BY BEN WINTERS
Theatre
observers got mixed messages on Nov. 19, when both USA Today and the New
York Times ran big pieces on the health of the Broadway economy. There
was the Times reporting that 'All across Broadway, producers, landlords
and investors are suffering through one of the bumpiest fall seasons in
recent memory,' while USA Today says that things are looking up'at least
as far as ticket sales to tourists are concerned. 'For more than two years,
the specter of 9/11 and a shaky economy have loomed over Broadway theatre,
an industry that relies heavily on tourism,' writes Elysa Gardner. 'But
new figures indicate that ticket sales to out-of-towners are once again
on the rise.'
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|
Broadway
producers pulled the
plug on Bobby Boland, starring Farrah Fawcett before the show even opened. |
In
the Times, Jesse McKinley wrote that 'the drumbeat of news coming off
Broadway in the last two weeks has been almost uniformly bad,' including
the premature closings of Bobbi Boland (in previews) and The Oldest Living
Confederate Widow Tells All (the first Broadway show to close after just
one performance in seven years).
But
the Times saved some bad news for a couple days later, when Jason Zinoman's
'On Stage and Off' column reported that Broadway remains very, very white.
'Despite producers' attempts to diversify audiences, the proportion of
ticket buyers who are Caucasian'82.9 percent of the audience in 2002-03'has
stubbornly increased for the fourth year in a row.'
Best
Song Ever Written (About A District Attorney)
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|
Michael
Jackson's mugshot taken last month by
the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Dept. |
In
the mad rush to fill pages with Michael Jackson updates, several papers
referred their readers to the Web page of the National District Attorneys
Association, where the profile of Santa Barbara County's Tom Sneddon notes
that he's 'the only DA in the nation to have an angry song written about
him by pop megastar Michael Jackson.' That's because Sneddon was the DA
back in 1993, the first time Jackson was hauled in on molestation charges.
At that time, Sneddon famously ordered photos taken of the pop star's
genitalia for identification purposes.
As
the Associated Press recapped after last month's arrest, that event 'was
the inspiration of a 1995 song titled 'D.S.' that Jackson included on
his HIStory album [which] contains these lines: 'They wanna get my ass/Dead
or alive/You know he really tried to take me/Down by surprise/I bet he
missioned with the CIA/He don't do half what he say.' Well, I guess they
can't all be 'Billie Jean.'
One
of the sadder facts of the Jackson arrest (among many) is how few of the
King of Pop's friends rallied to his defense. Only brother Jermaine came
immediately forward, appearing on CNN to tell Kyra Phillips that 'the
whole family supports Michael one hundred percent, one thousand percent.'
Which is nice but hard to believe, especially in the context of an interview
where Jermaine also says that the arrest is 'at the end of the day'nothing
but a modern-day lynching' and (most shockingly) 'my brother is not eccentric.'
Another
surprise to be found among the coverage on the CNN Web page was a feature
on celebrities and crime'in case anyone thought the Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
case was somehow relevant.
The
economic outcome of this sort of event is of course catastrophic, for
Jackson personally and for the companies invested in him. Especially since,
as Jackson's people angrily pointed out, the arrest came on the eve of
a CBS special (luckily, the recent Reagans fiasco gave that network some
experience in special-canceling), and the release of a greatest hits record.
'Sony
had shipped five million copies of the Number Ones CD and DVD worldwide,
and was backing them with a campaign to rehabilitate Jackson using iconic
images from the peak of his career,' wrote the Times of London. 'In Britain,
prominent billboard poster sites were hired and advertising slots booked
across all commercial television channels for the launch of the campaign.'
The Times notes in passing that there is one new song on the CD, called
'One More Chance,' written by R. Kelly, 'the American R&B star who
is facing 21 charges of pedophile offences in Chicago.'
Small
world!
Municipal
Finance And Malnourished Blind People
You
might have noticed that the coverage of Arnold Schwarzenegger has been
a lot calmer since he won the governorship of California, and here's why:
A movie star running for governor is exciting and bizarre, whereas a governor
being a governor is actually kind of boring.
Exhibit
A: Arnie's first act as leader of the world's sixth largest economy was
to ask the state legislature to issue a general obligation bond issue.
If you don't know what that is, join the club (a club that, I fear, includes
Arnold Schwarzenegger). The Modesto Bee has some sort of handle on it,
anyway. They report that 'the centerpiece of Schwarzenegger's 'California
Recovery Plan' is a general obligation bond of as much as $15 billion,
which would go to voters in March if the Legislature also approves putting
the spending limit before voters'[i]f voters approved the bond and not
the spending limit, the bonds would not be sold...[the state's] debt includes
a $10.7 billion deficit in the 2002-03 fiscal year and $1.9 billion in
state payments to the retirement system.'
If
all that is difficult to understand, try this Arnold quote in the Los
Angeles Times, as the new Guv tries to explain why his diffident fellow
Republicans should accept the bond issue. 'The Republicans have a choice,'
said Arnold. 'It is the recovery bonds, or it is raising taxes. That's
a choice, it's up to them. I am only going to make cuts to a certain point.
I'm not going to cut dog food for blind people.' (The San Francisco Chronicle
uses the same quote, and then explains that the governor meant for the
blind people's seeing eye dogs.)
By
the way, Chicagoans, USA Today's article on the Arnie budget notes that
'Illinois holds the current record for a general-obligation bond issue.
That state floated $10 billion in bonds in June to finance its pension
plans.'