But the Star Spangled Banner was Priceless

It's basically the same show, year after year, with the same shtick humor and silly and satirical songs that skewer the easily lampoonable government villains on stage, while the audience teems with a perfect Bay Area cross culture of young and old, prosperous and homeless, white-haired, black-haired, purple-haired and no-haired. Petition signers circulate while Green Party banners flow. Viewers sit on blankets and eat baloney sandwiches and bbq and sushi and bhan mi. And -- the sky is always blue. How do they do that?

The 2006 production is called Godfellas. It purports to deal with the military-industrial-God complex, but is really about evil (Reverend C.B. De Love, played by Michael Gene Sullivan), versus good (Angela, played by Velina Brown), with a backup chorus of very evil (Sister Jesus Mary Joseph, played -- no, lurched -- by Victor Toman) versus sweet and innocent (Sara, played by Lisa Hori-Garcia).

Oh, maybe the songs aren't quite as funny as in past years, and maybe the actors don't have their parts down pat yet, and The Great Plotnik certainly missed Ed Holmes (past years' chillingly hysterical Dick Cheney) on stage because he is directing and not acting this year, but --- and here's the scary part --- maybe this shtick isn't so funny any more. Maybe we've already laughed enough at right wing Christians. Maybe lampooning government desires to take away our freedoms in the name of 9-11 has stopped feeling like a knee slapper. Maybe there are only a finite amount of yuks that can be extracted from Guantanamo or Iraq or Billy Graham and we've just gone and used 'em up.

The Great Plotnik does not want to be a Grinch here. He had a lot of fun yesterday...

...and so did the Great Ducknik, and so did The Great Mushnik and Smiling Bill and Nguyen Brown Sanchez Tyrone Rockemsockem, famed children's author, but in the end it was the Fourth of July and the rockets' red glare felt oh so slightly lost in the fog.

Later last night Plot and Duck sat in the New Studio watching 'Snow Falling on Cedars.' It's a story about intolerance, discrimination, racism. It wasn't a good choice. Where is Walt Disney when you need him?