Oklahoma, OK!

oklahoma_logo.jpg Every year, my elementary school had the 6th Grade Play, in which the ENTIRE 6th grade puts on a musical. In 1991, the year when I was in Mrs. Hoffmann's 6th grade class, the play was Oklahoma. The problem was, there were 60 kids in the 6th grade and about 12 parts in the whole play. Thus, the venerable martyr/music teacher Mrs. Ames wrote in 48 other parts and added songs from eight million other musicals.

I actually hate musicals but know all the songs from about 10 of them, only from being in a production of Oklahoma in the sixth grade. She did things like added "This Was a Real Nice Clam Bake" from Carousel (which like Oklahoma, has a character die by falling on his own knife. How dumb is that to use once, let alone twice???) and changed it from "Clam Bake" to "Picnic" since there are no clams in Oklahoma. I was cast as part of a guitar playing duo that sang some song called "Old Texas" that originated from somewhere else and at one point in the play I put a gun in my cowboy boot. This experience makes me very qualified to write about the Oklahoma primary.

tornado-oklahoma-1999.jpg I am endorsing John Edwards for the Oklahoma primary even though he dropped out of the race because when a massive tornado hits Oklahoma like it does every 2 years (check this one out!) he would be the only one who will actually try to make your insurance pay for it, even though you chose to live in a place where tornados tear shit up every 5 minutes. Of course he is not a real candidate anymore, just as I was not a real cast member of Oklahoma (I think my name was "Buck") but when a tornado rips your home apart, you'll at least know you tried...

 

 

Max Bernstein is making a name for himself as a musician in Los Angeles. Under the name Max and The Marginalized, he writes and records a song a week concerning current issues. They can be heard on MySpace or The Huffington Post.