Do More, Worry Less

…is the instruction from Simon Rosenberg, of The Hopium Chronicles, a substack which has fueled me in the last several months.

Since the postcarding season ended on October 18th, I’ve been fervently working along with so many other democrats to positively impact the upcoming election. I’ve been attending a lot of shifts with the VoProPros.com – here’s the Harris Walz Voter Protection link to sign up for training to be deployed now and in the slim days following the election on November 5th to cure ballots. The numbers are encouraging. These zooms have anywhere from 400-500 people in them. We’ve cured ballots in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio and this morning an early zoom (6:30AM PT) to reach 3000 Cobb County Georgia voters whose original absentee ballots were rejected. By law, these voters were entitled to provisional ballots but these ballots were not mailed until October 31st! Solutions? They could vote early in person today, November 1st, the last day of early voting, or on election day. These urgent calls are powerfully satisfying as people frequently have no idea their ballots went awry. Each session ends with positive stories from callers. These people are so jazzed. Please use the link above to sign up if you can join this work.

I applied my professional stage management skillsets last Sunday, on a reading of Sinclair Lewis’ 1936 play “It Can’t Happen Here — Again!” modified by Writers for Democratic Action and read at an event in Culver City hosted by the Culver City Democrats at Veteran’s Memorial. This reading was one of 30 that day around the country and abroad that happened to raise awareness of the dangers to our democracy in this election. Feel free to explore this powerful website to see the script and history of this important event. From the website:

In 1936, It Can’t Happen Here, a stage adaptation by Sinclair Lewis of his own bestselling novel, opened simultaneously in 21 theaters in 17 states across America on October 27, one week before that year’s presidential election. It was a warning against the rise of fascism and authoritarianism in America. It Can’t Happen Here—Again! by Writers for Democratic Action, both honors the 1936 production and issues a call to action now.
On July 19, 2024, It Can’t Happen Here—Again! played at 91 locations in 71 cities and towns in 24 states, before thousands of voters. The next national event will occur on Sunday, October 27, 2024, which is the 88th Anniversary of the first readings! Culver City Democratic Club will present one of several simultaneous staged readings of It Can’t Happen Here—Again! occurring in living rooms, bookstores, theaters, libraries, community centers, parks, and places of worship all across America. These readings will be presented in conjunction with Get Out The Vote efforts for the last days before the 2024 U.S. Election.
Writers for Democratic Action is an international organization of more than 3,000 writers, as well as over 150 bookstore partners, standing together to champion democracy and the institutions that embody and protect it. It Can’t Happen Here—Again! is part of WDA’s on-going project, BOOK THE VOTE, which creates community and gets out the vote.

The Culver City event was co-produced by Susan Obrow and Ronnie Jayne, and directed by Ronnie Jayne. Susan had asked me to be a part of it several months ago, and I was delighted to help. Susan and I have a long history of very special events which began back in the late 1980s when I had first moved to Los Angeles and I stage managed a play for her that she was directing entitled High Hopes. We hit it off and she then lassoed me into five years of stage managing and co-producing the Southland Theatre Artists’ Goodwill Events or S.T.A.G.E. benefits, directed for over twenty years by David Galligan. In addition, in her role as an assistant producer at Center Theatre Group, she produced multiple events, various anniversaries of the Mark Taper Forum and was responsible for my entré into work at both the Mark Taper Forum and ultimately at the Ahmanson. Her producing skills are detailed, caring, and inclusive of a meal or celebration before or during and maybe after the event. This one was no exception. Our pre-production meetings were at Joan’s on Third, and at her house, where she constructed a beautiful salade nicoise to buoy us through reading through the play together a week or so before the event. The event itself went very well, populated with a stellar cast of readers, including Gregg T. Daniel, Pete Rockwell, Larry Dilg, Shannon Theus, and Mimi Kennedy.

Fifty people attended the reading, after which a representative of Get Out The Vote GOTV came to speak about opportunities for people to participate in the remaining days of the election campaign. It was such a pleasure reuniting with Susan for this important event which seemed to have a galvanizing effect on the attendees.

Other strategies for distracting myself included a trip to South Lake Tahoe for the inaugural game of the ECHL Team, The Knight Monsters, the team for which my son has become the video coach this year. I flew up last Thursday in time for the game and attended the first two games. It was thrilling to see him in the pro hockey arena, and the Tahoe fans sold out the arena both nights. The event center is beautiful, and the experience of the games in that space is intimate and thrilling. The analogous nature of professional hockey with it’s brawls to this politic scrum we are in doesn’t escape me during the week before this election. Here are some shots from the two nights. The team’s record against the Jacksonville Icemen last weekend was 1W, 1L and so far this week, they’ve won another game against the Idaho Steelheads! Go Knight Monsters!

In addition to attending the two games, I was able to take my granddaughters and granddog to Taylor Creek Park where we saw the assembling salmon beginning their cycle of life, and two bears napping in a nearby tree.

I’ve been continuing to volunteer a lot at the food bank this week. Yesterday, Halloween, I found myself next to a young woman who works regularly at the food bank for college credit, and who was still undecided about who she was going to vote for on Tuesday. While we each dropped canned applesauce into the boxes passing in front of us, me trying not to seem like a vampire bat with an upturned neck in front of me, I asked her what the issues were that she was considering. She didn’t have a lot of specific reasons for not being in favor of Kamala Harris, but she is a student of criminology and psychology, and I’d have hoped the Vice President’s strengths would have been more obvious to her. The only reassuring thing she said was that she wasn’t going to vote for Trump. I hope I conveyed the importance of her positive vote for Harris/Walz because I’d hate to see her sit out the election and not leverage her vote. I’m afraid there are a lot of young people out there who have no idea what the choice of Donald Trump really means for America. On the joyful side, the staff and volunteers at the Food Bank were festively ready for Halloween!

Another helpful distraction for Angelenos and New Yorkers this week has been the World Series. Baseball receded a bit for me in terms of my entertainment priorities when I lost my Red Sox fan, but I’ve been excited to support the LA Dodgers this week. On Tuesday evening, I had arranged for tickets to Camarata Pacifica at the Coburn School of Music. I invited my friend Michele to come for dinner and go together to the concert and we sat down in the beautiful Zipper Auditorium just before 8PM, knowing the game was tied 5-5 in the fifth inning. The Artistic Director, Adrian Spence, introduced the revised program, explaining that they had had to change the original program due to an illness of the scheduled pianist. The revised program consisted of a Beethoven Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, Op. 30, No. 2, a Suite Populaire Espagnole for Cello and Piano by Manuel de Falla, three pieces for solo clarinet by Igor Stravinsky, and finally a trio in B Flat Major for Clarinet, Cello and Piano by Beethoven. The musicians, including a Coburn student enlisted at the last minute for the Violin Sonata, Alena Hove and the pianist, Natasha Kislenko throughout the evening were exquisitely in tune with each other and the pieces. My favorite was the Manuel de Falla piece, cello played so expressively by Ani Aznavoorian. The evening was soothing and invigorating, and the Artistic Director emerged from the wings periodically to give updates on the world series, ultimately announcing after Jose Franch-Ballester completed the Stravinsky solo clarinet pieces that the Dodgers had won! The staid classical music appreciators went wild, or as wild as you might imagine that audience would be.

I live in downtown Los Angeles near what is aparently the mecca for all celebrants of Angeleno sporting events. I know that LA Live is really that central hub, but our corner seems to invite a lot of activity. After the concert, we drove down to my apartment through the sound of fireworks, helicopters, and incessant horn beeping. As we approached my corner, we were unable to be in the lane to get through the police barricade at 9th and Flower. It took us another half hour of trying to circle back to my building without success before we decided we would call it a night and drive back to Pasadena where Michele lives; she and her husband graciously put me up for the night.

Am I superstitious to connect the winning of the World Series by our Dodger Blue team to the winning of the Democrats in this current presidential campaign? I think not! I was reminded that the last time the Dodgers won the World Series was in 2020 a week before Donald Trump lost in his second bid for the presidency.

I believe in patterns.

I believe in hard and dedicated work for the things we believe in.

I believe in doing everything we can to avoid Project 2025 from becoming a reality and that “It Can Happen Here Again” if Donald Trump is re-elected.

Over 50 million voters have already weighed in with their votes, more than 17 million in swing states. If you want to see some of that early data, check out this website, TargetEarly, created by Tom Bonier. Be wary of all the Republican generated polling results which are being dumped into the media every day. They are being created to ultimately support an argument that the election was stolen if Donald Trump loses. There’s no other reason.

As Simon says, “we need to close out this with Joy and VOTE NOW!!!! Don’t spend the next five days in worry. Join us in High Hopes! Let’s help Kamala hit this one out of the park! Leave nothing on the field or ice.