final draft

Finished the Captain Overlord draft last night, polishing this morning and then its off to the actors. Great feeling when you just sort of sit with a new play, fixing the punctuation and gentling a phrase here and there. Like petting a new-born colt that just dropped out of its mother. Only not as disgusting, with all that amniotic fluid and...



Hmm...



I used to be good at metaphors.



Johnny Mac took Florida; bad news for those, like me, who like him except for every little thing he believes in. He would be a worthy and tough opponent in the general election and god knows we don't need that.



Rudy is set to take the Long Walk Home, maybe he already has by the time I post this. That's very, very good news. He's the smartest person in the field, a true Fascist, and prone to make terrible personnel decisions.



So long, Rudy and good luck with the fear-mongering.



75 years ago today Hitler took power in Germany, I read somewhere. Important to remember that Adolph Hitler was just a name in the newspaper once, just another goddamned guy. And the world let him alone or made fun of him. And his name slowly crept above the fold. And no one thought he'd ever really act on all of his crazy words. And he did. And the world was either too busy or too broke or too frightened to stop him right at the beginning. And he rolled through Poland. And tried to kill every Jew, every Pole, every Gypsy and every homosexual that he could. And his own people, the Germans, the most advanced, civilized society on the planet joined in the killing or looked the other way.



This is not ancient history. This is the story of the 20th century. Just a guy who gets elected in a free society, a civilized democracy, who turns out to be ruthless and a little bit crazy and very charismatic. And millions die while tens of millions stare at the ground or pretend not to see.



I'll try to perk this shit up a little tomorrow, but today is an important anniversary.



LIT Research meeting tonight and Jess Bauman's Into the Hazard (Henry Five) workshop tomorrow. Then out to Long Island to see family for the weekend. Really looking forward to that.



And how fucking brilliant are The Magnetic Fields? Holy dancing Jesus at a nightclub. Picked up their 69 Love Songs a while back. Extraordinary.