I understand that things are a bit wonky over there in the GOP-led House of Representatives. And by “wonky” I mean “ungovernable.”
So I figured I’d offer the GOP a suggestion:
Nancy Pelosi — Google Image
Whaddaya think? Am I on to something?
Category Archives: Most Embarassing Moments Evah!
My Candidate for Speaker of the House
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I am NOT Joseph McCarthy. Really!
The history surrounding the history of Joseph McCarthy, the late Republican senator from Wisconsin, is enough to make a “freedom of speech” lovin’ woman like me shudder. I’m sure it is no coincidence that Senator McCarthy died right after I was born. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against me once I hit grade school.
Anyway, for my foreign readers, Senator McCarthy was a nasty, paranoid piece of work. Here’s Wikipedia’s take on him:
Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion.[1] He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.
The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy’s practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.[2]
I also learned that McCarthy was equally ruthless at “outing” gays.
Separated at Birth?
Google Image
When McCarthy claimed that someone was a communist, generally speaking, it ruined his/her life. There were many innocent victims of McCarthyism, whose professional and private lives changed. Folks were fired, not hired, scorned. It impacted people in government, industry and in the arts. Many of us have heard of the folks in show business in particular who were charged. And anybody who had had any dealings with the Soviets was fair game.
We all like to think that we would never cast spurious allegations against anyone or anything on our planet. We all like to think that we are good, kind souls, who would never malign anyone unjustly. That we would never spread rumors or false charges.
Friends, yesterday I learned that I had done just that. I “red-baited.” So while I can ‘splain, I must set the scene.
John’s sister sent us a link to a video:
Naturally I wrote back because I love animal videos, they make me smile.
It was only the next day, when deleting emails from my phone, that I learned of my crime. Because instead of typing “He’s So Cute!” as I had intended, instead I maligned that little guy. Accused him unjustly. Probably ruined his new life for ever:
“He’s a Soviet,” I, courtesy of spell check, responded.*
Fortunately, John’s sister does not succumb to hysterics. Or to the politics of fear. Or to spell check. In fact, she gave me the benefit of the doubt when I confessed my crime to her.
I was scratching my head. I thought, is this some old Russian film and Elyse recognized it?
For the record, please let me state that I have no inside knowledge of the political leanings of this moose, any members of the baby moose’s immediate family, or indeed, I have no information about moose politics in general. May I also state, unequivocally, that I have never actually seen a moose in the wild.
Lastly, let me state that as a reasonably well-informed individual, I also know that the Soviet Union is no longer a union, and even the folks in the former Soviet Union are not soviets.
*Clearly, there are communist infiltrators at work at spell check. We must seek them out and destroy their lives. Let’s get Ted Cruz on it.
The Hit Single
The other day when I rudely posted a link to one of my old blog posts in a comment on Art’s blog, Pouring My Art Out, I started chatting with my blogging buddy Trend, of TrentLewin.com about that piece. I told him that in an exercise for my memoir writing class, I had to write the same story from two different points of view. Trend and I figured it would be fun for me to post both pieces.
So tonight, I am re-posting the story of how all my youthful dreams came crashing down on me in a broom closet. Tomorrow night, I will tell the same story, from someone else’s side.
This exercise was really helpful in the class, by the way. It helped me look at the same story I’d told for years, but with new eyes. And it was a lot of fun to imagine the other side. Without further ado, here it is:
Door Number Two!
The thing about dreams is that the crushing, the squelching, the termination of them is so much better in retrospect than when it actually happens.
At 17, I just knew I was going to be an actress. A stage actress (because, don’t cha know, film work is not true acting. ) And I made that choice even before I realized that the camera brings out the psycho in me.
Now, I was very serious about this dream. Of course I took my high school’s acting classes. And, all snark aside, they were really good. The Players were renown throughout the area for the professional quality of its high school actors. And the accolades were well deserved.
Me? Was I the star? Was I the ingénue lead in all the productions during my high school years? Was there a reason for my hubris? Did my classmates look at me, remember my face and say to each other “someday we will remember when the very highly talented Miss Elyse went sledding outside our Algebra class (with that other fab actress, Ray) when she was supposed to be writing her math problems on the blackboard – because now,” sigh, “she’s a STAR.” Oops, no, I mean they’d think “because now she is a highly successful stage ACTress.”
Uh, no they didn’t. I was invariably an extra in those acclaimed productions. At best I got a line or two. But I had heart. And in the theatRE, that’s all you need, right?
“There are no small parts, only small actors.”
Well, I was NOT a small actor. I just got small parts. And I was short and thin. So I was small. Shit.
But I DID get an audition. Yup! I had an audition in April of 1974, the spring of my senior year, for the Central School of Speech and Drama, an acting school in London.
Google Image because I don’t have any pictures of my own.
Now, I lived ONE hour outside of New York, so training in NYC might have been a wee bit easier to manage. But hey, this was a dream, remember? And I wanted London: The Globe, The West End, Masterpiece TheatRE (even if it was done on film, it didn’t seem like it). I was ready to take the first step in my path.
My audition was held in a building at Yale University, which in itself was pretty intimidating.
I performed my comedy bit first, a monologue from a comedy so obscure that I have blotted it totally from my brain. I sang “Adelaide’s Lament” under the guidance of my friend Sue, who actually played Adelaide in our school’s production of Guys and Dolls.
I delivered my Juliet speech – hey, what do you want, Lady Macbeth? I was 17!!! I chose one that is rarely performed, the one where Juliet is about to take the sleeping potion and is seeing her cousin Tybalt’s ghost:
O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo,
That did spit his body Upon a rapier’s point:
Stay, Tybalt, stay! (I loved that line)
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
I drank the potion and collapsed on the floor in the best Juliet evah.
I was a much better Juliet than Marsha Brady. Much. Of course, there are no Google Images of me.
I thanked the three faculty judges, repeated my name, made sure they had my completed application and my picture (although how could they forget me?) I turned and walked to the door to leave.
Only there were two doors.
I opened the one on the right, walked through it and closed the door behind me.
It was a broom closet.
What do I do now, I wondered.
There was no script. No stage directions. No help of any kind. I considered staying in the closet, but knew that eventually I had to exit stage left.
After a minute that lasted forever, I re-opened the closet door and slunk out, saying a line I haven’t heard in too many successful plays:
“That’s the broom closet.”
I opened the other door and left the room, closing my dream back in the room with the judges.
I know that if I’d just gone out singing and dancing, well, this chapter would be the opening scene of my life story. Maybe it still is. Cause it hasn’t been at all bad.
`
FiftyFourandAHalf 