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FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in  Hollywood

	FINEFROCK

Sit, OTO, Sit:
That’s a Good JOOTH
by Steve Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter] 8/19/08

The One, he be: Barack is Obama The One, but predictions are already beginning that he may return to being just one of hundred Senators in a branch with 435 others in the south chamber of the U.S. Capitol.  And for that coming absurdist political drama, we must tighten our seatbelts. The absurdist branch of political theatre will be boosted, since that theatre began in 1896 with “UBU Roi” or “UBU Rex” – written by a disenchanted 15 year old seeking revenge against an authoritarian physics professor.


William Goldman declares that he writes his stories [film scripts and novels] primarily “for revenge” – and so with most writers, and most reformers. The political stage is filled with Carrie Nation activists, the nationalists seeking their group’s advantage with a sympathetic story of suffering that deserves reparations. Carrie suffered at the hands of three consecutive drunken husbands, so she blamed alcohol in general, not her own specific judgment in choosing men to share her life. So she took an ax handle to saloon inventory, until one day a saloon owner returned wood, being a woman herself and able to whack the whacker of all that booze.

Already the Adults Are In Charge, or so appearing, with Russians coming, indeed having come already in Georgia, making Obama The One [OTO] seem a bit weak in the knees and between the big ears. The absurdist theatre is visiting the political stage, and will display itself more profoundly than UBU Productions’ Labrador retriever closing to Gary David Goldberg’s TV comedies, such as Spin City and Brooklyn Bridge. Each episode features the dog named for the key character of the precursor to absurdist theatre appearing in a family album photo of the dog holding a Frisbee in its mouth, a voice declaring “Sit, Ubu, Sit! Good Dog!” and then a bark.

Ubu accompanied Goldberg and his pregnant wife-to-be on a 1976 trek thru Europe, on the poverty-with-dog tour plan. Ubu is forever enshrined in that show-closing segment, the mutt having passed to hamburger heaven in 1984, shortly after Goldberg’s first hit, Family Ties was making Michael J. Fox into a teen throb, and Goldberg richer than he’d ever imagined. A long way from selling his blood for ten dollars to feed his pregnant gal and big dog in Europe that poverty-ridden summer.

Now, we will see Obama’s family ties amidst his spin-city attempts to convince Americans he’s an adult, as the real adult in Mac is rising in the polls. For numerous reasons, some specified by Rush this past week [the transcript of his claim is on the show’s website], it’s plausible that Barack will get clobbered on election day. The outflow of that defeat will render the nation in a great crisis for a generation, for no matter the real reasons, the ‘reel’ reasons of Hollywood fans on the left will be that it was all because the nation is rife with racists.

But for the Senate, to which OTO must return as Just One Of The Hundred, it will be a carousel of ego. Having experienced the most addictive duo – eyeballs [of adoration] and adrenaline [of life-on-the-edge daily drama] – will make Obama strive to stand out, to keep on the TV. And in concert with Hillary, vying then to try to challenge Mac’s VP in ’12. Two huge Hollywood egos violating Tinseltown publicist-manager Jay Bernstein’s warning: Don’t have two big Stars in the same room for an event at the same time.

This is a case of two senators striving valiantly to become our Tsar – confiscate oil profits, pass out goodies in the name of Doing Good Things For Others. These two wannabee tsars will be vying for attention in the Senate chamber, tempting whoever is presiding to ask the former candidate to please sit, be quiet, let the Senate do its work. But like JFK, Obama wasn’t there to do work, but merely to step over all to his role as our moving-&-shaking tsar of politics.

It will be absurdist theatre, as this latest Carrie nationalist goes thru withdrawal symptoms like from crack cocaine, these withdrawals meaning that being a JOOTH [just one of the hundred] is such a downer, a bummer, and bad for the ego.  From UBU Roi, assassinating King Wenceslas of Poland in a play with a cast brashly listed as including “the entire Russian and Polish armies” after the play opens with the first line, “Merdre” – to January’s coming absurdist eyeball-adrenaline withdrawal symptoms on CSPAN for all to see [unless the democrats turn off the cameras then also], it’s going to be a bumpy ride indeed.

Will there be a bold and daring presiding officer in the Senate, when OTO gets high on his horse, garnering sympathy for his loss ‘due to racism’ who will say, Sit, OTO, Sit. Be a good JOOTH?

OTO is likely to be a long-running play, being only 47 when he’s “robbed” of the presidency. He seeks, yearns, craves to be OTO Rex, his cast of thousands are not the Russian or Polish armies, but our economy, our productivity, our bread and butter. As JOOTH he will still be OTO, and may actually do some work! Introduce some legislation, maybe even hold some hearings, learn a few things past what community organizing taught him, and what he practiced in leadership as editor of his law review.

It will be absurdist theatre, at least a half-century later, when it can be seen for the funny prancing that it appears then. But for our remaining political lifetimes, it will be a long-suffering tragedy without comity. Prepare to suffer the little children who will fill the Senate floor with their absurdist claims, as the Pelosi Players keep playing with political fire. Far too many on the MoveOn.org left will see King OTO as their Rex, as royalty denied the throne by an evil plot contrivance called an election.

You think they were enraged by Gore v. Bush?  Mere child’s play compared to “OTO Roi” – coming to a political absurdist theatre near you. It will indeed be lots and lots of ‘merdre’ – look that one up in your French dictionary. ExileStreet

copyright 2008 Steve Finefrock

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