Using his expansive voice, veering from the whining to the apoplectic, gesturing widely with his hands and arms, dropping expletives for emphasis, worked up in a froth, Daisey keeps us doubled-over with laughter. He describes “bored men with guns” at the gates of White Sands, his “dullard civilian look” when asked if he has weapons or alcohol (always a good combination), and the irradiated hamburger he ate at the Trinity Site sandwich shop. Most of his humor lampoons the contradictions, pitfalls, and ludicrous attempts at security in our government: Tom Ridge’s terror alert color scheme, the near-hiring of a soon-to-be-felon as head of Homeland Security (Bernard Kerik), the difficulty of reading (much less understanding) the Patriot Act, the quiet boredom of a state secrets training session for new employees at Los Alamos. He has a gift for linking history, exposing the blatant stupidity of our elected leaders, and becoming the voice of common sense in a world outside the “reality-based community.”
For example, he reminds us of Benjamin Franklin’s quote that “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” Then he rehashes the conservative criticism that this quote is not relevant in a post-9/11 society, that the threat of terrorists attacking us at home requires more vigilant protection and even the reduction of former freedoms. Against this critique, Daisey recalls our history: Franklin said this at a time when colonists overthrew their government, fought a war in their backyards, and struggled for the very freedoms they enshrined in our Constitution after they won the war.
Beyond Homeland Security, he narrates the intertwined lives of several atomic age revolutionaries: Sam Cohen (inventor of the neutron bomb and a sort-of hero of Daisey’s), Herman Kahn (the father of Cold War fear, mutually assured destruction, game theory, and weapons build-ups), and Ed Grothus (former lab technician, salvager of bomb materials, and peace activist). He also tells about his trip to the White Sands on the one day per year it is open to the public, the obelisk that marks the detonation site, his interactions at Trinity; two people, one mentioning Nagasaki dissentingly and one praying at the obelisk, are escorted off premises by soldiers (who are actually private security guards) who say simply, “That can’t happen here.” Daisey remarks that despite the passive vocabulary it is a harsh and inhuman prohibition.
Daisey makes several incisive points throughout the show: Security is a protocol, a serious of steps to be followed, regardless of whether we are in fact safer (airport security machines cannot detect bomb materials in our shoes, e.g.). Security is a fundamentalist mindset, where the idea becomes the reality (if we think there might be a bomb, we act as if it is really there). In our post-9/11 society, fear is the new normal. The worse they say things are, the more we want to hear about how bad it can get. If a worst case scenario is possible, then we must act like it is a certainty (this is Cheney’s 1% Doctrine, as outlined by Ron Suskind). Soldiers and their commanders, who train for war, like their jobs and will find an enemy to fight. Fear of a nuclear response is the leverage, not the weapons themselves (Kahn). If scientists make a bomb, they must drop it to see what their handiwork reaps. Government does not give up power once given it (listen to any libertarian on this point). When there is a tragedy, we often blame ourselves and then over-protect ourselves to prevent further tragedy. We all want to do the right thing, but it’s hard to discern what is right. The two undisputed best results from post-9/11 defensive thinking are reinforced cockpit doors and passenger awareness; one is common sense and the other is ordinary people taking action.
The government’s greatest fear is an informed citizenry, one that analyzes critically the messages we are fed, communicates openly about public policy, and learns the history that politicians would like to hide. What happens when we know the facts and think for ourselves? More than a mere corrective to our collective historical amnesia, Daisey offers us a funny, trenchant, and provocative performance that calls on us to make informed decisions. Will we give in to fear? How are we being manipulated? How do we navigate the false dichotomy between freedom and security? Did I lock the door tonight? Will I leave the bed to check? What does that answer say about me?
Posted by Dusty Hoesly

He begins, sitting behind Spalding Gray’s desk, by poking fun at Portland: the condos in the Pearl, the gentrification (the audience, many of whom live in gentrified neighborhoods , cheer his criticism of the very places they live). He talks about growing up in Maine, child geniuses, and games as tiny systems of desire while their completion is a death experience. He tells an uproarious story about living in Seattle and winning an acting gig in a Microsoft industrial video as the “Fat Geek”; one line sustains applause: Who is “so fucking retarded to move to the Pacific Northwest to break into acting?!”
He relates how Charles Darrow stole the idea of the Monopoly game from an old Quaker woman and became a millionaire, then how Parker Bros. cheated the lady again by only paying her $500 once they discovered she already held the patent for the game (then called “The Landlord’s Game”). The greatest irony is that the game is meant to show kids how corrupting and unfair unstructured capitalism is. Edison takes Tesla to the cleaners similarly.
He tells us how Microsoft monopolizes document platforms: watch the warnings that pop up when you try to save a Word file as .rtf instead of .doc. People are afraid to change what they are used to, and it’s surprising what people will get used to. A famous internal Microsoft lecture reveals that they have added no legitimate new features to MS Word since version 5.1, some fifteen years ago. Welcome to Vista. Welcome to corporate America.
The most revealing scene for me is the story he tells about his sister shopping at Wal-Mart. The Main Street where Daisey’s family grew up is barren, replaced by a Wal-Mart on the outskirts of town; Wal-Mart has replaced Main Street as the town square, where people gather and see each other and say hello. She exits the store as he pushes the cart, biting his tongue so he won’t criticize where she shops, and she looks up into the blue sky and says, “I just like coming here and getting everything I need in one place.” He delivers this line with such affection that it is hard to continue to censure a place that provides a real comfort to so many people. Let’s face it, he says, Main Street sucked before Wal-Mart came in and it still sucks. The Pearl was often empty and poorly-used industrial space before its reconstitution; Mississippi and Alberta Streets were crime-havens where few non-residents ventured before their gentrification. Do folks really want these districts to go back to the way they were?
Daisey leaves us with a new charge, with secret knowledge, with true stories to combat the lies and manipulations. We need to remember our history with eyes open, to see the corporate raiders and derelict neighborhoods of yesteryear, to hear the voices of the hardworking people and the savants that created the marvels of our technological society. We need to act up, get out, share, and expose the games. Early on, he asks, “What happens next?” after the game. By the end, it’s clear that the answer is up to us.
Posted by Dusty Hoesly