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.