Jonathots Daily Blog
(4335)
Jonathots Daily Blog
(4334)
When I traveled on the road, I frequently requested one from the front desk clerk at the motel. He or she punched a few buttons, and sure enough, the next morning at the specified time, my phone rang.
It was startling—so loud that I decided to purchase a small traveler’s alarm clock, which could still awaken me but without a heart attack.
The only problem with this new apparatus was that it was gentle and had a snooze button, which permitted me to rob ten more minutes of sleep. Sometimes I just didn’t get out of bed on the right schedule.
It should sound the cry: “WAKE UP!”
So what happens when you don’t permit a wake-up call, or you’ve deafened your ears to such an extent that you no longer find the sound alarming?
I don’t know which one has happened. But there are certainly things going on in this great country—things we all share—which would have alarmed us at one time, and now have been relegated to the status of background noise or surrounding scenery.
I, for one, think we once thought it alarming for people to treat one another without civility. We were cordial, even to people we didn’t like. We chose our words carefully.
Perhaps there was more gossip because true feelings were being uttered behind the backs of our enemies, but “a hospitality of congeniality” kept us from being openly hostile, on the verge of rage.
Likewise, it stands to reason that a faulted people should be served by a faulted leader. So what happens when the leader of the nation no longer believes that he or she has any faults? Won’t all the citizens want to imitate such an arrogant profile?
“If it’s good enough for the top dog, why don’t the little puppies get to bark at will?”
It is alarming to me that we seem to have lost the awareness of our own fragility and consciousness concerning our weaknesses.
Many years ago, when four students were murdered at Kent State University during a Viet Nam War protest, the country was stunned. Now I’m not so sure that four victims destroyed during a shooting would even make it into the second news cycle before disappearing into the past.
Once killing gains acceptability, it no longer matters who, and unfortunately may someday not matter how many.
I am extremely alarmed that the term “socialism” is being bandied around like a cultural volleyball by those with little awareness of the horrors suffered by souls in the Eastern Bloc of the European continent, or the stunted status thrust upon the good folk of Cuba.
Especially alarming is tying the word “socialist” to the adjective “democratic,” or harkening back to FDR and the New Deal.
And concerning programs to help the aging and poor, we must realize that as a nation, we have historically been able to come up with such plans and opportunities without ever having to wave the banner of socialism.
Whether it’s the religious right continuing to hold women in subjection to men or the liberals celebrating culture, only to further focus on our differences instead of our similarities, or just trying to keep all colors, mindsets and religions seemingly revered, but banished to a distance—it is alarming.
Our nation is sleepy.
We’re waking up intoxicated by our own foolishness, yearning to snooze, ignoring the need to rise up and make a difference.
How loud would the alarms have to be to awaken us from:
It is time to sound the alarm, hear the alarm and be alarmed.
(4334)
Anticipating marvelous things
Yearning for the touch
Planning good things that will offer better possibilities in showing one’s best
Jonathots Daily Blog
(4333)
art by Clazzy
Music: Nor’easter from the symphony, Crystalline
by Jonathan Richard Cring
Jonathots Daily Blog
(4331)
It is unacceptable that nearly a half million people in America can’t find a home to protect them from the elements.
There are so many charitable organizations, so many beds, so many opportunities and so many shelters that the term “homeless” does not apply.
They are folks who have lived their lives to a certain juncture, and really see no advantage in continuing to try to be solvent, functioning, or for that matter, contributing.
Maybe this decision was arrived at through addiction.
Perhaps it was mental illness.
Do they have a disability?
Do they just enjoy living on the darker edges of the streets?
I don’t know.
But you certainly cannot refer to them as homeless.
We can no longer say that these Spartans cannot get a job—the unemployment rate is so low that McDonald’s is hanging out in the avenues, passing out applications.
I have every intention of continuing to be generous and open to these who are so situated. But I am no longer going to propagate the myth of “homelessness.”
We can gather the five hundred thousand people on the streets and take care of every one of them through a one-dollar-a-week payroll tax on each worker’s paycheck. Yes—four dollars a month.
It’s about fifty dollars a year per taxpayer, and if you multiply that by two hundred million payees, you come up with trillions of dollars. Don’t you think we could probably lodge some folks comfortably and feed them for that sum?
Of course we could.
But it wouldn’t eliminate the problem—for they aren’t homeless. They are pointless.
After all, nobody grows up wishing they could someday be homeless, freshening up in a bird bath at the park.
Their brain, soul and emotions have placed them in this cauldron of vulnerability—to suffer the dire situation.
And every time I use the word, please realize that I am not being critical—just avoiding condemnation or useless pity.
Jonathots Daily Blog
(4329)
A rehearsal camp.
It is what we called the thirteen-day period leading up to the beginning of the tour of our musical.
The cast arrived: Mittie, Dan, Ginger, Greg, Luanne, Dollie, R. B., Matt and Blythe. Unfortunately, we had to axe Blythe and Matt because we caught them sleeping together in one of the bedrooms. We had a “no fraternization” policy for the cast, and Matt and Blythe—well, they screwed it.
Somehow or another, we’d landed an amazing facility for hosting this little shindig, with six bedrooms, six bathrooms, a complete kitchen and a small gymnasium including a PA system for rehearsing. The owner of the location was so impressed with our endeavors that he only charged $150 a week. Unfortunately, I think we bounced a check to him. (We made it right.)
The mornings were spent learning music. This went great. Music was what I did. We also worked on some acting. Since all the members of the team had seen movies and television, we kind of wiggled and squirmed our way into understanding the characterization needed for their roles.
But afternoons did not go so well. They were set aside for choreography. Only one of our cast members could dance. All the others were either timid or inept, leaving our three choreographers in a constant, bitchy dismay. Two of this trio were fellows who had performed on Broadway—gay men (this was back in the time when the words “gay” and “men” never appeared in a sentence together.)
The other choreographer was a “mimist” from Miami (say that quickly five times). She was a Lesbian, though our cast was so unfamiliar with the term that they believed she was an immigrant from Lebanon.
So terrible was the movement portion of the play that a reporter from the city newspaper, who came to interview me and happened to sit in on a rehearsal, joked, “Hey. Don’t give up. You can always have the claim to fame that you came up with ‘collisionography.’”
I didn’t laugh. I should have. It might have kept me from crying.
The absolute worst of our dancers was R. B. He had two left feet, and that was just on his right leg. R. B. couldn’t dance. It’s not that he shouldn’t or wouldn’t—it needed to be forbidden.
The terrifying part of the situation was that R. B. was our most enthusiastic hoofer and believed with all his heart that he was heads and tails, if not feet, above the other cast members.
One day, in a fit of frustration, Gay Choreographer 1 screamed at him, “You dance like an elephant imitating a cow!”
The only reason R. B. knew to get offended was that the fellow was spitting angry. That night R. B. packed his bags, preparing to leave—and I consoled him into staying.
I lied.
I told him I had fired the choreographer who yelled at him, when actually the guy had quit in despair. So R. B. stood tall, stating to me, “That guy just doesn’t know talent when he sees it.”
I should have said something. I should have spoken up. But I was so afraid of losing a cast member less than two weeks from the start of the show that I remained silent and let a very cocky guy walk out of the room—setting us all up for a “Great Collision.”
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| Anonymous on 1 Thing You Can Do When Your F… |
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| Anonymous on 1 Thing You Can Do When Your F… |
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| Steve on From the Stacks … Octobe… |
| Maxine Mantooth on Scrambles … October 20th… |
| Maxine Mantooth on From the Stacks … Octobe… |
| Maxine Mantooth on Scrambles … October 13th… |
A voice writing in the wilderness
Jonathots Daily Blog 
