Cotton mouth and victory!

Well, we made it through the first show. And I would have to say it went really well. First of all we had a sold out crowd and they were fantastic. And everybody did so well - Karen, Shawn and John were all terrific. Going first is not my favorite place to be, but I did well too.

I now know what cotton mouth is, why actors put Vasoline on their teeth. When I got on-stage I could see pretty much everyone in the theater and it was a bit distracting. Usually you only see the first row, but I saw everyone...and then I got a little scared...and then my mouth went totally dry. I literally almost asked someone in the first row to let me have their water. And it felt like an out of body experience, performing while also thinking "Oh, is that Sybil and Martin? Oh, shit! They are seriously great writers...they actually came?"

But then I got into it and it was so gratifying afterwards when a few people I didn't know thanked me and said that they had had similiar experiences and really appreciated the show.

The hard part is staying up so late and trying to get going this morning. And people are calling about coming this weekend, so I have to get back to them.

Yay! Opening nights are always really scary and I'm glad that we have that one under our belt.

Be brave, be very brave

I am scared. I know that moment tonight, right before I go on, I will have to face my fear and stand in front of that audience (sold out, twenty thousand at least) and go for it. And that moment will be very very terrifying until I get my first laugh. IF I get a first laugh. What if there are no laughs and people are crying?

Okay, I'm exaggerating about the number of people by about 19,650 but still...even if it were just one person, I would be scared.

Not to mention the election. If McCain wins that would be so wrong. So absolutely horribly impossibly wrong and the only way it could happen would be widespread voter fraud. Because no one with any brains would elect this man and his idiot running mate to run this country for four minutes, let alone four years. He need to retire to one of his fourteen houses and play golf, oh, never mind, he probably can't. Checkers then. Okay, I know I'm being mean, but I am angry that really the undercurrent of this election is racism and fear and I'm angry that people buy into it. Obama is so clearly the right man to be elected - not because he's perfect, but because he's smart and so clearly a leader - and he's got incredible people supporting him who will be part of his team and we need a big change. And we need it yesterday.

I feel a hyper sensitivity to life right now - partly because of the performance, but also because of what's been happening in the world and because of the election. The other day I felt calm and the polls on threefiftyeight.com say that Obama has a really healthy lead.

But I'm not feeling so calm today.

I do love saying that Sarah Palin is a huge idiot and I despise Elisabeth Hasselbeck or whatever her name is. And McCain...well, sorry John, you and your campaign have self-destructed as far as I'm concerned.

Please let it be so....

Best,
Robin

Tomorrow night

One more night. Just came back from rehearsal. I was reading this fun blog "Margaret and Helen" which I have included on my blog list and I just had to add my agreement with Helen (who's apparently 80 something) - that yes, Sarah Palin is a bitch, McCain is a (senile) ass, Bush is a big jackass who's practically ruined this country, Elisabeth Hasselwhatever is a fucking stupid idiot and someone should definitely knock some sense into her, and if Obama doesn't win this election NY should secede and become its own country. I'm not moving, I'm just insisting we form a country of NY, Massachusetts and Vermont. Not so sure about Connecticut.

Tech rehearsals

It feels so good to be back in the world I love, theater, show business, whatever. It may be a small show, but it feels so great to be working on cues and rehearsing with an audience, instead of doing it alone.

It just feels like home to me and I'm so grateful.

Four days and eight days

If today is Monday and our show is Thursday, does that count as three days or four? Well, in any case, it's soon. And I am relatively calm-ish. I think before the Celexa, Xanax, Wellbutrin, Ambien and Klonipin, I would have been falling apart. (Just kidding.)

And then in a week and one day (makes eight to me) is the election. And I am so calm. A friend told me about an interesting website: www.fivethirtyeight.com which tracks all the polls and according to their numbers, as of this morning, Obama's lead in the electoral college is 351.2 to McCain's 186.8.


I am so calm.

Steve's in surgery now for his eye. He has a condition called Macular pucker. And it is as it sounds, a puckering of the macula, which is in the center of the retina. I think he's going to be fine. I'll be picking him up soon.

And right now, I think I need to breathe. Life is good, it's a gorgeous day here in the east, the leaves are just beginning to change in the city, the Democrats will be back in the White House soon and will have even more seats in the Congress - and do I really believe that? You betcha!

"Young at Heart"

Oh, what a fun movie! It's about a chorus of people 80 years and older and they sing really hip songs and their leader is cute. Rent it!! It's really fun and uplifting.

I can see a chorus in my old age (I hope I live that long!) "Singing and dancing, that's the key. And always try new things." (Eileen's advice.)

I'm thinking of Tai Chi.

"God Said Ha!"

Matt, my director, (I never in my entire life thought I'd be saying "Matt, my director") suggested that I watch Julia Sweeney's monologue "God Said Ha!" I remember reading it years ago, but actually seeing it (even on film) is such a different experience. It's about her parents moving into her tiny bungalow in L.A. to care for her brother who has lymphoma (and has also moved in) - and then on top of everything else, she finds out that she has cervical cancer. It's sad and it's also funny. I'm so glad I watched it. She was on "Saturday Night Live" for a few years, but it was during a time that I didn't watch it very often, so I can't say that I knew much about her work, but it's a wonderful piece and she's a lovely actor and writer. It also helped me see that my monologue is simply my story and I don't have to be so worried about what people will think of it, or me, or my family, I just have to tell my story. I also can start to see the shape of a longer piece that I may write, although it's very vague at this point, I have some ideas about it.

It was a really good idea that Matt had and I'm grateful for Netflix. I also ordered "Young at Heart" which we will watch tonight, since it's a rainy and windy night and though I wanted to see "Religulous" I'd rather stay home with everyone and relax on the couch, with Lucy and Lola.

Life is pretty good. I was anxious earlier today and now I feel much less anxious and a little more excited. I think that this is a story a lot of people can relate to, being a member of the sandwich generation. (I think of myself as more of a panini.)

I just googled Julia Sweeney and it seems that her life has been really good since she performed that monologue. Her brother did die, but she's recovered and has adopted a little girl from China. Her most recent monologue will be coming out this November and I will definitely see that too. And she has a blog, so I'll check that out too.

Ten more days until the election. Did you read the funny David Sedaris piece in last week's New Yorker about people who are undecided? "That''s like being on an airplane and having the flight attendant ask if you'd like the chicken or the shit with pieces of broken glass in it?"

I'm back

I've been absent for awhile... busy learning my lines, rehearsing, having mild bouts of fear and anxiety - and also praying that Obama wins the election and that the Dems win many seats in the House and the Senate. I do feel that we're in good shape and that's keeping my spirits up.

I'm also pretty sure I've got my lines memorized fairly well and that even if I get scared when I get up on stage, I'll be able to tell the story. The rehearsals have been really fun. Matt, our director, had me perform my piece the other day so fast - and that was actually exciting to do it so fast. And it felt good to know most of the lines. I'm conflicted because I enjoy improvising, but I've also worked hard on the writing and often it's better to do it as written. One friend of mine, who performs with a partner, says they have no script, but I think they've done their show so many times that it probably adheres to a fairly strict narrative, even while they shift things around each time.

I continue to be grateful for people like Jon Stewart and Bill Maher for keeping me sane. And I have to see "Religulous" which I hear is quite good.

I read another good quote: "It takes a lot of courage to make a fool of yourself." Charlie Chaplin.

I have courage. I don't know how much talent I have, but I do have courage. I mean, why else would I consider getting up in front of a room full of people and talking about my nutty family, when I could be home watching Grey's Anatomy? And then do it again three more nights in a row?

I will eat the fantastic chocolate cake at the Market Cafe on Sunday night after the run to celebrate Karen's birthday. I can't wait! And if Obama wins, I'll go back and eat it again.

I saw the name of a show the other day about the election: "The End of an Error." Amen. I know it's not going to be easy if Obama gets elected, this country and the world is in a big mess, but I honestly feel that we will be moving from the darkness to the light. George Bush, Cheney, all of those guys need to go gently into the night. Or jail.

The New Yorker's endorsement of Obama A MUST READ

Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the Convention in St. Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor.

The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street’s long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year’s federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure.

At the same time, a hundred and fifty thousand American troops are in Iraq and thirty-three thousand are in Afghanistan. There is still disagreement about the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his horrific regime, but there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush Administration manipulated, bullied, and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than six hundred billion dollars, have included the loss of more than four thousand Americans, the wounding of thirty thousand, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and the displacement of four and a half million men, women, and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability.

The indirect costs, both of the war in particular and of the Administration’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy in general, have also been immense. The torture of prisoners, authorized at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public-diplomacy catastrophe. At a moment when the global environment, the global economy, and global stability all demand a transition to new sources of energy, the United States has been a global retrograde, wasteful in its consumption and heedless in its policy. Strategically and morally, the Bush Administration has squandered the American capacity to counter the example and the swagger of its rivals. China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other illiberal states have concluded, each in its own way, that democratic principles and human rights need not be components of a stable, prosperous future. At recent meetings of the United Nations, emboldened despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran came to town sneering at our predicament and hailing the “end of the American era.”

The election of 2008 is the first in more than half a century in which no incumbent President or Vice-President is on the ballot. There is, however, an incumbent party, and that party has been lucky enough to find itself, apparently against the wishes of its “base,” with a nominee who evidently disliked George W. Bush before it became fashionable to do so. In South Carolina in 2000, Bush crushed John McCain with a sub-rosa primary campaign of such viciousness that McCain lashed out memorably against Bush’s Christian-right allies. So profound was McCain’s anger that in 2004 he flirted with the possibility of joining the Democratic ticket under John Kerry. Bush, who took office as a “compassionate conservative,” governed immediately as a rightist ideologue. During that first term, McCain bolstered his reputation, sometimes deserved, as a “maverick” willing to work with Democrats on such issues as normalizing relations with Vietnam, campaign-finance reform, and immigration reform. He co-sponsored, with John Edwards and Edward Kennedy, a patients’ bill of rights. In 2001 and 2003, he voted against the Bush tax cuts. With John Kerry, he co-sponsored a bill raising auto-fuel efficiency standards and, with Joseph Lieberman, a cap-and-trade regime on carbon emissions. He was one of a minority of Republicans opposed to unlimited drilling for oil and gas off America’s shores.

Since the 2004 election, however, McCain has moved remorselessly rightward in his quest for the Republican nomination. He paid obeisance to Jerry Falwell and preachers of his ilk. He abandoned immigration reform, eventually coming out against his own bill. Most shocking, McCain, who had repeatedly denounced torture under all circumstances, voted in February against a ban on the very techniques of “enhanced interrogation” that he himself once endured in Vietnam—as long as the torturers were civilians employed by the C.I.A.

On almost every issue, McCain and the Democratic Party’s nominee, Barack Obama, speak the generalized language of “reform,” but only Obama has provided a convincing, rational, and fully developed vision. McCain has abandoned his opposition to the Bush-era tax cuts and has taken up the demagogic call—in the midst of recession and Wall Street calamity, with looming crises in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—for more tax cuts. Bush’s expire in 2011. If McCain, as he has proposed, cuts taxes for corporations and estates, the benefits once more would go disproportionately to the wealthy.

In Washington, the craze for pure market triumphalism is over. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrived in town (via Goldman Sachs) a Republican, but it seems that he will leave a Democrat. In other words, he has come to see that the abuses that led to the current financial crisis––not least, excessive speculation on borrowed capital––can be fixed only with government regulation and oversight. McCain, who has never evinced much interest in, or knowledge of, economic questions, has had little of substance to say about the crisis. His most notable gesture of concern—a melodramatic call last month to suspend his campaign and postpone the first Presidential debate until the government bailout plan was ready—soon revealed itself as an empty diversionary tactic.

By contrast, Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance, and foresight, he said, “A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.” Obama is committed to reforms that value not only the restoration of stability but also the protection of the vast majority of the population, which did not partake of the fruits of the binge years. He has called for greater and more programmatic regulation of the financial system; the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would help reverse the decay of our roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems, and create millions of jobs; and a major investment in the green-energy sector.

On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce America’s carbon emissions by eighty per cent by 2050—an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, like utilities, would acquire carbon allowances, and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide fifteen billion dollars a year for developing alternative-energy sources and creating job-training programs in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that ten per cent of America’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.

There was once reason to hope that McCain and Obama would have a sensible debate about energy and climate policy. McCain was one of the first Republicans in the Senate to support federal limits on carbon dioxide, and he has touted his own support for a less ambitious cap-and-trade program as evidence of his independence from the White House. But, as polls showed Americans growing jittery about gasoline prices, McCain apparently found it expedient in this area, too, to shift course. He took a dubious idea—lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling—and placed it at the very center of his campaign. Opening up America’s coastal waters to drilling would have no impact on gasoline prices in the short term, and, even over the long term, the effect, according to a recent analysis by the Department of Energy, would be “insignificant.” Such inconvenient facts, however, are waved away by a campaign that finally found its voice with the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!”

The contrast between the candidates is even sharper with respect to the third branch of government. A tense equipoise currently prevails among the Justices of the Supreme Court, where four hard-core conservatives face off against four moderate liberals. Anthony M. Kennedy is the swing vote, determining the outcome of case after case.

McCain cites Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two reliable conservatives, as models for his own prospective appointments. If he means what he says, and if he replaces even one moderate on the current Supreme Court, then Roe v. Wade will be reversed, and states will again be allowed to impose absolute bans on abortion. McCain’s views have hardened on this issue. In 1999, he said he opposed overturning Roe; by 2006, he was saying that its demise “wouldn’t bother me any”; by 2008, he no longer supported adding rape and incest as exceptions to his party’s platform opposing abortion.

But scrapping Roe—which, after all, would leave states as free to permit abortion as to criminalize it—would be just the beginning. Given the ideological agenda that the existing conservative bloc has pursued, it’s safe to predict that affirmative action of all kinds would likely be outlawed by a McCain Court. Efforts to expand executive power, which, in recent years, certain Justices have nobly tried to resist, would likely increase. Barriers between church and state would fall; executions would soar; legal checks on corporate power would wither—all with just one new conservative nominee on the Court. And the next President is likely to make three appointments.

Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, voted against confirming not only Roberts and Alito but also several unqualified lower-court nominees. As an Illinois state senator, he won the support of prosecutors and police organizations for new protections against convicting the innocent in capital cases. While McCain voted to continue to deny habeas-corpus rights to detainees, perpetuating the Bush Administration’s regime of state-sponsored extra-legal detention, Obama took the opposite side, pushing to restore the right of all U.S.-held prisoners to a hearing. The judicial future would be safe in his care.

In the shorthand of political commentary, the Iraq war seems to leave McCain and Obama roughly even. Opposing it before the invasion, Obama had the prescience to warn of a costly and indefinite occupation and rising anti-American radicalism around the world; supporting it, McCain foresaw none of this. More recently, in early 2007 McCain risked his Presidential prospects on the proposition that five additional combat brigades could salvage a war that by then appeared hopeless. Obama, along with most of the country, had decided that it was time to cut American losses. Neither candidate’s calculations on Iraq have been as cheaply political as McCain’s repeated assertion that Obama values his career over his country; both men based their positions, right or wrong, on judgment and principle.

President Bush’s successor will inherit two wars and the realities of limited resources, flagging popular will, and the dwindling possibilities of what can be achieved by American power. McCain’s views on these subjects range from the simplistic to the unknown. In Iraq, he seeks “victory”—a word that General David Petraeus refuses to use, and one that fundamentally misrepresents the messy, open-ended nature of the conflict. As for Afghanistan, on the rare occasions when McCain mentions it he implies that the surge can be transferred directly from Iraq, which suggests that his grasp of counterinsurgency is not as firm as he insisted it was during the first Presidential debate. McCain always displays more faith in force than interest in its strategic consequences. Unlike Obama, McCain has no political strategy for either war, only the dubious hope that greater security will allow things to work out. Obama has long warned of deterioration along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and has a considered grasp of its vital importance. His strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq shows an understanding of the role that internal politics, economics, corruption, and regional diplomacy play in wars where there is no battlefield victory.

Unimaginably painful personal experience taught McCain that war is above all a test of honor: maintain the will to fight on, be prepared to risk everything, and you will prevail. Asked during the first debate to outline “the lessons of Iraq,” McCain said, “I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear: that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict.” A soldier’s answer––but a statesman must have a broader view of war and peace. The years ahead will demand not only determination but also diplomacy, flexibility, patience, judiciousness, and intellectual engagement. These are no more McCain’s strong suit than the current President’s. Obama, for his part, seems to know that more will be required than willpower and force to extract some advantage from the wreckage of the Bush years.

Obama is also better suited for the task of renewing the bedrock foundations of American influence. An American restoration in foreign affairs will require a commitment not only to international coöperation but also to international institutions that can address global warming, the dislocations of what will likely be a deepening global economic crisis, disease epidemics, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and other, more traditional security challenges. Many of the Cold War-era vehicles for engagement and negotiation—the United Nations, the World Bank, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—are moribund, tattered, or outdated. Obama has the generational outlook that will be required to revive or reinvent these compacts. He would be the first postwar American President unencumbered by the legacies of either Munich or Vietnam.

The next President must also restore American moral credibility. Closing Guantánamo, banning all torture, and ending the Iraq war as responsibly as possible will provide a start, but only that. The modern Presidency is as much a vehicle for communication as for decision-making, and the relevant audiences are global. Obama has inspired many Americans in part because he holds up a mirror to their own idealism. His election would do no less—and likely more—overseas.

What most distinguishes the candidates, however, is character—and here, contrary to conventional wisdom, Obama is clearly the stronger of the two. Not long ago, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said, “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” The view that this election is about personalities leaves out policy, complexity, and accountability. Even so, there’s some truth in what Davis said––but it hardly points to the conclusion that he intended.

Echoing Obama, McCain has made “change” one of his campaign mantras. But the change he has actually provided has been in himself, and it is not just a matter of altering his positions. A willingness to pander and even lie has come to define his Presidential campaign and its televised advertisements. A contemptuous duplicity, a meanness, has entered his talk on the stump—so much so that it seems obvious that, in the drive for victory, he is willing to replicate some of the same underhanded methods that defeated him eight years ago in South Carolina.

Perhaps nothing revealed McCain’s cynicism more than his choice of Sarah Palin, the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who had been governor of that state for twenty-one months, as the Republican nominee for Vice-President. In the interviews she has given since her nomination, she has had difficulty uttering coherent unscripted responses about the most basic issues of the day. We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on “Saturday Night Live,” but as a vision of the political future it’s deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility. Obama’s choice, Joe Biden, is not without imperfections. His tongue sometimes runs in advance of his mind, providing his own fodder for late-night comedians, but there is no comparison with Palin. His deep experience in foreign affairs, the judiciary, and social policy makes him an assuring and complementary partner for Obama.

The longer the campaign goes on, the more the issues of personality and character have reflected badly on McCain. Unless appearances are very deceiving, he is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatizing, erratic, and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a “maverick” senator. But in a President they would be a menace.

By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages. It is what helped him forge a political career relying both on the liberals of Hyde Park and on the political regulars of downtown Chicago. His policy preferences are distinctly liberal, but he is determined to speak to a broad range of Americans who do not necessarily share his every value or opinion. For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment. Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness.

Nowadays, almost every politician who thinks about running for President arranges to become an author. Obama’s books are different: he wrote them. “The Audacity of Hope” (2006) is a set of policy disquisitions loosely structured around an account of his freshman year in the United States Senate. Though a campaign manifesto of sorts, it is superior to that genre’s usual blowsy pastiche of ghostwritten speeches. But it is Obama’s first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (1995), that offers an unprecedented glimpse into the mind and heart of a potential President. Obama began writing it in his early thirties, before he was a candidate for anything. Not since Theodore Roosevelt has an American politician this close to the pinnacle of power produced such a sustained, highly personal work of literary merit before being definitively swept up by the tides of political ambition.

A Presidential election is not the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize: we elect a politician and, we hope, a statesman, not an author. But Obama’s first book is valuable in the way that it reveals his fundamental attitudes of mind and spirit. “Dreams from My Father” is an illuminating memoir not only in the substance of Obama’s own peculiarly American story but also in the qualities he brings to the telling: a formidable intelligence, emotional empathy, self-reflection, balance, and a remarkable ability to see life and the world through the eyes of people very different from himself. In common with nearly all other senators and governors of his generation, Obama does not count military service as part of his biography. But his life has been full of tests—personal, spiritual, racial, political—that bear on his preparation for great responsibility.

It is perfectly legitimate to call attention, as McCain has done, to Obama’s lack of conventional national and international policymaking experience. We, too, wish he had more of it. But office-holding is not the only kind of experience relevant to the task of leading a wildly variegated nation. Obama’s immersion in diverse human environments (Hawaii’s racial rainbow, Chicago’s racial cauldron, countercultural New York, middle-class Kansas, predominantly Muslim Indonesia), his years of organizing among the poor, his taste of corporate law and his grounding in public-interest and constitutional law—these, too, are experiences. And his books show that he has wrung from them every drop of insight and breadth of perspective they contained.

The exhaustingly, sometimes infuriatingly long campaign of 2008 (and 2007) has had at least one virtue: it has demonstrated that Obama’s intelligence and steady temperament are not just figments of the writer’s craft. He has made mistakes, to be sure. (His failure to accept McCain’s imaginative proposal for a series of unmediated joint appearances was among them.) But, on the whole, his campaign has been marked by patience, planning, discipline, organization, technological proficiency, and strategic astuteness. Obama has often looked two or three moves ahead, relatively impervious to the permanent hysteria of the hourly news cycle and the cable-news shouters. And when crisis has struck, as it did when the divisive antics of his ex-pastor threatened to bring down his campaign, he has proved equal to the moment, rescuing himself with a speech that not only drew the poison but also demonstrated a profound respect for the electorate. Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.

We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

—The Editors

Sexy sister goddesses

This past weekend, I spent from Friday night through Sunday evening in the company of some of the most courageous and beautiful women I've ever met. (And they are all ages, races and sizes.) I can't say much more than it was brilliant and powerful and fun and that sisterhood for me has never felt so real. Something like 150 women came together again (2nd weekend) from all over the world to be enlightened, supportive, moved and most of all to have fun and pleasure. (We call ourselves "pleasure researchers.") Regina Thomashauer is onto something big. Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts is a place where women reclaim their power on so many levels. I can't say much more than that because I wouldn't want to spoil the fun of anyone who decides to take her Mastery. I would just say, as a big skeptic, who has found in the past few years the tremendous power of community, this experience is brilliant.

Saturday night as part of our "homework" we went to a club on the lower east side and just getting dressed up to go out, taking a car service into Manhattan, crossing the Manhattan Bridge and looking at the moon over the New York City skyline was thrilling enough - but our assignment was to get a kiss from a man we found attractive. I met a cute young man (30's?) who is an aide worker on his way to Afghanistan for a year and a half and I got my kiss. And so did many of my sister goddesses - I think that he had the night of his life. What a lovely young man.

And, in case you think that Mama Gena's is about flirting with young men, it's not. It's about finding pleasure and if you're married, bringing that into the marriage. And if you're single, looking for men (or women) who will love and worship you. And most of all, loving and appreciating ourselves. No more "I'm too old, I'm too fat, I hate my thighs."

Next stop: Miami. November 7-9th. I can't wait.

And what I loved most was that I didn't pay one bit of attention to the news and at the end, I got to see Colin Powell's amazing endorsement of Obama on "Meet the Press." What a fantastic weekend! I feel so hopeful and happy!

Hot sexy fear

Okay, it's really just fear, but my friend and fellow blogger Sybil told me today that if you add the word "sexy" to a blog post you have more chance of it being read by a greater number of people. And "hot sexy" should really pump up the readership.

Fear..."an unpleasant emotion caused by the nearness of danger or unexpected pain." Public speaking is very high on the list of things people fear. I can think of many things that are much worse, but actually performing in public has always been one of my fears. So why am I doing this? I don't know really. There seems to be something inside me that wants to perform. I love getting laughs. Maybe it comes from a sick place, the part of me that always tried to get my mother to laugh. But I also love it. As Sybil said when she performed recently and got the loudest, most unbelievable laugh, it was truly one of the greatest feelings she's ever had. And I guess it's why performers, comedians, anyone who risks public humiliation take that chance. For that feeling.

"Acting is making a fool of yourself." James Gandolfini

"I would hate not to be scared of doing something...not taking a risk." Alicia Keyes

I found those two quotes recently and I keep remembering them. So I make a fool of myself. Big deal. At least I'm not running for Vice President.

The fear comes and goes. Sometimes I feel perfectly fine, but then I remember that I have actually invited people to come to the show and some of them might actually appear and that scares me. Last time we did the show we were just reading our scripts, this time we have to memorize them. I have often had a nightmare that I stand up in front of an audience and I can't remember a single word (and I'm naked.)

So anyway, it helps to write about it. I was taking a bath just now and I thought, I'll write something about the fear and maybe it will dissipate. It has, a little. But probably at five a.m. it will return. It isn't bad enough that the world is in economic freefall and we have a very close election coming up and if McCain wins I will probably have to go on some kind of drug?

Why? Why me? Why now? Why laughs? Why can't I be satisfied with a nice walk in the park and a good book? Any time you try something risky, you're going to be afraid. And the only way to get over the fear is to go through it.

I hate that.

"Souvenirs" Oct 30- Nov 2nd - Our show!

4 Solo Shows - 4 Nights
347 W. 36th Street - 13th floor
Blackbird Theatre - Where Eagles Dare Studios

8 pm Thurs, Oct. 30, Fri Oct. 31, Sat Nov. 1st
7 pm Sunday, Nov 2nd

Smarttix.com

http://www.matthoverman.com/Souvenirs.html

(click on the image below to see all the info)

Good or bad parenting

Last Tuesday night my friend Annette and I met a woman whose 27 year-old son has a serious drug problem. She said he'd been in two rehabs and had relapsed both times after he left. She was fairly sure that he was still abusing drugs and she was trying everything in her power to get him help, but she also realized that she couldn't force him to do anything until he was ready. And it was clear he wasn't ready. She seemed like a lovely woman, with two other kids who are both doing quite well. She said that when this son was growing up, he was the golden child, the one everyone thought was the most lovely and perfect kid you could ever ask for.

On Friday, Annette heard from the woman. Her son died Wednesday morning of an overdose.

We were stunned. I can only imagine how much pain she is in right now.

It also made me think about parenting. Same mother, three kids, one dies of a drug overdose. She obviously loved her son, I'm sure she did everything in her power to be a good mother. I think that most people try hard to be loving and supportive parents and also to be firm and offer good guidance and impart life lessons.

But sometimes we fail. Miserably. And sometimes, we succeed. Sometimes our kids seem to be doing well and sometimes they are unhappy, depressed, frustrated. I don't know the answer to any of this, I just know that my heart breaks for that woman whose son didn't make it.

Love and Marriage

If ever there was a survey of the biggest myths perpetrated over the history of the world, I swear that marriage + love would be a the top of the list.

Why are there days when I can totally understand the homicidal impulse that overcomes people? Is it hormonal? Is it just that spending so much time with ANYONE would make you feel as though you are losing your mind? I honestly don't know how couples who have been together for 50 years or so manage to survive, except that as our senses start to fail us, and we can't hear what our spouse is saying, we can't see them as well, our sense of smell is fading, taste, and who wants to be touched?

I recently heard about a couple who live on opposite coasts half the year. That sounds good to me.

Tomorrow I may be saying how much I love my partner and enjoy our life together, but today you can have him. No, the truth is that I do love my partner, I just want more space. More time alone. I need more alone time to keep me sane.

I think I also need to do some heavy duty meditating. And tonight we are going to see a play by Michael Weller, a friend, called "Fifty Words" about a Brooklyn couple who fights for the pretty much the entire show. Perhaps a bad idea...

Later tonight:

In fact, a very good idea. "Fifty Words" was the perfect play to see, although painful, it really does show a marriage, the honest struggle that trying to live with someone and create a family, involves. Michael Weller wrote it. His son, Ben and my daughter Zoe are good friends. I love Ben. I've known his mother, Kathy for thirty years. There's so much truth in the play. We all really enjoyed it, although it was painful. The actors, Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel were both superb. Thank you, Michael. I've admired your work for so many years

Also - yesterday, I saw "The Changeling" the new Clint Eastwood film with Angelina Jolie. A fantastic film, beautifully acted and directed. And also very sad.

Ironically, I guess there isn't much in life that makes me happier than seeing really fine works of art. That and some alone time.

Serenity/surrender

First of all, I changed the template for the blog, just to shake things up. I will probably do that periodically.

Second of all, for some reason, I woke up feeling relatively happy this morning and I have no idea why. No "winter coming on blues" (F.O.W.) I watched the debate, it was somber and there were a few times I wanted to throw something at the television, but basically I feel that if Obama isn't elected we will get what we deserve and it isn't going to be pretty. And despite the feelings I have about Sarah Palin (deep dislike), McCain (disgust) and the Republicans (YUCK) -- and what we know will be 27 days of lies, distortions, fear and everything they can think of to throw at Obama (including the kitchen sink) -- despite the fears about the world's economies, I am trying to stay grounded and focus on the positive. (That was a run-on. Sorry. I think listening to Sarah Palin has ruined me.)

Anyway, I recently began reading "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle and in the chapter "Ego: the current state of humanity," he ends with this thought:

"Whenever tragic loss occurs, you either resist or you yield. Some people become bitter and deeply resentful; others become compassionate, wise and loving. Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life. Resistance is an inner contraction, a hardening of the shell of the ego. You are closed. Whatever action you take in a state of inner resistance (which we could also call negativity) will create more outer resistance, and the universe will not be on your side; life will not be helpful. If the shutters are closed, the sunlight cannot come in. When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness which in a state of inner openness you become one with. Circumstances and people then become helpful, cooperative. Coincidences happen. If no action is possible, you rest in the inner peace and stillness that comes with surrender. You rest in God."

Maybe all of this sounds a little far out to you. (Unless you're Oprah, who I don't think is reading this.) If she is reading this, I want to give a shout out: "Hi Oprah!"

It used to seem far out to me, but somehow I've found myself on this path of searching for a deeper meaning, for living not just on one plane, but going deeper into the meaning of the events and experiences of my life and of my friends' and families' lives. And beyond that - to world events. This election is one of those moments.

All I know is, when I am open to the world, coincidences do happen. People do show up for me. Life feels richer and more abundance - and I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about experiences, connection and good feelings and chocolate cake. (I just threw that in to see if you were paying attention.)

New t-shirt coming out today: "THAT ONE: '08"

F.O.W.

Fear of Winter...I can feel it looming, especially this year, given the state of the country and the world.

Less daylight, five or so months of cold weather, snow, rain, darkness, it hits me every fall and although I love this season, I always feel anxious about how I am going to handle another winter. It's not so bad that I'm thinking of moving to Florida or anything and it may sound silly, but having suffered from depression a few times in my life, the winter's always tough. I know I'm not alone. The mornings are difficult for me. I wake up and don't want to get out of bed. And in the middle of the night, I lie in bed and worry...and obsess. Once I get going, I do my meditation, reading and some exercise, I usually feel better.

I think that the most important thing is to remember to breathe and to be in the moment.
By the way, I wanted to put up a new photo, but the one that's up is too big! If anyone knows how to make it smaller, please let me know. Thanks!

A hell of a great speech

Boogieman, an important film

I haven't seen it yet, but it's about someone I've been obsessed with for years, the late Lee Atwater, evil Republican mastermind of numerous elections, Karl Rove's mentor (Rove is Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign manager's mentor). Atwater was the man who changed the course of American politics for generations. And not in a good way. He died of brain cancer.

The film is "Boogie Man" and here is the website for it:

boogiemanfilm.com

I am going to see it as soon as I can. I suggest you put it on your Netflix account, if it's not playing at a theater near you. The schedule for the film is on the website.

If you think that the next month is not going to be filled with Republican dirty tricks, you are dreaming. Start with today's article in the NY Times with the Obama "so-called connection" to William Ayers. More is coming. Trust me.

On another note, I just watched the Charlie Rose interview with Warren Buffett that aired a couple of days ago on PBS. If you have 55 minutes to spare, this is a really good discussion of what's been happening in our economy in the last three weeks:

http://www.charlierose.com/guests/warren-buffett

Sarah, thank you so much!

Sarah, You have no idea how many people are grateful for your nomination. Let's start with Katie Couric. I have never heard her name mentioned as many times as I have in the last week. Everyone is talking about her - Katie's interview, Katie Couric's gotcha moments, she is probably beside herself with joy that she got those interviews.

And given how tired Bush jokes are, I'm sure that every comedian in this entire universe is grateful to have someone new to kick around. What about Tina Fey? Could her career get any hotter? When I watch you now, I think you are doing a Tina Fey imitation. Even I enjoy being you, answering questions like you, you are just so darn cute and folksy.

You know, if our futures and the futures' of generations after us and the entire planet wasn't at stake, I would say: thank you for being such a good sport. When people praised your mediocre performance last night in the debate I couldn't help but think that a really smart and articulate fifth grader could have done just as well.

But what we need to remember is that today there are more important things to focus on (the economy, the House's vote) and last night is over.

For me personally, we are starting to rehearse our solo shows and that is challenging and fun.

And I believe in my heart that the Democrats will prevail on November 4th.

I'm in love with Jon Stewart

I know he's married. And I'm married. And I'm a bit older than he is. And probably when he's not on his show, he's not very funny. And his staff writes a lot of the material. But he makes me laugh.