Bos'n Paul Ryan - Not Ready For Stand-Up Comedy

So, did you hear the one about the Congressman who ran in Kentucky on a platform of Death Panels, Nanny State and Socialism?  He won because his opponent was soft on gun control.

As Steve Rattner notes in today's NY Times, Congress is moving slow astern with the sequester when the economy still needs full ahead.  Budget scolds like Paul Ryan view the sequester as a triumph, even as we go dead in the water while  nearing the shoals of double dip recession.  This is no surprise. Ryan may have a great workout routine in the gym, but as a stand-up, his routine would be missing both of the critical stand-up comedy basics - honesty and timing.

Let's start with honesty, and give Representative Ryan some points for recognizing the obvious.  Nations need to limit their debt and demonstrate budget discipline. The thesis that debt exceeding 90% of GDP is a drag on growth now appears to be overstated, but at some level of debt and deficit, the government will face rising interest costs (producing a spiral of ever higher debt and deficit) and unacceptably high inflation. Right now interest rates paid by the US Treasury are low because safe investment alternatives are scarce, but this won't last forever. Representative Ryan is also correct in noting that Medicare and Medicaid loom large on the horizon of government obligations as our population ages and medical costs soar.

So,  Paul Ryan is a cute, personable guy who's honest enough to talk about serious deficit issues, why no prospects for a second career in stand-up?  Well, let's take a closer look at honesty and think about timing too.  The time to run a surplus is when the economy is booming. The $238 Billion surplus in 2000 was our largest ever.  We could have maintained a significant surplus right through 2007, retired more than a trillion of that debt Paul is so worried about and demonstrated the kind of budget discipline that would help keep interest rates low even in our deficit years.  Instead Paul Ryan chose to spend like a drunken sailor - that's right, Bos'n Paul gave us the Bush tax cuts, Medicare Part D and the War in Iraq - what could have been surplus for those boom years became a widening deficit.  Now, when the economy needs fiscal stimulus, Bos'n Paul has decided to sober up.

It's not just a timing problem.  Even now, in the middle of a recession that is still punishing a generation of new workers, Bos'n Paul is less sober than he seems.  End of life care, prevention and administrative expense are the low hanging fruit of medical cost reduction - the places to start if you want results. An early version of Obamacare included advisory boards to assist families with difficult end of life care decisions, a process in which elderly and very infirm patients frequently receive painful, unnecessary, unwanted and expensive surgeries shortly before death because doctors sometimes recommend them and the families just can't say no.  Naturally Bos'n Paul welcomed this baby step in the direction of reducing end of life care costs, right? Not quite, he bellied up to the bar and  after a few shots he began screaming, "Death Panels" ,over and over and over.

When it comes to prevention, Paul Ryan is all for anything that will save a health care buck - ban the big gulp, require posting of nutritional information, support programs that bring improved diet and exercise to the poor and working, but uninsured, poor, build clinics that treat illness before it requires exorbitantly expensive hospital care - Not!  Bos'n Paul won't spend a nickel even when he knows it will save a dollar.  He does secretly like the big gulp ban, but only because it gives him a chance to have a few drinks with his budget scold shipmates and scream, "Nanny State', over and over and over.

Surely a guy like Paul Ryan would consider anything to cut administrative costs, right?  Well, single payer health care systems like Canada spend less than 2% of what the US does on per capita administrative costs. Normally a market would function more efficiently than a large government bureaucracy, but in health care the demand (that would be the patients) doesn't really get to shop around between suppliers.  Even when a patient has a choice, there are usually no posted prices. Insurance companies and employers are health care middlemen who sometimes limit choice, but always add layers of administrative expense and prevent the functioning of anything resembling a true market.  Why not at least consider expanding the single payer system we use for Medicare? This approach, or even the much watered down "public option" that was ultimately dropped from Obamacare, can't get a serious hearing because the insurance and medical lobbies are just too powerful.  Bos'n Paul would rather take their campaign contributions (someone has to pay for all those drinks) and shout "Socialism" over and over and over.

What do you get if add a sequester to a recession?  A depression and a lot of new Congressman.

Shakespeare Upset Victor Over Vegas

Shakespeare in Vegas, a consistently smart, funny  and engaging creation of Playwright Suzanne Bradbeer is staged jointly by Dreamcatcher Rep and Playrights Theatre at Oakes Center in Summit, NJ.  The structure leans slyly on three Shakespeare classics, but it's really just another instance of a valiant man (or mobster) with a dream (or an obsession?) of building a fitting shrine to Shakespeare (or a large scale model??)  in a special place (Vegas???), to honor the memory of his Sardinian grandmother, (or  her martyred donkey????).  Laura Ekstrand shines all night as Cleopatra, the Nurse (well, maybe Juliet), Lady Macbeth and Margot- a veteran actor who's gone from sweet ingenue to aging, sometimes bitter and still basically unknown veteran.  Margot finds her way back to personal integrity, and maybe even romance, as the star in a surreal Shakespearian Theater struggling for survival in that bastion of culture and accountability - Las Vegas.  Eli Ganias, as Tony, is a one note goodfella for a few scenes, and then keeps digging deeper as his character expands.  Rachael Lee and Jessica O'Hara-Baker are having almost as much fun as they provide to the audience while playing a whacky stripper and a Hooters' heiress, both  excited by their shot at real acting, but not quite getting the whole Shakespeare thing.

Even without the Shakespeare backing, there's a multi-level plot here that is far more than serviceable.  The real treat is the dialogue, especially the barrage of one liners launched by Margot, who knows her theater and her Shakespeare, at a supporting case who knows Vegas.

Only one day left to catch this in Summit, but with any luck it may turn up off Broadway.  OK, I realize Summit is not on Broadway, but I'm thinking lower Manhattan.  This is a new show, workshopped through Dreamcatcher and Playwrights; it's already too good to end and it might get even better if it can find a venue.

  

Profiles in Cowardice

There's a book on the shelf in my library authored (Note 1) by an ambitious young  politician who wanted to burnish his intellectual credentials before his first run for office. The book offers case studies of United States Senators who voted their conscience, voted their conscience when it was massively, wildly, incredibly unpopular, voted their conscience when it meant suicide in their next bid for reelection.  Today 46 Senators voted against a watered-down gun control bill that did nothing more than extend background checks from dealer sales to Internet and gun show sales.  There was no Constitutional or logical principal at stake.  Polls showed that 90% of the national population, over 85% of Republicans and 80% of  gun owners agreed with expanded background checks.

This was not a vote of conscience, it was a vote of fear.  Fear of the targeted wrath of the gun lobby, particularly the NRA.  Do not confuse the NRA with its members, who often poll rationally on gun control issues.  When it comes to politics, the NRA is a spokesperson for the gun manufacturers, who provide the bulk of the NRA's money and view human life as inconsequential when it stands in the way of selling more guns.

Today the Senate reached a new low.  The very  idea of voting on principle in the face of constituent disapproval - the profile in courage- is now unthinkable.  Today's moral issue is - can you vote on principle, with the support of your constituents, when you know the gun lobby will be gunning for you in your next reelection  bid? Today,  46 Senators (Note 2) cowered, quaked and answered, No!

Note 1 - Yes, I know JFK had feet of clay and that Profiles in Courage was probably ghosted by writers on the payroll of his father (who had a torso of clay).  I don't care.  The book, however it came about, was an inspiration to me, a congenital dissenter.  I would be happy to distribute free copies to today's Senate.
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Note 2 -Actually 45, as Senator Reid voted, "No", to preserve future procedural options once he knew the bill was doomed to fail.

All In The Timing- What's the Secret to Comedy?

All In The Timing isn't just a hoary punchline - Q:What makes a great - A: TIMING- Q (continued) joke? - it's an evening of six comedy sketches at  59E59 Theater.   Although the show sometimes adopts the forms and techniques of improv, these are actually polished gems indeed, brought to you by writer David Ives (Venus in Fur), director John Rando (Urinetown) and a superb cast of four:Carson Elrod, Liv Rooth, Matthew Saldivar and Jenn Harris. All six sketches are funny, sometimes moving, sometimes pointed and not, in any way that I could discern, connected to one another.  My favorite was set in a lab at Columbia where three chimps, Milton, Swift and Kafka, were under observation by a professor waiting for Hamlet to emerge from their keyboard bangings.  The chimps were instantly and consistently recognizable as such, despite some fairly slick dialog and a tendency to take on the politics of their namesakes. I will not summarize further (I just got a scrabble puzzle from a college friend who used to play multiple games of chess simultaneously, while blindfolded, so I may have a long night in front of me). There is really only one more fact you need to know.  This is a limited run, get your tickets now if you still can.

Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi

I received Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi as a Christmas gift, but I just did not want to read it.  First, it sounded an awful lot like Stretch, which I already read. Second, I was overdosing on "yoga" reading for my own yoga teacher training and didn't want to add another spoon full. Third, my normal laziness has been elevated to a state of near total torpor lately, possibly as an outgrowth of my new meditation practice.  Yet somehow the reading spirit moved me last week, and I'm glad it did.

Although both are humorous yoga memoirs, Misadventures, by Brian Leaf, is a very different book than Stretch.  Leaf's narrative is organized around his years of self discovery.  He takes his yoga very seriously and by yoga he means the whole lifestyle - not just physical postures but breathing, chanting, meditation, ayurvedic diet and behavior modifications and, most importantly, a relentless search to identify and commune with his own true self.  While he is not a facile wit like Neal Pollack in Stretch, Mr. Leaf has a genuine sense of humor about himself and a flair for presenting his quest with detail and authenticity that sometimes walks the line of new age babble, but rarely crosses it.

Misadventures is a worthwhile read for anyone with any interest in yoga. It's an excellent choice for students in yoga teacher training, a very likable, accessible and personal approach to the yoga terrain that  sometimes seems an arid, scholarly desert in the hands of Iyengar and Feurstein.

Value and Stan the Man

The link will take you to a post I wrote a few years ago for Justmeans.  The post deals with fame, value and price - the price of a baseball autographed by Stan Musial - a price that seemed very low in relation to two other balls, one signed by Joba Chamberlain, the other signed by Michael Kay and John Sterling. Stan's fame faded toward the end of his long life.  Today's obits give us a chance to recall Stan's value.

Please take a look at the older post before you read on.

I'm the one who purchased that under priced Stan Musial ball featured in my blog post.  I'm not really a collector, but I bought Stan's ball because I couldn't stand to see it on sale for less than the other two.  I'm glad I did it, especially today, and I'm lucky to have a reminder of Stan's value every time I walk into my own library.

ps Stan will also be long remembered by my family as part of the answer to the question "What three pro baseball stars come from Donora", a question repeated as we passed by Donora on every drive to my parent's home outside Pittsburgh.

Your Mission, Mr. Phelps...

Indianapollis, August 8, 2,000: a gangly 15 year old from North Baltimore grabs a snack and heads back to his room, restless on the eve of his first Olympic trials.  As he passes a phone booth (hey - it was Indianapolis in the year 2,000) the sudden first ring of the phone startles him and he pauses.  Three, four, five rings, finally he thinks why not and picks up the handset.  Before he can start a "hello", a deep but otherwise nondescript voice instructs him, "Michael, open the envelope taped to the bottom of the shelf below the phone" and then the call goes to dial tone.   After a momentary hesitation, he grabs the envelope, opens it carefully and slides out a small tape recorder, loaded with a tape and a print of the classic photo of Mark Spitz wearing his seven gold medals. Hitting play, the deep, non-descript voice returns: "Mr. Phelps, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to win twenty-two Olympic medals, eighteen of them gold, eight of those golds won in a single Olympics, to become the greatest swimmer and most decorated Olympian in history and to turn this photo into the answer to a trivia question.  This tape will self-destruct in five seconds."  His jaw drops as he stands in stunned silence for a moment, but he's forced to move quickly when an acrid smoke fills the booth.

Congratulations, Mr. Phelps, maybe that last national anthem should have included an encore