Day 323…
Michael’s out for a walk this morning.
We’ve hit that point in winter where the trees are completely bare and there’s very little color to be seen anywhere.
The city looks like it’s been filmed in black and white. Not like the lush and saturated palate that Gordon Willis used in Manhattan, unfortunately, but more like a color picture whose colors have just faded out. Central Park is a spectrum of greys that range from a dull sepia brown to a dark shadowy grey that has somewhat yellowed over time.
New York City will look like this for months to come.
Occasionally there will be a day amongst the endless cloudy ones where the sky stretches overhead in an unreal photoshopped blue, but that only seems to highlight the fact that nothing below it has any real color.
This time of year, in theatre, is usually one of the busiest. Shows that were just holding on for the holiday bump would have closed and new shows would be starting to be rehearsed in order to open within the next few weeks before the award-eligibility window closes. Existing shows would all be rehearsing new cast members to replace those who had left to work on the ones coming up. Old marquees would be coming down and new ones going up replacing them.
We wouldn’t notice the starkness outside because we would all be inside darkened theatres or brightly lit studios focused on the worlds of our plays. We would be aiming for spring and the excitement of the many opening nights ahead.
This time last year, I was in Tampa where we were doing run-throughs with the newest cast of the Norwegian Cruise Lines version of Jersey Boys. Some in the cast had done it before but some were new.
After weeks of learning the individual steps and harmony lines in songs and where they need to be at certain points in scenes, they were finally at the point where we could stitch it all together. After a couple of times getting through it all on our own, on this day we were ready for the casts of other shows rehearsing in the same facility to come in and watch us.
A few days forward from that day, the existing cast would dis-embark from the ship, and this new group would get on board. We would take the week to get them used to changing costumes and being on the real set with the real props so that by that Thursday, they could have their first actual performance.
The audience for the show the week before would have seen a seasoned group who had six months of performances under their belts but the audience for the week coming would be seeing a brand new freshly minted group fresh out of the gate. Neither crowd would have any idea. It would all just happen seamlessly.
Sure, there would be a certain amount of insanity behind the scenes. Some of the cast would be terrified and others impatient and excited. There would be costume changes that didn’t work well yet and moments of anxiety where somebody wouldn’t be sure where they were supposed to be, but for the audience, none of that would be apparent. The audience would have wandered into the theatre after a day of relaxing in the Caribbean sun ready to be transported into the story we were about to tell them.
And we would take them there.
On this same day that I was in the studio in Tampa exactly a year ago, a delegation from the World Health Organization was traveling to China to meet with its leadership about a new virus that had been detected in the Wuhan province the month before.
They were there to gather information about it and also to offer their assistance. On that day, the first report of limited human to human transmission had been reported outside of China.
After that meeting, the Emergency Committee of WHO recommended to the Director-General that the outbreak be termed a Public Health Emergency of International Concern or a PHEIC. Their report which was published two days later said that there were 7818 cases of the virus worldwide - 82 of which were in 18 countries other than China.
On this day, a year ago, the rest of us were all hard at work and still blissfully unaware of what was to come.
At that time, the Republican Party was firmly in control. For better or for worse, they were solidly united behind their President. A year later, after an election that has flipped their position, they are now scrambling to figure out who they are.
The chief financial officer of the National Republican Congressional Committee, it has now come to light, resigned right after GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and about 150 of his fellow Congress-people voted against certifying the election results on January 6.
The insurrection that was incited by the then-President caused a huge rift in the party with some recoiling in horror and some remaining somewhat more circumspect. There’s a lot of waiting to try and get a read on the room.
With each passing day the rift seems to be deepening. Many who denounced the then-President in the days following the coup attempt, are now frantically back-peddling.
On January 13, Leader McCarthy said, “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”
On January 21, he said, “I don’t believe he provoked it if you listen to what he said at the rally.”
This morning, GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy is meeting with the former President at Mar-a-Lago.
It has come to light that before she was elected to Congress, GOP and QAnon-supporter Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, posted things online indicating her willingness to see physical harm come to Democratic members of the government.
"A bullet to the head would be quicker," is what she said about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
"Now do we get to hang them ?? Meaning H & O ???," is what she said about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.
"Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off," is what she told her followers about how the Democrats would be overcome.
In addition, a video has surfaced of her berating a survivor of the Parkland school shooting massacre. She follows former-student David Hogg making baseless claims and spouting questions about gun rights. After he ignores her, she calls him, “a coward.”
This person is a member of one of the highest branches of government in the United States of America. Instead of removing her from office or at the very least censuring her, the Republicans have, instead, rewarded her by giving her a seat on the House Education Committee.
There are certainly Republicans who are doing everything they can to separate themselves from the former President.
The former Senate Majority Leader definitely wants the party to sever ties with him, but he also doesn’t want to empower the Democrats. He is right out there in the middle of a tightrope strung between two anchors - neither of which seem very firm.
The new President’s honeymoon appears to be officially over. Republican lawmakers are, unsurprisingly, now attacking him for the Executive Actions he has been issuing.
I cannot imagine that President Biden expected anything less. He’s worked in Washington for decades. He understands its machinery. Republicans wouldn’t be attacking him if he wasn’t being effective.
The long overdue raising of the minimum wage is particularly sticking in the GOP’s craws. Their panicked objections make it sound like the minimum wage will arise to $15 an hour tomorrow and bankrupt small businesses. Instead, the proposal is to raise it in a slow and steady way over the next several years.
The last time it was raised was in 2009, nearly twelve years ago. Twelve. Cost-of-living expenses have certainly skyrocketed over that time. It’s time we kept up.
The games have begun.
The South African variant of the virus has now been detected in South Carolina. The people who it was discovered in, are not travelers so they got it from somebody else. That means that it is already circulating through the population.
Across the country, our case rate and hospitalizations have started trending down which is good news. The death rate is still up, but that typically lags behind the other indicators. Will the spread of this new variant send these numbers back up or will the vaccine rollout keep them falling?
Michael is back from his walk. Since I woke up, the sky has gradually changed from grey to a vast cloudless blue. It looks like one of those days. There aren’t even the brightly colored tourist buses around to break up the monochrome tone out on the streets.
I won’t, alas, be going to the studio today. Nor tomorrow either.
Oh well. Soon, I hope.
In the meantime… we’ll see.
❤️.....wow you know so much!
with what I am tuning into with respect to the news ....how denial is a drug and addiction like hits of power, the narcotic of power... it’s rampant in the voices, beliefs and action of the total insanity I have been listening to. Don’t know how else to describe it short of ludicrous.
....so I too am out for a walk, under the clearest blue sky and a full Wolf Moon will make an appearance amongst the stars tonight, can’t wait to look up