Covfefe, the Musical

My kids are old enough that they drive my car, even my youngest. She’s sixteen, she has her permit, so she drives with me while I try to stifle any urges to gasp, or say “Watch out!” too loudly - and fail more often than I’d like. She’s doing really well, but we live in Los Angeles and people drive like … well, like they live in Los Angeles, I guess. It’s not as bad as New York City, but it’s pretty nuts. Lots of people looking at their phones, and tons of huge white SUVs with drivers who get right up on your ass. Someone really needs to do a study on that because it is fully a thing.

My son has his license, and also a lead foot. I probably definitely have higher blood pressure than I used to, but that’s okay. It’s okay because I have really low blood pressure generally, so I had some wiggle room there. It’s so low the last time I was at the doctor and the nurse put the cuff on me, she re-did it three times and then asked if I felt okay. It was 83/53 and I asked her if I was alive and she didn’t laugh. I felt fine, though, except for the part where she didn’t laugh.

That’s such a human feeling when someone leaves you hanging. It’s fine, she didn’t get me. It’s not the first time that’s happened, believe me. But it’s a thing, right? Because I’d chuckle or grunt or make some kind of throat-noise even if I didn’t think something was funny - if we’re talking about something like that. I will not laugh at offensive, sexist, racist crap to make someone feel okay - but otherwise? Yeah. It feels like an act of mercy or kindness.

Fuck that nurse.

Years ago I was in a meeting signing a lease on the space where my yoga studio used to be in downtown Santa Monica. It was a big deal, the building owner was there and the property manager and the realtor and my business partner who happened to be my then-husband. We’d negotiated this lease for weeks and were literally putting our entire life savings into the project, and also at the time my son was two-and-a-half and I was eight months pregnant with my daughter. This is an excellent time to open a business in case you ever wondered about something like that.

Anyway, during the meeting the property manager said that Morgan Freeman’s production company was above us, and if we saw him in the courtyard or whatever, not to say hello. And not to tell anyone his company was upstairs, and not to interact in any way. And then later in the meeting he said we could paint the studio, but if and when we left, we’d have to paint it white again. But nothing crazy on the walls. And jackass me said, “So no mural of Morgan Freeman with an arrow pointing up, then?” And no one laughed. I think I knew at that moment my marriage probably wouldn’t make it because you just have to laugh in that situation. Or at least make the throat noise.

Maybe that’s a good tip for anyone dating anyone. At some point be sure to make a joke that is funny to you even if it isn’t funny to anyone else, or make an awkward joke at an important moment, and see if they grunt for you. If not, it’s probably not a good sign for your long-term health as a couple. Also, one day I ran into Morgan Freeman in the courtyard and he could not have been more friendly. Totally said hello, asked how things were going at the studio, said my kids were adorable, and said hi to them, too. He probably would have loved a mural of his face on the wall with the arrow. People should listen to me more.

I wanted to tell you about my kids and the car and the driving though, because part of what all of that means aside from my probably higher blood pressure - is that when I get in my car to drive somewhere I often have to adjust all my mirrors these days, and my seat, too. My son is taller than I am by a lot, and my daughter is just a hair shorter, but I swear she’s gaining on me every time she goes to sleep. I may have mentioned that I am a teeny tiny bit Type A, and I really need to have my seat and my mirrors just right, so it takes a minute, but I like it.

I like it because it’s this little reminder that we are all seeing the world from a slightly different vantage point, and we may need different things to feel comfortable. There’s a good chance I like to have my seat-back in a more upright position than you do, based on the way my kids laugh at how upright my seat-back is now that they’re paying attention to such things. Whatever our quirks, we’re looking out at the same view from different perspectives. I like the reminder, even though right now I’m finding it painful.

It hurts because I realize my kids and all the kids are looking out at the same world I am and you are.

The teenagers are aware of what’s happening, I’m sure you realize this even if you don’t live with teenagers, or have nieces and nephews you hang out with regularly - but just in case you wondered, they absolutely see what’s happening. It’s a different world than it was when I was sixteen or eighteen, I mean of course it is, but back then I could go through a whole day and only know what was happening if I walked by a newsstand and read the headlines, or heard the news at night. It wasn’t everywhere, it wasn’t on a little device in my hand that I was using to communicate throughout the day, or on my social media feeds, or on every app. They’re seeing it all, everywhere, all the time. They’re seeing the snarky comments, the hateful ones, everything.

Frankly at eighteen you probably do want to understand what’s happening because it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation, and our kids are somehow going to have to clean up the giant, horrifying mess we’re making of being decent human beings who might have different perspectives about things. Not sure when we got so bad at that, but we are the best at being the worst I’d say. Because we can definitely disagree about so many things - what’s funny, what qualifies as art, what tastes good, which series deserve awards, etc - and I will absolutely respect your feelings even if I don’t agree with them, because all of that stuff is subjective.

We can go see the same movie, and you can think it’s fantastic, and I can think it was absolute crap and wish I could get that two hours and thirty-six minutes of my life back, and neither one of us is right or wrong unless we’re talking about The Revenant which I hated with my whole chest, and if you liked it you’re wrong. But other than that I respect your point of view. (Yes, I know the set pieces were amazing, and I saw the bear’s breath fog up the camera lens, and I saw the gratuitously violent battle that was all one take, and I saw the neck-skin flapping away. I’d still like my time back). Well, sorry, actually I might as well tell you I’m not a fan of The Sound of Music, either, but before you get mad I know that one is me.

I haven’t seen it in years and years, and maybe I should see it again, but I probably won’t because I hate it. I’m kidding, I don’t hate it, I just don’t like musicals generally, except once in a very long while. And the story is great. If it were a film without singing and dancing about a nun-turned-governess-turned-stepmom-of-seven-who-brings-joy-back-to-a-grieving-family-who-all-manage-to-escape-the-Nazis, I’m sure I’d love it. Also, I can get down with the soundtrack. Just like, give it to me separately or something.

The hills are alive. Music sold separately. Photo by Peter Burdon on Unsplash

I don’t think people burst into song, or at least I don’t. But I did love Mary Poppins. So it’s not Julie Andrews and it’s not all musicals. Anyway, the point is we can disagree about this and you can still think I’m smart and funny and that I smell nice. And maybe you do burst into song and The Sound of Music is your favorite film of all time and it brings back warm childhood memories. We have different perspectives, it’s cool.

But if you want to try to tell me slavery wasn’t that bad, or you think that’s a good message to teach to school-age children - it’s not that we have different perspectives, it’s that you are wrong. It is not a subjective thing. I genuinely cannot believe this is a conversation that is even happening right now, and I do find myself wondering how anyone can continue to support this madness. How is it we can’t agree on: slavery was very, very horrible and bad?

I don’t understand how it can be 2025, and we have a president who is saying the Smithsonian should focus on America’s “brightness” and “not how bad slavery was.” It’s a freaking museum. It is supposed to help us understand the past by preserving it, not rewriting it, not whitewashing it, not skewing it or spinning it. We look to the past as a way of understanding ourselves - where we’ve been, who we’ve been, and how we’ve arrived at the moment in time where we find ourselves. It’s also a way of ensuring we don’t make the same mistakes twice. Different mistakes as we evolve and grow? Yes, but not the same ones. He thinks Americans are as fragile as he is, like we can’t handle the truth.

It’s so insane to me, the things he wants to lie about, and the things he does in the light of day. He wants to gloss over slavery, like yeah, it happened, but let’s not focus on it. LOL, I’m sorry, wut?? Imagine being on a first date with someone and they’re like, I committed murder once, but I’m also really good at macramé.

Do you know he directed the DOJ to end the Civil Rights-era desegregation order in Louisiana? Y’all know what’s going to happen, right? This is the party that’s all about “leaving it to the states.” We see how that’s worked out for women and girls in states with abortion bans. Leaving it to the states is a very bad idea when it comes to people’s rights. Certain rights ought to be inalienable - meaning no one should be able to take them from you. That’s why we have the Constitution, the separation of powers, our checks and balances, and the rule of law. When you have an administration that decides it doesn’t care about any of that - and a bunch of senators, congresspeople, justices, governors, and billionaires willing to go along, this is what you get. It isn’t pretty.

Is this what the people who voted for this man and his cohorts want - to go back to the “good old days” - the way things were, say, in 1957? This is why the past matters and why museums matter and why it matters that we teach our children about the history of our country. You think the 1950s were a good time in America? You wanna go back? They were a good time for straight, white men in America if they were the kind of men who didn’t worry about how life was for anyone else.

If you were a Black family in the 1950s, things were not so terrific, especially in the South. There was the “Separate but Equal Doctrine” established in a case called Plessy v Ferguson in 1896, which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation - including segregation in schools. That case was all about a Black man named Plessy, who attempted to get on a train car reserved for white people. The Court decided as long as “separate but equal” accommodations were provided, segregation was okay.

In 1954, the Supreme Court heard the case Brown v Board of Education, which combined 5 different cases from across the nation, all challenging the “separate but equal” doctrine. In a unanimous decision the justices concurred that “separate educational facilities were inherently unequal” not just because an unequal amount of resources were being allocated to schools for Black students, but because the experience of segregation itself created a feeling of inferiority in Black children.

Imagine trying to process as a small child that certain water fountains are not for you. Certain entrances to restaurants, stores, bathrooms, seats on the bus, train cars, movie theaters…I cannot even finish this sentence because I have children and feel sick thinking about how you would go about explaining this as a mom. “We aren’t allowed in that door because…” Because why???

The Supreme Court can decide what it likes, but people still have their feelings, and at that time, they were allowed to express them without fear of being disappeared off the streets without due process. As a matter of fact, twelve governors from twelve southern states got together to figure out how they could organize against desegregation efforts, isn’t that a kick in the teeth?

But other people were organizing, too, like Daisy Bates, president of the NAACP’s Arkansas chapter. She selected nine outstanding Black teenage students, the “Little Rock Nine” to become the first to attend Central High School in 1957. Their names were: Minnijean Brown, Terrance Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Pattillo, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls. But when they tried to attend that first day, the governor of their state, a man named Orval Faubus, called in the National Guard to stop them.

What kind of man calls in the National Guard against a group of young, Black exceptional teenagers just trying to get a good education at their local public school after the Supreme Court says they can? Oh, I think we know very well what kind of man does that. But you know what? History does not think kindly of men who do despicable things to children, to good people, to marginalized groups - nor does it think highly of the people who support those men. Which is maybe why this president is so obsessed with erasing history, but the internet lives forever, friends. Food for thought.

In honor of another start to another school year, please do click this link:

https://www.life.com/history/little-rock-nine-1957-photos/

So he’s all, I’m calling Greg Abbott to tell him to gerrymander the maps in Texas so I don’t lose control of my majority during the midterms, because I know if I don’t cheat, I won’t win. He’s also called the governors of Indiana and Missouri and pressured them to do the same thing. They are not hiding it, they are redrawing districts for partisan purposes so they don’t lose control of their power in the midterms, because if that happened they’d have to pay attention to the Constitution and the rule of law and oh yeah, turn over the Epstein files.

When California’s probably-going-to-win-a-Nobel-Peace-Prize Governor Gavin Christopher Newsom clapped back - promising to redraw California’s congressional map if Texas bent the knee, Abbott called it “disgraceful and potentially illegal” which is hilarious. It’s like the entire Fox “News” crew criticizing Newsom’s Trump-trolling tweets as not serious enough or becoming of someone who wanted the job of president. Which is like…whaaaat? They realize the current president is currently sending out tweets like these and has been for ten insane years, right?

Fine for me, but not for thee?

Now look, you may not like Newsom or want him for president. No one is saying you should, but my god am I thrilled to see someone dish it back to these people. THRILLED as in all caps thrilled. The person largely responsible for this social media genius-level trolling is 29-year-old Latina Camille Zapata, and I think we should buy her flowers or send her thank you cards or write her name across the sky. And I am all for redistricting in response to this garbage.

It is laughable to think the president is going to call all the red state governors and tell them to cheat, and Democrats are going to sit back and wring their hands and write strongly worded social media posts. Enough already, we need to fight for our country and I am glad to see my governor doing it, and showing MAGA how truly asinine and embarrassing their president’s tweets are, since they don’t seem to notice when he does it himself.

The good news is the kids are also seeing people like the Texas Democrats who fled the state to break quorum. Breaking quorum is legal by the way, there are a minimum number of legislators who must be present for a governing body to do its work, and leaving was an act of resistance - it delayed the redrawing of Texas’s congressional maps which, in case you aren’t up on all this, was not supposed to happen until 2030.

Redistricting happens after the census so people are represented fairly. The last census took place in Texas in 2020, but the results were delayed until 2021 because of Covid. The census happens once a decade, so redrawing these maps in 2025 is wild, but I guess when Donnie calls, Abbott listens. Must be quite a bromance to demean himself that way.

When the Texas Democrats came back on Monday, they were met with restrictions and demands made by Texas Republicans, who decided they had that authority based on nothing but the feeling that no one would stop them. They said Texas Democrats who broke quorum could not leave the state capitol unless they signed “permission slips” allowing Texas law enforcement to accompany them wherever they went, to make sure they returned Wednesday so they’d get to push their maps through.

Nicole Collier refused, and I love her for it. She’s another great person the kids are getting to see. She didn’t intend to stage a sit-in, she simply did not think she should be forced to sign a permission slip, or agree to be followed around by law enforcement. Permission slips are for kids going on field trips. These are grown people who used the only tool at their disposal to object to a map that now skews representation in a way that anyone with the ability to read and do simple math will be able to understand:

Nearly 60% of Texans are People of Color, but these maps have given white voters the power to vote on 26 of the state's 38 congressional seats.

I want to talk about Oklahoma, not the musical. Although I saw Oklahoma the musical on Broadway as a kid, and I loved it. I contain multitudes, what can I tell you. Mostly I want to know if you remember Oklahoma superintendent of schools Ryan Walters? He’s the guy who wanted like $3 million in his budget so he could put a Trump Bible (bwahahahaha, I’m sorry, where are the Epstein files again?) in every classroom, and the Trump bibles are $60 each because of course they are. Maybe they come with a steak or something, who knows. Or some cologne.

He didn’t get the $3 million but he’s definitely putting bibles in every classroom and also the 10 Commandments because he hasn’t heard of a little thing called separation of church and state, and I guess he thinks all kids should have Christianity shoved down their little throats whether they’re Christian or not. What if it was some other religious doctrine on the wall, from a religion you don’t practice. Would you still be in favor of it in the classroom? No? Right. Funny how it’s totally possible to teach morals and ethics and empathy without tying it to religion. That’s what you do in a public school setting when you have kids from all different backgrounds.

Anyway, he’s all about values and children and porn. Wait, what??? Yeah. He had a meeting with his board and two of the members were facing a television screen in his office and there were naked ladies doing things to each other during the meeting! On the screen! Of the guy who hates porn and is very Christian. Look, maybe someone screencast it there, he’d be a good target for that kind of joke, because he’s all about banning books like The Kite Runner and he wants to tell girls to smile more and not get caught up in all this gender ideology stuff and start trying to act like men, because a woman’s smile is one of God’s most incredible creations. All of this via Prager U (not a university, a conservative propaganda machine coming to a public school near you), of course.

Please watch and let me know if you think that’s appropriate messaging for school-age children. I don’t care if we’re talking about high school, either, because we probably are. There’s a part about not showing off parts of your body that might be inappropriate, having some respect for yourself and not sending out the wrong messages. So, you know, that old trope about how girls are responsible if they get assaulted, because of what they were wearing.

I understand we aren’t going to agree on everything, but if you are not finding it pretty easy to figure out which side of history you want to be on these days, I have a musical I think you should watch.

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