WASHING THE PELICANS

Water, water everywhere ... And oil, oil, oil ...

How did this happen? Why? Who's to blame. How do we make sure this never, never happens again? Why doesn't Obama do something? Is it the government's fault or BP's? Why isn't BP being fined, punished, taken over by the Feds?

This globby, sticky bla-bla-bla, like the oil, oil, oil, goes on and on.

Solutions are mentioned. This sounds feasible. No, this will make things worse! What about that? What about the thirty ideas from the world's best experts? Or those five gigantic super tankers someone mentioned -- tankers that could slurp up the oil? But each solution comes with ramifications, drawbacks, dangers that have to be evaluated.

Meanwhile, the gushing oil is dooming the fishing industry, the resort businesses, wetlands, beaches in more and more states, threatening other coastal areas to the east -- to the south, to the north -- maybe even west. And hurricanes, rainstorms, winds can spread the oil, who knows where?

It's a life and death situation -- globs have already appeared in the water off the panhandle of Florida.

What can I do? What can you do? What should we do? We're seeing on TV the despair, tears -- seeing hopelessness in the faces of people, while we're waiting for the next news alert about what's happened -- didn't happen today, what might be happening tomorrow, and who's planning what -- what's next, and when, when ...when?

It's a frightening, helpless feeling -- not knowing what anyone is doing --not knowing what to hope for.

Having been in a life and death situation, I learned to watch the second hand on the clock, waiting for the painkiller I got every three hours -- inventing different ways of counting, inventing questions to ask the nurse that would lead to conversations, that would take my mind off me.

All you can do is brace yourself, take a deep breath, pull yourself together, so that when the time comes to take an action, you can do it.

Do what ? Collect money -- make a list of possible helping hands -- join a group to pick up the globs of goo on the beaches? Send money -- phone despairing workers, give them courage to start from scratch -- tell them "You can do it, take it one step at a time, we'll be phoning, cheering you on."

We are fighting a war in Afghanistan, a war I hate and feel we should be ending.. Remember how we lost Health Care reform, and got it back after umpteen Obama negotiations behind the scenes?

If the President had to explain, sell us the solution, as well as sell his advisers and experts with whom he's figuring out what to do -- finding the right solutions tor ending the war, ending the oil spill will take longer -- it could take months.

We can pray, and not distract him or anyone who's working on trying to stop the oil, oil, oil. And yes -- form a group of cleaner-uppers, and be ready to pick up globs and wash the birds and turtles, and the pelicans.

HAN HAN

He's 27, Chinese, famous in China as a blogger, race car driver, best seller novelist, short story writer, essayist, who also sings, lectures, recites poems to huge audiences ...

Young people adore him. The government, the literary world, the middle-aged and older leaders do NOT like him at all ....

So, I'm asking Han Han, what's your objective?

Unfortunately, everything he says, even a direct quote from Han Han, has been filtered through a translator.

In a recent quote he said: "I want to be able to say whatever I see is the truth. When I blog about it, I get a thousand responses. Letters, email, gifts, followers, offers to visit, lecture, to do a show, be feted."

Asked if he was disappointed that his novels aren't being bought, he replied that he was disappointed, but he was onto other things that he could not express in a novel.

He explained: "The writers, the Writers' Association, critics, bureaucrats, city mayors--they're old and out-of- date. They can't stand being teased. They hate me; they're trying to destroy me because I'm getting kids, the younger generation to hear me, read my blog, and rebel -- refuse to accept the restrictions, the oppressive laws that make men kill ... kill students, kill daughters, even kill their sons, out of the kill mentality we were taught, so that our families could only have one child."

Han referred to the middle-aged worker, (at the factory where Apple and Dell computers are built) who hacked a woman to death about a week ago, murdered 5 students, and jumped out the factory window to this death.

Two weeks earlier, a man hacked to death 7 kindergartners and 2 adults with a meat cleaver. This tragedy happened after 5 other reported assaults on school children, in which 17 people were killed and 100 injured. All the murders were middle-aged men.

Older Chinese have been expressing sympathy for the murderers. The government has increased security at all China's schools, which now require all students to learn self-defense techniques.

Han Han is telling kids, telling everyone who reads his blogs -- what the government is doing is wrong -- and he's gaining power.

I watched Han Han in a video. He was exciting, and passionate. I watched the entire video (six minutes), but understood only one word that he articulated perfectly -- "Facebook"

Hmm. I wouldn't be surprised if he came to America for a visit, one of these days.

The look of Han, his youth, his fame, the fact that he dropped out of school and wrote books -- this do-everything, say-anything guy gives hope and energy to young people who, like the kindergartners and the older folks, have been trained to obey.

JOHN'S POEM FOR EM

John Cullum and I are reminiscing on this video .....
My darling husband wrote a poem for me after I'd returned to dancing, a month after giving birth to our son, Jd. I'd decided to create a forty-five minute solo to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" ......

A 45 minute solo is a BIG LONG solo. JC was worried about the length. I overheard him telling Shakespeare-director-pal, Phil Lawrence, who gave me dramatic ideas for the seasons, every so often, "I'm not sure Em can cut the mustard."

A dance solo should be 5 to 10 minutes at most, according to Doris Humphrey, a famous Modern Dancer and teacher of choreography, and Louis Horst, Martha Graham's artistic adviser. But tackling a BIG LONG solo is sort of a typical "Em thing" (biting off more than I can chew).

About the poem: JC had written poems as taped introductions to various dance drama "ballets" that were in my Dance Drama Company"s repertoire. These poems are not improvisations, or "rhymey" rhymes, though I've got to say, JC loves rhymes, and works his a - - off, to get a right, mellifluous word.

Well, here's the poem, not his voice on tape that I've heard every time I have performed my "Four Seasons" (and I did most definitely cut the mustard). I love John's voice, but I couldn't copy the taped poem onto this video.

QUEEN LADY GAGA

She was articulate, sharp, smart, responsive --
King's questions were scripted, mechanical, ho-hum --
Gaga, somehow, always surprises me -- with Larry King, she simply had an honest conversation-- she seems twenty years older-- wiser, than her age.

When the show ended, our dinner guest who was watching the show with us, commented -- "Gee, why was Lady Gaga wearing those sunglasses?"

That sort of sums up what her ever-enlarging, ever-more adoring audience sees and feels when Gaga's doing her thing -- any one of her numbers, one of her hit musical essays, or the new "Alejandro." They see/feel what she's wearing/not wearing, loving/hating, announcing/denying, adoring/destroying.

The dichotomy is IT.

She told us, the audience, unequivocally -- breaking the sound barrier, morality barriers, bending and stretching, and turning boundaries inside-out and upside down -- THAT'S WHAT I DO, Lady Gaga said.

Ah ... we do have a Queen, who can handle the King who's no longer a king, and replace a Madonna who has mostly worn-out (with her inventive sexual doings), the shock value of herself.

Gaga -- you were -- with your simple, direct, un-theatrical, revelations about your art -- a revelation. We had just a glimpse of the real YOU, and that's enough.

The fantasy-maker, "Lady Gaga" takes me to places I've never visited. She's the Queen I want to bow to, give my nod, and keep visiting.

JOAN RIVERS

I saw her just the other night in a television show -- I don't know what show or which channel -- it was very late -- she and another woman were mixing cookie dough.

Joan grabbed a huge handful and patted it into a extra large cookie. The hostess who was telling them about ingredients, asked Joan to show her the cookie.

Joan came out from behind the table ... Good God -- she had nothing covering her butt. Two large, pretty -- pretty darn big buttocks were before our eyes ... Shocked, I gasped. I gulped and started laughing with the raucous guffaws from the studio audience until I realized ... it was not her butt -- she had a realistic pair of buns strapped onto her backside.

Oh my goodness gracious, Joan Rivers -- there is no one who has the nerve to do, what you do, sometimes.

Can we talk -- let's talk about the one and only, uniquely ballsy, outrageous, forever-young, aging Joan!

Star, comic, TV hostess, actress, saleslady. Late Show anchor, writer, fund-raiser, mother, wife/widow -- she's been in films, Broadway plays, shared the spotlight with famous and infamous fellow celebrities, and manufactured and sold jewelry, cosmetics, and women's fashions.

Does the younger generation know who she is? What about the younger, the youngest generation? Do kids growing up now know her name and what she's done?

She isn't a guru, or someone you'd professionally ask for advice. But she has practical, sensible, logical, strong opinions about life, health, love, sex, morality, pets, housework, clothes, and other celebrities that she bluntly, blithely proffers.

This woman is fearlessly opinionated. And she's there, focused on you. Even though she's in a studio miles away, she connects with you.

She is, for me, an example of "woman" -- fascinating, courageous -- the kind of woman I don't have the nerve to be.

I remember Joan Rivers tearing up toilet paper and laughing, making sassy, amusing comments, decorating everything around her on the television studio set, draping scallops of toilet paper everywhere -- letting her employer (NBC, and Johnny Carson) know she didn't like them, love them, bow to them, cater to them and accept the fact that she'd been fired.

What a reaction! I loved her nerve, her tone, and what she was saying with her actions.

I remember Joan Rivers on a one-night special -- I'm not sure what year. (It was after Carson fired her, after her daytime show was canceled, after we'd seen her with her daughter, and heard about her husband's suicide.)

Rivers was in a black glittering dress, cosmetically improved by a face-lift or was it was just her eyes? I don't remember specifics.. I just remember that she was funny, great-looking, ballsy, marvelous, as she described preparing for a big day for tomorrow, and pantomimed laying out her clothes. She pantomimed wriggling out of her under-wear, and then sniffed her panties.

Sniffed them? Yes! And I was shocked. Wow! Did America notice? Sure. Was it mentioned in the reviews? No. It wasn't anywhere.

No doubt about it -- the ballsy, outrageous, forever young-looking, great-looking, Joan Rivers inspired me -- continues to inspire me to be what I am, more so, and un-afraid.

ELENA KAGAN

Obama has proposed this 50-year-old woman for the soon- to-be empty seat on the Supreme Court.

The photographs -- eyes, smile, sheen on her skin, her overall shape -- these things say happy person, sense of humor, motherly, overweight, warm, friendly, Jewish.

She's never been married. What about those pictures of her playing soft ball -- boyish outfit -- intensely focused, enjoying the game? Media guys have murmured, "Does she have a roommate, a special friend?"

Has the President chosen an educated-Jewish-Lesbian? She's big-time educated, Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law School -- if you want to be somebody in the government or politics, those are THE schools. And Kagan has been professor of Chicago University Law, counsel and policy adviser for President Clinton, Dean of Harvard Law School.

What I read about her childhood tells me that young Elena had courage, an aggressive mind, and she wasn't willing to conform, unless she understood why.

That she had an Orthodox Jewish "bat mitzvah" resonates. Boys have a "bar mitvah" around puberty. They read from the Torah (sacred writings), say a prayer, and are then permitted to sit with the men in the synagogue. (Females are not allowed to touch the Torah, and they sit in a side area, outside the main room.) So, young Elena was feeling her way into a religion that does not treat men and women as equals.

I could be describing a period in my own life, when I joined the Orthodox Temple, and was stunned to realize I'd be "inferior." I quit, looked briefly at other temples, and turned my back on religion.

Anyhow, today Elena Kagan says that she identifies with Conservative Judiasm.

EK has held down many important jobs, and made many judicial decisions -- all thoroughly detailed in Wikipedia, the Internet's free, online encyclopedia.

I understand that people want to know what she has supported, voted for, or against, and whether she is a liberal -- more liberal than Obama -- less liberal -- should the ultra "left" liberals be worried? And, (I suspect this is the biggest question)-- is she a "LESBIAN?"

Stop-stop, is what I'm saying! This is time-wasting, nit-picking, dumb! Peering into her bedroom, anyone's bedroom is becoming a national tell all, confess, shock your friends, go ahead, get your kicks, let's peekaboo STUPID HABIT.

We don't need a spokeswoman, saleslady, mother, wife, bosom friend, or someone to love. We need a Judge for the Supreme Court!

My dictionary says: " Judge -- a public officer appointed to decide cases in a law court, a person who decides the results of a competition, a person able or qualified to give an opinion. To judge means to form an opinion about, hand down a verdict in a law court."

Elena Kagan, an outstanding , experienced lawyer, and judge who knows the law, laws, and legal history, fills the bill. She IS what we need.

JUSTIN BIEBER

Wow, is all I really need to say.

Justin Bieber is neat, boyishly perfect, with a sweet-sounding young voice, a Michael J falsetto, that tenderly croons, and belts out --

"My first love broke my heart for the first time,
And I was like
Baby, baby, baby ohhh
Like baby, baby, baby noo
Like baby, baby, baby ohh
I thought you'd always be mine mine."

I suspect that we'll be hearing from him, AND hearing about him for years and years.

It's a show business fairytale -- the story of a Disney-discovered boy, a persevering, energetic kid who started with a perfect debut song, "On Time," then a first album going platinum, then "new artist of the year" award, then seven songs on Billboard's Hot chart, then a hit song "Baby" in his recent, first studio release.

The fact is, the luck of HIS LUCK intrigues me. Aside from the education I have gotten from watching American Idol, and America's Got Talent, and seeing how the hopefuls are groomed and guided, I know from my life, (as a dancer, as a writer), "good luck" is a big part of making it.

A long time ago, I saw, in a musical that bombed, a wonderful singer -- thrilling, wonderful voice, "soul" in her every move. I even wrote her a letter. And now, I can't remember her name. Her next show, and the next one, just didn't work. And, in dance (my field), I've seen three -- two male dancers, one female, who had the crackle, that extra flash, a centeredness that compels your eye to watch as you feel their movement in your own muscles. I know their names, but you don't -- all three are teachers now.

So what about Justin B? Is it luck? Or is it his talent as a singer? Or is it the fact that the people who are handling his career are experienced, knowledgeable, and watching over what songs he sings, and what he wears, yes ... and that wonderful hair -- how it's combed and arranged?

We'll more than likely be seeing photographs of him -- great outfits, hysterical fans, weeping, girlfriends, groupies, whispers, scandals, million-dollar car, yacht, house purchases, lawsuits -- all the glamor- clamor that comes with pop/rock/new/hot/ talent.

Hey, Justin, "Baby oh, baby no" is catchy. Your singing performances draw me in, and I enjoy listening to you.

I've never been especially lucky, yet ... well ... if making it is a fancy car -- I don't have the car, boat, fans. So, what is the IT of making it? All I can report on is the fact that I'm privileged -- it's very special, a privilege to be able to do the work of my work.

Anyhow, welcome to the top of the world, the Kingdom of Celebrity, and here's a bit of Em motherly, artistic advice -- I say, don't count on luck -- just be sure; you are doing the work of your work.