Author Archives: Tin Man

Election Night 2009

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This is turning out to be a depressing election night. My home state, New Jersey, has elected a Republican governor for the first time in eight years. (I no longer live there but I do work there.) Maine seems to be rejecting marriage equality. And the Republicans have retaken the governorship of Virginia, another state where I used to live.

Matt and I voted today for NYC mayor. Apparently we were among the pathetically small percentage of New Yorkers who did so. We both supported Bloomberg, but at the last minute Matt decided to vote for Thompson in order to send Bloomberg a message and keep him from getting too cocky about his victory. Bloomberg’s margin of victory is surprisingly thin — apparently lots of other people either did the same thing as Matt or just stayed home because they assumed it would be a blowout.

The only bright spots tonight are that Bill Owens has beat the know-nothing right-winger Doug Hoffman in upstate New York, dealing a blow to Palinism, and that Washington State voters have preserved expansive domestic partnership rights for same-sex couples on par with marriage. These both make me happy.

As for Maine: marriage equality is a generational thing. I’m so sick and tired of seeing gay equality voted down again and again in this country. But younger people support it, and the elderly who oppose it are dying off or heading into nursing homes. The tide is slowly turning in our favor. Our day will come.

And as for New Jersey and Virginia, my consolation is that governors don’t make foreign policy. Christie won’t invade Pennsylvania or something. He hasn’t made clear what he plans to do to fix New Jersey’s economy; Corzine cut government spending and raised taxes. Is Christie planning to do something different? Is there some super-secret non-entitlement spending he plans to cut that Corzine didn’t know about?

Finally, these results are not a reflection on Obama: he still has decent approval ratings in both Virginia and New Jersey. People are pissed off about the economy, but they still support the president. Jon Corzine is an incredibly poor communicator. Virginia, well, Virginia is Virginia.

Sigh. Good night.

Brighton Beach Memoirs

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Brighton Beach Memoirs: Yes, they were Jewish enough.

I’m bummed that the revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs closed today after only one week of official performances, and that the revival of Broadway Bound will not go on as planned. We saw Brighton Beach Memoirs a few weeks ago and even though it wasn’t a perfect production, I really enjoyed it.

I feel a connection to these plays, beyond being Jewish. I took an acting class in college where I had to play Eugene Jerome in the scene from Brighton Beach Memoirs in which the two brothers discuss masturbation, naked girls, etc. And I saw the original production of Broadway Bound, with Joan Rivers playing Kate (she took over from Linda Lavin). I was looking forward to seeing the revival. Now poor Josh Grisetti won’t be able to make his Broadway debut after all.

I wonder what went wrong. It seems like the revivals just weren’t marketed very well and that the producers expected audiences to flock to them because they’re two of Neil Simon’s most beloved plays. But I guess Neil Simon just isn’t the draw he used to be.