Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Lions for Lambs: Reflecting on Sixty Years of Lying Our Way into Wars

We saw Lions for Lambs Saturday. I spent most of the time watching the film thinking less about the war in Iraq, and more about the last sixty years of treachery, deceit, and treason by Republicans like Bush.

• If the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was still around, there would be an investigation. In light of the Hollywood Blacklist and what was done to so many writers, directors and producers, Robert Redford must be given credit for telling this story.
• Tom Cruise was despicable as Republican Senator Jasper Irving from Illinois. I wonder how much of that was acting and how much if that was my general distaste for him in recent years.
• As we learned in reading David Maraniss's They Marched Into Sunlight, the story of the soldiers risking their lives is far more compelling than that of those opposing war.
• The weakest of the three story lines was Professor Malley and student Todd Hayes' discussion.
• The film was O.K. but it should have been about Janine Roth (Meryl Streep). That is the compelling story. That was the most relevant in terms of figuring out how we keep getting manipulated and maneuvered into buying the crap the George W. Bush recycled from Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.
• I keep thinking about the trash-talking-right-wing-bobble-heads from Limbaugh on the national level to Belling on the local level who keep feeding us lines like, "Well, the Democrats are as responsible for this war as Bush. They supported it from the beginning." As though the Bush lies that manipulated and deceived are not to be factored into evaluating responsibility for this impossible disaster.

"Whatever It Is, I'm Against It"

To celebrate the first day of UW classes and the beginning of football season here in Madison, Waxing America recommends watching the opening of the film that best captures key elements of academia: the Marx Brothers 1932 classic' "Horse Feathers."  (Click link to watch YouTube clip.) The plot revolves around the need for a college president to field a winning football team to keep his job, a concept not exactly unknown to academia 75 years ago or today.

Yes, I know many of you will argue for "Animal House," and let's all admit John Belushi showed genius in that film, but he can't touch Groucho, who sang, danced, and was the voice of comic anarchy in the face of authority. 

As the new Huxley College president, Groucho's Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff's introductory speech to the faculty and students, which features a wonderful song with the chorus, "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It."

Here's the first couple of verses:

I don't know what they have to say,
It makes no difference anyway --
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I'm against it.

Your proposition may be good
But let's have one thing understood --
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
And even when you've changed it or condensed it,
I'm against it.

I'm opposed to it --
On general principles I'm opposed to it!

Chorus: He's opposed to it!
In fact, in word, in deed,
He's opposed to it!

- Barry Orton

Christmas Movie Poll Results

While it led most of the holiday season, with a 132 votes cast, in the last few days, Jean Shepard's A Christmas Story (41.7%) slid into second place behind Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (43.9%). A Christmas Carol was a distant third.

While I can't stand the thought of watching Capra's film one more time in my life, it at least disproves conservative myths.  It turns out that liberals are sentimental slobs who are not waging war on Christmas.

O. J. Simpson: A New Level of Depravity

We shook our heads at Death of A President, a story more about the loss of liberty and freedom in America following the fantasized assassination of President Bush. Now O. J. Simpson brings us another unnecessary chapter, in fact too many chapters, in the never ending saga of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Death of A President did not need the set up of a murdered President, but as the story unfolded we were given a chilling depiction of a real scenario in this country of the loss of liberty.  It is speculation that contributes to the public dialog; it is content of redeeming social value.

In his new book, Simpson "describes how he would have murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and waiter Ronald Goldman—if he’d actually done it."

Spare us. In If I Did It, the formerly accused vaulter of airport debris, must be desperate for coin as the film royalties are rapidly drying up. There is much that is obscene in this country:

Dick Cheney looking at us with a straight face telling us that Halliburton is not stealing millions billions from the American people.

Donald Rumsfeld looking at us with a straight face telling us the war in Iraq is too complicated for mere mortals to understand.

George W. Bush looking at us with a straight face telling us he knew what he was doing when he sent hundreds of thousands of civilians and many soldiers to their death and destabilized an entire country.

Tom Delay, Abramoff, and the entire lot of thugs and thieves telling us they are loyal Americans.

Damn, I guess Simpson is just a small time piker after all.

Fidel, Borat, and the Chickens

Waxing America has fixated on Borat for a year now, so please excuse while we review movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

In 1960 a determined Fidel Castro arrived in New York City to address the United Nations. His entourage arrived at some fancy digs, but when the innkeepers would not guarantee their safety, the cast of dozens and their live chickens headed for Harlem's Theresa Hotel on 125th not far from the fabled Apollo Theater.

Borat, his producer and only two chickens arrive in a midtown Manhattan hotel, but the trauma level is about the same.

In the coming months, as we all are accosted by teenage boys with video cameras doing their best to embarrass and humiliate us in the name of performance art, I have two pieces of advice which I learned from my thousands of interviews. Say nothing and turn your back to the camera.

And go see Borat.  But only if you feel safe in a hotel room filled with chickens.  That is the entry level of this not so subtle drama. In fact, after seeing this film, many people may swear off not just hotel rooms, but hotel elevators and even the hotel banquet room.

We can argue which scenes are the most humiliating, obnoxious, offensive, or demeaning to Borat and his victims. Curiously, it is the conservative Republican and former Congressman Bob Barr who does the best job of containing his discomfort, where weaker mortals might have choked.

There is a political message in there somewhere, which transcends the evangelical Sunday morning mass, also with a cast of thousands. I will let you know when I find it.

If you need to know more about this film, I suggest you read reviews in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and New York magazine. I am an intellectual. ***That's right Paul, keep telling yourself that.***

Side Street: Deviant Art and Other Stuff

Jody at Side Street looks at Deviant Art and other stuff this week: Love and Faith.

Which leads me to feature this:

Cyrus Nowrasteh's Path to 9/11 Political Distortion: His Own Fabricated Biography

According to Libertas: A Forum for Conservative Thought on Film:

Nowrasteh told us that he has always gravitated towards true stories. A Persian-American whose family had to flee Iran when it was taken over by Islamic fundamentalists...

The Wikipedia entry for Cyrus Nowrasteh states:

Cyrus Nowrasteh a Persian-American who was born in Boulder, Colorado, and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. His "family had to flee Iran when it was taken over by Islamic fundamentalists."   (Yes, I added the emphasis.)

And from iranian.com as recenlty as 2005, guess what:

A Persian-American whose family had to flee Iran when it was taken over by Islamic fundamentalists...

The Iranian Revolution did not pick up steam until 1977, culminating with the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.

Cyrus, since you were born in the Boulder, and graduated from Madison West High School in 1974 your family must have arrived in the U.S. prior to 1956. Come on, it looks good in your bio, but if your family fled an oppressive Iran any time prior to the mid 1970's, it was fear of the right wing autocratic rule of the Shah, not the Islamic fundamentalists.

Maybe it was the extended family that fled Iran in the 1970's. In either case, nothing like adding a little docudrama, merging individuals, and stretching the truth in the name of your art.

Tom Reynolds - Now on Your Tiny Screen! The Complete Uncensored, Unvarnished Story!

On Tuesday, we told you about the great confrontation between Wisconsin State Senator Tom Reynolds and the public.  It turns out that Watchdog Milwaukee had the entire matter nailed down on May 10th, including the one hour podcast of Reynolds trying to shut down public discourse.

Reynolds says NO to recording his public hearings

This is great stuff. Eat your heart out Orson Wells.  Drama, plot, character development (well, not everyone), great ensemble cast. Five stars and a thumb up.

Gay Activist Stars in Right-Wing Evangelical Film

Here is a tasty morsel for Wisconsin's  Ralph Ovadal , he of the Homo-Facsist Watch.  It seems that an openly activist gay actor, Chad Allen is starring in an evangelical film "End of the Spear." :

To blunt pointed criticisms, moviemakers turn to Larry Ross

How did a team of evangelical Christians end up casting a gay activist to star in "End of the Spear," their film about slain missionaries?

That has taken some explaining, especially to conservative Christians...

Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., called that decision "very reckless." He said Allen, an outspoken advocate for gay rights, had hardly made a secret of his sexual orientation.

"Given the publicity of Chad Allen's activism and the intensity of his mission to normalize homosexuality ... it is hard, if not impossible, to suspend belief and see him as a missionary martyr for the Gospel..."

For more on Chad Allen, go to his website but first you may want to read more from the Reverend Albert Mohler Jr.   What Were They Thinking? The Controversy Over The End of the Spear.

The Capital Times Story Sets Madison's Overture Stage

Jacob Stockinger had an excellent article in The Capital Times on Friday, Stage Fright: CTM's Collapse Sends Alarms Through the Arts Community . Below are some excerpts from the article followed by my comments in bold italics.

Nobody should feel safe. No one should be complacent. That's the shared view of community arts leaders and presenters this week as they view the wreckage of CTM Madison Family Theatre.
The veteran theater company last Friday fired three staff members, including director Colin Douglas, and canceled 100 performances through the fall of 2007. It cited a $300,000 debt and said it hoped that by suspending the season it could reorganize and return.

There is no question that CTM had serious management problems independent of moving into the more expensive Overture. This was well documented going back to the year 2000.   

"Our radar is up," said Allan Naplan, the new general director of the Madison Opera, adding that popular works such as Puccini's "Tosca" and Mozart's "The Magic Flute" have meant excellent ticket sales so far this season, despite a deficit from last season.
Remember non-professional performing arts groups never make a profit.  They must combine ticket sales with contributions and perhaps an endowment to make it through each season.
"I think we all feel it, absolutely. It could happen at any time for any of us," said Elizabeth Fadell, managing director of the Madison Repertory Theatre, which hopes to reverse a 15 percent dip in ticket sales this season when it moves into its new permanent home in the Overture Center's Playhouse in mid-February."We could find ourselves there with any shift in the wind. We all operate year to year. It could be us."

That 15 percent dip in tickets sales is most certainly the result of Overture’s hosting so many more shows, particularly sucking out dollars for touring road shows. Hopefully the Rep will do well with  Our Town, which opens Friday, February 17th with  Andre De Shields. Be There.

"It's a shame about CTM," said Ann Stanke, the retired general director of the Madison Opera and a major player on the Madison arts scene for almost 50 years. "Any time you lose an arts group that has been around for more than 40 years, it is a cause for concern. I think some of the new start-up groups had better be careful. "Every time you turn around, there is another one. We are oversaturated for a city our size. Maybe there should be some thinking about merging, like CTM and the Rep joining forces."

For almost twenty years both companies did well in Madison. One would think that with new facilities, a wealthier metropolitan area, and a new facility they would have grown not withered.

"It's a very sad moment for Madison and we are concerned," said Rick Mackie, executive director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. "Something happened and it is bad for the community. We all worry. Five years ago, who would have thought the Chicago Symphony Orchestra would be in the trouble it is today? "We all depend almost entirely on community support. It's a high-stakes game. We're doing fine because we did not wait for Overture Hall to open to start triples (three-performance weekends) and market them like crazy," Mackie added. "But by no means do we take our success for granted. The shakeout for sales might not come in the second or third year, but might come in the fifth year."

Well said.

Competing for seats: Across town, the empty seats left by CTM at the new Capitol Theater are worrying Steve Sperling, general manager of the Barrymore Theatre on Atwood Avenue.
Sperling sees Overture as the source of two concerns. "One is the amount of money that the Overture Center takes out of the local entertainment economy, which has become more competitive because of individual venues and acts," Sperling said. "How much money do people have to spend? As the prices go up, that becomes more and more acute. "My second concern is competition among venues, and how the Capitol Theater comes into play. With CTM out of the picture, the Capitol Theater now has 100 empty dates and they're going to try to fill them."

This was the most important element that was ignored for the last ten years.  Despite the growing metropolitan area and the right demographics-baby boomers now empty nesting, Overture demands too many dollars in ticket sales for the existing venues and companies to survive.

"That could affect not just the Barrymore, because of its similar size, but also the Wisconsin Union Theater and the Mitby Theater at Madison Area Technical College. My guess is they will become more aggressive in their marketing..."
"Last fall, our ticket sales were down 20 percent ...

The Overture factor: Taken together, such factors could mean that the worst fear of the early critics of the Overture Center may be coming true: that the expensive performing arts center will - through high overheard costs and increasing rental fees - drive tickets prices up and attendance down to the point where the survival of the very groups that the $205-million arts complex was designed to benefit will instead suffer or fail.

One of those critics is former Mayor Paul Soglin, who put together the original Madison Civic Center in 1981 and has served on CTM's board.
Soglin has said the Overture Center should have been "built more with democracy than dollars.
"The impact of Overture hits the bottom line in several places," Soglin said this week in an interview. "First and most obvious is rent. That covers a lot more than the space - a bigger heating bill, a larger facility staff, maintenance and upkeep.
"But it also impacts production costs. CTM's old 'Christmas Carol' was significantly less to stage than the new 'Christmas Carol' - the point being that CTM could not put on the old 'Christmas Carol' on the larger stage in a significantly larger venue."
Soglin believes CTM's failure is a harbinger of things to come.
"It certainly is the beginning of the dominoes falling," said the six-term former mayor. "I think the troubles at CTM are just the beginning. It is likely that in the coming months or year, other groups will reveal they have the same problems."

Overture's acting director and CEO Michael Goldberg disagrees with Soglin's assessment.
"The well-being of these resident groups is absolutely necessary for us," said Goldberg, who has been active in the Madison arts scene for almost 40 years, much of that as director of the Wisconsin Union Theater.
"All of the groups that have moved into Overture have had artistic, financial and audience success, as the donors of Overture intended. CTM is the exception."

As for the financial success, I am not sure that is true today and I certainly question that assessment for the coming five years.

The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra is one such successful group, according to its executive director Bob Sorge.
"CTM is not necessarily a bellwether for other arts groups," Sorge said, noting the WCO has sold more tickets this season than last and that its move into the Capitol Theater has helped it sell more.

It is heartening that they sold more tickets last season but tragically for performing artists, ticket sales are not a measurement of financial success. There needs to be a comparison from year to year of various trends which include ticket sales, endowment income, and gifts, and of course, expenses.  If the dollars from rising ticket sales are comprising a smaller portion of the rising expenses, there is trouble in lake city, trouble in lake city, my friend.

Nonetheless, Goldberg did see some cautionary signs and fallout from CTM in today's art scene. "I think in a crowded market that all arts organizations have to be streamlined and to focus on the competition," Goldberg said. "But it was always that way. There have always been more shows than people can go to."

Let us understand that the big competition is the touring shows, particularly the Broadway plays that have sucked out millions in the past year.  It would be interesting to see the gross ticket sales, year by year for the last five years, for touring shows.  That should be public information.

The show will go on: Although she said she still sees a performing arts shakeout possible in the next several years, Ann Stanke recalled that the Madison Theatre Guild could not afford to use the old Civic Center when the center was new.
"Will the performing arts survive in Madison? Absolutely," Stanke said. "Will the arts groups survive? Absolutely.

The performing arts will survive.  The question is: will community theater survive? Just as important, will Madison continue to be the home for young film makers, actors, directors, writers, and technicians who learn their craft and share it with us-that is in jeopardy.

"And so will the University of Wisconsin football and basketball teams."

Good.