A gig! Well, sort of: the 2^nd Street Market called, wanting me to play one of two dates the end of November (I picked Friday Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving). Nice that they called, wanting me—I much prefer that to me soliciting them. 2-hour show; unpaid, of course (the Market has no money, and won’t for a while). I can do two hours easily on my own, but like I told them, I’d rather have company, and I’ll enlist some if I can. That’ll affect what I (or we) play, but not much. They have a nice stage, but no sound. I don’t have a PA system myself, but I may know where I can borrow one for the occasion—like I’ve said before, I do know some people.

I have finished a draft plot layout for a new play with the “Pig Wars” sock-puppet troupe. I think we could pull off The Wizard of Oz (actually, a very sick and twisted variation thereof). The junior high school’s after-school drama program is doing The Wizard of Oz this year, and we might be able to attract some attention to their play by doing one of our own in the same vein.

I know we only need six main actors for the play, because the Southern Pigfish song “Bedpans for Brains,” which is written to be sung by the Wizard cast, has only six verses—one for each character (the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion, the Witch, Dorothy, and the Wizard). We have six sock puppets, too—just have to fit them into appropriate roles.

We could have Princess Leah as Dorothy (the only overtly female role), Yoda as the Wicked Witch (he’s green), Darth Vader as the Tin Man (of course), Chewy as the Cowardly Wookie; Luke could be the Scarecrow (he needs a brain) and Hansolo, who knows it all, can be the Great And Powerful Wizard. We’ll need one additional character, I think—Glyn the Good Witch, who in the movie always shows up in a bubble; in our case she’ll never be able to get out of the bubble, so no one will see her. Don’t need a Toto—Chewy can do that duty (and the “he’s not a dog—he’s a Wookie” can be one of the running jokes). We’ll see what others think.

After a difficult week assembling material for the newspaper column, I’m back to having plenty of stuff in advance: I know what I’m going to write four days before I have to write it. I prefer it that way. Next step (I hope): some news stories for the paper—though I’ve been told I’ll need to file them immediately. Again, if I work at it I can probably have a good idea what I’m going to be writing before it happens.

A reporter for the Washington Times characterized the Occupy Wall Street (and Other Places) people as "idiot lights." It’s an apt description—and no, he wasn’t saying the Occupy people were idiots. “Idiot lights” are the warning lights you'll sometimes get in your car, saying things like "Check Engine." The idiot lights do not fix the problem; they do not tell you how to fix the problem. Sometimes they don’t even tell you precisely what the problem is. They simply signal you that a problem exists and will get worse if you do nothing. The fact that when you ask 20 “Occupiers” what’s upsetting them you get 20 different answers, some of them really off-the-wall liberal answers, is irrelevant; what’s important is not why they’re there, but that they’re there and there are so many of them. They’re warning lights. And—perhaps expectably—nothing is being done about them. In the last Depression, nothing changed even after demonstrators started getting killed, and that could happen again.

Two days till the Open Mike at the Arts Center. I assume I’m the host, since I haven’t heard from Jim, who’s the normal host. I also don’t know who’s coming, or how many are coming. Hopefully some do—I plan on baking a lot of cookies.

Joe