Other Works by David Rothauser
C'est Moi ... David.
THEATRE
Pole Dancing For Jesus
Pole Dancing for Jesus is a mixed media stage play/musical about the coming 2020 United States presidential election.
Synopsis: J LO (Jennifer Lopez)uses her fame and talent to orchestrate the election process combining religion and hip-hop to influence the major candidates. Receiving a call from her friend, Holy Mary Mother of God about the current gun epidemic in the U.S., J LO, with the backing of Michael Bloomberg, secures Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida as the venue for the Democratic National Convention where Elizabeth Warren is nominated as the democratic candidate for president. J LO and Holy Mary kick off the Convention with a pole dance for Jesus to capture delegates from the Bible Belt.
At the Great Presidential Debate on Election Eve Warren answers debate questions on Gun Control with parables, causing Trump to walk off the podium. Names and faces of gun manufacturing CEOs appear on a giant digital screen next to the school victims who were gunned down from Columbine to Parkland.
The First All-American President
The First All-American President takes place on Election Night of any year.
Synopsis: Faneuil Hall, Boston is the scene of a Great Presidential Debate between incumbent president Rune Winner Misseldyne and his closest challenger, Chief Wyakin of the Nez Perces Indian tribe. The public watches the debate on television while voting with the technologically new VO-PUTERS from the comfort of their living rooms. Their votes are digitally recorded on a large screen at Faneuil Hall. The displayed votes influence the debaters and vice-versa.
Frequent news bulletins relayed by Moderator and Anchor Woman interrupt the debate periodically. The bulletins relay important historical incidents between the U.S. Government and Native Americans as though they are happening while the debate is in progress. Portrayed in dramatic vignettes, the bulletins cover the spectrum from Joseph Brant and the British in 1776 to Wounded Knee, 1973. The incidents have an immediate effect on the voters causing a great fluctuation in the popular vote across the country.
Anchor Woman and Moderator take sides while the President and Chief Wyakin fury and foam. Unable to fully comprehend Wyakin's spiritual platform, the public swings towards the incumbent. Just when the Election seems fait-accompli, Chief Wyakin offers the public and the government a deal they cannot refuse. In a bizarre but realistic turn of events Chief Wyakin becomes the First All-American President.
Genie Out of the Bottle
Genie Out of the Bottle is a science fiction play. Some of the dialogue and scenes are historically documented, but the basic concept and development of the story is science fiction. Dates change and morph together, modern technology, such as Skype, is applied for dramatic effect, the characters live during the time period 1945 to 1961.
The main character, Gene Highhold, is the atomic bomb in human form. He encompasses all the scientific and technological knowledge that went into the making of the A-bomb. Neither he nor the other characters realize that he is the "bomb" until later in the play when he is diagnosed with radiation poisoning. Nuclear meltdown begins in his body and in those military and scientists he works closely with. There is no cure. Only the traditional Japanese dance, Soran Bushi, will spiritually cleanse them.
Soran Bushi serve to unite and inspire the terminally ill characters in their life affirming struggle to conquer once and for all, the nuclear Genie.
LITERATURE
The Diary of Sacco and Vanzetti
A Historical Novel
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants arrive in New York in 1908. Sacco settles in Massachusetts, quickly finding work in a series of shoe factories, where he immediately immerses himself in night classes to learn English. Vanzetti, a professionally trained pastry chef in Italy chooses another path. Hard physical labor. After years traveling the highways and byways of America, he settles in Plymouth Massachusetts, working as a fish peddler.
We follow their introduction into the dreaded anarchist movement at the time of the infamous "Red Scare Raids" throughout the U.S. They quickly become earmarked for deportation by the U.S. Department of Justice. They are eventually arrested, charged and convicted of a robbery and murder of two payroll guards at a shoe factory in South Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920. Seven years later they are executed for the crime at Charlestown State Prison in Boston. Fifty years later their names are cleared by a public proclamation issued by former Presidential Candidate and Governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis.
During their seven years of incarceration Sacco and Vanzetti perceive and interpret the unfolding of their lives through their struggle to comprehend not only the complexities of the English language under extreme duress, but also the legal mumbo-jumbo of courtroom proceedings. As observers of their own demise Sacco and Vanzetti discuss, analyze, argue over, make jokes about and spiritually embrace the people and environment of their fate.
Elizabeth Glendower Evans becomes a major figure in their lives. A Boston Brahmin, shareholder in the Lawrence textile mills, Mrs. Evans joins the Sacco-Vanzetti defense committee, raises enormous amounts of funding to maintain the defense and leads a coterie of Beacon Hill women to teach English to the condemned men. "Auntie Bee" as she prefers to be called becomes a "second mother" to Nick and Bart who cherish her and return her love unconditionally.
Judge Webster Thayer, a man on a mission in collusion with his prosecuting attorney, Fred Katzmann, succeeds in turning the civil trial into a political witch hunt to cleanse the country of foreign born radicals who they perceive are working to overthrow the U.S. government.
The story lays bare the intense pressure of the times on the two immigrants, the fear of terrorist bombings and a paranoia of a Communist takeover of the U.S. Government. Sacco and Vanzetti become institutionalized in Bridgewater Hospital for the Criminal Insane, petition for clemency, rejoice when another prison inmate confesses to the crime, only to be rejected by the trial judge. Two last minute reprieves give the men hope, only to be dashed by Governor Fuller who signs their death certificate. An unidentified attorney challenges Judge Thayer over the Right to Allocution in a surreal epilogue that proves to be the missing link that might have saved Sacco and Vanzetti ... too late.
East Wind Rain
East Wind Rain is the story of a secret espionage during the build up to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the subsequent coverup that followed. Based on factual documents, heretofore ignored by Army-Navy Intelligence, the true story of what happened on that fateful day is here revealed for the first time.
Synopsis:
An abandoned infant, Francis Quintilian is raised by affluent prostitutes on Manhattan's prestigious Upper West Side. He is raised with love and compassion by his adoring "mothers," until at the tender age of twenty-three, he is thrust into the lonely darkness of Depression era America with the choice words,"If you get lost, don’t come home." He pinballs his way to and from the arms of an Amish Mädchen in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to an Indian princess on Chicago's skid row to the open air of Big Sky country to a job of respectability as an itinerant caricaturist-in-residence for a small town newspaper in North Platte, Nebraska. His passions lead him from the doting arms of the raucously cheating, Gerty to the love of his life, Juanita. Francis is crowned godfather to Juanita's adopted little boy, Pako. On the road to familial nirvana, Francis takes a detour to Paradise ... Honolulu, Hawaii, one year before the December 7, 1941 Japanese bomb attack on Pearl Harbor.
Miss Betty Muhia, an infamous Hawaiian madame on Hotel Street, takes Francis under her wing ... teaching him the ways and mysteries of the Polynesian gods Pele and Lono. Hired by the Honolulu Advertiser, Francis is assigned as investigative journalist, who, with two Hawaiian paramours, discover an elaborate German-Japanese conspiracy, planning to launch the attack that will live in infamy.
Peeling away the transparent leaves of the conspiracy, the unassuming triad lays bare an unorthodox bomb plot that has escaped US military and federal investigators. Blinded by their own myopic protocol, the FBI and Army-Navy Intelligence, ignore the simplistic warnings that don't match their pre-conceived notions of how spies operate. Flashing mirrors, clothes hanging on a clothesline, Japanese codes on the sail of a boat just outside of Diamond Head, are laughed off as child's play.
Trying to go public with this devastating news, he and his lovers are met with official and unofficial road blocks to keep quiet. But they pursue. They forge strong intimate relations with the German and Japanese spies in a spy-counter spy tale in the best James Bond tradition. The difference is that the facts underlying the story are real. The more documents they compile to prove their warning, the more they are met with ridicule and resistance.
Just ten days before the bombing, Secretary of State in the Roosevelt Administration, Cordell Hull, secretly meets with Francis in Lafayette Park, Washington, DC. There he hands over documents attesting to the fact that Japan will bomb Pearl Harbor in one week. He begs Francis to put the news on the international wire service, but to exclude his name. Francis and the Hawaiian women meet with the Advertiser Chief Editor, begging him to publish the news in time for the Army and Navy to defend themselves at Pearl Harbor. He refuses, claiming it's not verifiable. Under intense pressure from the triad, he publishes the headline, Japanese May Strike Over Weekend! The paper sells out, but no one takes an action. Three-hundred Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor. Francis and the two women are arrested and charged with espionage that carries an automatic death sentence. Love and madness continues, resulting in a surprise ending ...
PEACE MUSINGS
GUN CONTROL
Murder Inc. 1920's – 1940's
Today we call it "Regime Change." It sounds as innocuous as changing your laundry or changing the oil in your car, but in reality it means eliminating a competitive power in the world of real politik, The rules include "anything goes," established during the Kennedy administration and "hardball," a no holds barred euphemism for assassination. It is the way governments have done and continue to do business when the stakes are high enough to break the bank.
During the 1920s in America the stakes were especially high. Banks, corporations and big business were raking in huge profits at never before seen rates. Gargantuan fortunes were being made overnight by stock market investors. The "sky's the limit" rang true throughout the roaring twenties. So did the roar of Tommy Guns and a variety of assault weapons ring true in the hands of newly formed Brooklyn gangs and mobs. The most sophisticated of these was known as The Bugs and Meyer Mob, founded by New York Jewish American mobsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel in the early 1920s. They began the process of hiring "hit men" to eliminate the competition. From the mobster mindset assassination of your competitor in a hyperactive, winner take all economy was the most efficient way to do business. There just wasn't time to negotiate, compromise or compete lawfully. The times demanded a get-rich-quick philosophy and those who played the game were well aware that the alternative to hitting the big time could in an instant, be their own gruesome murder.
The murders could be particularly gruesome, anywhere from a hail of machine gun bullets to shotguns aimed at the face, automatic pistol, strangulation and ice pick to the heart. Murders among and between mob members numbered in the thousands. Some of the gang leaders became popular cult figures such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and Bugsy Siegel.
By 1931 the Italian Mafia muscled their way into positions of leadership with Lucky Luciano creating the Commission, whose main purpose was to make sure that Italian Mafioso families didn't kill themselves off. Not to be outdone, Lansky and Siegel disbanded the Bugs and Meyer gang and formed Murder, Incorporated.
So highly organized was Murder, Inc., that the killers were paid a regular salary as retainer as well as an average fee of $1,000 to $5,000 per killing. Their families also received monetary benefits. If the killers were caught, the mob would hire the best lawyers for their defense. They even had rankings, protocols and foot soldiers following a military role model. Murder, Inc. ranged far and wide, covering every state in the union with the most powerful centers in New York, Chicago and Hollywood. Their ties to Wall Street and the U.S. Government fluctuated wildly. It should be noted that as early as the Mexican Revolution big business and the U.S. government invested heavily in both the Huerta and Carranza regimes. American weapons were sold to both sides depending on who sided with American interests.
This trend continued throughout the Russian Revolution and the Nazi rise to power in Germany before and during world War Two. In 1936 the major crime boss in America. Lucky Luciano was arrested and sentenced to 30-50 years for prostitution racketeering. But Luciano was a valuable resource the government needed in their prosecution of World War Two. Crime king Meyer Lansky brokered a meeting with Luciano and the U.S. Navy. The Navy needed to forge a landing in Sicily before U.S. troops could invade the Italian peninsula. Luciano through his mob connections could ensure that the Navy would be able to enter the Sicilian docks unobstructed. Governor Dewey of New York, commuted Luciano's sentence and U.S. forces made a spectacular landing thereby paving the way for Italian capitulation and ultimately an allied victory over Germany.
Murder Inc. 2020
Flash forward. World War Two was a thing of the past. Murder Inc. was no more. Or was it? I found myself in the military. On the final day of basic training at Fort Dix, NJ my company was informed that, "Gentlemen, You have completed 8 weeks of Basic Training in the United States Army. You are now professional killers." From that day forward I began to realize that I belonged to a very unique organization. I was now a member of Murder Inc.
The business of government is business. Not morality, not crime, not justice, not our children — business.
Smedley Butler said it best, "I was a gangster for Wall Street." Who was Smedley Butler?
Smedley Darlington Butler was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.
"War is a racket. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
"There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights."
Smedley Butler's message was clear and I think its important for those of us who were professional killers for Wall Street to share with our children and other victims of the war here at home from Columbine to Sandy Hook, to Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland and Santa Fe, that the business of government is business. Not morality, not crime, not justice, not our children — business.
The mass killings of our children and others — although shocking to see and hear about on tv, have literally no economic impact on the body politics. The numbers of gun deaths would need to reach epidemic proportions, injurious to the national pocketbook before government would consider taking action to control the proliferation of guns — assault weapons and other weapons used in the war here at home.
It should be noted that the weapons manufacturers for the mass shootings are the same weapons manufacturers for the Military-Industrial-Complex. We know their corporate names, but the names of their CEO's, Presidents, Board Members are never held accountable for their actions. They conduct their business with impunity. They are the sacred cows in our society and the same goes for the contractors that develop, design and build nuclear weapons; Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and the sub contractors and sub-sub contractors and here we must include the universities, engineers and scientists; as William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at Center for International Policy in Washington, acknowledged, "Engineers and scientists are the only people capable of making nuclear weapons — it is their business."
What then is a realistic solution to the problem of mass murder by assault weapons here at home and potentially world wide?
- Publicly identify and hold accountable by names and faces the individuals responsible for the design and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.
- Learn from other nations. A complete ban on assault rifles in other countries means no assault weapons murders in those countries. Here Japan leads the way with the lowest gun homicide rate in the world at one in ten million. Add to that Japan's peace constitution where Article 9 states that "Japan will never again make war" and includes the three non-nuclear principles of no building, not storing and no use of nuclear weapons.
- Direct our energy to locating and nourishing the common humanity in us all. Find the key to national compassion and act on it for the survival of the American people at home and the family of humankind globally.
The late George Kennan, American diplomat and historian was quoted as saying, "I see no solution to the nuclear problem other than the complete elimination of these and all other weapons of mass destruction from national arsenals; and the sooner we move toward that solution, and the greater courage we show in doing so, the safer we will be."
HAIKU
Cat HaikuMy brain: walnut-sized. Yours: largest among primates. Yet, who leaves for work? Your mouth is moving, Up and down, emitting noise. I've lost interest.
I don't mind being Teased, any more than you mind A skin graft or two. |
 |
"Silence of the mind
Great thoughts cry to be heard,
The lazy tongue sleeps."
"A single star bright
Over my humble head twinkles
I stand not alone."
"You are not amused
Alas, I am a failure
Hara kiri."
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