Over Stimulus

Saturday we attended a Deaf West Theater production of "Pippin," that 70's pop chestnut.  The cast was a mix of deaf and hearing actors.  Those hearing actors who spoke their own roles also signed them.  Deaf actors had a counterpart who spoke their lines while they acted and signed them.  This was occasionally beautiful, but had a weird effect on the show: not much dancing.  Now there's not much to the story of Pippin.  In fact the book is lame.  But in the 70's production I saw, the lead character (the role originated by ben Vereen, played by Northern J Calloway when I saw it) performed some real show-stopping dance numbers.  But not this production, everyone was too busy signing!  Putting on Pippin without the dancing is a little like porn without the sex, if you ask me.  Two thumbs down.

Yesterday, as if to cleanse the palate, I went to a two-hour "Support the Economic Stimulus" meeting of a local Obama support group, for which I had done some phone-banking during the run-up to the election.  There were about 40 of us, crammed into a coffee-break area in an open-style office space on Melrose.  It sure seemed like a motley crew of people my age, if the pre-presentation chatter was any clue.  The somewhat overweight lady next to me seemed, from her slow and simplistic speech patterns, to be a little "off," kind of in the way the men and women who worked in my high-school cafeteria were "off."  She kept interrupting other people's conversations to say something like "I hope I can help."  I avoided looking at her.

The meeting started boringly enough, with the showing of a video made by Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia (?).  Oddly, the TV was somehow mis-calibrated, and the only color possible was blue.  So it was sort of like a Democratic infomercial filmed by a Nam Jun Paik.  Gov. Kaine -- not the most entertaining orator --  answered e-mailed in questions about the stimulus.  To me, his answers were glib and condescdending, which I thought was a rip-off for us faithful.  He didn't seem to think there were going to be ANY problems with transparency or getting the dollars out there.  Well whoop-de-do for you.

The real entertainment started when the video ended.  The two meeting leaders asked us to go around the room and for each person to describe how the economic downturn had affected them.  It started out calmly enough, with seemingly more than half of the room un- or under-employed (me included).  The lady next to me said something short and sweet about wanting to help, but I was nervous about allowing her to help.  Maybe it was just me.

Then we got to the fat gray-bearded man in the corner.  This guy was ANGRY.  Angry at Republicans, angry at Democrats for giving in too much to Repubs, angry at Obama for compromising.  Is this what he worked so hard for?  (He never got around to his own situation, but I can't imagine it was good.)  Some granola muncher who reminded me of Janice from the Muppets band jumped in to defend Obama ("we need to trust him!"), others dove into the fray, and we had a full-fledged argument going on!  A smile crept onto my face as I saw the fat man's visage turn red.  Now we're talking!  The two meeting leaders tried impotently to calm everyone down, like the cops on the street in the final chaos of "Animal House" -- but without success.  Others in the room had to shout the arguers down before we could being going around the room again.

No more arguments broke out, but there sure were several people who were passionate about the current economy, or who liked the sound of their own voice a lot, or both.  Teachers, retirees, unemployed film producers, and even one hypnotherapist who said his business was doing just fine.  Bastard!

Finally catharsis was achieved when one woman -- another underemployed film producer -- gleefully started letting loose with "fuck this" and "why the fuck won't they do that?"  It's amazingly freeing when everyone's been speaking very politely if passionately and then someone just starts using the f-word, like we all do all the time.  People smiled and I laughed out loud.   Hooray for you!  Although I think I might have smelled alcohol on her breath.  Oh well, no matter, you go sister!

Of course the meeting was only two hours long, and this "everyone talk about their situation" took almost the whole time.  The meeting leaders did very little to try and move it along from the zealots and the bloviators.  Only the very last few minutes were left for brainstorming things we could do to support the stimulus, which naturally devolved again into every shouting about boycotts and calling Gov Schwarzeneggar (sp?).  Janice, fat gray-beard, and everyone else just started yelling.  I loved it!