Wacht Auf, Amerika!

Everything is funnier in German.

Wacht Auf, Wacht Auf!  Die helle Tag ist laengst ewacht und alle Voegle singen.  Shau’t, die helligkeit, Shoen ist die Welt.

I’ve been closely watching the events that have unfolded the past week with the announcement that Rick Warren will be doing the inauguration invocation, then Obama’s talking points on why he chose Warren, and then Warren’s own defense of his invitiation.

Politics is a fun game.  Especially when the people who are the largest supporters of one side hear the message of their hero but don’t, or refuse to, understand what the message actually is.  And the fact that the first true test is over gay marriage which, in the grand scheme of things, is a minor issue (before you bite my head off, for me personally it is not a minor issue.  My self-worth is currently fluxuating with the news stories on this issue, so it is actually quite vital on a personal level).

So, here’s pretty much how I can boil down the Obama PEOTUS time:

Obama: We have arrived on a river of hope and change!

Supporters: Yea!

Obama: We will usher in a new era of politics, one like you have seen before!…

Supporters: No more Bush and hostile takeover by the religous right!

Obama: We are not a country divided.  We are one.  And we will begin to rebuild by stretching across party lines because we are here to unite and propel America in a new era…

Supporters:  Yea!  No more Bush!  Time for the liberals to take over!

Obama:  And so,  in spirit of fellowship, the Rev. Rick Warren will deliver the inaguration invocation.

Supporters: [blank stare blinks]

Tentative Supporter Number 1: Isn’t he that guy…

Emboldend Supporter Number 2: who hates the gays and gave them donuts?

Along for the politically-correct Ride supporter Number 3: I…so…wait…we’re not kicking all the Republicans down Capitol Hill?  I was totally planning that Inauguration Game!  There are betting lanes–who can sink the fastest–McCain or Saxby Chambliss?  Larry Craig will tap the winner’s feet in the bathroom!  It’s gonna be so much fun!

The one who saw through Obama from the beginning but reluctantly placed support behind him supporter number 4: Naw dudes, when he said change?  And it won’t be business as usual?  He means it.  We’re not gonna roll ’em.  We’re going to meet with them and listen to what they have to say.  And then they’re going to listen to us.  And we’ll think things through and come up with intellectual decisions about where the country is going.

Supporters 1 – 3: Fuck that shit.  It was time for the liberal uprising!  OUR turn to force those conservative fucks into their confessional boxes and lock ’em in there with their rosary beads!  This is OUR moment.  Not the moment to TALK or MEDIATE or “COME TO A THOUUGHTFUL INFORMED DECISION”.  There’s no time!

[supporters 1 – 3 leave.  Obama looks at supporter 4]

Obama: I don’t think I’ve seen you at these things before.

Supporter 4: Nope, you haven’t.  I just figured out that I actually admire and am behind what your campaign promises to do.

Obama: But that was my campaign.

Supporter 4: Yeah, they didn’t get it.  You said change, they heard joyous takeover.  You said reason with friends from other sides of the aisle, they flipped their TVs to MSNBC to see what they had to say about that.  But Olberman told us that you are great and know exactly what you’re up to.

Obama So, uh, you got my back?

Supporter 4: Can I get a fist bump?

[in episode two of “Wacht Auf, Amerika!”, when the monkey is no longer on ambien, she will explicate the Warren mess and the new conundrums, and address the “is the time to be leading the charge with gay marriage.

Allegra on the radio!

Check it out.  The holiday edition of MPR’s In The Loop “Story Slam”.  I’m #2, but the whole broadcast is awesome.

Dear Mom

In the interest of fairness and equality, when my sister gets engaged I trust that you:

• Don’t offer any fiscal help whatsoever
• Only mention it by asking “is it still happening?”
• For sure not mention it in your Christmas letter.  ’cause it’s not a big deal whatsoever.

Christmas Treat #1

I realize I haven’t been posting my writing from Rockstars or other shows lately, which is silly.

Here, after the jump, is the piece I performed at both Women StandUp! and the October Rockstar show, now launching my writing style in a brand new direction where I’m setting pieces to music.

To fully enjoy this one, cue up Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops’ Bolero, followed by the Berliner Philharmonik’s In the Hall of the Mountain King.

Have fun.

Ahh…vacay

The Schnappi and I are just back from New York.  Pictures are coming posthaste.

It was a fantastic three days.  We made new friends.  We ate at three of the restaurants on the Travel Channel’s Top Ten Places to get a Sandwich in the United States.  We took the subway from Central Park to SoHo, and spent the afternoon meandering back on foot (with plenty of stops to get warm–in Macy’s, and 30 Rock, and everywhere else I get excited about because I’m a geek and I see them on TV all the time).

And oh yes, there was a Race party.

Coherent stories are coming.  But right now I’m just happy to be off the plane, back in my living room, looking out the picture window and seeing a few inches of snow on the ground, the little dog laying on me as he sleeps, and the cats starting to come say hi and aren’t too angry that we left them home.

Thanks, New York.  Each time I visit, I like it more and more.

Lame Joke I’m working on

“The economy has replaced religion as the foundation for our system of beliefs. 

Look no further than our dependence on paypal indulgences.”

Always Room at the Kids Table

I don’t come from a big family.  Even at our largest gatherings, our number was always under 20.  My grandparents.  My mom and her two sisters, who each had a husband and two kids–but I don’t think all 16 of us were ever together for more than one or two Christmases in my life.

Even with such a small number, we always had a kids table.  If the cousins from Utah were in town, the six of us cousins would eat around my grandparents’ kitchen table.  If they weren’t there, the card table would get set up a few feet away from the adult table.  I always heard other friends of mine in college or whatever talk about that moment they got to eat at the big table for the first time–they knew they were an adult.  They wanted to sit there.

I never wanted to–mainly ’cause small talk with the South Dakotans was boring. And also because I’ve always been a picky eater, and if I was at the kid table no one could see I wasn’t eating vegetables.  While the big people ate and socialized and took their time, we would scarf what we could as fast as we could, and disappear to the basement to watch TV, snack on the strategically placed freshly based Christmas Cookies scattered around the house, and I’d claim my place in my grandpa’s blue lazy-boy rocker to read.

As the family began to splinter–a divorce, a death, another death, a rift between the two remaining sisters, then another death–the physical need for the kids table was erased, and those of us who gather for holidays came to the table together, trying to fill in those holes that should be filled but never will without ethereal intervention.

I am the oldest of my generation; my sister is the youngest.  Now that my sister is 22, I suppose we are all adults, although I still have a hard time thinking of her as one.  But there’s still a need for the kids’ table.  But now, it’s for my grandma and grandpa.

Last week as Schnappi and I hosted Thanksgiving in our home, the eight of us (including Schnappi and my sister’s boyfriend) I watched my grandpa reluctantly come to the table to quickly eat, humming some strange melody to himself the whole time, and soon after take off his shoes and confusedly ask where his bed was, because he was ready to sleep.  I watched my grandma pick at the things she didn’t like, and get up when she was done, waiting for someone to clear her plate as she headed back to the living room to make herself comfortable in my grandpa’s blue lazy-boy with a book.  I saw how frail they have both become.  And realized that they really aren’t going to be around much longer.  And it wasn’t like my grandma who died from breast cancer, or my aunt from breast cancer, or my grandpa from heart failure, or my cousin from a car wreck.

They’re just…old.  Their faculties slowly wearing out, becoming once again the youngest members of the clan.

Maybe they feel the weight of the holes at the table even more than the rest of us.  After all, there was a point in their life where they added chairs, and not constantly removed them.

Maybe this is why our biological clocks tick.  Not because we feel our own time running out to reproduce, but rather because it is too hard to see the ones who once took care of us be the ones we need to take care of.

If we end up hosting Christmas (a very distinct possibility–we enjoy the cooking.  And the dog likes it), I’m going to set up a card table in the living room with three places set.  One for grandma, one for grandpa, one for me.  And on the fourth side will be a stack of dishes for those who have left, if they decide to pop in for a visit and a bowl of oyster stew and a slice of prune pie.

I hope they do.

Education Policy Thoughts (#1)

It isn’t a secret to anyone who knows me, or that reads this, that I have a fairly unique view on the state of American politics and policy-making.  Education policy is a pet issue for me, mainly because I thought that when I was done with college I’d go on and get my higher degrees and be an English professor.  But then I realized I didn’t want to go to grad school right away and so got a substitute teaching license for two years…and I hated it.  I built up a good rapport with both staff and students, but for me what caused the malcontent was the look of disinterest, boredom, and constant glances at their watches as I was trying to lead them through material that I myself am passionate about.  I measured my success not by how many I was able to reach, but rather by how many still didn’t care.

If I’d done a self-assessment on my teaching skills, I’d rate myself at “I suck”.  Which I didn’t.  I don’t know of too many other subs who was asked and wrote college application reference letters to Harvard, Brown, and Yale (and I was never prouder than when they told me they were accepted).

It’s no secret that the state of public education needs help, and we have yet to put a program in place to meet the needs and goals of our society (although I have ideas).

One idea currently in practice in New York, D.C., and Chicago that I just heard about is, however, one of the worst I’ve heard.  On so many levels.  Link to article.

Tell me your initial thoughts.  And I will respond with mine.  But not right now, as the ambien is beginning to cotton off my brain.