I was going to post something in-depth and penetrating about class, plumbers and politicians but that Paul Krugman beat me to it in The Real Plumbers of Ohio in the New York Times. I hate when that happens.
Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery. By exploiting America’s divisions — divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions — he was able to reinvent the Republican brand. The party of plutocrats was repackaged as the party of the “silent majority,” the regular guys — white guys, it went without saying — who didn’t like the social changes taking place.
I had a conversation with a youngish ornamental ironworker today. With overtime, he was able to earn enough to stop paying into Social Security and take home an extra $100 to $200 a week. We agreed that in all likelihood, working people were going to continue to get screwed and the economy was going to hell. But we seem to be coming from opposite points of view. Despite these troubled times, he was studiously avoiding looking at how much he was losing in his annuity. I’m closer to retirement so I pay a bit closer attention to the haircut that I’m getting. He was upset because he had "nobody to vote for". New York wasn't going to vote for McCain so he wasn't going to vote at all. He also wanted to have Social Security privatized so he could do his own investing. Evidently doing his own investing by not paying attention to his investments. I think he'd be chum in Wall Street waters.
I see a connection between what Krugman is saying and the guy I talked to today. We have work to do with our union brother and sisters.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Screw You
Joe The Plumber? Screw you.
What do you know about working people? You were a Navy brat and went into the government for your retirement. You've never had a real job in your life.
Screw you and your seven homes, more or less.
Screw you and "the Middle class is $2 Million a year."
Screw you and you snarky put downs of "community organizers."
Screw you for crossing a picket line to appear on "Leno."
Screw you for "Islamo-fascism" and 100 years of war.
Screw you for calling me a "fundamental." The rich are waging class warfare on us and the economy sucks.
In the words of Chris Rock, "The choice isn't Republican or Democrat. The choice is you got a guy that's worth $150 million with 12 houses against a guy who's worth a million dollars with one house. The guy with one house really cares about losing a house, because he is homeless. The other guy can lose five houses and still got a bunch of houses. Does this make any sense? Am I the only one that sees this… I'm just saying, John McCain could lose half his houses… And sleep well."
Screw You
Screw you and your seven homes, more or less.
Screw you and "the Middle class is $2 Million a year."
Screw you and you snarky put downs of "community organizers."
Screw you for crossing a picket line to appear on "Leno."
Screw you for "Islamo-fascism" and 100 years of war.
Screw you for calling me a "fundamental." The rich are waging class warfare on us and the economy sucks.
In the words of Chris Rock, "The choice isn't Republican or Democrat. The choice is you got a guy that's worth $150 million with 12 houses against a guy who's worth a million dollars with one house. The guy with one house really cares about losing a house, because he is homeless. The other guy can lose five houses and still got a bunch of houses. Does this make any sense? Am I the only one that sees this… I'm just saying, John McCain could lose half his houses… And sleep well."
Screw You
Friday, October 10, 2008
Stagehand of Babylon
A couple of folks with to much time on their hands have asked me why I’ve stopped posting. I’ve been blessed with a schedule that has been filled with a lot of work. Those of you in the business know what “busy” means in terms of time constraints. If you don’t, ask you family.
I think many of us like to think that we primarily make our living in the arts or at least on the periphery of it. But even in New York City it sometimes difficult to survive on just a diet of culture. As we get further and further from the hot sun of the fine arts, away from the nourishing atmosphere of Broadway we’ll work in the cold outer planets of “television” and “industrial.” Even these can be satisfying when the technological gee-whiz factor is high enough. A lot of product rollouts and events have a lot of bright, new shiny toys.
So where am I? Out in the cold outer reaches of our universe, there is a distant planet called “Cable.” It can support life but it’s a hardscrabble existence. Orbiting that planet is a lifeless, gray moon called the “Business News Channel“.
Business News Channel is inhabited by a race of people called “Clients”. It’s a soul-sucking place where the end result of a stagehand’s labor is to help tell the rest of the Universe about the importance of the “Market”. The Market and the Clients don’t produce anything. They do, however, talk a lot about how important they are and why they are the “Masters Of The Universe.”
Their main religion is a philosophy called the “Tao”; I believe it’s spelled. A great deal of attention is paid to the daily and even hourly moods of their god. Often you will hear it brightly said, “The Tao was up today” or solemnly “the Tao closed down today”. "The Tao went for a walk on Wall Street."
Space is often warped on Business News Channel. Regularly in the workplace, small groups of Clients will arrive, blink quickly and announce, ”It looks bigger/smaller than I thought it would.” For me, it looks exactly the size it was drawn to be on the blueprints but for the Client there seems to be a problem with perception on many levels. Sometimes color is a major problem. “It’s bluer/darker/flatter than I thought it would be” as if the sample of the color they were shown is not the same color as the one that appeared on the set.
The distortion in perception is not limited to scenery. Their measure of success in life is marked by the acquisition of things. They also seem to believe that a Bank is more important a Bakery. That Commerce is more important than Community. They put Profits before People.
There’s more, so much more and yet so very little. There will come a time when I’ll get off this little moon. As the saying goes, “when the money runs out, so do we”. The Client can hire my body for a couple of hours or days but the money always runs out and that’s my ticket back to sunshine.
Where have I been? I prefer to think about where I’m going, thank you very much.
And so it goes.
I think many of us like to think that we primarily make our living in the arts or at least on the periphery of it. But even in New York City it sometimes difficult to survive on just a diet of culture. As we get further and further from the hot sun of the fine arts, away from the nourishing atmosphere of Broadway we’ll work in the cold outer planets of “television” and “industrial.” Even these can be satisfying when the technological gee-whiz factor is high enough. A lot of product rollouts and events have a lot of bright, new shiny toys.
So where am I? Out in the cold outer reaches of our universe, there is a distant planet called “Cable.” It can support life but it’s a hardscrabble existence. Orbiting that planet is a lifeless, gray moon called the “Business News Channel“.
Business News Channel is inhabited by a race of people called “Clients”. It’s a soul-sucking place where the end result of a stagehand’s labor is to help tell the rest of the Universe about the importance of the “Market”. The Market and the Clients don’t produce anything. They do, however, talk a lot about how important they are and why they are the “Masters Of The Universe.”
Their main religion is a philosophy called the “Tao”; I believe it’s spelled. A great deal of attention is paid to the daily and even hourly moods of their god. Often you will hear it brightly said, “The Tao was up today” or solemnly “the Tao closed down today”. "The Tao went for a walk on Wall Street."
Space is often warped on Business News Channel. Regularly in the workplace, small groups of Clients will arrive, blink quickly and announce, ”It looks bigger/smaller than I thought it would.” For me, it looks exactly the size it was drawn to be on the blueprints but for the Client there seems to be a problem with perception on many levels. Sometimes color is a major problem. “It’s bluer/darker/flatter than I thought it would be” as if the sample of the color they were shown is not the same color as the one that appeared on the set.
The distortion in perception is not limited to scenery. Their measure of success in life is marked by the acquisition of things. They also seem to believe that a Bank is more important a Bakery. That Commerce is more important than Community. They put Profits before People.
There’s more, so much more and yet so very little. There will come a time when I’ll get off this little moon. As the saying goes, “when the money runs out, so do we”. The Client can hire my body for a couple of hours or days but the money always runs out and that’s my ticket back to sunshine.
Where have I been? I prefer to think about where I’m going, thank you very much.
And so it goes.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Chimera
I had the opportunity to work the Papal Mass at Yankee Stadium and I was again struck by unique skill sets required of stagehands that not many workers have. We take the known and create the new. And if it is done correctly, after the audience, the music, the applause and the bows, we make it disappear. After everything is swept and clean, the idiot check performed and the ghost light put out, we leave no evidence of our presence except the memory. Other trades build for permanence; we build to create a figment of a feeling.
Major league baseball understands this illusion. If you’ve been to a ball game in high school or even played beer league softball, the dimensions of the field are the same, more or less. What changes in a major league park is the scale. The immenseness of the stands creates a feeling of being dwarfed and changes the 90 feet between the bases to multiples of that. Television shots can create an intimacy with the players at home that is missing at the park much like the difference in theatre and film. Being on the field helps to understand the similarities.
Like a theatre there is certain sanctity about the place. The diamond and the outfield grass were as protected by the grounds crew and the security force as if it were a brand new auditorium and these were brand new seats. "Don't put anything on the seats" was changed into "don't walk on the grass". They may be different venues but it’s the exact same reaction.
Then there was a transformation. The fabled "House that Ruth Built" became something much more familiar. It stopped being a baseball cathedral and became a stage for a mass. It was going to be religious rite on a grand scale but also entertainment. Meaning no disrespect to the rituals involved or the faith of the participants but this was the start of a process we, as stagehands, knew intimately, creating entertainment out of a bare stage. Musical, concert, drama, religious ceremony, political event, business meeting, all require the same elements to achieve the same goal, to convey a message using presence.
Part of that transformation was a change in scale. During the day the trusses soared against the blue sky and at night the white ceiling glowed translucent. Although the stage was of a standard size commonly found in outdoor events, the upper decks of the Stadium that surrounded the stage provided an unusual point of reference. There developed an illusion of the stage/altar growing larger and the Stadium shrinking.
Then, as with any ballgame, show, event or religious rite, it was over. Silence settled over the familiar blue and green space as the last off the mats were pulled up and the forklifts backed up the runway. So lightly did the Pope thread on Yankee Stadium that there could have been a ballgame that night.
I wonder if the Yankee grounds crew has a ghost light.
Major league baseball understands this illusion. If you’ve been to a ball game in high school or even played beer league softball, the dimensions of the field are the same, more or less. What changes in a major league park is the scale. The immenseness of the stands creates a feeling of being dwarfed and changes the 90 feet between the bases to multiples of that. Television shots can create an intimacy with the players at home that is missing at the park much like the difference in theatre and film. Being on the field helps to understand the similarities.
Like a theatre there is certain sanctity about the place. The diamond and the outfield grass were as protected by the grounds crew and the security force as if it were a brand new auditorium and these were brand new seats. "Don't put anything on the seats" was changed into "don't walk on the grass". They may be different venues but it’s the exact same reaction.
Then there was a transformation. The fabled "House that Ruth Built" became something much more familiar. It stopped being a baseball cathedral and became a stage for a mass. It was going to be religious rite on a grand scale but also entertainment. Meaning no disrespect to the rituals involved or the faith of the participants but this was the start of a process we, as stagehands, knew intimately, creating entertainment out of a bare stage. Musical, concert, drama, religious ceremony, political event, business meeting, all require the same elements to achieve the same goal, to convey a message using presence.
Part of that transformation was a change in scale. During the day the trusses soared against the blue sky and at night the white ceiling glowed translucent. Although the stage was of a standard size commonly found in outdoor events, the upper decks of the Stadium that surrounded the stage provided an unusual point of reference. There developed an illusion of the stage/altar growing larger and the Stadium shrinking.
Then, as with any ballgame, show, event or religious rite, it was over. Silence settled over the familiar blue and green space as the last off the mats were pulled up and the forklifts backed up the runway. So lightly did the Pope thread on Yankee Stadium that there could have been a ballgame that night.
I wonder if the Yankee grounds crew has a ghost light.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Continuing Education
Due to a combination of work schedule and a lack of motivation, I've not been posting. Call it spring fever, laziness, whatever.
I came across this link to a SFX workshop that I thought looked promising.
SPECIAL EFFECTS CLASS LED BY GREG MEEH
The six-hour class will cover a wide spectrum of effects including uses of SFX in a variety of mediums from performing arts to print to TV and film. The first section of the class will cover Designing Special Effects: based on hundreds of images and drawings from 35 years of special effects design, Gregory Meeh will comment on and discuss the techniques and applications used to realize the needs of many types of productions, from the Off Broadway originations of Broadway hits to major Las Vegas hotel venues to fashion shows, auto shows, and daytime television.
Demonstrations and discussions will follow about the tools used to create the following effects: confetti and snow, water effects, atmospherics, wind, firearms, flames, and pyrotechnics. Each technical section will include experienced J&M technicians expert in the area and will include examples of functioning equipment as well as applicable safety information.
I came across this link to a SFX workshop that I thought looked promising.
SPECIAL EFFECTS CLASS LED BY GREG MEEH
The six-hour class will cover a wide spectrum of effects including uses of SFX in a variety of mediums from performing arts to print to TV and film. The first section of the class will cover Designing Special Effects: based on hundreds of images and drawings from 35 years of special effects design, Gregory Meeh will comment on and discuss the techniques and applications used to realize the needs of many types of productions, from the Off Broadway originations of Broadway hits to major Las Vegas hotel venues to fashion shows, auto shows, and daytime television.
Demonstrations and discussions will follow about the tools used to create the following effects: confetti and snow, water effects, atmospherics, wind, firearms, flames, and pyrotechnics. Each technical section will include experienced J&M technicians expert in the area and will include examples of functioning equipment as well as applicable safety information.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Vanishing Points
Funny how one's perspective changes as one sees more of life. Being a child of the sixties, I've often felt that, as in the words of Samuel Johnson, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Not the real patriotism of the warrior fighting to protect our liberties, the outcast striving for social change, the one who works for the greatest good for the greatest number or the statesman but rather the false patriotism of the politician, the promoter of causes that only they profit from, the bigot, the zealot and to many other to name. Spare me the loud ones who seek to divide and conquer and inflict their views on me as being the only right one and all others are wrong. The flag wavers who have contributed little to life except to take. There are many countries, religions or organizations that have flags, both real and metaphorical, so don't assume I'm speaking solely of the flag of the United States. I'm referring more to scoundrels.
I was doing a job lately that was only bore a vague resemblance to one that might be considered properly prepared, the type we all have suffered through and indeed, at times, profited from. In this case, the US flag was on a staff USR. I was in a bucket 25" in the air which always allows one a different point of view on things. In the turmoil the flag got knocked to the deck. Not a big deal. But then the knocker proceeded to step back and forth, from US to CS and back, over the staff and flag. Now the staff had one of those tips you would find on a pike, rather pointed and was right at knee height, a physical danger. I had two reactions. A.) How the knocker could be so self absorbed as to continually step over an obstruction that he had created and B.) "That’s an American freaking flag you're stepping on, asshole." I didn't know the knocker and can presume no malicious intent. What struck me was my reaction to the scene. I was honked someone was walking on the flag.
How in deeply ingrained are reactions. People have fought for, suffered and died for the ideas represented by that piece of cloth. Call it the Boy Scout training in how to treat the flag but I get annoyed at buildings that fly the flag at night without lighting it or leaving it exposed so long it turns black and tattered. Burning that piece of cloth as a statement of protest is something that I don't have a problem with because, to me, that is less a piece of desecration than a affirmation of those freedoms embodied by it, a price for having freedom of speech. It's a desecration to ignore it or to abuse it. Don't dishonor it by letting it get ruined by inaction or because you're lazy or too stupid have an awareness of your own actions.
Isn’t life funny? I’m an old hippy getting annoyed with someone for stepping on the flag. Aristide Briand, a Prime Minister of France is reputed to have said, “a man who isn't a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head." Times change and because I don’t have a choice, so do I.
I was doing a job lately that was only bore a vague resemblance to one that might be considered properly prepared, the type we all have suffered through and indeed, at times, profited from. In this case, the US flag was on a staff USR. I was in a bucket 25" in the air which always allows one a different point of view on things. In the turmoil the flag got knocked to the deck. Not a big deal. But then the knocker proceeded to step back and forth, from US to CS and back, over the staff and flag. Now the staff had one of those tips you would find on a pike, rather pointed and was right at knee height, a physical danger. I had two reactions. A.) How the knocker could be so self absorbed as to continually step over an obstruction that he had created and B.) "That’s an American freaking flag you're stepping on, asshole." I didn't know the knocker and can presume no malicious intent. What struck me was my reaction to the scene. I was honked someone was walking on the flag.
How in deeply ingrained are reactions. People have fought for, suffered and died for the ideas represented by that piece of cloth. Call it the Boy Scout training in how to treat the flag but I get annoyed at buildings that fly the flag at night without lighting it or leaving it exposed so long it turns black and tattered. Burning that piece of cloth as a statement of protest is something that I don't have a problem with because, to me, that is less a piece of desecration than a affirmation of those freedoms embodied by it, a price for having freedom of speech. It's a desecration to ignore it or to abuse it. Don't dishonor it by letting it get ruined by inaction or because you're lazy or too stupid have an awareness of your own actions.
Isn’t life funny? I’m an old hippy getting annoyed with someone for stepping on the flag. Aristide Briand, a Prime Minister of France is reputed to have said, “a man who isn't a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head." Times change and because I don’t have a choice, so do I.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Roosting Chickens
Finally politicians are being called for getting the support of religious bigots and extremist wing-nuts. As well they should, No candidate for President, Senate or the House should be allowed to let others spout hatred on their behalf without having to answer for their supporters views or disallow or refute or reject that support. However they want to phrase it. And we're talking about both Presidential candidates. The corporate media is also being taken to task for allowing their bias to show. Obama and Farrakhan? Small potatoes.
In a Salon column, Glenn Greenwald calls on McCain to reject the support of certain neo-conservative, radical evangelicals.
snip
Thus, white evangelical Ministers are free to advocate American wars based on Biblical mandates, rant hatefully against Islam, and argue that natural disasters occur because God hates gay people. They are still fit for good company, an important and cherished part of our mainstream American political system. The entire GOP establishment is permitted actively to lavish them with praise and court their support without the slightest backlash or controversy. Both George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent formal greetings to the 2006 gathering of Hagee's group.
By contrast, black Muslim ministers like Farrakhan, or even black Christian ministers like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are held with deep suspicion, even contempt. McCain is free to hug and praise the Rev. Hagees of the world, but Obama is required to prove over and over and over and over that he does not share the more extreme views of black Ministers.
How come Tim Russert -- in all the times he sits and chats with Lieberman, McCain and various high Bush officials -- never reads all of the inflammatory, disgusting, crazed "Rapture-is-Coming/ All-Jews-will-Burn/ Kill-All-Muslims/ Hurricanes-are-Punishment-against-Gays" pronouncements from John Hagee and James Dobson and Pat Robertson and demand that John McCain and George Bush and Joe Lieberman "denounce" those views and "reject" their support? What's the difference, exactly?
snip
Good read. Check out the follow-ups. Including the interview with Bill Donohue of the Catholic League (no flamer,he) about the religious intolerance of some of McCains supporters.
In a Salon column, Glenn Greenwald calls on McCain to reject the support of certain neo-conservative, radical evangelicals.
snip
Thus, white evangelical Ministers are free to advocate American wars based on Biblical mandates, rant hatefully against Islam, and argue that natural disasters occur because God hates gay people. They are still fit for good company, an important and cherished part of our mainstream American political system. The entire GOP establishment is permitted actively to lavish them with praise and court their support without the slightest backlash or controversy. Both George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent formal greetings to the 2006 gathering of Hagee's group.
By contrast, black Muslim ministers like Farrakhan, or even black Christian ministers like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are held with deep suspicion, even contempt. McCain is free to hug and praise the Rev. Hagees of the world, but Obama is required to prove over and over and over and over that he does not share the more extreme views of black Ministers.
How come Tim Russert -- in all the times he sits and chats with Lieberman, McCain and various high Bush officials -- never reads all of the inflammatory, disgusting, crazed "Rapture-is-Coming/ All-Jews-will-Burn/ Kill-All-Muslims/ Hurricanes-are-Punishment-against-Gays" pronouncements from John Hagee and James Dobson and Pat Robertson and demand that John McCain and George Bush and Joe Lieberman "denounce" those views and "reject" their support? What's the difference, exactly?
snip
Good read. Check out the follow-ups. Including the interview with Bill Donohue of the Catholic League (no flamer,he) about the religious intolerance of some of McCains supporters.
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