What’s Wrong with the Academy Awards

I’ve been asked to weigh in on a matter of great national urgency: What’s wrong with the Academy Awards? (OK, I haven’t been asked to weigh in, I’ve volunteered.) As a gay man, I have a vested interest in this matter. (What am I saying? I don’t even like vests!)

People have raised a number of issues: They’re too long. Who should host them? Why can’t more women dress like Cher?

Let’s address these issues one by one:

1. The Academy Awards are too long.
   Abso-fuckin-lutely. But unless they decide to hand out a majority of the awards outside of prime time (as they already do with the scientific and technical categories), that will always be the case. Therefore, the awards need to be handed out with a minimum of fuss. All these extraneous musical numbers and film montages need to be cut. I already know about the great history of film. That’s why I’m watching the Academy Awards, you idiot! So unless you’re willing to invite Billy Crystal back to do one of his inspired musical parodies, move it along!
2. Who should host them?
   The Academy Awards have had a number of hosts over the years, most notably Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, and the aforementioned Billy Crystal. These three have had the longest runs and seemed to strike the right balance between respect for and good-natured ribbing of the Academy members. But pretty much everyone who has hosted the Academy Awards has come to the same conclusion: It’s the most thankless job in Hollywood. Even if you do a great job hosting (as I think Ellen DeGeneres did last night), you still get blamed for the show being too long and/or too boring. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Except for Anne Hathaway and James Franco. They really did suck.
3. Why can’t more women dress like Cher?
   I think there’s a general consensus that stylists have taken over the red carpet and, therefore, watching the red carpet arrivals hasn’t been interesting since about 1988. There’s only one Cher and she’s not at the Academy Awards, she’s at her house in Malibu, watching the Academy Awards with Kathy Griffin and a couple of gays.

But I think the biggest problem with the Academy Awards is that they’re on too late in the year. March?! Really?! I mean, I know we had the Olympics this year but, let’s face it, after January no one gives a shit about Best Sound Editing. The Golden Globes, a bunch of foreign journalists whom no one’s even heard of, have unceremoniously (no pun) usurped the time-honored position of the Academy Awards at the top of the awards heap. (Which brings up another issue: There are too many awards shows. But I digress.)

Let’s move the Academy Awards up to January, where they belong. Hell, maybe they can have them the week after the Golden Globes, while the stars are still drunk. Or better yet, the week before. We’ll show those wine-sipping, cheese-eating Europeans how it’s done!

Or, if worst comes to worst, we can always ask Cher to host. At least we know she’ll wear something interesting.

At Least It Didn’t Happen to Me

In my Manhattan neighborhood, even the high-end boutiques are starting to close.

Etiqueta Negra, a store that sold $8,000 leather jackets is empty. A shoe store on Spring Street that sold $500 shoes sits vacant. Has conspicuous consumption finally reached its peak in Soho? Or is it just that the top .01 percent is pulling as far away from the top 1 percent as the top 1 percent is pulling away from the other 99 percent (not that I feel sorry for the bottom 9/10ths of the top 1 percent)? So now, mere luxury stores are giving way to super-luxury stores, the same way mere luxury apartments are giving way to super-luxury apartments. No longer is the average, $1 million dollar Manhattan apartment enough. Now Rupert Murdoch has to buy the top four floors of the former Met Life building for $57 million. At least his ex-wife gets to keep the former Rockefeller apartment on Fifth Avenue.

All around me, it seems, people are walking around in denial. The common feeling seems to be, “Well, at least it didn’t happen to me.”

I just heard about a man I know, one of those only-in-New York characters who was just kicked out of his apartment after 40 years. He was the building’s super and the building’s landlord decided to renovate his apartment because God forbid someone shouldn’t monetize every square inch of space available.

After the last Senate vote on extending unemployment insurance failed to pass for the third time, the issue JUST DISAPPEARED FROM THE HEADLINES. People JUST STOPPED TALKING ABOUT IT. Even though President Obama said it was “urgent” and “important” and even though 69% of the American people wanted it to pass, IT JUST WENT AWAY. Like it never happened. 1.7 million long-term unemployed people JUST DISAPPEARED.

Because that’s what happens. Out of sight, out of mind. At least it didn’t happen to me.

Sometimes I look at the protests happening in Ukraine and Venezuela and Syria and ask myself, “Why isn’t that happening here?” Do people not know or do they just not care? Or are they just too tired from working 80 hours a week to think about it?

At least it didn’t happen to me.

So we go on about our lives and watch The Real Housewives and Honey Boo Boo while our infrastructure is literally crumbling around us, the world is warming, the oceans are rising, and we continue shopping and eating and having sex and drinking and doing drugs, anything to prevent us from having to think about what’s really going on, holed up in our tiny apartments with our cell phones and our computers and our large, flat-screen televisions, hoping that real life won’t encroach upon us and our cozy little world.

At least it didn’t happen to me.

U.S. No Longer a Democracy, Part 2: Comcast

 I hate to repeat the obvious (especially after the Senate just voted once again to not extend unemployment benefits despite the fact that 69% of Americans want them to do so¹), but the U.S. is no longer a democracy. The latest example of this is Comcast’s proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable.

Now why, you may ask, should I worry that one cable TV company is taking over another? Good question. The answer is that a democracy is dependent upon the free flow of ideas and when one company (or, to be generous, let’s say six companies) control all (or, to be conservative, 90%) of those ideas, that is not good for democracy.

I’m shocked that, thus far, there has been nary a peep about this proposed takeover from our government. But I should not be surprised because, as The New York Times reported, “Mr. Roberts [chief executive of Comcast] has golfed with the president and hosted him at his residence on Martha’s Vineyard.

“David L. Cohen, who oversees the company’s relationship with regulators in Washington, has been a big bundler of donations for the president and staged a fund-raiser for him at his home in Philadelphia that raised $1.2 million. In recognition of those close ties, Mr. Cohen was one of the guests at a state dinner at the White House for the French president, François Hollande, last week.”²

Remember when monopolies were illegal? Now, as I mentioned earlier, six companies—Comcast, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS—control 90% of the media in America.³ (That's consolidated from 50 companies back in 1983.)

Just like the banks that were “too big to fail” in the financial crisis got even bigger, the media companies that control 90% of the media in this country have become even more consolidated. And our government institutions are so bad at regulating them that the chief executive of Comcast is already presenting this deal as a fait accompli.

And why is that? Because the people who are supposed to be regulating these industries become lobbyists for the very industries they’re supposed to be regulating. Again, to quote the New York Times, “… one of the Federal Communications Commission regulators who approved the NBCUniversal deal, Meredith Attwell Baker, now works for Comcast as a lobbyist. Since that deal, there has been a change in leadership at the commission, and it is now run by Tom Wheeler, who was previously a chief lobbyist for the cable industry. (Comcast is among the biggest spenders on lobbying, having written checks for $18 million in 2013 alone.)”⁴

So when your cable bills goes up yet again after this takeover goes through and there aren’t any competing cable companies you can take your business to, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

But this is about more than just a higher cable bill. It’s about the very foundation of our country. If you really want to get angry (or just be more informed), I suggest you read The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz (http://books.wwnorton.com/books/The-Price-of-Inequality/), so you can learn in detail about all the myriad ways our economy and political system is rigged in favor of the 1%, and how that’s destroying our democracy.

1 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/01/23/69-percent-support-extending-unemployment-insurance/

2 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/business/media/stealthily-comcast-fortifies-its-arsenal.html

3 http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

4 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/business/media/stealthily-comcast-fortifies-its-arsenal.html

Burlesque to Broadway

There’s been something of a mini burlesque trend going on in New York theater lately. A few weeks ago, I went to see something called La Soirée, which is a sort of combination of burlesque and circus show. And recently a new high-end burlesque show opened at the Diamond Horseshoe nightclub in the Paramount Hotel.

The most recent incarnation of this phenomenon is a show called Burlesque to Broadway at the Gramercy Theater, featuring Quinn Lemley. Miss Lemley is a beautiful, Rita Hayworth-like redhead with a fine singing voice who has been a fixture of New York’s cabaret scene for some time. Her new show loosely ties together some songs tangentially related to burlesque (as well as some other songs not so tangentially related), along with some corny jokes of the Sophie Tucker variety, some back-up dancers in glittering costumes, and a live band, into a two-hour theatrical presentation. But it’s really more of a standard cabaret show meets Las Vegas revue that would be more suited for a cabaret space like The Rainbow Room (which no longer exists) or Joe’s Pub (which does).

The problem that I have with cabaret shows in general (and it’s the same problem I have with such TV shows as American Idol and The Voice) is this: Why should I go see someone sing a bunch of songs that have been more memorably sung by someone else? So, for example, when Miss Lemley performs “Hey, Big Spender,” we immediately compare it to the version we’ve heard in either the film or stage production of Sweet Charity. Or when she performs not one, but two, of Barbra Streisand’s signature numbers from Funny Girl (“My Man” and “”Don’t Rain on My Parade”), it’s inevitable that we’ll measure it against Ms. Streisand’s version. The trick to producing a good cabaret show, therefore, is finding songs that no one’s heard of (hopefully) and introducing them to a new audience.

And can we have a moratorium on shows that call audience members up on stage? The only New York theater trend more annoying than the Obligatory Standing Ovation is the Obligatory Audience Participation.

There are some things to recommend this show, such as the live band (particularly the drummer) and the sparkly costumes. But given the garden-variety patter and stale jokes, it doesn’t rise to the standard of a true theatrical experience. In a more intimate space, however, such transgressions might be more easily overlooked.

A Letter to Mitch McConnell and John Boehner

Dear Mitch McConnell and John Boehner (Please note I have not referred to either of you as “Speaker,” "Senator" or "Congressman" because you do not deserve that title.):

Attached please find my bills for the month of February, which I will not be able to pay due to Congress’s failure (and, specifically, the failure of 44 Republican Senators and nearly every Republican Congressman) to extend unemployment insurance. I will continue to send you my bills as long as you continue to ignore the will of the American people to extend this vital lifeline.

You and your fellow Republicans who voted against this bill are a disgrace to Congress and to this country. Your contempt for the American people has exceeded my wildest nightmares. You have now failed to extend unemployment insurance THREE TIMES. You’ve been on vacation four of the last six weeks and even when you showed up for “work,” you didn’t get anything done. If this were any kind of normal job, you would have been fired a long time ago. And yet you have the audacity to call unemployed Americans “lazy”! Your hypocrisy is as boundless as your contempt for the American people.

I watched the last vote on CSPAN as Tom Cole blocked any attempt to extend unemployment insurance multiple times, without a trace of guilt. I watched a video of Mitch McConnell laughing and joking with his colleagues about unemployed Americans moments after voting to deny them benefits. Republicans have shown no restraint in their contempt for the American people, so now I will show no restraint in my contempt for you and your fellow Republicans.

Fuck you, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. Fuck you and your fellow Republicans who voted against extending unemployment insurance. I hope you burn in hell for all the pain and suffering you’ve caused the American people. You’re a disgrace to Congress, to America and to humanity.

Sincerely,

Paul Hallasy

U.S. No Longer a Democracy

 I was sitting at home, trying (unsuccessfully) to claim my weekly unemployment benefits when it struck me: the U.S. is no longer a democracy. In fact, this may be a worldwide phenomenon (I think it was Naomi Klein who first suggested in her book The Shock Doctrine that nation-states no longer exist, only international corporations), but let’s concentrate for the moment on the United States.

Here I was, once again, siding with the majority of public opinion (in this case, to extend unemployment benefits) and our duly elected government was, once again, failing to do what we elected them to do.

This was not the first time this had happened. As we have seen before with gun control and countless other issues, public opinion is worthless when it meets the big dollars of the lobbyists and the corporations who really run this country. (This Town by Mark Leibovich is a must-read on this topic.)

Today’s front-page story in The New York Times confirmed my belief once again: “A National Strategy Funds State Political Monopolies.” The story details how various political action committees all over the country are funneling money into state political campaigns (often not even in their own state) due to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

In my part of the country, New York, people are currently fuming over Chris Christie’s abuse of his power as governor of New Jersey to extract political revenge on the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey by blocking traffic on the George Washington Bridge. But what I find really shocking is the culture that allowed this to happen. Like many others, I was naively wondering how Chris Christie not only won the governor’s race, but did so by a landslide. He did this by a culture of intimidation where even local Democratic mayors were afraid to speak against him, and that made it almost impossible for even a viable candidate like Barbara Buono to raise money. Because politics in America, like everything else these days, is all about money. And if you don’t have money, it doesn’t matter if you’re Abraham Freakin’ Lincoln, you are dead in the water.

And that takes us back to today’s front-page story in the Times and the larger story about why the Worst Congress Ever^TM has passed fewer bills and had more filibusters than any other Congress in history. Because if you’re not waving a $100,000 check in front of their face, they couldn’t care less. We’ve seen it time and time again, whether it’s unemployment insurance, food stamps, health care, education, gun control, gay marriage, women’s reproductive rights, you name it. Money talks, bullshit walks.

I’ve seen this personally, as I’ve been on the phone trying to call members of Congress every day while this unemployment battle has been going on. I’ve gone on television four times, I’ve been on the radio and in the press talking about the need to extend unemployment insurance, and Congress continues to go on about their business as if nothing ever happened. And that’s just me.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people all over the country who have been writing and calling their members of Congress and are being met with a deafening silence. And we have a President who can talk the talk, but (at least so far) doesn’t walk the walk.

So, God help me, if we ever get through this unemployment battle, our next battle is going to be campaign finance reform. Because as long as our elected officials spend 90 percent of their time raising money and 10 percent of their time actually legislating, nothing will ever change.

Breaking News

Q: What do Chris Christie and Nelson Mandela have in common?

A: They both took over the news for an entire day.

It’s been interesting to watch how news gets made as a somewhat unwitting participant in it the last few weeks.

My first indication of this was when I filmed my first story on unemployment and I had the misfortune of Nelson Mandela dying the day before my story was supposed to air and the news became blanket coverage of Nelson Mandela’s death.

My next indication has been in the course of this fight to have unemployment benefits renewed. In the absence of any progress being made, Chris Christie was implicated in a scandal involving the George Washington Bridge, and then that became the news the entire day. Not only was it the only story reported on each program on MSNBC (a station I normally respect and agree with), but it became the only story on the entire network, repeated for the entirety of each program on that network, to the point where I actually started to feel sorry for Chris Christie!

It seems like each day, the media decides they’re only going to report on one story that day, even though there are countless stories that need to be reported on, and it becomes virtually impossible to find any information about anything else. I don’t know if it’s because there’s legitimately no new information or because they just need to fill air time any way they can, so they stretch one particular story in order to fill it and, in many instances (as Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out in his show about Christie’s endless press conference last night), the tough questions aren’t even being asked.

It seems like there’s been a systematic dumbing down of the news media because, like every other industry, they’re simply interested in hiring the cheapest person available in order to maximize the company’s profits, even if it means putting out an inferior product, to the point where even once-respected investigative shows like 60 Minutes are forced to retract stories on Benghazi and the NSA.

“Breaking news” indeed!