RESTORE FREEDOM!

I saw a bumper sticker today that got me so mad.  It said "Restore Freedom!  Fire Pelosi and Reid."

Now I am not in love with either of them.  And I don't necessarily think Obama is a great president.  I didn't want him as the Democratic candidate.  I don't think he has been in office long enough to be a good or a bad president.  He sort of inherited a crappy situation and is doing what he can (which, with the deadlocked Congress and partison bickering that are the hallmarks of Washington, is not too terribly much) to solve the substantial problems that this country has.  Blah blah blah.  That isn't my point. 

My point is, how will firing two people in a vast beaurocracy do ANYTHING to restore freedom?  Then I started looking at the other bumper stickers on this car.  Anti-choice stickers.  Anti-gay marriage stickers.  Pro-W stickers.  Okay, so WHOSE freedom do you want to restore?  Your freedom to curtail other people's freedom?  Your freedom to be a bigot?  Your freedom to have a president in office who can wiretap you without a warrant?  It just go me so mad. 

WHY WHY WHY do people not understand that FREEDOM in this country means EVERYBODY'S freedom. 

And yes, that means the freedom to do things you don't agree with.  Let's take the abortion issue.  I am not pro-abortion.  I am pro-CHOICE.  Just because I don't believe it is necessarily a good choice - and certainly not the best choice in many situations - doesn't mean I have the right to tell anyone what they can or can't do with their bodies.  I don't want anyone to tell ME what I can or can't do with MY body (abortion, pregnancy, eating trans-fats, whatever).  It seems to me that anti-choice advocates only call it a choice when people make the one that THEY would.  Women are going to have abortions - right or wrong.  At least with them legal, they can do so without rusty coat hangers and hack doctors in back alleys.   And why in the world would many of these same people have a problem with birth control?  Wouldn't having access to reliable birth control reduce the perceived need for abortions?  Do these people really believe that we should just have as many babies as possible, financial, ecological, psychological consequences be damned?  So now, not only do we not have the choice to end an unwanted pregancy, but we don't even have the choice to not get pregnant in the first place?  What the hell?  Didn't God give us free will?  And if you have to CHOOSE to follow the path of righteousness for your own salvation, how is it worth anything if you have no choices to make?  You can't legislate morality.  You just can't. 

How about gay marriage?  I have a friend who recently married his partner.  They are in a stable relationship.  They love each other.  He changed his name so they could feel like a family.  They have engraved wedding rings.  They have been together for years.  They bought a house together.  They are thinking of adopting children.  Now my question is, how is this lovely man and his lovely husband doing anything to destablize the institution of marriage?  MY marriage - shockingly, I know - has been not affected AT ALL by his marriage to his same-sex partner.  Not one bit.  The only difference is, they have to fight for the right to be at each other's bedside should one of them end up in the hospital.  They have to fight for the right to be covered by the same insurance policy.  They have to jump through hoops to make sure their property and assets don't go to some random relative when one of them dies.  This is bullshit.  They are human beings, living an authentic life true to the WAY THAT THEY WERE BORN.  Homosexuality is not a choice or a lifestyle.  It is who they are.  So how is it right to tell them they are wrong or evil or not entitled to the rights that women and other minorities - hell, and redheads and the nearsighted and the people with birthmarks are entitled to?  It just makes no sense to me at all.  They are trying to live their life the way anyone else wants to in a land of supposed freedom. 

I understand that most of these issues come back to religion.  I understand that many people feel compelled to make other people in the world live by their standards.  That, my friends, is crap.  Everyone has their own moral yardstick, and it is not our freaking job to force ours on someone else.  Feel free to proselytize - it is your right to say what you choose to whom you choose however annoying and intrusive I find it (First Amendment and all).  But if people don't agree, you can't to force it on them.  It is literally impossible.  If you FORCE someone to do something, they are not choosing it in their heart.  What value is there in that?  It may have the desired physical effect (say a rape victim being forced to carry her rapist's child to term), but have you won any hearts to your cause?  Almost certainly not.  If anything, you have made a phsycologically scarred, or at least very angry enemy. 

I don't happen to believe that people should be allowed to carry guns.  But I am not going vandalize a gun-powners house, beat up his children, to go to anti-gun rallies or steal his guns in the middle of the night, because the right to bear arms is a Constitutional right and I respect that.  Also, the people who don't agree with me all carry guns.  But that's beside the point.

Incidentally, Jesus never said "Thou shalt hate the gays and take away their rights".  Jesus ate with tax collectors and prostitutes.  He healed with lepers.  He loved those who hated him.  He LOVED.  LOVE.  He didn't say "Love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself - unless he is gay."  Love, people.  Love.

When are we going to understand that the cycle of violence and hatred that is ruling our world can never be overcome by more violence and hatred.  Equal rights, freedom, choice, love.  For everyone.  That's all there is to it.

This was longer than I intended.  It just makes me so mad that people can be so hateful.  I realize I extrapolated a lot just from a few bumper stickers and I am as guilty many of the people I rail against.  I am very intolerant of other people's intolerance. 

Also, Pelosi is fun to make fun in The Capitol Steps, so that in and of itself is an argument to keep her around.

The Capitol Steps - You Probably Had to Be There #4 "I Wish Fidel Castro Were Here" and Other Ill-Advised Ideas.

We travel a lot together.  Especially in the presidental election year.  This means nearly three months together, day after day, at airports before the crack of dawn, in rental cars across endless miles of Iowa or Kansas or (if you're lucky) the Pacific Northwest.  But usually Iowa. 

It starts to get to you.  The only time you have to yourself is when you are locked in yet another hotel room in yet another nameless town somewhere in (usually) middle America. 

We have enough people in the Capitol Steps to do four shows at the same time.  We usually mix and match cast members pretty much every show.  Tonight you play with these four people, that roadie and that piano player, tomorrow you play with those four people, this roadie and this piano player.  In theory, all the bits, the choreo, the lyrics, the staging is "standard".  When you are out travelling with the same cast for months on end, the "standard" for your cast shifts.  Sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically.  Someone says "Why don't we try this?"  It works, we keep it.  The "standard" changes just enough to make your show a slightly different show from all the other casts by the end of the travel season.  This is fine, while you remain an isolated unit.  It only presents problems if there is a cast change.  One woman is swapped out for another for some reason while you are between trips.  One of the guys joins a different cast after coming home from California with "them" and before heading out to Buffalo with "us".  Then it is all, "well my  cast does it this way", and "We  do it that way."  Sometimes fights and cold shoulders and "I hate this f*cking cast"s ensue.  It is irritating (and immature) when this happens, but somewhat inevitable.  You put 7 creative people together for a long time doing the same show, mostly cut off from the standardizing influence of the whole, and eventually they become...well...creative.  The show evolves, almost with a mind of its own.  You start to think of ways to make the show better.  Funnier.  The thing is, the show is already pretty damn funny most of the time.  The reason we tend to get jaded on it is simply a metter of proximity and repetition.  And usually any hilarious idea one has in the thick of a busy travel season is one that will only be funny to the people onstage and backstage.  Here are a few of my favorite ill-conceived "this will be SO FREAKING FUNNY" ideas.

"I Wish Fidel Castro Were Here"

At some point in 2004 there was a video of Fidel Castro at some public event, tripping awkwardly and falling over in full view of all the spectators.  I don't remember what happened, where he was, what he tripped on or what the significance of the fall was.  All I remember is that we latched onto it and thought it was the funniest thing in the world.  We HAD to add it into the show somehow. 

Our backstage tech was JS for this trip.  He is game for pretty much anything.  We decided that JS HAD to be Fidel somehow.  Somehow.  But HOW??  How do you work Fidel Castro into the show?  And not just Castro, but his FREAKING HILARIOUS fall??  AHA!  KC and MT put their brilliant minds together and come up with this:

The Bush and Cheney skit and song went as usual.  At the end of the song, Cheney's heart attack, which usually ends the bit, went as usual.  Suddenly, I hear my husband (who plays GW Bush) say "Oh no!  Dick Cheney had a heart attack!  I wish Fidel Castro were here!"  Then, dressed as Fidel Castro (one can find just about any combination of props and costumes in the bags the Capitol Steps drag around from place to place), cigar in hand, our roadie walks onstage, trips over Dick Cheney and falls face first on the stage. 

I can hear KC and MT laughing almost uncontrollably onstage.  JS is giggling madly as he lays face first onver MT.  We are all in tears backstage. 

The audience sits in a stunned and confused silence as MT and JS drag themselves offstage, making it look like they are being dragged off by an unseen body clean-up crew.

Ii guess it wasn't funny if you actually got enough sleep, weren't drunk on airplane fuel and bad hotel food and didn't eat, drink, sleep and breathe the Capitol Steps.  An error in judgment...that we make time and time again...

"The Fondler"

Arnold has been in the show many times over the last few years.  This particular time was when the Guvanator was accused of sexually harassing women on his staff.  The parody was to "The Wanderer" and it was, perhaps predicably, "The Fondler".  The format of the song (of which I cannot remember one single line) was an interview with Arnold and 2 female reporters.  At the end of the song, one of the reporters makes a derogatory comment about one of Arnold's movies.  It never really got a laugh, so of course, we thought we needed to "fix" it instead of just letting it go.  So we decided that Arnold would punch the reporter in the face after she insulted his movie.  The reporter (me, in this case) would drop like a sack of potatoes and remain there for the rest of the song, whereupon someone would drag me offstage.  Hilarious, right?  So the fateful moment rolls around, KC, in all his AHHHnuld glory throws a very realiztic stage punch at my chin.  I keel over, already in histerics.  The audience is dead silent.  They are shocked.  Appalled.  Perhaps this was another, er...poor choice.  For some reason, the audience didn't find it amusing that a huge, muscular man just walloped a considerably smaller woman in the face.  Huh.

"Don't Taze Me Bro!"

We currently have a song in the show called "State of Arizona" (a parody of "Hotel California") about the recent law passed in Arizona regarding immigration papers.  In the song, an apparent illegal immigrant is stopped by a border guard.  At the end of the song, the "illegal" tosses off his blanket to reveal that he is in fact a Navajo Indian. 

The last stanza of the song goes like this: tossing off his blanket to reveal full American Indian attire the "illegal" sings: "Welcome to my home land I was born here/Yes we've been here/5000 years./I'm Navajo, we own this land you're on here/We've fought illegals, too/since 1492". 

This usually results in the audience cheering and clapping (rough translation "WHOOHOO WHITE PEOPLE SUCK!".  Our audience is 90% old white people).  The end of this song borders on the preachy, which is slightly outside our job description. 

The change that has been proposed here is this:  The Indian sing the last lines in all his glory.  The audience cheers.  The border guard nods sagely.  The border guard produces a tazer, zaps the Indian and drags him off.  Scene.

Because we all think this is hilarious, it is pretty much a given that the audience will be horrified.  We haven't been delirious enough to try it yet.

The Capitol Steps - You Probably Had to Be There #3 King Tw-t's T-t

We do many MANY shows every year.  Somewhere on the order of 300-500, depending upon the year and whether or not there is an election.  An individual performer may have as many as 9 shows in a week (or as few as none, once again, depending on the year and the season).  This means that performing in any given show can become an exercise in autopilot.  Most of the time this is fine.  The muscle memory kicks in, and the brain takes a 90 minute vacation.  Sometimes I have literally "come to" in the middle of a song and wondered which lyrics had come out of my mouth.  This is when things get dangerous.  You start to think and then you start to screw up.  The mind, oftentimes, is a BAD NEIGHBORHOOD - you should stay out of it.  If the brain has flipped the autopilot switch, it is best to STAY OUT OF YOUR MIND or face dire consequences.  Other times, I have known exactly that I was SUPPOSED to say, and listened in growing horror (or amusement, depending on how I am feeling that day) as not a single thing that my mind is coming up with is making its way out of my mouth.

This is what happened to AJ one day a few years ago.  Fortunately, it happened at the Reagan Building, where we record every show for potential album cuts.  This is one of the benefits of doing so many shows - when there is a truly delicious screw-up, the first thought is usually "Are they recording this??" as opposed to "I really screwed up, wow, I suck" or some other such self-flagellating mental comment.

The song had been dubbed "The Supremes".  It was a parody of Staying Alive about how all the justices on the court were well past their prime.  It is actually a very funny song starring the more liberal justices on the court - Justices Ginsberg, Souter Stevens and Breyer.  It was before the passing of Chief Justice Rehnquist and before Sandra Day O'Conner retired.

The line was "Well they say Renhquist could be King Tut's Twin and Sandra Day knew Ann Boleyn".  A mouthful under any circumstances.  I do not know what was going through her mind.  I wasn't in the show that day.  But I heard about what she said.

"Well they say Rehnquist could be King Twat's Tit and Sandra Day knew Ann Boleyn".

Clear as a bell.  King Twat's tit, ladies and gentlemen, King Twat's tit.

The Capitol Steps - You Probably Had to Be There #2 - President's WHAT??

I was recently back from 3 months of maternity leave.  I was doing a show with the boss (we'll call her E).  We were sitting backstage going over the running order.  This is a pre-show ritual in which we sit around and read through the list of songs and make sure everyone knows the parts they have been assigned to sing.  Only rarely does it turn up any real problems, since E is meticulous about these things. 

This particular night, we were going through a song called "Oprahbama" (uh, don't ask).  The line I am supposed to sing is "After the most recent/president's election/can we know our country's headed in the right direction?"  E says "Haha!  Jenny make sure you don't say 'President's ERECTION' Haha!"

I say "Thanks E, now I WILL say it!"

Please note that I have a 7 week old baby. I have not slept more than 3 consecutive hours in 7 weeks. I am hormonal in a very, very serious way. 

We go through the show.  Oprahbama is at the end of the first act.  We are backstage, getting ready of to go on for the first act closer.  I am thinking to myself "President's ELECtion.  President's ELECtion."  Over and over and over again.  And over agaan.

Have you ever said a word so many times that it just doesn't sound right anymore?  That's what I did.  "Election" just didn't sound like the right word anymore.  I get to my verse, start singing, and in my head I am thinking "Election just sounds WRONG.  It must be erection."

So that's what I sing.  As loud and clear as one could possibly sing it.  I sang about our most recent president's erection.  The audience titters a little bit, wondering if there is a Bill Clinton joke coming.  They quickly go from amused to confused.  I can't look at anyone else.  I see E's smile broaden wider and wider out of the corner of my eye as she tries to get through her verse without cracking up.  I hear the guys on the other side of me supressing snickers.  I look straight ahead and can barely breathe for laughing under my breath.   I don't think I sang a clear word for the rest of the song, let alone a correct note.

Needless to say, I didn't sing that part again for a very long time.

The Capitol Steps - You Probably Had to Be There #1 Monster Mash

I have been a member of the Capitol Steps (http://www.capsteps.com/) for nearly 7 years.  Even just typing that is astonishing for me.  I have never done anything that consistently (aside from breathing) for that length of time.  It truly is the best job an actor could ask for.  It is steady, well-paying work, great benefits, easy hours, fun people, fun actual work - I mean, what normal person gets to dress up in wacky costumes and make people laugh for a living?? - and always changing to keep the boredom at bay. 

The creators of the group used to all work on Capitol Hill.  For a while, all new members were required to do so, even if it was in a short-term volunteer capacity.  Then the group got too big and the demand for our particular brand of comedy got too haigh and they began to hire ringers like me and my husband - just plain old actors.   

However far from their roots they've been forced to wander, the creators want to preserve the "we just ran down from The Hill to put on this show" vibe about the show.  We have second-hand-looking costumes and goofy wigs, computer-printout signs and "I found this in my basement"-esque props.  This is not an indictment by any means.  This was and continues to be a conscious choice, and our audiences LOVE the idea that we all piled in a van after our last staffer meeting with Senator Bigwig and Congresswoman I'Msoimportant and drove through the night to put on a little skit for the locals in Des Moines.

However, the fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants aura surrounding the Capitol Steps is no myth.  We rarely have more than a day or two to rehearse new material and we often switch roles from week to week or night to night, depending upon the cast combination...which means we are often called upon to sing a part we haven't performed in a little while.  Or a long while. 

Or ever.

This brings me to my first story.  This happened sometime late in 2008 - sometime after Halloween and before Christmas I would guess, because we were doing a MONSTER MASH parody about the financial meltdown.  It was after the big election year rush of shows and things had been winding down.  I was in a cast with a number of people I hadn't seen or talked to since perhaps June of that year.  There were two women on the cast (as there usually are) - me and TS.  TS and I sing all the roles in the show, so when we are on a show together, we have to carefully look at the running order to make sure we know which ones we were supposed to be singing.  No auto-pilot here!   

Monster Mash was a song that featured Henry Paulson, George W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi and an announcer who was invariably play by the woman who wasn't playing Pelosi.  I was listed as the announcer.  I had learned the Pelosi part, but had never been called upon to sing it.  I just assumed TS had done it a number of times, because it wasn't flagged as something we needed to rehearse before the show.  From the backstage mic, I introduced Paulson - big laugh from the audience (he was dressed as Frankenstein); I introduced Bush (big laugh - dressed as Igor); I introduced Pelosi (dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein, wig and all).  Nothing.  Silence.  I thought, "Huh, weird!  They usually love her", but thought nothing more of it. 

 

Still silence.  The piano player is vamping.  No one is singing onstage.  Now it is weird.

I go backstage and see that TS (who is supposed to be onstage that very moment) is sitting backstage, not dressed in costume, chatting with the roadie.  I quickly check the running order - I am not crazy, she IS supposed to be onstage.

Me: TS!!!  You're PELOSI!  They're waiting for you!!

TS: No I'm not.

Me: Uh, yes you are!  Look at the running order.  If I am the announcer, who do you suppose it left to play Pelosi??

TS: I've never done it.

Oops.  Onstage, I hear my hubby Kevin (who is playing W that night) and MD singing the first verse and chorus and hoping TS will show up.  The verse and chorus end - Pelosi is supposed to sing now.  Kevin ad libs (he is really good at this).  TS still doesn't show.  The audience is...I'll be kind and say "perplexed".  I shove the wig on her head, hand her the lyrics I have printed out and drag her backstage.
TS: I don't KNOW THIS PART!

Me: Just read the lyrics!  You don't even have to sing a tune!

TS sort of digs her heels in.  I literally push her out onstage.  She stands there. 

Kevin: Finally!  There's crazy little bitch!

Audience: (...)

MD: fhsdhfdsfjd fdjkdl jsfdk Monster Crash jkdsjfd.  (He's not good at ad libbing...)

The rest of the song is a fits and starts.  TS read the lyrics...badly...mispronouncing various words and stumbling over every line.  Kevin is laughing the entire time.  MD is trying his damnedest to regain his usual aplomb, to no avail.  The song ends with:

Kevin: (to Audience) You're probably more confused than we are!

Audience: (Laughter - FINALLY).

I was backstage with the roadie weeping with laughter.  I supposed I could have donned the wig and taken one for the team when I realized TS had no intention of going onstage.

But it was more fun to just stand backstage and laugh.  These are the moments I live for.