Do I wake or sleep?

THIS is pretty incredible. A few months ago, FIG (the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, the governing body of international elite gymnastics) ruled that the 2000 Olympic women's team bronze medalists had falsified the age of one of their gymnasts and recommended to the IOC that they strip this team of the bronze and award it to the 4th-place team, the US. Today the IOC did so. The country? Take a wild guess. China, of course.

I'm not at all surprised that China was proven to have cheated--one of their other Sydney gymnasts, Yang Yun, had already slipped up and admitted herself on TV that she was underage at the time. What shocks me is that 1) FIG gave a crap, and 2) that the IOC actually acted on it.

FIG is a shady, badly-run organization--their president, Bruno Grandi, is a complete mess and does stupid shit like having gymnastics meets in Iran. You know, Iran, where women aren't going to be able to wear the leotard, or even compete. So naturally half your athletes can't compete, your judges and coaches can't be there. Good thinking, Einstein. Grandi also pushed for the 6-3-3 system, so that teams with fewer good consistent gymnasts can win more, thus making the whole TEAM concept irrelevant! He hates the All-Around and Team competititons and wants to eliminate them completely--I doubt this will happen, but that's just such a stupid idea anyway. No AA means no Nadia, no Mary Lou, no gymnastics heroes for little girls to idealize and lead them into the sport. And I personally dislike him and FIG because when Paul Hamm won the gold AA in Athens, and it was then discovered that a judge had neglected to give the South Korean bronze medalist the correct start value on one of his routines, which lowered his score (and after that, it was discovered that another judge had negelected to penalize the SK gymnast for an extra hold, which meant his score was actually higher than it should've been--it's confusing, I know, but basically Yang Tae Young got a gift overall and should not have even won the bronze).  FIG sent Hamm this sleazy letter "suggesting" he give back the gold he'd won.  They ignored the second hold for which Yang was not penalized and acted as though Hamm was cheating somehow. Unbelievable.  Basically FIG likes to make a dramatic show when the spotlight is on them, but after the meet is over, they do nothing.

And the IOC is like this as well.  They make a fuss about drug testing and zero tolerance--and to the point of ridiculousness, as when they stripped poor Andreea Raducan of her AA gold for taking a cold tablet which 1) had been prescribed to her by the team doctor, 2) hindered, rather than helped, her performance, and 3) IS NO LONGER A BANNED SUBSTANCE.  But when the heat dies down, they do nothing.  Look at East Germany in '76.  It has now been not only proven but admitted that the East German women's swim team juiced.  One poor swimmer was so messed up, she actually underwent sex-reassignment surgery.  But has the IOC vacated the results?  Nope.  Shirley Babashoff deserves the golds she should've won that year, but the IOC will never do anything about it.

But I am happy for the US Sydney team.  They were dogged quite a bit for not medalling at all, some nasty gymnastics fans out there, and this is some nice vindication.

Phillies fan intentionally vomits on 11 year old girl after his friend is kicked out for spitting on her family.

Just...wow. As the Philly.com article says, "'It reminds you of the type of behavior you used to hear about at the 700 level in Veterans Stadium,' Vanore said." These are the same kind of people who threw D batteries at one baseball player who'd turned down the Phillies. And when Michael Irvin took a header on their crappy turf and sustained spinal cord injuries that ended his career...they cheered.

What a bunch of thugs. As bad as some professional athletes are (some), some (some) of the fans are worse.

The Public is doing The Merchant of Venice and The Winter's Tale in rep this summer! I don't think I've ever seen Merchant on stage--yay! So excited to see me some free quality Shakespeare! I love summer in the city! As a follow up to the Lovestreet/Julie drammer--apparently Lori had also heard from Catherine a while ago that Julie wanted to fire me. She, like me, wasn't sure if Catherine had mixed me up with someone else but if that someone else wasn't Lori (who also had long blonde hair--she's the only person with whom Catherine might've confused me, there weren't that many women in the cast), I don't know who it could've been. Lori said she didn't tell me because she thought it was ludicrous but after I'd emailed her she began thinking of it again, saying "I think Julie was completely and utterly intimidated by you...While she was mucking up the role of Lady M, she was likely aware that you were aware of how badly she was mucking it up in rehearsals." Hmmm. The whole thing is literally inexplicable barring a conversation with Julie and frankly, I don't care that much. I certainly do feel as though I've dodged a bullet though! I can safely say that a good part of the cast would've walked if she'd tried to fire me for no reason. I mean--no reason! I still can't figure it out, I'd saved her ass so many times. Really, she's that insecure? What a weirdo!

So, as I posted yesterday, we FINALLY got our midterms back and I pulled an A, yippee! Very, very happy about that. We took this exam a while ago, on March 9, and I've been sitting on my hands waiting for it ever since. It was an interesting format: the first part, worth one-third, were identifications--a phrase or term was listed and you had to write up to three sentences identifying it. The professor gave us thirty of these and said that ten would be on the exam, so you just had to study for that and remember your definitions. The second part, worth the other two-thirds, was more complicated. He gave us three essay questions, and said that one of them would be on the exam. Here's the kicker--you had to answer the question citing original sources. Without books. So you not only had to compose an argument to answer the question, you had to remember all the citations and who wrote them. NOT easy. The questions were:

( Exam Head Games )

( The visceral poetry of Caesar's assassination... )

( Cawfee Tawk and Talksalot )

Anyway. Danced up Broadway yesterday afternoon. It is spring, the weather is getting better and I got an A on my midterm in my wonderful, awesome history class that affirms that history is endlessly fascinating and something I want to pursue.

So the Friday morning commute from hell? Was apparently planned. Part of a planned, calculated middle finger to commuters, to punish us for what their crappy management is doing. If their aim is to underscore how worthless and without honor most TWU members are, and to get NYC commuters to side with MAT management, well then excellent job, me hearties!

Fire them all. Every last worthless one of them.

Went to the TRU auditions Saturday and saw Catherine Lamm and had a nice long chat with her about the court case and Macbeth. We enjoyed chewing over every juicy bit of the case, and of course talked about Julie quite a bit. First of all, get this--Catherine is some kind of bigwig with TRU, I believe her official title for the auditions was "Casting Coordinator" or something like that. In the past Julie has attended TRU auditions to cast for Lovestreet--in fact one year I sat in for her. This year I wanted to go but I also didn't want to run into Julie, have her come up to me and fake like we're still cool. Julie, we're not. She's trapped other Macbeth actors before--Lori was cornered in the Drama Desk Bookstore once--and I just didn't want to deal with it.

When I got to the auditions, I had to wait a bit for a break before I could go into the room, so Emileena and I chatted a bit. I asked to see the list of auditors and noticed Julie was not on it--I was all YES! Then when I finally entered and sat down, Duncan told me the dish--apparently Catherine got Julie barred from the auditions. Catherine confirmed it, she said she told TRU "I won't be here if she's here" so they asked Julie to leave. Duh-ra-ma! I love it.

Catherine was talking about what a great job we'd all done, especially the Witches--"I loved you Witches"--then she dropped a bombshell that really took me aback. In fact I'm not at all sure how to take this. She said that during the rehearsal process, Julie had been trying to get Catherine to fire ME. This--seems off. For one thing, Julie had absolutely no grounds for that--Catherine said she refused, saying "you'll have to give me a reason, she's doing great work." (When I asked Catherine what reason Julie had given, Catherine shrugged and said "Because you're good and she's not?" Well, thank you, that is a nice compliment but did Julie really say that? And God knows, Michelle and Lori were also fantastic. At any rate, Julie never came off as the jealous type to me. Insecure as hell, sure, but not jealous.) For another, I've helped Julie on many, many occasions--I convinced her not to cancel the show when PsychoSusan melted down, I've done benefits for her, as I mentioned I've sat in for her, I've even taken her out for her birthday. Julie's weird but would she really 1) dick over someone who'd helped her out that much--attack me that personally?, and 2) risk a complete mutiny in the cast, since she'd already fired the first director, Lew? Also, Julie came after me several months later, asking me to come back to Lovestreet. Of course she could've done a turnaround but still, I just don't know if I buy this. Another thing that strikes me as off is that--well, if Julie wanted to, she could fire anyone she wanted herself--she doesn't have to go through the director, she's the producer. Very odd. Part of me wonders if Catherine weren't mixing me up with someone else in the cast. She knew the Witches as a unit, she never really got to know us individually.

At any rate, I'm much less upset about it than I thought I'd be--partly because it just seems so off, and partly because it was awhile ago.

On another note, I'm really glad I went to the TRU auditions. Duncan is not so enthralled with them as I, but there's something inspirational in a grassroots organization that tries to empower each other. (And besides, they catered the auditions with Amy's Bread.) I got all excited about maybe doing something this summer--I think I'm going to talk to someone at Columbia to inquire about the possibility of doing an outdoor show there this summer, maybe a very-staged reading. Maybe even Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra, since I've been studying them! Plus you get awesome fights with that. Melissa (R&J baby) wants fights.

Robert Culp, "Bill Maxwell," the hyper-anti-commie FBI agent in The Greatest American Hero is dead.

I loved that show and he was hilarious in it. Rest in peace, Mr. Culp.

So--obviously some pretty big legislation was passed yesterday and some strong opinions were expressed. Now most of my friends are pretty liberal, and by and large the opinions I was reading on my Facebook feed were positive. There were, of course, some not so. I fully believe that there is principled opposition to this legislation--I don't agree with any of the arguments I've heard, either because I didn't think they added up or I'm just ideologically opposed to the premises of the argument--but I know that people I respect and love do not necessarily support this.

It can be really difficult to weigh in on the subject--even to go onto Facebook and read what others have to say--without getting emotional or taking it personally. It's a really tough line to draw. I like to see passionate discussion and no one should be afraid to disagree, but when 1) you don't know someone, and 2) you're discussing things online, without the context of face-to-face communication, things can get--unattractive. This is why I tend to reserve my political discussion for LJ, rather than FB. Too many friends on FB, plus its format doesn't facilitate thoughtful discussion as well as a blog community does. When I do post political on FB, it's usually a cri du coeur, something that bothers me, or elates me, so much I can't hold it in.

A few weeks ago, Patricia posted something on FB about health care reform, and one of her friends, someone I don't know, asked "who pays for it?" I responded (my first response to Patricia's thread) "since health care reform is something that benefits all of us, like education, we all pay via taxes." Question seeking factual answer, factual answer given with underlying reasoning, right? He responded with this diatribe on how he wasn't going to pay for boob jobs and illegal immigrants and nose surgery and I don't know what-all--like, apres ca, le deluge, this very partisan, emotional post. Dude, if I'd known you were spoiling for a fight, I never would've responded. And he started it off with "Nope. Sorry." I have to say, as soon as you start off a response like that, I click off. It's condescending and rude. "Nope. *shakes head regretfully* Your attempt to impress me just didn't work, so I'll be brief and dismissive. Sorry. Better luck next time." It's an aggressive response couched in falsely "nice" language. I notice it mostly from guys, whereas women tend to use the "Um..." or call people "honey." Again, as soon as I see that, I stop reading--if you take an argument this personally, I'd rather not engage. I was polite to you, and I expect the same. Which is basically what I said to him, something along the lines of "you obviously have your mind already made up so there's no point in discussing this." He responded again but I never read it. Dude, don't know you, now I don't want to, stop trying to pick a fight.

So--I posted last night another cri du coeur, "Yes, we could!" because yes, I am very happy this bill passed. Almost everyone who responded agreed but a friend of mine from elementary school wrote something about how "not 'we,' the majority of Americans didn't want this*, only some people in DC" (paraphrase). I started to type out a geeky, over-explanation about how I was referencing Obama's campaign slogan, don't take it literally, it's a rhetorical "we," I was not speaking for all Americans but those who support health care reform., and we live in a republic, not a perfect democracy and all the reps who voted for this bill are presumably acting on the wishes of their constituents, because they know they'll be voted out if they don't. Then I decided--you know what, let him have his say. As I said it's a really tough line to draw, to read what people are saying, about an issue that you feel so passionately, and not respond sometimes. Michael's (my friend Michael Mackey) an old friend of mine, haven't seen him in forever but I remember several months ago he very respectfully asked for people's thoughts on health care reform, even if he had his own specific opinions. He's pretty disappointed obviously, but he's a good American who's trying, just like the rest of us.

But then there was the hilarious exchange on my friend Jim Denny's page. Jim posted in favor of the bill, said something about making health care affordable for everyone, rich or poor, and a friend of his started off his response "Jim, you sound like Adolph Hitler." I busted out laughing at that. A couple of other people posted and he answered every single with with this long diatribe--this is where you are crossing a line. Your Hitler response just makes you look ridiculous, but you don't get to take over the discussion and essentially try to shout down people. (That drives me crazy on YouTube as well, when people have to respond to every single person who expresses an opinion contrary to theirs, as though that other person really is wrong and they have to correct them. Crazily enough, you really see it with ladies' singles figure skating videos. There are some crazy FS-loving bishes, yo.) Jim wrote back "Yeah, been goose-steppin' around the neighborhood all evening looking for some hard-working young Americans who can't afford health care I can herd up and gas." I'd been thinking of invoking Godwin, but when I read what Jim wrote, I posted "Let me know if you need a fellow Aryan to help, it's been awhile since I've asked anyone for their papers, I need the practice."

*I read this several times on FB last night, that supposedly most Americans "don't want" this. I'd really like to see some reputable sources for that, because I've been reading the opposite, that Americans DO want health care reform. Of course then you have to get into what questions were asked on these surveys, how specific were they, and when were they conducted. My point is that it's sort of meaningless to say something so vague. At any rate, it's still a faulty argument, IMO--most Americans didn't want the civil rights act either. Most Southerners didn't want slavery to end. Most Jordanians STILL don't want the peace treaty with Israel. You may not believe that health care is a human right, but if you're arguing with people who do believe that, invoking majority rule is not going to convince them.

As Duncan mentioned, my alma mater Sweet Briar asked us to host a chat with current arts students. The students are all on Spring Break this week, and the woman in charge of this, Christian Carr, organized an arts-oriented trip to NYC for the week, for credit. They visited museums, saw shows, etc. Originally they were going to come to a Timon rehearsal but we had to change those plans when Timon was pushed back to the fall.

They're staying at the Gershwin Hotel--I've seen pictures of this place before but never visited there. It's gorgeous, very visually striking. We sat in the lobby and were served cheesecake and champagne, and talked to them about what producing actually entailed, the difference between producing outdoors and indoors, what difficulties came with the job, how my experience as a director/producer informed my acting, various playwriting questions for Duncan, all sorts of things. Most of the questions were more interesting and thoughtful than I expected--for example, I usually get asked how being an actor informs my experience as director, not the other way around. And Theatrical Girl asked me "if you had an unlimited budget, which two Shakespeare plays would you most like to do?" I thought about it and said "probably either The Tempest or the Scottish Play. You need something magical for Tempest, some kind of lovely special effects--you don't have to have them, but that's how I'd like it, it's a very spectacular show." And with the Scottish play--I said there are a lot of bad productions out there because 1) its nihilist message is difficult really to comprehend, it's an extremely dark play, and 2) everyone loves it so it gets done a lot. Hence, badly. But anyway, you need atmosphere to help with that nihilism. You need to do it in an enclosed space and take the audience on that journey.

I was talking to them about how Shakespeare straddled the medieval and Renaissance worlds like a Colossus--some of his themes emphasize the importance of social structure and how things go wrong when you challenge that (an essentially medieval value). But he was also the first humanist, the first writer to capture so much of humanity, of personality, in his writing. Every one of us knows someone like Mercutio, the too-smart-for-his-own-good mouthy teenager, or Othello, driven mad by jealousy. Everyone of us can identify to some extent with Macbeth, who starts the play as a good man and who is corrupted by his own ambition. Duncan and I also talked about The Thyme of the Season. Here's a thought, Duncan--maybe we could take that production down to SBC and perform it there. They do book-ins all the time at Babcock.

It was really a lot of fun. They were seated all around us, and at first they were a little shy--one girl, who had the most theatrical experience (albeit mostly technical), asked a lot of questions and then eventually the others started raising their hands as well. We talked for quite a while. Somebody said something about visiting campus and giving a talk there and I said that I'd thought about suggesting one, but wasn't sure if they'd want that. Theatrical Girl assured me, oh yes! They'd love it. The head of the department, Bill Kershner, had just started there when I was a junior--in fact he cast me as the Emcee in Cabaret. It'd be wild to go back with him still there! After the talk Christian was talking to us--Duncan and me--about both going down. Hey, as long as they're willing to pick up the tab for travel expenses (and of course they'd have to put us up but that's no biggie, they have an inn right on campus), I would LOVE to go back. I was talking it up to Duncan, saying what we could do, and I said "and we could hack! You ride, right? Bring your boots and your hardhat and we could go out for a hack!"

On another note--this is a tiny annoyance, but it is one nonetheless. When I sent out the Mardi Gras invitation, one person emailed me that she couldn't go but could she send me a check for Tipitina's? I said sure, thank you, gave her my address. After the party, I sent out a "thank you, we raised $X" message and she replied with another request for my address and a promise to contribute. Again, I gave her my address. Two weeks go by, still haven't heard. I email her again, asking if she'd gotten the emails since she hadn't responded either time (i.e., with a quick "got it, will send it out soon"). She said she was sorry, "life got in the way," but she'd send me a check. Two weeks later--still nothing. I give up. I'm sending the money in to Tipitina's.