That Was Long Enough

Posted 1:19 PM by sean
I wanted to leave the last blog up for a couple days, but I think we're pretty much done with it.

Here is what I wrote to a conservative friend who, after reading my last blog, began a discussion with me about *why*, after articulating the pro-Bush position so well, I would want to vote for Kerry. We've gone back and forth for a while, and here's where we are. I have removed his writing because I didn't ask his permission to use it, but I have included in parenthesis his ideas.

By the way, I'm voting for Kerry because I think everything I wrote in my last blog can be defeated with really basic logic and little free thinking. But I also know that taking that step is really scary when you feel the lives of your children and family are on the line.

************
You wrote (The comparison between radical Islam and Koresh, McVeigh doesn't hold up).

I'm going point by point, so bear with me.

I agree that these two ideas. radical Islam and radical (for lack of a better word) Christianity, are manifested in two different ways. Radical Islam has given itself over to militaristic goals, to violence, and only the most disenfranchised radical Christians have.

But, the ideas are similar, chiefly, a belief that you specifically have been targeted by the rich and powerful people in the world to be disenfranchised. Most of the liturgical stuff is similar as well.

You wrote: (a claim that I avoid the logical conclusions that would lead to this war because they don't fit my fancy.)

It's hardly my fancy. There is a very long explanation as to why I think the way I do, and we can go into that if you press me on it, but trust me, it is not my fancy. The truth is, the hierarchical thinking that leads me where I am is lonely, painful, shitty stuff.

You wrote: (The war on terror should be called either World War III, or The War On Islam)

Ah. Well, now. This is a departure point, isn't it? Because Bush has made it clear that this is *not* a war against Islam. And if you are going to say to me, "He has to say that, he's the president." then you're assuming he is acting in your best interest even though he says he isn't. I'm not saying that it's a deal breaker, I'm just saying that puts you on pretty shaky ground.

I also need to point out that, while Saddam was an Arab and a Muslim, he never embraced his religion until shit started going south with the US, and most Arab Muslims think his embrace of the religion was entirely political. So, with no ties to Al Qaeda and with tenuous ties to Islam, isn't this actually a war against Arabs?

You wrote: (the goal of the enemy is to reclaim a significant place on the world stage for classical Islam.)

I believe that they believe that that is their goal. I think their actual goal is to live with freedom and dignity.

I think when a Muslim man looks at his child, he wants a better life for that child than he had, but when he looks up from his child and he sees burkas and starvation and palaces and oil barons and dirt and thirst, and he feels like his life is a fucking structured ass-fest where nothing ever gets any better and where his life avoids natural law like the plague, he tries to find solace. He turns to God. And the spokespeople of God are telling him, "Your misery is caused by the US and the Jews. Israel hates you. The US hates you. Your desperation, your thirst and squalor, are because of a fight between two brother six thousand years ago. Blah, blah, blah, I'm crazy..." And the man thinks, "Man, I'm so fucking miserable, at least this will give me a sense of greater things in the world." and he sends his child into a restaurant with a bomb so that his other children will live better lives.

People aren't motivated by the destruction of another country. People want a frapuccino and a pretty girl to smile at them. And these guys will live their entire lives without that happening.

You blame Islam. I blame the administrative structures built by the Arab leaders in the Middle East. Change the civil rights and the distribution of wealth, and these people wouldn't hate us.

You wrote: (Islam has turned into a shitty excuse for a religion, and then dared me to disagree.)

Dude.

You're so contentious, sweetie.

I have absolutely no argument with what you wrote here. I could rhapsodize with no end describing the horrible human rights records of Arab countries. I think it denies human law, and I spoke yesterday about my disregard for multi-culturalism when it defies human law.

You wrote: (We should be oppposed to the ascendency of this savage mind-set and our survival depends on it.)

I disagree only with the last half of this. It is important for us to fight against unnatural governments, but more important is to fight it in a way that does away with the mind-set that gives rise to terrorist acts against this country.

However, if you truly do believe this, why are you not screaming for intervention in Darfur? The Muslim government there is killing non-muslims to the tune of about 6,000 a week. If 6,000 Jews were being killed a week, would you be more upset?

You wrote: "This war is to destroy the mindest that gave rise to 9/11)

(Iraq? The only country in the middle east that *isn't* a Muslim state? We supported Hussein when he came to power. He was our ally. Donald Rumsfeld himself went to Iraq and met with him. You've read 1984, how absurd that Hussein was fighting us *with our own weapons* in 1991. We funneled billions of dollars into his coffers, money that we now claim he was using to fund terrorists, although there is no proof of that. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is in bed with the Bush family, Iran developed nuclear weapons *while we were next door* and Lybia turned over its weapons programs *without being invaded*...)

Sorry. I'll stop that. Let me get to the quote above.

I agree with you 100% that this is should be a war to destroy the civilization that gave rise to 9/11. But, it just doesn't add up for me. I could have understood an invasion of Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia. These countries had close ties, they created the mind-set that gave rise to 9/11. The only thing Saddam shares with Al Qaeda is the color of his skin.

We also have to look at our own culpability. Boy, right wingers really hate it when you say that. But we should.

You wrote: (a great comparison of the Japanese mindset before and after WW II.)

The comparison to Japan is great but it breaks down really quickly. Both wars began with attacks on America without warning. The attacks of September 11th are much more inhuman, in that they *targeted* civilians. Retaliation was necessary.

Pearl Harbor-
Japanese soldiers attacked the US on orders from their Japanese leaders, and they attacked in the name of Japan. We met this attack by attacking Japan with the full force of our military, eventually dropping bombs on their cities that wiped out hundreds of thousands of their people, finally cowing them into submission.

World Trade Center-
Predominantly Saudi citizens attacked the US on orders from Osama Bin Laden, who was a guest of the ruling government of Afghanistan, and they attacked in the name of Islam. We met this attack by launching a military strike on the secular government of Iraq with the smallest number of ground troops possible killing very few of the enemy (by comparison) and risking very few of our own soldiers. Peace in the country is impossible at this point, and the insurgency is now being joined by the very people we thought would welcome us with open arms.

Either we should kill these people, as you suggest, or we were liberating them. The latter doesn't seem to be true. If Saddam was allowed to run in the election in Iraq, would he win?

You wrote: (Kerry thinks that the threat of a strong response to future crimes and bringing justice only to the guilty individuals is enough.)

He believes this because it is natural law. I believe it as well.

We believe, in our government, than man is basically a moral and natural animal, that, unless circumstances push a person, we will behave according to natural law. This means that a person can not be arrested until they have committed a crime, a person cannot be punished for expressing a view or for wanting something. A person has to commit a crime before they can be punished.

You wrote: (Bush, on the other hand, is a revolutionary thinker.)

I hope you will forgive what will feel like intimacy here, but I think you are the revolutionary thinker. Bush's actions at this point might match yours, but his agenda is being set by the neo-cons who got him to run for president. I don't buy this shit about him being ADD or dyslexic. I didn't graduate from high school and you and I can have a conversation about this.

And everything I've written up to this point is less important than what I am about to say. Bush has supported your agenda so far, but what makes you think he will continue? If he is in a situation where he has to make a decision for himself on the safety of our country, don't you worry that he might launch a missile at Saudi Arabia? You have read between the lines of his mistakes and found a foreign policy that supports your deepest fears about the world, but he's never addressed this out loud and he doesn't seem to be able to articulate any kind of strategy at all.

My feeling is that he wanted to attack Iraq because of his dad. After 9/11, he wanted to attack an Arab country, but not one that was actually Muslim. It's possible that the neo-cons who are whispering in his earpiece are thinking exactly what you are saying, but they aren't telling the American people that, and they aren't telling you that.

You wrote: (Your thinking is too small in scale).

It's really not. I think that you are splitting this conflict into "World War III" or "The War Against Islam", as if it has nothing to do with the war everyone has been fighting since the beginning of last century. And that's too small in scale. You refer to the cold war as a different time, and it isn't. All of this started in the 80s, which was based on shit that happened in the 60s, which can be traced back and back and back.

As a Jew, watching a war against Arabs, you've got to see that this conflict isn't nearly as small as Bush thinks it is. It's global. And fighting the middle east ignores the Arab kids that live on my block, who think their president is killing Arabs because Christians hate Arabs. It's easier to make that leap in logic than it is to connect Hussein to 9/11.

I'll say this. The cost of thinking that fighting "Islam" is an answer is too great. I agree with you that we have to fight the conditions that fundamentalist Islam brings about, which are the same conditions that Hassidic women suffer through, that fundamentalist Christian women suffer through. We can fight for human rights , and we can fight poverty and desperation, but you can't fight a religion. It's never worked, it never will.

You wrote: (The war will escalate, not because of Bush, but because this is merely the beginning of an enormous war that we will win if people like Bush stay in power.)

And this will be a matter for history to decide. There is no way we can argue, you and I, today, that things will get worse or better depending on who does what. I believe they will sway back and forth, worse to better, but we will never not be a target until the fight is for freedom and equality for everyone.

I'm thankful that, for today, you and I are safe. And I am thankful to America for providing that safety.

Steve'll be proud

Posted 9:02 AM by sean
My brother Steve has let us know his displeasure at the use of our blogs as public airing stations for the minutiae that fill our lives. He thinks they should be used only for the occasional fustian, mostly as a response to other people's blogs.

So, instead of using his comments section, let me respond to Ian's blog from today.

Senator Kerry is going to be my choice for President in the upcoming election, because he is a social liberal and he will fight to nominate a Supreme Court Justice who will put the rights of the individual in front of the rights of the nation, the church or corporate entities. Sure, it's a narrow reason, but that's why I'm voting for him.

Now.

In 1991, months after Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait, Senator Kerry not only voted against using the already assembled coalition to fight Saddam, but he was the vocal detractor trying to persuade his countrymen to "allow sanctions a chance to work". Hussein had already marched into a neighboring country, after using chemical weapons on the Kurds in the north, he had been in Kuwait for months, and Kerry was fighting military action. He was a soldier in Vietnam and his number one priority is to make sure that each and every soldier is protected.

If you are worried about further attacks on US soil, and you should be, the knowledge that Kerry now says he would have built a vast global coalition to march in to Iraq, when he fought against that very same coalition when it was formed in 1991, should give you pause. He has been against every military action our country has taken since he limped out of Vietnam with shrapnel in his thigh.

All right, calm down, let me finish.

Neither candidate can prove that they can pay for some or even any of their domestic promises. So, for a lot of people that's a wash. For me, Bush has already proven he doesn't know how to run an economy and Kerry seems smarter, so the edge for me goes to Kerry. But if you think the economy is actually doing okay, considering we were attacked in America's economic center, then maybe for you, the edge goes to Bush.

I would vote for Kerry, but I understand that these arguments are secondary to some people.

The issue to me is the fight for civil rights, always has been. Bush is pro-death penalty and anti-choice. But the problem is, Kerry now says he is in favor of the death penalty in certain situations, and he keeps talking about being Catholic, although he would never deny the right to choose. Also, there is no guarantee that any of the Supremes are going to retire or die in the next four years.

I would vote for Kerry, but I understand that this issue is secondary to some people.

The environment is going to hell, and Bush is firmly to be blamed for this. But in some people's minds, air quality might give more inner city kids asthma, but terrorists are going to give them nuclear flu. I understand that Bush opened up Yellowstone to snowmobiles, and yes, I agree that this is bad. But if you don't care about that, I can't really blame you. I mean, honestly, I care only in the abstract, I'm never going to camp in fucking Yellowstone.

I would vote for Kerry, but I understand that this issue is secondary to some people.

I'm not going to cover every issue, but there are people who are intelligent conservatives that are worried because of their single issue, the defense of our nation. And although you can make an argument that Kerry will keep us safe, he doesn't have the president's record. Here's Bush's record: We were attacked at the beginning of his administration. So we attacked Afghanistan, kicked out the Taliban, then we attacked Iraq, kicked out Hussein, then Afghanistan had elections in October and Iraq will have elections in January.

And since Septmeber 11, we have not been attacked. Since we started the Bush Doctrine, we have not been attacked.

John Kerry says he would have built a multi-national coalition to bring down Iraq. The same one he voted against in 1991.

You simply cannot say that people with different priorities are stupid. I mean, you can say it, but it's a stupid thing to say.

In the history of my political life I have never had a candidate that I wanted less to win office than Bush. Maybe Jesse Helms in North Carolina. Bush is the stupidest man I have ever seen hold public office, his southern anti-intellectualism, his hard-core Christianity, his inability to consider every option and his willingness to try war as a first resort make him one of the most dangerous men to hold the reins of this country.

I not only am voting against George Bush, but I argue against all the points I have made in this blog several times a day. I call my family and friends and talk to them about the candidates, I force them to admit that they don't believe that the environment is in trouble, that they are willing to curtail their civil liberties in order to fight this new kind of war.

But these are not bad people making dumb decisions. You know who loves talk like that? Bush. He would *love* to read that people voting for him are dumb. It fits in to his "evil-doers" "with us or against us" talk. The fact is, the Bush administration is dividing the country, and the left is frickin' *psyched* about it. Moveon.org compares Bush to Hitler and all the Lefties snap at the computer and holla "oh no he DI'INT". And smart people who are worried about their children living in fear and dread, who feel like Bush has done what he needed to in order to keep us safe, turn from the comparison, turn from leftists telling them that their fear is "stupidity" and resolve themselves to go to the polls.

Public discourse has been lowered. Yes, it's been lowered by Drudge and Fox. But we have a responsibility to remember that civility is the only path to civil rights, and that people's minds can be changed. And we also have to remember that this struggle has been going on for over two hundred years, America has made enormous mistakes that have taken work to correct, but our country was founded on principles that will withstand abuse.

Unlike Spain and France and the U.K., our country is not an accident of location, unlike Pakistan and Israel, our country was not founded on ethnic or religious lines, unlike the USSR, our country was not founded on doctrines that we *hoped* were true. Our country was founded on ideals that are SELF-EVIDENT, the cornerstone of which is the idea that we all should vote and whoever gets the most votes gets to have their office for a little while. Smart people are voting for Bush, and they are making an educated decision, they just have different priorities than I, or my brother, have.

And, we're making great hip-hop albums.

FELLAS
(yeah?)
FELLAS
(yeah?)
Grab your right nut, make your left one jealous!

Not Wasting Time

Posted 2:24 PM by sean
Seriously. I'm not wasting time writing this blog, I'm actually writing the blog to stop me from procrastinating.

The Gideon Three are writing a musical. More like building one, which is what you have to do with a musical, and that is playing to all of our strengths and, in a way, all of our weaknesses. It's both hard and easy, and both at exactly the same time.

Mac was downsized from his job, which hasn't left him with a *ton* of free time, but it makes it easy for him to come over to the house 2 or 3 days a week and work from 10:30 or 11 until dinner. We sit in adjoining rooms and hammer out different parts of the show and shame each other into actually working. It's been much harder on him than on me because the three of us have said over and over that we are trying to parody a specific kind of musical, and Mac is really focused on getting the tone just right.

What occurred to me yesterday while we were working is that the tone has to be just right, but that it also has to be a Mac Rogers play. We need to have a character, or two, possibly, who live just outside the world we've created for the play, so that the audience understands that the whole thing is a joke. Let me see if I can re-create what happened yesterday.

*****
Mac: GOD! I can't fucking get started on this scene.

(one hour, fifteen minute pause)

Mac (storming into the office): Okay, what is visible from Liberty Island?

(One hour of google searching pause)

Mac: Do they have an anchor?

Sean: What, on the boat?

Mac: Yeah, do they have an anchor on the boat?

Sean: I don't think so. I think they just tie the boat up.

********
During all of this, I've been writing music. I've employed both methods discussed here , along with a little bit of Scott Bullocks method of adding notes, so there is a fair amount of bibbling and scribbling while Mac writes in the other room. I don't really know what he's doing in there. But what we ended up with was the following gem from a longer scene. (Sachs, Swallows and Captain are all members of the coast guard that have just landed in New York.)

******
SACHS: Oh captain, let me give the order, oh please please please let me give the order just this one time?

CAPTAIN: Oh, very well, Seaman Sachs.

SACHS: DROP ANCHOR!

(The others move tentatively as if to obey.)

SWALLOWS (aside, to the captain): Where's - we have an anchor?

CAPTAIN (completely straight): No.
********

(The parentheticals are mine...)

And that's what the show needs. In the world of the play, these idiot coast guard members are running around wrecking shit right and left, so we need the captain to remind the audience that the writers are in on the joke. It's a fine line.

So, I'm writing this blog because I just spent forty minutes trying to locate a file I wrote yesterday and played for Jordana last night and now has *vanished* from the computer. I'm writing a blog so I don't go sit in another room and read a book or watch tv or repeatedly slam my hand in a car door.

Writing music is painfully time consuming, even if you have everything in your head and you're just trying to fill in notes and make rhythms work. This particular piece of music came to me in a very stream of consciousness way, and I really don't remember how it went. For years I've been dumping memorized stuff out of my head the second I didn't need it any more, and now I did it for a piece that I actually need.

FUCK. It's maddening. It was a bass line and a melody line and just an indication of a chord part.

You know what? I think I'm sorta remembering it now.

Um.

Excuse me.

A while

Posted 8:53 AM by sean
I've written two blogs in the last week, neither of which were posted. And not for the reasons you might suspect. They were not posted because I found them either boring or offensive to me, the irony being that normally I'm either boring or offensive to other people and I don't bother to edit myself then.

Post one: Long diatribe about dealing with political hostilities in America today, about how we have got to find a way to be loving and respectful. We're basically in a civil war in the US, brother against brother stuff, and someone is going to be elected president in November and when that happens we have to find a way to deal with it. Ya-fucking-awn.

Post two: I drag myself over the coals for a missed opportunity from 1991 when I could have spent six months with a friend in Africa making a difference and instead I stayed here and learned how to tapdance. That friend died in 1993, and I didn't speak to him for the almost two years after I turned down his offer. Boo-fucking-hoo. I'll rake myself over the coals in the privacy of my own bedroom, thank you, you really don't want to see it.

Here are some other things I can't write about fully.

One: either you think our country has made several collosal mistakes over the last three years, or you think that to do anything other than what we've done would have been a collosal mistake. We have a war and a debt, we have a Supreme Court seat (or three) and we have redefined our civil liberties and the phrases "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forest". If you're undecided, then spend thirty seconds not being a jack-ass contrarian and make a decision, you douche.

Two: I'm not the perfect actor for every single show, I know that. But when you are producing theater at a certain level, it's a pretty gutsy move not to cast me. In the world of non-professional theater, it's hard to find a professional actor my age, with my abilities. I'm not saying you make a mistake when you don't hire me, I'm saying you are being really brave in trying to make a play on this level without me.

Three: I really enjoy writing for the theater, I really enjoy producing for the theater, and I really enjoy acting in the theater. I also like being with my friends and golf. Almost everything else is a pain in the ass.

Four: Of my family, I'm all that's left in New York. And that is sometimes lonely. I hate the phone, I really, really fucking hate, more than I can describe, hate the phone. I hate it when it rings, I hate calling people on it, I hate voice mail, I hate everything about it. It feels masturbatory and intrusive and indulgent and... and it's just uncomfortable holding a goddam phone at my head so I can hear precious words from my sister or dad or friends in LA when I just fucking wish they would move the hell back to New York and I could make a meal and have a glass of mother fucking wine with them instead of listening to the bells and whistles and static and breaking up that happens at the other end.

And why the hell should I stop what I'm doing just to answer the phone? God. I miss everyone, all the time. Sitting at home working on music, I always wish my mom and Mac and Jordana were here. But the phone rings and for the first thirty seconds I'm just sitting there thinking, "this is *nothing* like having people here. This is... this is exactly like having the disembodied voice of someone I *wish* was here being piped through a tiny speaker that makes their voice sound like it's coming from Marvin the Android (especially when it's my mom and she's depressed)." I always calm down and enjoy the conversation after about ten seconds, but I also feel like I'm blowing a bubble, like I have to keep exhaling to make this thing keep happening...

Okay, maybe that thing I can talk about a little.

The point is, right now I'm actually getting stuff done and the things I'm worried about are so much larger than I can express that I feel a bit of shame keeping a blog. Six thousand people are dying a week in the Sudan, and I wrote a blog about how it made me feel, then I punched myself in the nose and deleted it. I didn't go to Africa when I could have, I'm not going now, I chose to be a fucking actor, so, really, any struggle (however small) is a struggle I have earned by self indulgence and apathy.

That being said, read up on Darfur. Google search "Sudan, Darfur, Chad", except without the quotes, and read about what is going on. North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. are all "threats" to the US, but in Sudan, the Muslim government is killing black people because they are black, and two million more will die unless the world does something about it.

And I hate talking on the phone. That's my opinion on the phone. I hate my cell phone.