guns that fire hundreds of rounds a second, a cannonball that can wipe out an entire country, or a land that spread from sea to sea.

The rules set down by the Constitution are good ones.
But they cannot be black and white.

Along those same lines: A Supreme Court judge interprets the Constitution; why not allow them to have sympathy and empathy and see beyond what was written over two hundred years ago by men whose laws WERE in FACT pliable?

It reminds me of a story from the court in Williamsburg, VA. It seems one neighbor had accused another neighbor of stealing a mule. A court was convened, and since the arguing parties were both farmers, the jury was all farmers from around the area. Both stories were heard by the court, and the jury deliberated.

The verdict? Not guilty, but he must return the mule.

Pliable.

The case of Same-Sex marriages in Iowa. Apparently, Huckabee doesn't like them, and apparently (though unmentioned) finds them offensive in the eyes of God. He asks that the voters of Iowa be free to vote upon the matter.

The court states: The Iowa Constitution states that all rights must be given equally to all Iowans. To do otherwise would be discrimination.

Huckabee's answer? Change the Constitution.

You'd think that a better answer would be "live and let live." Simply for the reason that, to paraphrase the well-known philosopher Joshua Ben-Joseph, "Love is Love."

Similarly: If a woman wants to stand before the world in an evening gown and answer a question honestly by saying she believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, people who oppose her viewpoint should be defending her right to say it, even if they disagree, and vice versa.

Because that's what the founding fathers wanted, too.