I rarely write anymore. At all. I was a prodigious blogger and journal keeper. I did it daily to remind myself of the day past, issues of import and as a way of connecting with the larger world. Covid came and with that my time was my own, truly my own and I wrote with the intent of publishing, then the bubble burst. I have described the Covid experience of that cocoon being akin to the Seattle World’s Fair and their Bubbleator form of transport is what it has been like to transition back into the post Covid world. Irony that the time frame was 10 months, the same time it takes to gestate and give birth. But to some that Pregnancy seemed much too long and for others it was definitely a premature one. Regardless of how one views Covid, we are not recovering from any of it in any sane way.
There is Politics and these next five months will make the Covid Quarantine period (irony as that lasted barely 5 months) seem quaint. How do I know the exact time periods? Well I documented the time we were finally told to quarantine which was March 13, 2020 and when I finally started to attend events in September of that year and when vaccines became available in 2021 for widespread use, but were already available for some by December 2020. And once I finished my sequence in March 2021 I was ready for take off and landing. I began to travel and did not contract Covid myself until 2022 in irony of all places Washington DC. I even know where I contracted it, the African American Museum, crowded and unmasked and over three hours there. With that 72 hours later and I knew. I did all the right things then and have since only continued flu shots and have moved on with the endless discussion on the subject as much as possible. I recall working in the schools and the idiocy surrounding the disease from inception to today and there is nothing gained from recalling any of it. I still have some masks as I realize that they can be handy if you are sick, otherwise it is a waste of time. Seeing playgoers on Thursday night sitting behind me at Stereophonic ( which will win Tony award for Best Play) made me feel sad for them. As I said then, and as I say today, STAY HOME. And that is not just Covid it is about being so infirmed that you cannot move with enough ease it may be time to find a new way of finding pleasure in the arts. The walkers, the canes, the mobility devices in which to navigate and make it all challenging for everyone. And no folks I am not being Ageist, I am 65 and know that one day I have to pack it in, so live in the now. I do think that many Museums are now addressing that with numerous online options and other ways to partake in the viewing of art. There was an attempt at livestreaming and that has passed but many still are filming productions and frankly those need to be sold as one would tickets and still generate support, especially for productions that struggle to gain an audience. Lempicka might have been one to try out and enable a better recoup of costs. But we are not there yet when it comes to Broadway and it is a loss for all.
It was Broadway that was the first to open doors, with masks and then later vax cards. The Metropolitan Opera did the same and it is why I am forever grateful that they continued on despite it all. I never enjoyed anything more and yet now I find myself tired of them both. But that may be just because as I joke, I go to the opening of an envelope, so with that I am pulling back. This is not my support as that comes in other ways, but in attendance. I have to go to what brings joy. So as I see the Season ticket offers come in, I pick less and wait for the spontaneous joy it comes if I decide to go to a show within a time frame that is less than a year away.
As I have found myself contemplating another move and more change I have decided this time to plan longer and decide over time. With that I am divesting myself of stuff that is junk, selling clothes that do not fit or suit, getting the right furniture that will work and last, and even purging books. I have set up a little library in my buildings’ amenity lounge. The first one set up on a window sill was removed as it was “unsightly” but I transplanted that to an empty cupboard, put a sign up and add books as I go. I am seeing some additions to it so others may be discovering this and using that resource and with that I urge others to try ways to share reading and books as they are still essential at any time of the year. Books are treasures in which to find, so find some and share them.
But as for publishing it is again a field awash with its own issues. The major houses have tried to merge and consolidate. Some are dissolving their imprints and laying off individuals brought in to address inequity in publishing. And with the larger issues of DEI being questioned in the corporate world, this is no different. What that means for Writers of a unique voice should mean nothing or everything. What it also means is that many will not be heard at all and that is all our losses. With that in mind I do again look to Broadway as an example. The “lesson” plays and musicals have closed. The pre theater announcement of it being on “stolen land” has stopped and the hysteria of diverse casting for just the point of it with no point other than that has seemingly ended. Talent matters and sometimes that is all that matters. Stereophonic is about the band Fleetwood Mac (allegedly) and had to cast those who talent mattered and with that they found a cast who are all new faces and voices; however, when can you go to a Play about music there is one caveat, there also had to be music. It was amazing. To see that over the debacle Here Lies Love was refreshing. Take note, David Byrne. Irony his cast album is in fact famous singers singing the tunes from the “musical” Even his cast he disbanded. Money clearly matters when it comes to any production.
The other best play I saw this season was Appropriate. (is that an oxymoron?) That it had a first run off Broadway a few years ago and was like many closed without notice or making news. Even Sondheim had that and now after death his most infamous flop, Merrily We Roll Along, rolled in with great success and acclaim. So there you go fame lives on as does talent. Thankfully that it too was given a second life, the cast and direction were fresh and the voices on that stage brought the same words to life and to light about an ugly subject – Racism. And in death it too lives on. Funny that the Playwright is Gay, is Black and yet is given nowhere near the attention as the Authors of Strange Loop or Slave Play where both of those men are the same. The difference is that frankly nowhere near as talented as Brandon-Jacob Jenkins has demonstrated. Perhaps that lack of attention and lights will be rectified on Sunday as I so hope to hear more from that voice in the future.
With that I am going to see Cabaret a new production of an old theme and work as is Tommy, both I go with the idea they will be at least “different”, not original but different. As with that I also saw the adaptation of Enemy of the People with Jeremy Strong of Succession and Michael Imperoli of the Sopranos and it was well done and more importantly well acted on a subject and matter that is very contemporary. I truly loved it for that once again Strong shows what a risk taker he is and he deserves all the respect an actor deserves for that. Like or hate him he is something to see on stage. As for Michael Imperoli my mad crush remains intact.
I think we all want to be heard and it may explain the rising violence, the protests and the rising angst of many often showing in signs of mental health crisis. Suicides are rising and let’s not discuss addictions that often are ways of self-medicating. Coming out of that Bubble and Cocoon is a struggle when you have no mirror in which to model how to adapt, integrate and assimilate. I don’t see this changing for a long long time. And perhaps that is why I don’t write, I have nothing more to say. Well about this subject, but there are always others that matter more.
That quote sums up largely my Philosophy, add to it keep silent and just listen. What I learned in old age is what I wish I knew when I was young. And it from all people, Roger Stone, Shit stirring Insurrectionist. And the title of this piece is also funny as I am not a fan nor was of Joan Didion; she was before my time and then during my time I thought of her as a Rich Writer who had no connection to anything I certainly new or experienced. So I dug up a New Yorker review and found this and thought perhaps I should re-examine her work. It sits on my bookcase untouched and unread. But this struck me as something that made sense to me as a woman.
“Play It as It Lays” also centers on a woman failing to live up to social expectations, and it comes as close as any book has come to representing what repression does to the soul. In this slim novel, where sometimes a few words constitute a chapter, Didion gives shape to ghosts, the ghastly, and the ephemeral. Maria Wyeth, a sometime B actress, suffers a number of misfortunes, including the birth of a disabled child, but what makes her still the best known of Didion’s early heroines is how she queers the image of American womanhood even as she presumably lives it, in her nice house in Los Angeles, a city where “failure, illness, fear . . . were seen as infectious, contagious blights on glossy plants.” Maria feels an existential gnawing in her bones, a dread she can never quite shake, but instead of clinging tighter to the rules she has presumably been taught—polish the furniture, make an apple pie, prepare her husband’s Martini as he rolls up the driveway—she makes a list of the things she will never do: “ball at a party, do S-M unless she wanted to, . . . carry a Yorkshire in Beverly Hills.”“Play It as It Lays” was published not long after the Stonewall riots, in New York, at a time when there were few stories about gay male life out there, representing. The book, which features a significant gay male character, could be read both as a metaphor for queerness—the girl who doesn’t fit in—and as an early, un-camp depiction of the fag hag, a woman who questions convention by avoiding it and finds safety in the company of gay men. I admired “Play It as It Lays”—there isn’t a closeted gay adolescent on the planet who wouldn’t identify with its nihilism played out in the glare of glamorous privilege—but it didn’t thrill me like “A Book of Common Prayer,” which has a full-bodied pathos and yearning that Didion’s other early fiction lacks or suppresses.
Just that last sentence says is all about how one interprets and analyzes what they read or see or hear. All criticisms are personal and regarding a connection the material, whatever that may be. For me the Arts are the connection to my soul and I have often referred to the Theater as my Church. As of late that has been extended to refer to the halls and clubs that have music, dance and song in ways that enable me to find a moment to connect to myself and we all need those moments that are to many of form of spirituality. And with that I am free to also dislike, share disdain or offer another perspective that is just that. It is not a condemnation on those who don’t share that belief or perception, it is just another one in which to ignore or to value. I still go back to the dinner where I expressed no criticism of Dave Chappelle and his view on Trans people. I don’t agree and frankly don’t care as I have no goat in that rodeo and he is entitled to his views. I am seeing him at the end of the month and again I can always leave if his views are so contradictory and affect me personally, but then again why would I go knowing that is a possibility? You should always know what you are walking into when you walk in. Do homework or at least make sure you have a sense of it before going in. And that is largely my entire critique of Here Lies Love. I thought I knew but upon entering it was not as I expected, nor wanted to be a part of, so I left. And the Woman who was in the Lobby while I ranted about the shallowness on my way out with a pit stop to the Bathroom was still there when I finally left, so I suspected she felt the same but could not make it out the door for whatever reason. She is like many women I meet, Bitches who talk smack, throw bombs and pretend to care when they really don’t. Image is more important. Imelda strikes me as that type.
I was very critical of the Disco “musical” Here Lies Love as it is neither a Musical nor is it good. It is experimental theater and has played to great success in small houses across the world and country. It came to Broadway with new Filipino cred, adding many to the Production list and the cast composed of entirely Filipino’s. It still was written largely by two White Men and despite a few alterations it is in fact the original that was debuted at the Public 10 years ago. The Public is known for taking risks and going big on the unusual and the experimental but these are new times and across the country, Theaters are shutting down that portion of their productions or reducing the number of them or simply shutting down entirely. Museums that house the grand and the beautiful markers of history are also in deep waters that means raising admission prices and much like the art on the wall finding itself being auctioned off to the highest bidder to sit in a warehouse or in some Oligarchs mansion only to see the light of day when more money is offered to pay for it. A fascinating article in The New Yorker about Larry Gagosian, Dealer, Gallery Owner and overall thug in the art world discusses the swinging dicks and busy checkbooks behind the largely unregulated world of art sales that contribute to the inflated value if not absurd promotion of one artist over another regardless of talent. And that is what the current state of Theater seems to be about of late, money not talent.
And that is what defines “criticism” of the Arts, someone writes a profile and to have access they must be cautious with their words in which to garner the interview or the “get” in journalism standards and in turn careful in how they review any work lest it seems that it may appear negative to the work, to the individual in the work or the creator of the work who may or may not be a member of a marginalized class or group. And I have suspected that is why many reviews focus on the music itself and the lively unusual production that defines the Disco Musical about Imelda Marcos, and in turn enable this dated fluff piece to be considered “dynamic.” Really? No comment on the lack of Musicians, the sudden addition of new Producers who have done nothing but add their name to the program and the three week performance of Lea Salonga to it as if to remind those of this work and its past? And folks it is perfectly acceptable to me to hate this piece of shit and still love me some David Byrne. When I read this review in The New Yorker I was relieved as finally someone had the idea that to review a Musical is to review all of its working parts and the subject matter itself. True that the song book is very danceable but it is available online and you can listen to it without the background noise and weird stage movements. Sometimes that is enough. I have not ever done so as again I find the subject matter so repugnant I cannot. Could I listen to Evita? Well maybe Patti LuPone but not Madonna folks, again that is another to each his own.
And that brings me to the Theater and the Audience and those who are attending any event be it musical or otherwise. The sudden bombardment of peoples shit on stage directed to the Performer is not new. Hell Tom Jones back in his day had a panty or two thrown at him.. so did Elvis, it is the nature of the beast. But Cell Phones, Cheese and other shit is not funny, nor really something I want to be a part of. When the audience is a part of the show, that is not what I paid for. And when I read this in the Washington Post regarding the current state of Audiences in public forums, my thought was, “Yeah, I know. As a long time attendee of live shows this is not shocking, and I did find the original Playbill article and while most of the subject behavior was during the time of Covid, little has changed when it comes to overall decorum and behavior of an Audience, especially when liquor is involved. Think Planes and this is just on land versus in the air.
I have largely moved away from theater as it is not a fun safe space anymore. The need to be “woke” dominates and in turn the lack of original work or if original neither good nor well done is an issue of itself due again to not mentoring, tutoring or advising those of the marginalized classes how to create a valid work; the need to have a Celebrity ill qualified to be on the Stage another, and I suspect more now with the SAG strike still ongoing. It is the way to bring asses into seats that are largely empty in many productions thanks again to negative reviews, not enough “Influencers” engaged or whatever is done to sell Broadway tickets post Covid. So you have often good work ignored, as in Kimberly Akimbo and other works closing due to lack of engagement with audiences, New York New York is an example there. Tougher works like Parade which deal with a non fictional case of Anti Semitism done brilliantly also close sooner than one would believe. Yet taking a well done but antiquated piece like Some Like it Hot and doing some casting magic is considered “great”. I guess no one saw the original which should be left alone, the same with Carousel. Modernizing the book does not make it modern. But the same falls to Ballet with a critic loathing Like Water for Chocolate and yet spending many words on old stand by’s like Giselle or Romeo and Juliet, which the Times did when they gave an overall critique on ABT’s productions this year. You cannot win here folks at all when it comes to this subject. Old is not new nor is new better but old is better when it is done new? HUH?
And that brings us back to Books and publishing and the need to edit and revise the text, to remove the book from a Library or Book Store, to shut off the ability for the Reader to learn, debate and discuss History without “whitewashing” is the antithesis of education and of learning. That is why I had a hard time with Here Lies Love it simply was a concept that needed to remain in context and now the new world is a different place. You cannot add names to a program, to put some news flashes behind a screen to make a person learn about a time in history that was anything but love. But hey I still love David Byrne. And Picasso. And anyone else flawed but still gave us beautiful work even it sits on an Oligarchs wall, or in a warehouse. Maybe someday we will see it. That too is Civility. Something we have lost.
Yesterday I went to David Byrne’s Musical about Imelda Marcos, Here Lies Love. This is simply, Evita 2.0 with a disco beat.
This is not a new piece nor does it seem even adapted or changed from its original concept with its move to Broadway when it was first imagined over 10 years ago. It has been presented as a song cycle at Carnegie Hall in 2007; productions in 2012 at Mass MoCA; in 2013 at the Public Theater and a second engagement a year later, and in 2017 at the Seattle Repertory Theater. At one point did anyone really examine the material and take a hard look at the production or were they in awe of David Byrne? I am guessing the latter.
It is wildly off putting. I found one critical review of the London production in The Guardian but most of the reviews are stellar and without debate. It amazes me that now in 2023 once again we are seeing the same version but Byrne added Filipino comic Joy Koy as a Producer and the musical artist HER in which to give it some apparent credibility. And they continue to add more “authentic” voices who do what exactly? Really this is what one does and thinks this is okay? Or is this truly whitewashing in every sense of the word? (Just 2 hours ago on 7/11 they added one more. Dear God the desperation is obvious)
I went with the idea it would be interesting and did not read any reviews of prior productions as this is now Broadway and usually alterations are made to accommodate the format. That did not happen as this controversy around the showing lacking live Musicians demonstrates. Where they were and what they played or if at all is not evident despite me looking for them or even hearing them. This production is pure Karoke and I would have rather gone to the Britney Spears Musical as at least she is by far more likeable than Imelda Marcos. That said, I also was curious as if this was going to follow the Evita format where as she evolves into a despot as ego manical and dangerous as her husband but still trying to resonate some compassion or sympathy. Or was it going to be full camp? Well neither, Imelda is portrayed “sympathetically” but hardly accurately. We know that Imelda had zero to few second thoughts, she did not evolve or change even when kicked out of the Country. There was no Epiphany or realization that the people revolt was that and it was all due to a love gone bad. Just like many Opera’s and Musicals often do, the Heroine comes to her senses and then begs forgiveness and often dies either from a disease or by her own hand. Nope, not here. Well I did not stay for the final 30 minutes of this 90 minute hot mess of disco-mania, so maybe I missed that. With that I am writing a musical about Kim Jong Un and how he is misunderstood and is actually Non-Binary and wanted only acceptance in a world of hetero-normatives. Who does not want their Daddy Dictator’s love? All of it to a K-Pop beat! I see hit all over this.
I had not thought of the Marcos family until last year with the election of their Son which has been an issue of true debate and what that means for the Philippines after years of abuse, martial law then and even in the present time, post-Marcos. All which happened despite a revolt and decades later when the U.S. Government air lifted the family out of the country and to Hawaii where they waited out their end of days in comfort and a nice Tiki drink I assume in hand. But like all bad penny’s the Marcos did return, and again this “musical” with the slight addendum (adding the original Imelda, Lea Salonga) is not a source of information or even accurate history. What it is is a bizarre way of establishing a legacy based on Disco? Apparently at the end of the Karoke show (I left early thankfully), they do announce the return of the Son as the current President. A sort of passing mention. Yikes what an insult. And it appears that nothing will improve for that country or establishing any Democracy there, so this glossy bit of bullshit does what exactly? Makes people of East Asian a voice on Broadway? Well this has been the case in the past and many times but not a fully realized production of Asian voices. Here Lies Love is not either, no matter whose name is added to the credits. It is not again a piece produced or written by anyone who was there, was affected by it or have a goat in the race. It is utter bullshit.
But this ain’t no disco and we are not fooling around. The concept is supposedly an immersion in the action as an Audience we are dancers/players in the scene that transpires above us on moving catwalks that retract and the Actors do their varying karaoke songs in varying degrees and levels of talent as we rotate around them being literally wrangled by pink jump suited bouncers who shove/propel and scold us into our locations. There is the idea it is to give you the idea of being a member of the party, which kind and where is unclear; It is a cluster fuck of massive proportions. There are seats in rings above this, much as any theater in the round has done and I have no idea what that is like as it must be looking down upon madness as a few of the unsuspecting audience are forced to interact the one time with a supposed newsman. The insistence we dance is done from a DJ who is above the scene below. You are shoved and moved and pushed constantly. You cannot always see and in turn they pass out earphones out front and I took a pair and could see why, it is loud to the point it is like a bad disco. As a result I often could not hear the commands to move and at one point was standing in a small spot alone so I could see/hear and was told to move, so I took one step to the left and then another to the right, and asked which I could stand in. I was told either just not there. Okay then. So I said, “How do I get out of here?” That shocked them as I am sure no one had the audacity to dare leave this incredible presentation I am sure. Well there is always a first. As I was escorted out the plastic strips to divide the exit doors promptly hit me in the face and my Glasses scraped where I had just had a small skin caner lesion removed. The pain was unbelievable and I was blinded for a moment. She then took me to the coat check which was the wrong one they are color coded as we on the floor were told to check all bags and phones and yet I saw plenty of folks with both on their person. So much for consistency. So they found the right one and then he could not find my bag and coat. So much for consistency. Glad I left early as it had a wallet, cell phone and my Subway/PATH pass. I am sure Imelda would have loved it, being one was a Prada and the other Gucci. I cannot imagine what it would be like post play and the exodus of chaos in that case.
And that is what Here Lies Love is, misguided history. And despite this, Imelda is a fascinating woman of her own, another Evita, and who, like her Husband, a Woman with dreams and ambition which goes horribly wrong. The Marcos, like the Peron’s, achieved a place in a world that doesn’t really accept them as they are/or were and yet despite what they could of done for their people they chose not, instead millions were diverted, Governments overthrown and misery resulted. You cannot get more Operatic and right there is that story there, a story Byrne fails to fully capture. It was the one song that I did finally listen to and could hear, the Don’t Cry for Me moment, when Imelda sings about how Marcos loved her when they met, he loved her as she was but as the the decades came and went he tried to remake her in images of other women; as she sang photos of Grace Kelly and Jackie Kennedy and other famous American women were flashing in the background. It says a great deal about White and Privilege right there. And that was the true 11 o’clock number lost in the miasma of Disco Inferno.
The reviews to the Karoke play I am sure will be like those before – fantastic, but in reality this is a piece of shit disguised as a Musical. The story of the Marcos Family are truly Operatic and like many a Musical, Sweeney Todd comes to mind are perfect for the stage at the Met Opera and many an Opera has found itself a Musical, Rent has found a similar path. I truly feel Champion, Terrance Blanchard’s Opera is better suited for that audience vs the Met but again this is art, it is living. But Here Lies Love is not living art it is a farce. No live Musicians, the corralling, the shoving, and the sheer lack of truth to the story is appalling. But this stage is one that I will never set foot in again. And it makes me question David Byrne and his own decision making process to believe this is art or storytelling of any kind.
I leave you with this detailed analysis of the work by someone more qualified to critique that story and now I am a going to dance, it’s Pride and Gay or Straight and everything in between (that is from the great Kinky Boots) should always be proud.
Here Lies White Ignorance: The Whitewashed Mythology of Imelda Marcos in the Music of David Byrne’s “Here Lies Love”
How can white artists and consumers more critically engage with works of art that represent, profit from, and thereby exploit the historical and generational traumas of people and cultures of color?
David Byrne, the white creator of the concept album and musical in question called Here Lies Love, has likely never stopped to consider such a question before. And neither has the affluent English singer Florence Welch, along with the majority-white roster of vocalists who participated in the recording of the concept album at hand.
On Byrne’s website, visitors are greeted with a full-page slideshow that reads, in order, “Here Lies Love is a disco musical that tells the story of Imelda Marcos and the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.” “Previous runs were staged at the Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia, Carnegie Hall, Terminal 5, The Public Theater in NYC and The National Theatre in London.” “The first album was recorded with guest vocalists for every song.” “Then DB released the HLL Cast Album featuring the cast from the first run at The Public Theater.”
Moreover, countless human rights abuses and violations were enacted during the Martial Law era to silence mass dissent and keep the Marcos presidency intact. In a Rappler article entitled “Stories of death during the Marcos regime,” author Amado L. Picardal shares firsthand accounts of the “arrest, torture, and imprisonment” that he and his family members experienced during the Martial Law era. Unfortunately, these accounts of severe human rights violations are only a small fraction of the overarching number of atrocities that took place during the Martial Law era — none of which were duly acknowledged throughout the entire project of Here Lies Love.
Despite the unfathomable consequences of the historical and generational pain and trauma that are inherently (and undeniably) linked to this specific period of Philippine history, Here Lies Love treats the Martial Law period and the criminal life of Imelda Marcos as if both were playgrounds for musical spectacle, white aesthetics, and white creativity. The following selection of songs from Here Lies Love is sufficient to show that the Filipino people who were brutally oppressed during the Martial Law period were among the last on Byrne’s mind while he created this concept album that has unfortunately been streamed by millions of people around the world to date.
Imelda Marcos stands in her home amongst her possesions.Lauren Greenfield
In the album’s title track, Florence Welch serves as the narrator of a story that she has surely never experienced in her entire life — growing up poor as a young girl in the Philippines. In “Here Lies Love,” Welch sings from Imelda’s perspective, “When I was a young girl in Leyte, my dresses were all scraps and hand-me-downs.” Aside from the base-level absurdity of listening to a white woman singing from the perspective of a would-be dictator and human rights criminal, it feels painful to listen to the way that Welch (with her English accent) botches the pronunciation of the Philippine province Leyte. The remainder of the song builds upon these small yet overt displays of white ignorance, and further exposes the questionable nature of the fact that Byrne felt it was an appropriate decision to hire a white and affluent vocalist to sing about the psychology of aspiring towards wealth and class privilege — specifically from the perspective of a young Filipino girl.
Throughout the second verse, Byrne attempts to humanize Imelda by presenting her as “a simple country girl” who “had a dream” and lived “a stone’s throw from the palace.” Bryne’s lyrics perpetuate the classist “rags-to-riches” narrative that is often used to justify Imelda’s desire to attain wealth, luxury, and political power. He does the same in another song on the album entitled “Every Drop of Rain,” in which white women singers Candi Payne and St. Vincent perform a duet about childhood poverty from the perspective of young Imelda and her former caretaker Estrella Cumpas.
In a 2010 interview with TIME magazine, Byrne states that he created Here Lies Love because “he’d like listeners to “reluctantly empathize” with his version of Imelda.” Byrne claims, “Audiences already have a certain amount of knowledge — it might be just the shoes and the money in the Swiss bank accounts. So I have to let people know what drove her to this, and to see if they can see things from her point of view. Which is not to excuse her, but there are human drives and passions that are played out on a national scale sometimes.”
Here, Byrne reductively suggests that a torturous regime marred by death and corruption, specifically at the expense of poor and working-class Filipinos, was simply a result of “human drives and passions played out on a national scale.” Only wealthy white artists like Byrne would feel entitled to create such art that attempts to humanize and empathize with historically oppressive figures such as the Marcoses. Not once throughout the entire project of Here Lies Love did Byrne bother to uplift the voices of the Filipino people whose families were killed, or perhaps to center the stories of the Filipino activists who survived the brutal torture methods that were inflicted on those who were openly critical of the regime.
Byrne’s decision to approach the history of Martial Law from a detached and whitewashed perspective is nothing short of typical privileged white man behavior. Additionally, one might ask — what might have motivated a white singer like Welch to participate in this project about a corrupt and elite politician like Imelda, perhaps without any concrete awareness of the trauma and history that the Marcoses represent?
In the chorus, Welch repeatedly sings the phrase “Here lies love… here lies love… here lies love.” Byrne states that he chose these words for the album title because Imelda “is quoted as wanting [them] inscribed on her grave.” The title alone is an apt display of Byrne’s conscious decision to focus on the project of mythologizing Imelda as a fraught woman who desired “love” and “beauty” all her life, rather than choosing to present her as the corrupt human rights criminal she is. In the words of writer Luis Francia, “Someone who genuinely loves her country, as Imelda keeps declaring, would never have acted the way she did and does. What I suspect Imelda truly adores, beyond her grandiose sense of self, is the notion of love. Real people, unfortunately, get in the way…”
Imelda Marcos wears a terno in Paris.Agence France-Presse
In the lyrics of “Pretty Face,” Byrne continues to paint a deceptively innocent picture of Imelda’s facade as a hospitable and charitable First Lady whose primary motivation as a politician was to promote beauty, philanthropy, and the arts. The danger of such an undertaking is that listeners who are largely uninformed about the harsh reality of the Martial Law era — specifically in terms of the extreme trauma that it inflicted (and continues to inflict) upon the Filipino collective consciousness — may very well be misled by Byrne’s lyrics into believing that Ferdinand and Imelda were indeed progressive, charitable, and well-intentioned leaders throughout their two-decade regime.
At the beginning of the first verse, the French vocalist Camille sings, “Will you reach into your pockets? / And show us that you care / For the orphans and the farmers / Everyone give their share.” These opening lines allude to what journalist Raissa Robles describes as the “supposed charitable foundations [that the Marcoses created] in Liechtenstein and elsewhere, which they then used to open secret bank accounts in Switzerland.” In an article entitled “Imelda Marcos verdict shows scheme to earn $200M from Swiss foundations,” journalist Lian Buan quotes Associate Justice Maryann Corpus-Mañalac, who stated that “The purpose of setting up these entities [was] definitely not charitable, educational, religious or otherwise in service of public interests.” Buan writes that these pseudo-foundations were instead wholly directed towards “the private benefit of the Marcoses and their beneficiaries.”
The lyrics of “Pretty Face” contain zero mention of the fact that although the Marcoses have been long confirmed to have amassed billions of stolen wealth from these nonexistent foundations, even decades before the release of the aforementioned verdicts in 2018, they remain largely unscathed and free of the consequences of their crimes to this day. In a TIME magazine interview, Byrne claims that he “researched the Marcos era for a year” before he started writing and composing these songs. Whether or not Byrne’s lyrics are meant to be satirical, his lyrics perpetuate the revisionist view of Imelda as a passive First Lady who had absolutely nothing to do with the corruption and human rights violations that were enacted throughout her husband’s presidency.
Byrne’s undertaking is particularly dangerous for the album’s majority-white consumers, who are more than likely to be unaware of who Imelda is, aside from her one-dimensional and caricatural persona as “a charitable First Lady obsessed with beauty, fashion, luxury, and the arts.” By choosing to portray Imelda through a revisionist and whitewashed lens, Byrne effectively silences the truth that Imelda was directly responsible for the extreme corruption and human rights violations that ensued throughout her husband’s two-decade rule.
Marielle Lucenio: “An activist holds a poster urging the public not to forget the atrocities of martial law during a protest rally in Quezon City on September 21, 2020.”Jire Carreon
Why do white artists feel so entitled to present themselves as experts and authoritative voices on the violent and traumatic histories of cultures and communities of color? Moreover, why do they feel creatively called to make a spectacle out of the violence that has historically been inflicted upon marginalized bodies?
On his official Twitter page, Byrne tweeted, “‘Order 1081’ is the declaration of martial law signed by Ferdinand Marcos in 1972 — essentially the end of democracy in the Philippines until the Pope came to visit in 1981.” He then links a “full music video” to the song in which Natalie Merchant serves as lead vocalist.
While Merchant sings the lyrics “A bomb went off this morning — raining bodies on TV,” viewers are presented with a short video clip containing archival footage of Marcos speaking on national television and a wounded Filipino woman seeking medical help on the street. Merchant continues to sing eerily simplistic and journalistic lines such as “They are blaming the insurgents, they are blocking off the streets” alongside more archival footage of Filipinos protesting on the street. The entire music video reads like a detached and whitewashed documentary in which Filipino people and Filipino history are treated as objects of fascination for a largely white audience.
Hearing Merchant sing the words “Now the sunsets are incredible across Manila Bay / You can hear the bombers landing at the U.S. Air Force Base” is enough to make anyone’s blood curl — more specifically, anyone with any degree of awareness surrounding the generational trauma that both U.S. imperialism and the Martial Law era have inflicted onto the Philippines, in addition to the never-ending trauma induced by 500 years of Spanish colonial rule. Towards the middle of the song, Merchant even continues to sing lines that perpetuate a white tourist’s colonial and stereotypical view of the Philippines, such as “Now we live down by the water in a shack that’s made of wood” and “Got to clear away these shanties and these ugly nipa huts.”
There doesn’t seem to be a solid reason for the existence of this song, other than that white artists are fascinated by any form of history and spectacle that involves the large-scale suffering and trauma of marginalized people. As Luis Francia writes in his article about Here Lies Love entitled “When Disco Was the Soundtrack to Martial Law,“ “Beyond superficial nods to political events such as the declaration of martial law (“Order 1081”) and the imprisonment of Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino (“Seven Years”) — the Marcoses’ most celebrated political opponent, whose assassination in 1983 eventually led to the demise of the regime — there is no sense of the public and political context that shaped Imelda, a grievous omission that undercuts Here Lies Love‘s attempt to investigate what as well as who made Imelda what she is.”
Thumbnail for a video entitled “David Byrne Discos w/ Imelda Marcos in HERE LIES LOVE.”YouTube
Mirroring the same set of questions that Byrne asks of himself as he navigates his primary motivations for creating Here Lies Love, what is the driving force behind white artists who shamelessly use the traumatic history of marginalized people as fodder for their creative work? How might these white artists’ creative efforts serve as an attempt to, in Byrne’s own words, “make and then remake” the history of people and cultures of color from an oppressive and predominantly whitewashed gaze?
Through an unfortunate array of danceable melodies and clubby disco beats, Byrne reduces into spectacle a deeply traumatic history that has unarguably caused irreversible damage towards the lives and psyches of generations of Filipino people. In Here Lies Love, Byrne unapologetically centers his voice as a privileged white man, along with the voices of the majority-white vocalists whom he inappropriately hired to tell the story of one of the most violent periods of Philippine history. Moreover, by using his far-reaching platform to center the interiority and narratives of Imelda and her co-conspirators, Byrne silences the voices and stories of the poor and working-class Filipino families and student activists whose loved ones were brutally harmed and killed, and who themselves lived to survive the Marcoses’ greedy and bloodthirsty regime.
As an affluent and well-known musician who most likely earned thousands (if not millions) of dollars from the public consumption of this project alone, Byrne is simply another addition to the exhausting canon of white artists who have chosen to utilize the trauma and suffering of marginalized people as mere subject matter for their shockingly mediocre and carelessly over-funded creative work.
I will be honest to say that I find most etiquette presumptions as one shared by all. Well they are not. I can assure you that Cultural norms are not shared and even that there is certified ethic that all share when it comes to public places and spaces has clearly never gone to a shared public space or place.
I recall growing up and being told to walk on the right, to thank the Bus Driver and excuse oneself when a faux pas was made. That could be burping, that could bumping into someone or simply making an error that was for all intent NOT intentional. We used to be able to handle some of the most simplistic of indignities with accepting an apology and moving on but in today’s new normal that is not possible. There are fisticuffs, stabbings, shootings and other acts of violence that seem to dominate how a conflict is to be resolved. The week has passed with now about four shootings. Two in Louisville, one at a place of employment, another at a park picnic; another at a Sweet 16 Party this weekend and a killing of a young man who went to the wrong address to pick up his siblings. America, we have a problem we solve it by killing the problem. Literally.
When I go online to read the news I do comment, mostly because I am bored out of my mind and with that you open the floodgates from the Word Police to the terminally insane and bots. At times you have a genuine exchange of ideas but that is few and far in between. I truly believe that for all the “reasons” people don’t want to return to the office, the ones about unsafe cities, long commutes and the price of lunch/gas is all bullshit. The primary reason is that most people either hate their jobs or most of the people they work with, be that Manager or Cohorts. Somehow having the ability to turn off the screen and keep that distance when you do have to communicate makes it all worth doing the work that you what? Hate. And with that word of course comes the “No, I don’t HATE Bob.” No I see but do you “like” him? Dislike vs hate. Either/or Neither/Nor but most people do not like their jobs. But this is where we are, arguing over words. What is that pronoun again you like Bob or is that Bobbie? Seriously that is why most of the workers live in the suburbs, the cost of living in Cities is astronomical, then taking public transportation is scheduled and you miss it and you are screwed or at least delayed and add to that the cost of a sammie for 30 bucks as this one at Zabars makes the idea of brown bagging it ideal. But who does that? Again the complaints are all superfluous as it is about working with the other. The fake caring about another’s weekend and the rest. I have yet to read any story where two co-workers really missed each other that much that they decided to work at the office to maintain that relationship. Really? But why did they not simply get together on weekends or evenings? Yeah I know, Bullshit.
I go to a lot of theater and I have written about the audience rituals that are in fact annoying. One thing of late is I now get there later. I literally am across the street at a bar or coffee shop with 5 minutes to go. I don’t buy the swag anymore as frankly my ticket cost enough. I am now buying discounted tickets whenever I can and sit in the Balcony to avoid the walkers, etc. The Opera is still my favorite and I buy a seat that enables me to move over and or down at most performances. I roulette wheel those frequently. I wish that they would start earlier and end at a better time frankly as I do rely on public transport and that is part of the problem I believe for low attendance.
The behavior of the audience does vary on the subject and of course the theme. Fat Ham is brilliant and that story is a Black one and with that it is perhaps the most diverse audience I have seen. I went to Strange Loop and I do not care what anyone says it was junk. But many Black Audiences loved it and that is a great thing but I have no intention of seeing his new “White Girl in Danger.” I can see that it again flawed and jumbled and no criticism can be made for it is appeared to be Racist, so I won’t go and that solves that. The same goes with Some Like it Hot. That dated piece reviving it to make it more Trans friendly does it or anyone no favors, with that write a new piece of your own. The same with 1776 and the casting issues that made it “modern”. No the work was dated and little could save it and make it so. It is why Music Man worked and did well and why Jagged Little Pill that was altered during the pandemic to make the story more “non binary” friendly failed. It was overworked and it wasn’t good. It closed too soon and would not had they just let the story remain as it was – a Juke Box Musical.
We all want to do the right thing, to love and respect all voices but if it is not good then what is the point? I leave. I left in the intermission of 1776 but stayed through Macbeth to watch the train wreck continue. I left in intermission in the City Center remake of The Life as that too was ham fisted and shoving in too much to an already dated piece of work as well as Into the Woods as I loathed Neil Patrick Harris. But when it went to Broadway it was recast as I felt it fit. But I have that luxury to be able to leave and not feel it was wasted money as again you get what you pay for and what you wanted to see. It is a risk before a review but then again do we all agree with reviews? Had I read the review about BAM’s Hamlet I would not have gone and hence not been abused by its lead for laughing.. when appropriate. I wrote about that incident and with that I felt more anger at the Audience for the way they enabled it. The new Audience is one that comes with their baggage and their own perspective. I agree with the writer than the role of Audience Cop is actually more disruptive and annoying. When I was at Death of a Salesman I had the head turner who spent the entire time turning to every noise. He should have sat in the back on the side to be less distracted and in turn annoying as fuck. I am not sure a $200 buck ticket is a way to spend your time doing that but okay.
New Yorker’s are entitled bunch. They are obsessed with eating at the “it” places and going to all the “it” events. “IT” is exhausting. It is why I have stopped trying to speak to others, to have any random encounters or even be polite. It is exhausting.
Story of the Week: Is Theater Etiquette Dead?
TheaterMania examines the ever-evolving manners of the theater.
A scuffle at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, England, made international headlines this week when two audience members were escorted from the house for singing loudly and refusing to stop during a performance of The Bodyguard. This local incident prompted a global debate about “theater etiquette,” with diehard theatergoers deploring the deterioration of audience behavior, while other commenters (most notably, British morning show hosts Alison Hammond and Vanessa Feltz) wondered what the big deal is.
Story of the Week will take a deep dive into the controversy and attempt to answer the question: Is theater etiquette dead?
What is “theater etiquette”?
The definition changes depending on time and place. The 17th-century groundlings at Shakespeare’s Globe, who would have stood through the entire performance while consuming food and drink, had a very different idea of etiquette than a ticketholder to the Metropolitan Opera in 2023.
In 21st-century New York, most theaters have a fairly consistent set of expectations for the audience: Take your seat, turn your cell phone off, and refrain from talking or making other noises during the performance unless it’s laughter or applause…and even that has its limits. It is not uncommon at some New York theaters to hear a loud chorus of “shhhhh” as the houselights dim. This audible reproach is almost always louder than the lingering chatter it is meant to silence and is in many ways self-defeating — manners becoming the main event rather than a tool to facilitate a pleasant playgoing experience for everyone.
I have recently noticed program inserts at certain plays (often by Black writers) explicitly giving the audience permission to laugh as loud as they want and even respond back to the stage if so moved. This seems to be an effort to put nonwhite theatergoers at ease in spaces that may feel alien (according to the latest statistics from the Broadway League, conducted during the 2018-19 season, 74 percent of seats were occupied by white butts). But it also serves as a notice to more seasoned theatergoers to think twice before admonishing a fellow patron for a breach of etiquette. Essentially, the authors are amending the code of conduct to welcome newcomers.
In the last two seasons, the protocols around masking and other anti-Covid measures have opened another front in the etiquette wars, with house staff (and other theatergoers) calling out errant noses and inadequate cloth masks. Theaters held on to these policies long after they were abandoned almost everywhere else (even my doctor’s office doesn’t require masks anymore). While profit-driven Broadway was the first to do away with them, and other big off-Broadway theaters have slowly followed suit as predicted, some smaller venues persist: Just a few weeks ago, I was told I would need to don an N95 mask (as opposed to the surgical one I was wearing) in order to attend a performance of Lunch Bunch at 122CC. For irregular theatergoers, this increasingly feels like the strange ritual of an insular church, like covering up one’s hair in an archconservative Catholic congregation. It’s a bad look for an institution that claims to want to attract new audiences.
Then there are immersive shows like Sleep No More that very much expect audiences to explore and interact. Most cabarets encourage alcohol consumption with a two-drink minimum, and some live music venues expect a certain amount of noise (clinking silverware, the din of conversation) during the performance. It really depends on what the venue is presenting and what they hope audiences will get out of it.
All of this is to say, there is no universal set of rules for attending a live performance. “Theater etiquette” is elastic, subject to constant redefinition.
Are the women in the above video in violation of theater etiquette?
By almost any definition, yes. Even if their voices were lovely (they were not), no one paid to hear them sing and no one in the show had invited them to do so. When asked to stop, they refused. And when confronted by security staff, the one who resembles a Mancunian Angela Merkel became violent. It’s hard to think of any venue at which that would be appropriate, short of a professional wrestling ring.
It reminded me of another recent incident in which a visibly inebriated patron stopped a Broadway performance of Death of a Salesman to demand a refund, arguing with actor Wendell Pierce from the edge of the stage. The moment lasted an uncomfortably long time, perhaps in part due to a new set of manners embraced by the theater community: the unwillingness to involve the police in any dispute (although the NYPD were eventually called, and they did escort the woman from the theater).
Watching these two videos, you may be tempted to conclude that theaters are dealing with an epidemic of bad behavior fueled by liquid courage.
Should theaters ban alcohol sales to prevent this from happening?
While some commenters have suggested that theaters could stop selling alcohol altogether, this seems to me like a way to remove a source of revenue from a business while not actually solving the problem. Theaters cannot prevent patrons from tanking up at the bar down the street (although they can and should deny entry to the most conspicuously intoxicated, as bars and nightclubs do). And considering the price of drinks at most venues (a “Hogwarts Express” cocktail at Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will set you back $21, without tip) and the limited time one has to purchase them (immediately pre-show and during intermission), it would take quite an effort to get blitzed at a New York theater (it’s another story in the UK, where houses open earlier and patrons hang out in theater bars). I’m sure the bartenders at the Longacre don’t need me to tell them not to serve Jäger shots before a matinee of Leopoldstadt, so we in the chattering class ought to leave this matter to the discretion of professionals.
The truth is there are inconsiderate assholes in the world, and any public accommodation is bound to encounter a few if it stays open long enough. The delicate art of front of house management is limiting the impact of disruptive audience members without creating a stifling atmosphere for the well-behaved majority, who may be tempted to spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere if they feel overly policed. Theater is still a leisure (and in the case of Broadway, luxury) activity in a time when consumers have a surplus of options. It really shouldn’t be up to those whose tickets are generally comped to determine how this business competes in that environment.
Is it time to toss out “theater etiquette” altogether?
My colleague in London, Alex Wood, has persuasively argued that the term “etiquette” has a musty aroma about it. It’s a mothballed throwback to Emily Post that is increasingly incompatible with the kind of theater a new generation of artists is interested in creating. Even worse, it suggests a form of gatekeeping and social control. So it is probably time to retire the term “theater etiquette.”
That doesn’t mean anarchy in the seats: Call it what you will, but there will always be a set of rules and expectations for any space in which humans gather. These rules should facilitate the safe enjoyment of the largest number of people. And like any social contract, they should be subject to regular renegotiation to remove customs that are arbitrary and antiquated (for an excellent play on this subject, read Philip Dawkins’s Charm). Ideally, the rules around theatergoing would be specific to each production and clearly articulated to the audience from the moment they step into the building.
Theatermakers can do a lot to make their expectations known (the aforementioned program notes are an excellent example). Directors should consider the role of the audience with the same care one takes with a choice about set or costume design, and that work extends beyond the stage. Producers and directors should absolutely treat house and security staff as vital collaborators in the storytelling process, rather than just crowd control. They are the people who set the tone in the lobby and the line outside, and that makes them part of the performance.
Audiences can do their part by approaching the theater with an open mind and a sense of generosity when it comes to our fellow theatergoers, who may experience a play or musical differently than we do. For the vast majority of reasonable, curious, kind theatergoers, this is a small ask.
Of course, there will always be a belligerent few who insist on ruining the experience for others and won’t be reasoned with. In such rare instances, what can one do but throw the bums out?
Today the Wearing of the Green commences as it is Saint Patrick Day. The day all those Irish and claim to be for the day attend a parade then head to a bar for Irish Whiskey, Corned Beef and all things Irish. Then later while recovering can watch Banshees of Inisherin, as a way of understanding Irish culture. The irony being that few Irish actually speak the language and there is a move to restore this language to Ireland’s own. Erin go Bragh!
Parades are a function of holidays to mark the occasion of an event, a holiday or a historical marker. We have many here in the Tri State area thanks to the multiculturalism that dominates the region. There are some constants and with that I have not been nor watched a Parade in decades. One might watch Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade as it is one of the few broadcast nationally but other than that they are the functions of local communities. In Seattle that was Seafair and each neighborhood at one point had their own small scale versions during the two week event that culminated with Hydroplane races on a Sunday. The big finale was the Torchlight Parade the night before. That was a different time. And this symbolic functions have given way to budget reasons, the fear factor and of course the reality that many Cities do not want to pay for the cost of these festivities and sponsors have slowly walked away from that obligation as well for the same reason. And on Wednesday I went to the Musical, Parade. As many before, Musicals often cover dark subjects. Into the Woods is hardly a walk through the woods as it is Sondheim’s take on fairy tales that have less a happy ending, beginning or middle. Likely the best thing I had seen of late with Moulin Rouge a significant contender for that award. When you have a cast that is so symbiotic and talented it makes a musical enchanting and through song, like the Opera, it expresses the darker and broader emotions of the character as if we are hearing them through a window to their heart and soul. Not all are that deep but the idea is to use they lyrics in a way that connects us all. Moulin Rouge is all conventional pop songs, from a wide used catalog and yet they incorporate them in a way that is both amusing and enchanting. It does it better than most without the need for the audience to sing along as most Juke Box Musicals are.
With that Parade is a 20 year old musical and was like Into the Woods, redone at City Center that takes the dinosaurs of the past and revitalizes them with new sound, slight changes of cast and set and leaves most of the original script in tact. The only failure I saw was The Life and I walked out after the 11 o’clock number at the top of the second act. It was why that closed and did not see a second life on Broadway as the other two have. It was DOA. I blame Billy Porter for taking it too far and well too “woke.” This was a work about Streetwalkers/Hookers/Prostitutes/Sex Workers and their Pimps/Sex Traffickers… see what I mean? How many ways to describe one thing, maintain credibility and still not offend. It is exhausting. Either leave it as is and put the Trigger Warning in the program: THIS WAS A DIFFERENT TIME. That should cover it. Parade does not have that problem as it is more than relevant to today and the rise of Antisemitism and Social Justice. And yes it is not ham fisted nor heavy handed, it just left the story as it was and the slight changes were about staging and in turn how the songs were handled and performed.
Parade stars Ben Platt and the crowd was there to see him. That is what gets people to Broadway. Into the Woods had a diverse cast that had someone for everyone and with that it too made additional changes over the course of its life and it still worked. Good works work with anyone willing to work with it. That is why you can see theater live for years on the Stage as it less about the Actors and more about the story. But having seen Ben Platt in the now closed Evan Hanson which had numerous changes some more successful than others, showcased his talent but it has truly evolved into something more resonant. His vocal skills are magnificent. His female counterpart also equally so and the remaining cast of Broadway professionals are well suited for this work that has them working more in tandem to each other than in connection to each other. This works as the idea is that the main focus is on Leo Frank, a real person in the turn of the Century who lives and works in Alabama. Already a fish out of water, he is a New Yorker, living in the South and a Jew in a place of heavy Christianity. He has a demeanor that to say the least is off putting and perhaps intimidating to those who don’t know people like him or his kind. This is an old story that again in the South resonates well. The South has a real problem with outsiders. The first question asked, “Who are your people and where are they from?” says it all. And in this story, Leo’s wife is Jewish but she is SOUTHERN. Those are her people and that is where she is from and she discusses the hold it has on her which Leo does not understand at all. Trust me folks they are not just “Jew Haters” or Racists they are Nativist that see the world as connected through only the prism of Southern views. They have a hierarchy and structure based on class and with that the racial and religious distinctions are in place but it is about history and connection to the region that matters. So the Pencil factory Leo works for is a Jewish owned business, it brings work to the community and with that the family is respected and accordingly acknowledged. I want to point out that the Lehman family of the infamous bank started in the same region. Money is the key to success and acceptance. The rest is just part of the landscape.
One review I read was of course a condemnation of the South, wrong and wrong again. The other in the Times, a much more nuanced and affective one which discusses what I refer to as the conundrum affect quite well. The idea that you can be welcomed and that same welcome mat that is a part of the Southern mindset aka “hospitality” can get yanked right back out when the collective decide you are no longer welcome is quite true. The Governor who instigated the investigation into the Frank case was quickly voted out of office, replaced by the District Attorney who prosecuted him. Wow sound familiar? Could be RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES! (where have I heard that before?) And despite the commutation of the sentence, Frank was kidnapped from the jail and lynched. Hmm, where I have read that before? Oh, To Kill a Mockingbird, written over 45 years later from a Woman raised in the South. The parallels are not lost here at all. The Till Case is another. And later in the 60s the Mississippi Burning case where two white Jewish men were killed with a Black man when working for CORE regarding Voter Registration. I have long said the South is complicated and their history makes it impossible to not conclude there is something wrong there. However, I am not sure it can all be blamed on the Civil War, but I can say that what ostensibly became economic sanctions (aka moving all industry and manufacturing to the Midwest and North), be they deliberate or not and leaving the South to Agricultural and lower scale wages and growth; the endless mockery and derision by the supposed elite, and the role of Religion has contributed to this. And despite the presence of numerous Colleges and Universities in the region, the reality is the lack of education and influence other than the top 3-5 families ( a sort of norm there) have led to much of this. Progeny and Nepotism is by far a larger problem than many realize. And yet the North is hardly exempt from any of it. Any of it.
And with that the Frank case is undergoing review. And with that the Atlanta Child Murders another. There is a podcast that discusses the details in this case that does question that investigation and ultimate conviction of Wayne Williams. There is something wrong that can be righted, but it doesn’t change the fact that we have a history of bigotry and prejudice that is rising again. It is less about Prosecution but more about Persecution. Our history of abuse and neglect be it about Race, Religion or Gender and Sexuality has always been a problem, and with that we can word police, protest and cancel all those who simply don’t get it. Our history will always be a part of our present and we must accept it, acknowledge and move away from it – but how? It is that which will always divide us.
Fulton DA review board to re-examine Wayne Williams, Leo Frank cases
Atlanta Child Murders By Christian Boone, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution May 7, 2019
They were the defendants in the most sensational murder trials in Fulton County history. Now, the cases against Wayne Williams and Leo Frank are set for a thorough review by the same office that secured their convictions.
They will be re-examined by Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard’s new Conviction Integrity Unit, an eight-member panel consisting of three Fulton prosecutors, one defense attorney, lawyers from the Georgia Innocence Project and the NAACP, a representative from the county’s faith community, and an attorney or administrator from a local college or law school.
The unit, mirrored after similar review boards nationwide, will recommend to Howard which cases merit a fresh look. The district attorney will then decide whether they should be re-adjudicated.
Williams, 60, who is serving two life sentences for the murders of two young men, has been accused for nearly four decades of being the perpetrator of the Atlanta Child Murders. Though Williams was never charged in any of the children’s deaths, 10 of their murders were introduced into evidence at his 1982 trial. Prosecutors argued there was a similar pattern to the deaths that pointed to Williams’ involvement.
“We’re going to make a broader inspection of the entire period of time,” Howard said.
Atlanta police and the GBI are also assisting in the overall effort to answer lingering questions about the case, as Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced in March.
“We’re going to look at all of the homicides that involved children at the same age and methods as in the Wayne Williams case,” Howard said Tuesday. “We’re going to collect all the forensic evidence we can and see where it leads us.”
The Frank case helped inspire the creation of the new unit, he said.
Frank, a Jewish pencil factory superintendent, was sentenced to death in 1915 for raping and killing 13-year-old Mary Phagan. The verdict was based largely on the testimony of a janitor, Jim Conley, aided by anti-Semitic fervor. In 1982, a death bed confession by Alonzo Mann, a former office boy at the factory, confirmed what many thought all along. Mann said he witnessed Conley carrying Phagan’s body to the basement of the factory on the day of her death. He kept silent, he said, because Conley threatened to kill him.
Georgia’s governor at the time of the Frank trial, John Slaton, commuted Frank’s death sentence to life in prison. Soon after, a group of Cobb County civic leaders — Phagan was from there — forcibly abducted Frank from a state prison farm in Milledgeville, returned to Marietta and hanged him from an oak tree on the property of a former sheriff, William J. Frey.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes, who will serve as a consultant to the Conviction Integrity Unit, had lobbied the district attorney to re-examine Frank’s case.
At around the same time, Howard had learned of new evidence that cast doubt on the conviction, under his watch, of Frederick Gant for the 2002 murders of Jonathan Wilder and Zerious Jordan. Gant was indicted 11 years later after a neighbor, Major Smith, told police he witnessed Gant shoot the men. After Gant was sentenced to life in prison, his defense lawyer came forward with evidence that placed Smith in jail, under an alias, at the time of the murders. A new trial was ordered, without Smith’s testimony, and Gant was acquitted.
“That convergence of things … showed to me that clearly something needed to be done,” said Howard, adding that his efforts to fund the unit were denied three times by Fulton commissioners. “What we’re going to do is give up one of our regular prosecutorial positions and turn that over to this Conviction Integrity Unit.”
Asked if he’s concerned about the financial implications, through civil litigation, that could result from re-examining closed cases, Howard said, “My belief is if someone was wrongly convicted they should be compensated.”
Steven Lebow, rabbi of Temple Kol Emeth in Marietta, who for years has lobbied the state to pardon Frank, expressed gratitude that his conviction is finally being reviewed.
“If you want to make the future good, you have to make the past right,” Lebow said.
Barnes said he is convinced that will happen.
“There is no doubt in my mind, and we’ll prove it at the appropriate time, that Leo Frank was not guilty,” Barnes said. “We can’t right all wrongs. However, I think it’s a bad thing if we can never admit we’re wrong. This gives us a good view of history to make sure we’ve got it right.”
My Halloween weekend had both of each as I went to a Magic Show, my first in over 30 years, the last being Siegfried and Roy and that did not end well, for them. I am not enchanted with magic but I enjoy it when I see it on something like America’s Got Talent, but hat does not mean I would actually vest time and money to attend a show and then came Asi Winds Inner Circle.
My Influencer is the New York Times and with an interesting article about Asi I thought I would go and see the show on the weekend of Hallows Eve. So on Saturday afternoon I headed to the West Village and in a theater near Washington Square Park, full of costumed trick and treaters wandering the area known for its infamous Halloween Parade I felt festive and excited about the show. The “theater” is a converted gym and it is an intimate space in which to be fully engaged in what is a fast 75 minutes of something I called Magical versus magic. Asi is charming, funny and yes fascinating. I was selected for a trick and it was to say the least quite amazing as it told me I have zero poker face and he registered my emotion and with that my portion of the show concluded. But the Usher tracked me down post show and invited me to meet Asi as he requested that I come back for a photo. I was sure it was because again my emotion registered and with that I wanted to let him know that to cover the spectrum of both laughter and tears was an amazing gift and with that I wanted to thank him for such. I enjoyed it immensely and have nothing but kind words and rave reviews. That cannot be said about the play I saw at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Sunday. The review came out yesterday in the New York Times which to say is a day late and three dollars short (the cost of the paper) would be a misnomer. This followed a puff rave piece on the lead which after I read it I was curious and it doesn’t do him justice explaining how fucking weird he is. Eccentric does not cut it. The play itself was not well received and I can now joke that I too have finally been reviewed in the Times, so there is that. The comment section had few responses to the review but few if any had actually seen the production and witnessed the “confrontation” I was subjected to.
The actual review states this: Ostermeier’s direction is confrontational, from Eidinger’s interactions with the audience to the occasionally piercing, cinematic music (Nils Ostendorf). The lighting design, by Erich Schneider, takes us from horror to comedy, and occasionally targets the audience when Ostermeier starts to lean against the fourth wall.
And that is when in the moment that Hamlet and Horatio are exchanging dialog or what Ms. Phillips refers to the production breaks the fourth wall, where the Actor, who takes breaks to drop contemporary music references and pop culture jokes in English and to D.J is where I did laugh. It was amusing as it was out of place and pulse and the one time my years of German paid off as I laughed at the end of the line… which took the rest of the audience a moment to read the translations so they came after. It was then that “Hamlet” broke character and came into the audience after asking “Who was the laugh?” and this audience of supposed sophisticates did what a second grade classroom does when a child farts and turned and stared and pointed at me, second row seat one. And with that he bounded off the stage right to me. He then directed me to stand up, I complied and then demanded I take off my face mask and turn and face the audience, I did not comply. Then he thrust a microphone in my face and demanded I say something so I asked about what. He said “evil.” So with that I said, “The evil in me is the same as the evil in you.” Meaning that listen fucker you are fucking with the wrong bitch here… and with that his glaring face became amused and he responded, “That was a good answer.” And then he fist bumped me. It was bizarre and I kept my shit together for the remainder of the act until Intermission. I found the Assistant Manager, John, of BAM to file my complaint and he gave me his card so I emailed him a confirm about our exchange. I have never heard from him or anyone there and since that the review came out and I knew instantly she was at that performance and was a witness to the bizarre.
And with reading the review and the comments I was not alone in my assessment of this actor, he is a raging ASSHOLE. Ugh, Lars Eidinger, overactor supreme. We’ve seen him in Richard III at the Schaubühne in Berlin, in their touring production of Ibsen’s “Enemyy of the People” at BAM several years back, plus many times in various pieces over the yyears. He’s egocentric and together with Ostermeier makes each and every story all about himself and his “quirkiness”. Unbearable.
And that many did not adore and admire the “quirks” I suspect were greater than this but this is New York and the sense of entitlement and arrogance is a quirk of the New York theater goer which may explain why they elected to point fingers thinking they were assisting an actor in his craft. What would have transpired had I removed my mask, turned to the audience or not said something he found “valuable” makes one wonder. I with that I left and was relieved to find this review as the Play is not the thing, it was a hot mess of weird and fit the definitive of theater of the absurd. Funny when a Magic show was far more theatrical, daring and interesting all in 75 minutes versus the bloated 3 hours of Hamlet that says far more.
I also believe that most people are idiots and they only go to things that are well reviewed or are perceived as hip and when they find out that perhaps the hype was not what it should, rather than walk out, trash it, they double down on the praise as if to assume all naysayers are lesser intellects and beings that “do not get it.” Well I can assure you I get it, I really do. The Woke BAM audience was advised prior to the show that the land the theater sits on was stolen from Natives of the land and with that the show began. It was another layer of absurdity that perhaps was foreshadowing of what was to follow.
The Washington Post recently had an article about the endless “trigger warnings” that precede Broadway shows and that they too have become pointless and extreme as it assumes that after you just dropped a bomb for a ticket you did not have a clue what the production was about, so heads up idiot as you ain’t getting your money back. And with that the more the warnings I find the more the show sucks, so heads up. And that it means 1776 which I have now pushed back three times should be a real barn burner. Whoops, trigger warning!
**ETA** I spoke to a Audience rep at BAM yesterday who did apologize and was understanding of how I felt when I was targeted/selected/confronted but the Actor in Hamlet. She and I laughed as I said it was no Patti Lupone I can tell you but I was most appreciative. That said despite it all and her generous offers I am not sure I will take advantage of them. I was distressed by the lunatic German (proving my parents right that in 4th grade I wanted to learn German so I could speak the language of the “enemy” so touche there!) but it was that Audience that distressed me and their reaction and response to him being able to locate me. That was fucking nuts too. So going back would to say the least be absurd and a touch masochistic. It was like the idiot sitting next to me at Death of a Salesman, front and center and twitching, turning glaring and moving constantly to any noise or movement. He was a greater distraction than any he was trying to circumvent. And for the record, it is always White people who seem to be the most entitled, the most arrogant and the most annoying. Funny how that works out..that privilege thing or the fact that most White people for all their professing of diversity, they mean complying to their way of doing, behaving and acting. How so German!
Give my disregards to Broadway’s over-the-top theater ‘trigger warnings’
By Richard Zoglin The Washington Post October 19, 2022
Richard Zoglin is a New York-based writer and critic.
Broadway theatergoing is finally back to something close to normal. No more pandemic-era lines outside the theater to show proof of vaccination; no more mask requirements (though many in the cautious, mostly older Broadway crowd are still wearing them); no more last-minute cancellations because half the show’s cast has come down with covid-19.
Not content with their spaces being safer, theaters increasingly seem to want to be “safe spaces.”
Take the audience advisory for the new Broadway revival of the musical “1776.” Highlighted in red on the production’s website, it warns that the show, about the political wrangling that led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “contains stylized representations of racialized violence” as well as “sexually suggestive themes, occasional strong language, haze, a brief strobe effect, a non-firing replica firearm, and a gunshot sound effect.”
The warning struck me as a little alarmist, especially after seeing the show. The “racialized violence” is a reference to the show’s somewhat overheated, but historically accurate, depiction of the debate over slavery. The only strong language I heard was an occasional “damn it, Franklin”; and the sexual material was so mildly suggestive as to be barely noticeable. As for the replica firearm — well, the country was at war, wasn’t it?
Just how much coddling do theatergoers need these days? An audience advisory for the touring production of the recent revisionist Broadway revival of “Oklahoma!” gives a jarringly literal spin to the term “trigger warning.” It alerts viewers to the exact number of guns that appear onstage (114) and details the timing and plot circumstances of each of the four gunshots heard in the show. “The third shot is around 18 minutes into the second act … with a character surreptitiously picking up the gun, then firing it off in order to bring order to a chaotic scene on stage.”
Spoilers are allowed, I guess, for what is described as Broadway’s first “gun-neutral production”: For every gun prop that appears in this “Oklahoma!,” the producers promised to make a minimum $100 donation toward nonprofits working to take illegal firearms out of circulation or supporting youth programs in areas with high levels of gun violence.
So-called trigger warnings first gained notoriety several years ago, when some college instructors began alerting students to potentially disturbing content in reading material, even classic novels such as “The Great Gatsby” (abusive treatment of women) and “Mrs Dalloway” (discussion of suicide). And audience advisories have long been common in theater playbills, alerting patrons to surprise gunshots and other things that might affect sensitive viewers, such as strobe effects or smoking onstage.
But the new advisories go well beyond that. They seem less about protecting potentially distressed theatergoers than italicizing the show’s revisionist, diversity-minded, politically evolved messages. The most startling thing about the new production of “1776” is not any sexually suggestive material but the topsy-turvy sexual casting: All of the Founding Fathers are played by female, nonbinary and transgender actors. This rather blunt-force gimmick is meant, of course, to highlight the utter lack of diversity among the delegates to the Second Continental Congress, the band of White men who established the freedoms on which our nation is based.
More bothersome, these warnings often seem to reflect a patronizing, self-centered view of the past — a need to signal how far we’ve advanced from an era whose customs, morals and political views no longer mesh with our own.
Yes, a lot of people in the old Oklahoma Territory walked around toting guns — and sometimes even fired them. And yes, the White men who signed the Declaration of Independence were largely oblivious to the rights of women and people of color. But if we can’t change the past, can we at least try to understand it on its own terms?
At least the moral preening isn’t universal — there are no similarly prominent warnings about the Nazi spouting antisemitic slurs in Tom Stoppard’s Holocaust play, “Leopoldstadt,” which just opened on Broadway, or about the brutal rape scene in the Tony-winning musical “A Strange Loop.” Perhaps that’s because shocking the audience — provoking a reaction, forcing us to confront unpleasant things — is part of the point, not just of these plays but of much of Western drama going back to Shakespeare.
Yet not even the Bard has escaped the new skittishness. For its production of “Romeo and Juliet” last year, London’s Globe Theater felt it necessary to warn audiences about the play’s “upsetting” content, including “depictions of suicide, moments of violence and references to drug use.” That was followed by a list of organizations offering “advice and support” for anyone who might be disturbed by the play.
Theater producers genuinely concerned about the well-being of their audiences should consider the researchshowing that trigger warnings might actually increase anxiety among vulnerable theatergoers. I jump as high as anyone at the sound of a gunshot onstage, but I’m not sure an advance warning would help much. And when it comes to Romeo’s swordplay, or John Adams’s profanity — damn it, Franklin, I think I can handle it.
Last night I went to see the Broadway Revival of American Buffalo by David Mamet. If you are not familiar with Mamet the playwright, why the fuck you aren’t? He was, and yes he is alive but his best work behind him, an amazing playwright. He captured men like no other. I think my personal favorite will always be Glengarry Glen Ross. It was the modern version of what you think happened in the years after Willy Loman died in Death of a Salesman and his sons moved into selling real estate. The way Mamet captured the working man was something I felt Arthur Miller did and with that had a voice that defined theater in the 50s and 60s and Mamet of the 80s and 90s. Today, Mamet may now well be known for being a full on MAGA hat wearing, Q’Anon spouting right wing crazy. If you have not seen or heard any of this I suggest watching him on Bill Maher, it was like watching two old white men ranting about the good ole days.
That said I was excited for one reason, Sam Rockwell, who has to be the most interesting contemporary actor alive and with Laurence Fishburne, who has a fond place in my heart for being Cowboy Curtis on Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and which lent to my excitement to see him live on stage. The last member of the trio that composes the plays characters was to be played by Darren Criss of Killing of Versace fame and Glee, and with that brings a great deal of attention to the non theater goers which Broadway relies. And with that cohort, it includes a lot of Gay men who will go see anything when a famous member of their tribe is cast, regardless. A good example was Into the Woods which was recast when Little Shop of Horrors, Christian Borle remained in that off Broadway production instead; with that the cast changed and Neil Patrick Harris took the role. As a result it was packed and the Producers are bringing it to Broadway with another cast change so Harris is out. Watch the audience attendance drop off as a result. I am actually going again as the recast is another veteran whom I love. Sorry I love the Gays, but come on its all good but admit why you are there, it is not always love of the art. I sit next to almost always Gay men who are theater lovers and those that aren’t. They are two very distinctly different animals. But this is often my own reasoning to see something as well, star factor often trumps reviews and my love of a particular performer or writer can also validate why I go. Example: the horrific Macbeth with Daniel Craig. But I am always willing to experiment, try something new and be open. Skin of Our Teeth at Lincoln Center was an example of such, I left during second intermission. I took a lot of risks with opera this year and no regrets. But whatever gets asses in seats I am for it and there have been a lot of empty seats in every production I have attended, last night no exception. But what was appalling was the number of people who entered post break, a break not really needed as it was intended to be a tight 90 minutes so this ran over 15, and with that I did feel that the tension between the two leads grew and their performances even more so. Again Criss was there but anyone could have done that small part with better nuance and desperation; however, that is again a matter of one’s own opinion. And of late having one means you are at risk for being verbally abused by those whom do not agree. We are in insane times. And this is also why many Republicans are coming up with even more oppressive and restrictive measures as that is their kick back to the endless scold and torrent of names they are called, try Deplorables as one. That was the end of Hilary Clinton’s campaign right there. Names do hurt and are beneath one.
And as I move away from social media the only form of promoting my social media and interact, pimp or sell my wares I realize I have none. I am not interesting in writing a book to spend inordinate amount of money on self publishing nor on equipment to become a podcaster and speak in a room of one. I will just use the blog to comment, to review the media I see or read, to share and to vent and worry only about my own personal sanity and security. That is better than having this version of therapy where no one gets well and that is what online living has become. When you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. I will just howl at the moon.
That comes from the solo play written by Jane Wagner, starring Lilly Tomlin, over 30 plus years ago. It was brought back to Off-Broadway starring Cecily Strong of SNL this last winter which I saw at the Shed. Ms. Strong is an engaging performer and she did her best with material that can I say seems dated. In fact a lot of Broadway of late seems dated. I saw Caroline and Change originally over 15 years ago and loved it, saw it this fall, hated it and left during intermission. It seemed Racist, Anti-Semitic (irony given it was the great writer Tony Kushner who composed this musical) and well, dated. And then I saw The Life supposedly updated by again another talent, Billy Porter and while the subject itself was dated this was a cobbled together mish-mash of time traveling and confused politics. Mr. Porter could have used a hand at updating the book and in turn enabled a fresh voice and perspective to the piece. And lastly on Easter I saw Plaza Suite with Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband Matthew Broderick. Wow they have charm and chemistry, just not in this, what? Dated piece. Neil Simon clearly does not hold up in the passage of time and even Ms. Parker’s charming idiosyncrasy’s wear thin with each tale. What saved this was the Hudson Theater has for an extra fee entrance to an Ambassador Lounge, with its own bar, coat check and bathroom. That was my Easter bonnet right there!
Right now we are desperately trying to figure out how to give new voices to old formats and taking old ideas and like a house trying to remodel them to fit in present times. Sometimes that is possible and sometimes that is not and all the talent in the world, be that front of house or back of house cannot make lemonades out of lemons. Remember it is sugar that makes it sweet and if you have ever been to the South and been offered a Sweet Tea just know that the sugar count a diabetes level go hand in hand. There can be a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down and then again too much sugar means a whole new kind of medicine.
Right now they are burning books, well not literally but they are sure removing them from Libraries, from Apps, from School reading lists so it is only a matter of time before Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 411 comes closer to reality every day.
I read this in the Washington Post about a towns effort to not just remove books but to possibly just simply shut the Library itself. Some of the highlights include composing a review staff of individuals, many who did not even possess a library card. Turning down an expert curator in books who not only had the credentials and the experience at the University of Texas. The meetings are done in secret and in turn when open are loaded with inflammatory reactions including demands for prayer or as this gentleman demanded: “I’d like to speak in the name of Jesus!”
The histrionics about vaccines, masks, schools and the curriculum is now branching into the community libraries and of course soon book stores or other outlets that sell or loan books. I am sure Amazon reviews should be rather interesting on many of the books the article mentions as well as others that have been targets on the new oppression committee. But to say that this is singularly a Religious Evangelical movement is disingenuous. The Rolling Stone calls book banning the new Pussy Hat. With that, To Kill a Mockingbird has been cited by the political left has having issues regarding Atticus as being a “White Savior” and of course the use of the “N” word as simply repeating text or dialogue as written is the same as launching the word as a epithet or name to another. Really it is? It was this that led to the termination of Donald McNeil an acclaimed Science Journalist at the New York Times and with that today the end of the Basquet years was announced and for that I am relieved. The Times is my paper of record and of which the last few years under his helm has been a mixed bag of few successes and more failures. I could list the idiots who have come and gone, Ben Smith from Poltico was the man who for brief moment bylined the beloved City Column, once held by the late David Carr, and to say he had big shoes to fill is one way of putting it. The man is a horrid writer and now gone to back another “zine” or whatever that no one will read and file with their Substacks. The hiring of Barri Weiss another flawed error and the slow elimination of quality journalism that was vested in reporting from a sole perspective, taking quality business Journalists and placing them in columns over their expertise and in turn the hideous podcast issues that led to the Caliphate error is just one of the many problems I have had with the Times. Yes the Times produced an interesting project the 1619 one but it was a line that breached editorial with reporting and while Ms Jones is an excellent Journalist this was a historical perspective and one that has merits but it should not be confused with actual fact based reporting and historical fact. But there was no room in that inn for criticism and it seemed many of Mr. Basquet’s decisions were based in consensus with his employees. And with that when you try to heard cats you have a problem. And in turn I believe it lead to where we are today with regards to the non curriculum of what has been labeled “Critical Race Theory.” And as a history Teacher who used Zinn’s People’s History of the United States as a tool to balance conventional texts on history that is now under fire for not teaching children how to be happy or right about American Exceptionalism. That is like many Unicorns, Meritocracy another, that has a place in the mythical conceptions of American history. As for a greater book of myths, try the Bible and yet I don’t see that being on any banning lists.
When you are afraid and yes, Americans are very afraid, of others voices, perspectives and beliefs you have what we have today, an almost histrionic division of those who believe they are right and the other is wrong. It is almost every single subject now that seems to degenerate into politics regardless of the subject. And a good example was the article on Gaslighting. This is much more an emotional psychological concept present in interpersonal relationships. There can be those that cross into professional ones but to say that that a Political party succeeds at it and does so with such confidence is well crazy. Q’Anon is a crazy theory devised to manipulate and confuse anyone who wants to choose to believe gibberish. Those are conspiracy theories and false flags done for intent, often money, or power or just because the individual enjoys mind fucking strangers over the internet. Gaslighting is by far more intimate, personal and intentional. And yet the comments descending into madness correcting and berating anyone sharing their own personal experience with this deeply traumatizing experience. As one herself subject to it and at one point resorting to taping any and all encounters or exchanges with my ex to prove not only to him but to my Therapist what was transpiring was an effort done with great fear and of course hardship. No one should go to a dinner party with their phone in their pocket to tape the evening as a way of having supporting documentation of what was said or not said. What next a body cam? But I had to as to stop the abuse by my spouse coming home and saying “You said this and that..” Really cause here is a tape and you can listen or have it transcribed as exactly what was said. For the record my spouse never physically abused me but verbally he demeaned me at every opportunity. And with that revelation a moron responded, “In my state we cannot tape anyone without consent it is illegal.” Again this is someone who just needed to be the idiot in the room. Why not shut up as clearly you do not get it. We do what we need to survive you fucking moron and with that I get it, but I doubt he was going to press charges. But with that why I had to have proof to substantiate my claims is again another reason why I loathe talk therapy as the medical industrial complex has a long history with the subject.
And therein lies the double edged sword, the desire to be heard to find and share with those who have had similar experiences and the idiots who are clueless but need to say something, anything to be heard. I used to respond, now I just flag them as being offensive. But the hijacking and commandeering any subject to fit their own agenda. How many benign discussions have turned into rants with a political subtext? It is exhausting and utterly a waste of time and energy. I felt that way in Nashville as few were educated and informed and with or despite the pandemic this is now a major issue across the country. We have seen people immerse themselves in crazy conspiracy theories, usually peddled on social media, but now due to the proliferation of podcasts this has doubled down the crazy. I never cared one bit about Joe Rogan or Alex Jones but these men are quoted by anyone and everyone regardless of their alliances to them. Hey, here is a tip, don’t like anyone or anything you heard or read about someone, don’t repeat it as the longer you give it life the longer it remains out there. This so reminds me of Middle School, no Elementary kids who never stop tattling or repeating something someone told them about something or someone they did not see or hear or even know. The Housewives Franchise has a good track record on that one.
So my quest for someone to connect to even briefly has left me adrift. The loneliness of all of us during the pandemic has given us a reason to rail, to rage and to fall into a crack of despair. Even the most mundane of exchanges leave one lacking as there is too that inability to converse even casually over the weather, a good movie or a bit of gossip that is harmless. That is why I suspect and believe most of the ones who don’t want to return to the workplace are those raised on Social Media, whose most exchanges are text based and in turn confused or afraid of how to behave in social environments. The same group that profess diversity are the ones least likely to practice it.
Simple pleasures, a great ice cream, a walk, a movie are now laden with definitive debates over masking, where to go and when to do it and if it is safe. One more motherfucker on the goddam planet says that expression to me “Stay Safe” I will go Samuel L. Jackson on them. We are never safe and never were but with rising tide of violence, the growth of traffic fatalities, an offshoot of road rage and apparently alcoholism (a self victimized crime and not really my business but again I was reprimanded by one as this is a public health crisis, it is?) drugs which always was and is, and of course the endless Covid warnings and now the mask debates begin anew, no one is safe. That is like, Vegas where the risk is always there and you choose to roll or take your lot and walk away. And with that gambling is what life is. Now find a way to build it. Try learning, reading and then doing. Be open and be willing, and be afraid as conquering fear is a way to lead to growth. Or not as Americans are afraid and always have been.
I have written about how I feel currently about the state of American Theater as it plays out on Broadway. There are two camps of theater goers: The ones who love it and Tourists. They are often parallel and can be very similar in tone and like when it comes to seeing the current productions on Broadway. Some have been playing so long they are woven into the fabric of the street and are always packed with audiences that come from far away or even near to share that experience of joy when the house lights go down. That would apply to many long standing hits that have long passed the Tony Awards, the stellar famous casts that have tread the boards in that production and have been filmed or even closed, and returned as many often do. Think Phantom of the Opera is one such example but there are always more waiting stage left.
Today there was an article in the New York Times about the struggles on Broadway, and with that a picture of the empty seats at The Girl for North Country I immediately purchased a seat for the final performance on Sunday. I had cancelled my Opera tickets for this past Sunday due to concerns of weather and frankly I am still but I have every intent of making it to the show as it deserves respect. The musical is a transcendent piece with the song catalog of Bob Dylan in which to move the story along in ways that are remarkable. Not forced nor deliberately altered during the pandemic, it stood the test. Many productions felt that the need to change the story and/or casting to meet the new pressure to acknowledge people of color, both in front of the stage and behind the curtain leading to many shows being put on that had not had out of town try outs in which to build and craft the story and at times it showed as they have not lasted long. But even those with a built in audience and rotating talent that can quickly transition in are having difficulty finding their footing and in turn their audience. The juke box musical Ain’t too Proud to Beg is one and the other was Jagged Little Pill. They had gone out of their way to alter the story and attempt to make it more relevant, had a cast rotation set in place as one Actor had given birth and wanted to job share, but ultimately it did not find an audience. Is is a sing along rouser or a play with music. That is Girl from North Country, and Pill is despite the pedigree of a Hollywood writer, a Juke Box Musical. As for Plays I saw the Lehman Trilogy, twice and it was a limited run, and sold out as it had prior to the Pandemic with solid reviews and tickets that were in the triple digits. A cast change had little effect and it closed on time without any cancellations or alterations. I have several plays booked ahead and I wonder what the end result will be as we go forward.
I have commented that New Yorkers are a scoldy lot, entitled and arrogant with it and that gives it a reason many feel New Yorkers are rude. No, they are not but there is a “type” just like in the South that carried a behavior set that was both offputting and truly a stereotype. And I will leave it at that. Note the end of the article when a young woman, from Brooklyn, making her a New Yorker went to both Girl and Six and she loved the latter. Why? She whooped it up and sang and danced along. And don’t tell the Theater crowd that, they will be appalled. And with that this is why Broadway struggles, as the prices limit attendance and the expected etiquette no longer applies. Do not complain is another, try that assholes. Just being polite and allowing people to get up and go to the bathroom and arrive late is now the norm. I have not been to a production yet that has not done as such. So there you go, first rule already eliminated. So New York shut your mouth, focus on you and ignore the rest. If you find it that untenable, leave, ask for your money back and go home. You are not really there to support the theater or you would go to the shows that are not always on the must see. And you would admit that shows that often are are not all that and a bag of chips, Caroline and Change comes to mind.
If you have no set your Apple Watch to panic mode now might be the time. As of yesterday New York City and surrounding areas are on lockdown. This will end well I feel it. And for those who have no depth I am being facetious.
Two days ago a Broadway producer set tickets for five of his productions at $50 for the remainder of the month, to say I took advantage would be affirmative. At that point Ed Harris could come out and simply read To Kill a Mockingbird and I would think that it was amazing. Within 24 hours that is now on hold. All Broadway productions are closed until April 12. Irony as that was the same date I had selected to end my “quarantine” from my Yoga studio. The same studio that only several hours earlier sent ANOTHER email saying class packages were on sale and they would have no closing date and we could come and practice as she was still maintaining a cleaning schedule of deep cleaning every three days. Really? What about the asshole who shows up on day two with a virus and forgets, neglects or pretends that it is just a minor cold? Then what?
The asshole in New Rochelle seemed to think that and well the National Guard has the city on lockdown and that is what kids we call Martial Law when law enforcement does not let anyone in or out without clearance, handles all deliveries and maintains a law and order oversight over all activities. To think that is where Dick and Mary lived in the 60s. Well times have changed and for the record the current outbreak is all tied to high holy days at a specific Synagogue. Next up the Covid Virus is anti semite. It seems to target elderly and now Jews so clearly it has targets. I said that if this virus had begun in a say Oklahoma or Memphis it would all be nods and winks that is what Okies and Blacks get as they are well Okies and Blacks. But to hit a white suburban city with nice old white people whose families have money to put them in a fine lock down facility as a way of still pretending to care about their aged Granny while allowing them to live at ground zero for shit is hilarious, why not a trailer park?
Again Seattle for all its progressiveness needs a reality check as the Measles, Whooping Cough and other preventable diseases all blew up out of control the last few years so again tell me how that works again. Then we have rich folks and athletes owning up they tested positive and suddenly I am harkening back to another shame virus of decades ago and how it took the life of a nice white boy named Ryan before the former dead Voodoo President to declare it a crisis. We always seem to have at the helm old white dudes when this shit hits and it is clear that again that seems to be our only choice. And they are the same ones who want to stop any more of that choice shit when it comes to our bodies and our health.
Lets talk about the real issues health care, medical leave, lost wages, closed business and the larger financial impact of this. We cannot even escape now as the current Voodoo President has stopped that as well. WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?
But then again an asshole who knew he was sick, felt compelled enough to get the test still got on a plane to of all places Palm Beach (say Hi to Donald asshole) and while on said plane the results came back and he tested positive. WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?
What is wrong with that picture? Well rich white men get on planes, trains and subways and in turn don’t give a flying fuck about anyone else in their pursuit of money, holiday or whatever else they are doing so we must all pay for their vice and their stupidity.
Panic at the Disco when now in Jersey City we are on curfew and all clubs, bars and restaurants must close at 9 to stop the disease. I see said the adult in the room. I am not able to make decisions for myself and in turn care for myself by not going out if I was sick and thereby making others sick and for those who are well well you just sit in the corner there by baby until we decide the panic is over. WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?
Again if I had a head cold, a skin infection or some other illness that is not Covid virus not that I could know as a test is around 400 bucks and even if I had health care insurance it is not covered or I had not met the deductible anyway so fuck it do they have a DIY one like 24 and Me.
So dear owner of my Yoga studio WHAT THE FLYING FUCK do you think now? Maybe shut your doors and say you are closed for the month and in turn all the Teachers and clients who are not sick who respect themselves and pursue Saucha (Sanskrit for cleanliness) can just do Yoga at home and not pay nor get paid for the service. Let them hang out with the unemployed/laid off Waiters, Broadway theater Ushers, Staff and others who are not rich and/or famous, along with all the other professionals who work in Museums, Libraries (as yes in Seattle they are closing the Libraries) and any other facility that serves the public who will have a lot of spare time on their hands and hands that will also be missing wages so at least we won’t have a food shortage says the rich. Well they are saying work from home so let’s do that says the cashier at CVS where they are out of toilet paper, I kid not.
Yesterday I started a Change.org petition to ask all Comedians, Late Night talk show hosts to not joke about the Covid virus as this is now serious, little did I know it would actually get worse and I did so in the name of safe spaces like Yoga studios and Gyms where people go to find their zen and their health and they need to have a place to go that is somehow in a bubble that ignorance is accepted there as a way of coping. I have zero signatures so far. But it is not a laughing matter now that the bars have closed too as where else can I go. Oh wait my coffee shop where I had a meltdown over how this has finally cracked me in a way that Nashville could only have accomplished. I am starting to think that Tornado was nothing compared to this.
***for the record only two people I know in Jersey City knew of the Tornado in Nashville, one a Musician/Barista who played the now destroyed Basement East and his fellow worker an artist who had two gigs cancelled due to this. So namaste bitch as being ignorant is what? Ignorant. And you have the audacity to scold me. Maybe that is why no one is signing the petition as they need a laugh right now. And for the record my former studio in Nashville had a sign on the door saying that they asked for silence upon entering to respect the dynamic of meditation and thought upon entering so on that note I am taking a vow of silence for a year…. just there until my membership expires****
Lost wages, damage to the economy, a morality upheaval, marshal law, curfews, failed health care system exposed, famous people coming forward this after a Basketball mocked the reporters for inquiring about his health and then in turn admitting he was sick. Thanks fucker that helped a lot in fueling paranoia. What the handsome PM of Canada is also in quarantine? Ce’st La vie! Meanwhile our Voodoo Daddy is running amok doing nothing to calm this ship on these waters. Can you see Biden or Sanders doing it better? No, me either.
Three words about this: Check Yourself Bitch! This is the card I will be passing out and it will stop the mindless chatter.. theirs.
Lack of paid leave will leave millions of US workers vulnerable to coronavirus
Low-wage workers in service industries without proper medical benefits and sick leave will risk getting sick or spreading the virus
Michael Sainato Guardian Mon 9 Mar
Many low-wage workers, such as airport workers, are on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak, yet are left unprotected from contracting the virus.
For over 30 years, Joyce Barnes has worked as a home healthcare aide in Richmond, Virginia, without any paid sick days. She makes $8.25 an hour and often works through illnesses because she can’t afford to lose income from taking the time off.
“I can’t afford to miss pay so I have gone to work before several times sick as a dog, masked up so my patients wouldn’t catch what I have,” Barnes said. “Every day I pray and I ask God to give me strength that I won’t get sick so I can keep on making it and that’s the way we have to do it.”
Last July, Barnes contracted an illness from one of her patients that caused her a stay in a hospital for over a week. She relied on family members to help with bills to make up for the income she lost from missing work, and still has to make regular monthly payments toward the thousands of dollars of medical debt she accrued, despite having health insurance.
“I have a lot of medical debt I have to pay. They had to do a test on my stomach when I was sick. That one test cost me $3,000 and I’m still paying it because I can’t afford to pay everything back,” Barnes added.
As the coronavirus outbreak (Covid-19) has begun to spread through the US, millions of low-wage workers in service industries are left vulnerable due to lack of proper medical benefits and paid sick leave. There are growing concerns that these workers will be extra vulnerable to the disease themselves, or, due to lack of health insurance and poverty, help its spread by continuing to work while ill.
More than 32 million workers in the US have no paid sick days off, and low-wage workers are least likely to have paid sick time. These workers are also significantly less likely to have access to healthcare and medical benefits, making them potentially especially vulnerable to the coronavirus outbreak as it spreads.
According to the latest data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 69% of low-wage workers, those in the 10th lowest percentile of median wage earners in the US civilian workforce, do not receive paid sick leave benefits.
“Their earnings are low so they can’t afford to take unpaid leave and when they are sick they have to keep working and expose other people in the process,” said Harry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University.
“That’s the reason advocates for paid leave make the case – it’s not just for the worker, it’s for the public good. There’s a reason for the government to help provide it.”
Dr Erica Groshen, a senior extension faculty member at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, explained changes in technology have made it easier for more professional workers to work from home, making them less vulnerable to getting sick and able to cope with the potential quarantine conditions of a coronavirus epidemic. Already King county in Washington state – which includes Seattle – has recommended its residents work from work.
But low-wage workers are increasingly more vulnerable as they feel the pressure of the threat of having their work outsourced to contractors. They also often do work – fast food jobs, manual labor, care work – that cannot be done from home. That means the coronavirus could cost them their livelihoods, as well as their health.
“That’s what we’re seeing, a widening of inequality on that front,” said Groshen.
Many low-wage workers, such as airport workers, are on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak, yet are left unprotected from contracting the virus or receiving adequate medical treatment.
Leila Benitez, an airplane cabin cleaner at Miami international airport for eight years, has no health insurance or paid sick leave.
“When I finally do take a day off because I’m so sick, I have to pay hundreds of dollars in medical bills to get a doctor’s note,” said Benitez. She often travels to the Dominican Republic, where she is from, to receive medical care because treatment and prescriptions costs a fraction of prices in the US.
“When I’m cleaning the planes, there are bodily fluids, trash, dirty tissues. We don’t get enough time to wash our hands in between planes. The protective gloves are thin, and often don’t fit correctly.”
Several states and cities around the US have passed laws mandating employers provide workers with paid sick leave. A 2017 study published in the Journal of Public Economics found US cities that mandated sick leave for workers experienced up to 40% declines in seasonal flu rates. But many low-wage workers in these areas are still in positions where they have to work through an illness.
In Maryland, the state passed a paid sick leave law in 2018 under which employers must provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, but adjunct professors often only accrue a few hours every semester and have restrictions on when and how they can use it.
“This past month, I had to teach while sick and it prolonged my illness. I was worried my students were going to contract it. I felt like I couldn’t take off because I can’t afford to lose the money,” said Val Pappas-Brown, an adjunct professor in the Baltimore area for two years.
Joan Bevelaqua, an adjunct professor at several different colleges in Maryland for 20 years, explained she has never taken sick time off for fear of losing income. She currently has health insurance through medicare, but is now missing work due to a fractured femur.
She is currently trying to schedule extra courses to teach over the summer to try to make up for the income she is losing this semester, while pushing state legislators to pass the Time to Care Act, which would set up a sick leave insurance program for workers in Maryland.
“Being an adjunct, we all went into this profession hoping to become full-time professors and more and more you remain an adjunct,” she added. “We are much cheaper, they don’t pay benefits, and we don’t have adequate sick leave so we come to school sick.
Off the Rack Publishing 