SPEEDING ALONG

When my husband was performing in two Shakespeare plays this summer, at the Delacorte theater, in Central Park, he took a subway to the park every day, then walked, wended his way along the curved, complicated path that leads to the backstage areas of the theater and entrance for actors.

After each performance, he left the stage area in a golf cart. It is the Shakespeare Festival's policy now. Actors don't walk through the park after a show. It's not safe. They are driven to the park's east side or west side exits, in one of the park's golf carts.

Zoom -- speeding along, you sit in a seat and hold onto the cart's rails. The wind's in your face. The driver is your chauffeur. He knows how to avoid crowds and collisions with humans and other carts. When he crosses the one road that he has to cross, at the stop light, he waits until there is no other traffic.

It was interesting -- it got us where we needed to go, in a easy-going way that enabled us to relax and see things we ordinarily wouldn't have seen.

The cart left us (passenger Cullum, wife Em, other actors, guests) on fifth avenue, where we could safely flag a taxi, or head for a city bus or subway.

What a ride! What a easy, pleasant way to get around.

In Los Angeles, our son has a 2010 Mini Cooper sports car. He wants to buy the 2011 new Mini Cooper because it comes with a warranty to fix major things (transmission, brakes, etc). Therefore -- "Please Mom and Dad, if I buy a new car, and trade in my old Mini Cooper? I might need a ."loan."

Why? He explained that the cost of repairs is unbelievably high, sky high because it's a foreign car. Son JD said it's much more economical to buy a new car.

Holy smoke, Holy Cow! Do you see the new car ads? Do they drift over your subconscious -- those "new" cars -- the shiny, pretty "tin," (dent-susceptible), same style cars that have been overpriced, are now higher-priced?

The ads proclaim, and tout great mileage --it's the same mileage the manufacturers were getting three years ago when their cars were gulping down too much gas! The new (same as the old) lovely color cars continue to dent from a pebble, and crumple if anything -- be it a tree branch, guard rail, bike -- or other car -- happens to even slightly graze it.

The Shakespeare Festival of 2011 is now an event on John Cullum's resume. JD, our son, is still mulling over buying a new car so save money? To avoid hassles of car repairs that sooner or later every car needs? The fall weather has peeked in on us, disappeared, reappeared, and we're dancing in the rain more often than usual, I think.

I can't help thinking traveling on shanks' mare (they way people did it before there were autos) is a way to go.

It's good exercise.

Getting somewhere -- wherever you live -- means traffic jams. And riding around, looking, searching for a place to park.

What's the hurry? Hurrying to get somewhere distracts and wastes the time for seeing, hearing, smelling, absorbing and living -- just plain breathing and taking in the scenery and living your life.

NEW DOINGS (video)

Emily asks John Cullum what his latest, newest project is going to be.

"IF -- " John says immediately If I'm not working on a show."

And that expresses what's on John Cullum's mind. Like most actors, getting the next job is foremost on his mind.

John discusses "Bible Ballads," -- it's been an important, number-one creative project of his for more than a year. Emily reminds about the "Jack Tale" -- a play, a one man show, a recording maybe, that the Cullums have worked on together for quite a few years. (On and off, that's the way their projects develop.

Talking back and forth, you can see, and hear that they're cooking on it, he's not sure yet what to focus on, and she's stirring the pot.

STUCK

I feel weary, lazy, boxed in. I can't concentrate or do what I ought to be doing.

I suspect many other people feel this way too.

I want to do something incisive, strong, but can't. I can complain -- and have complained -- about all the high level, brainy analyses of what Obama is doing, not doing, needs to do. And right now, again, I'm complaining about the opinions, polls, the babble -- the repetitious sing-song of the Repubs -- the selling techniques they are using to make Obama a failed president, and keep him failing, stuck, immobilized, even though it is immobilizing the country.

What can we do?

Wall street protest-- yay!

Write, call, fax, e-mail our congressmen-- yay!

Listen and watch Obama making his latest speech --yay!

But we can't get out of this stuck state -- can't extricate ourselves from the every day more looming financial crises. And we are heading into the same threat, the threat the Repubs used before -- they're threatening to shut the government down.

People need help desperately. FEMA needs funds. FEMA won't get funds unless the White House renegotiates, and cuts support to Americans in other life and death, major areas.

Whoa! Don't we live in a democracy? Don't we have a government of the people, by the people, for the people?

The books say: "Democracy is a government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives -- equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law."

The Repubs have figured out a new way to control and rule the nation. They've re-defined, and renovated. Legally, more or less constitutionally, they are reconstructing "democracy." They stop Congress from functioning.

They don't want Obama to be able to function as president. They are electioneering -- campaigning to show Americans that the only way they'll get jobs, and other legislation, will be if a Republican is elected.

Right now, President Barack Obama can only try and keep trying -- till the next election -- to rally Dems, and perhaps shame some Repubs, who don't like what the Repubs are doing. Could Obama get enough representatives to support him? Is there any way for the President to stop what's happening in the House of Reps?

I don't know. I don't think we have a House of Representatives right now.

We have a Repub House that is campaigning -- has been have been campaigning -- since they were elected in November 2010. They are working full time to win the presidency in in 2012.

When you are stuck in the snow, you get a shovel. In traffic, you try another route. In water, you swim or grab a boat. In mud, or quicksand you grab anything that might lift you up and out of what's sucking in you down.

Got shovel, rope, pole, boat, another route? -- I'll take anything you offer.

LIKES

What's all this stuff about LIKE? Is it Facebook-itis, a tweeting virus we've caught from reading and writing and responding to comments, little summaries, adages, photos, film clips?

Is LIKE all we need to do, in order to respond to words, ideas, moods, philosophies, projects, products that people are proposing?

Click LIKE what? The candidate, the Author, the seller, the inventor of whatever it is, is rewarded with a LIKE, which in Internet terms, is MONEY?

No.
APPROVAL?
Sort of ...
So LIKES are building a career?

Not specifically. LIKES are primarily a promotion of yourself. If you say something that people like, others notice, and add their LIKE to the other LIKES, and thus, you're accruing a name and with a name you can teach, preach, beseech each and every friend to send you more friends, more followers.

I'm thinking we need LIKES to be in various colors, or degrees..."like" a lot, "like" a tiny little, a ha ha LIKE, thrilled LIKE, scared LIKE. Also, LIKES plus an um, ugh, eek, pooh, yuck --maybe even a LIKE spelled backwards ...an EKIL

I have to admit I'm bored with "like" as a measure of anything these days. It's too easy to "like." It's not even as satisfactory as a hello, or a hi.

Actually, I dislike LIKES. And now we're getting more and more interactive LIKES. Tell your favorite commentator you LIKE his show? LIKE that singer, that dancer performer? LIKE that ad? that movie? It's as if everything is in a beauty contest and you are involved with picking who's got the best legs.

Gee, wouldn't it be wonderful if "likes" could get us out of the political doldrums, and between now and November 2012 we could text in, email, Tweet, Facebook share our "LIKES!" (Hey, Apple or Google would probably develop and sell us some sort of hack-proof security system that knows, recognizes, real LIKES, lying LIKES, and truthful, heartfelt DISLIKES.)

Then, wow! On November 6, 2012, we will go to a booth, and pull or punch a lever based on what we feel -- not like -- what we know is right.