Entries from July 2004 ↓

Work kinda sucks right now. It’s taking all the energy I can muster to get through each day. Yes, I am grateful to still have a job, but let’s face it, I took this new position not because I really care about the work but because I need to keep a roof over my head. The consolation is that after school starts in the fall, by this time next year, I’ll be out of here. But it’s gonna be one tough year.

The other day I was sitting in my tiny, windowless cubicle, writing some report or other and it just dawned on me, I am soooo not an office worker. I don’t get out in this new position. I used to be out of the office all the time, traveling around the city conducting training. Now I shuffle papers for a living. I’m dying a slow death.

The recent funding challenges and related layoffs have left a cloud over those of use still here. Other departments have had other layoffs that were not budget related but more personal, yet everyone in administration is trying to act like nothing’s wrong. But none of us are buying it. It’s changed the mood around here and everyone is uneasy. I don’t know anyone who really wants to stay any more. And that’s sad because when I came here, it was a great place to work.

If there was a way to go to school full-time, have my bills paid and keep my benefits, but not have to work a regular job, I’d be a happy man.

I’ve recently discovered the Travel Channel. Now I wanna take an open-ended road trip and see every state in the union. Ironically, 40 years ago this summer (yes, children 40 years ago), my family took such a trip. Eight of us, plus an extra driver, piled into a Ford station wagon and went from upstate New York to see relatives in California and Texas. We also saw the Grand Canyon (although I have no recollection of it) among other places.

Interestingly, while we kids thought it was fun, that trip was hard work for our parents. In 1964 there were still places that did not allow Black people, so we often stayed in camp grounds or slept in the car while my folks kept driving. Even so, I’d love to do it myself.

The success of Michael Moore�s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 has wetted the public�s appetite for a more open dialogue on what is going wrong in America, an America where large corporations control the media, one political party controls the White House and both chambers of Congress, and the line between church and state has been inextricably crossed.

But Moore�s film is not the only documentary asking movie-goers to analyze some of today�s issues beyond the surface level. Three new ones have hit theatres in limited release and are worthy of attention:

The Hunting of the President

Harry Thomason and Nickolas Perry’s incendiary documentary, based on the best-selling book by Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, offers a glimpse at the genesis of these partisan vendettas and explores the myths and truths behind the nearly 10-year campaign to systematically destroy the political legacy of the Clintons.

Using previously unreleased materials, interviews, and shocking revelations from both sides of the beltway, this probing work focuses on the smear campaign against Clinton from his gubernatorial days in Arkansas leading up to and including his impeachment trial. Kenneth Starr fans, beware.

Less of an advocacy film and more of an alarming treatise on the political power of the media and personal interests, The Hunting of the President offers us a gallery of defeated politicians, disappointed office seekers, right-wing pamphleteers, wealthy eccentrics, zany private detectives, religious fanatics, and die-hard segregationists, all chiming in discord
from the tops of their soapboxes.

Let’s Get Frank

Bart Everly’s sharp documentary does double duty, thrusting audiences back into the Lewinsky scandal and profiling the witty Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, who defended Bill Clinton after recovering from his own sex scandal in 1990. The film unspools like an underground bus tour of the capital, led by one of its most irreverent and perceptive insiders.

The Corporation

One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today�s dominant institution. But history humbles dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first to defy history. In this complex and highly entertaining documentary, Mark Achbar, co-director of the influential and inventive MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, teams up with co-director Jennifer Abbott and writer Joel Bakan to examine the far-reaching repercussions of the corporation�s increasing preeminence. Based on Bakan�s book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film is a timely, critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the 4corporation�s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. Featuring illuminating interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, THE CORPORATION charts the spectacular rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts victories against this apparently invincible force.

If you read this blog regularly, you know I am a recovering actor. For 14 years I did everything from stage, television, and film to commercials, industrials and lots of voiceover.

Even though I no longer make my living in the profession, I keep my dues paid up in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), just in case. I took voluntary withdrawal from membership in Actors Equity Association, which covers theatre actors and stage managers, because I doubt I’ll be doing any of that any time soon, but I keep up on the issues and concerns of working performers nevertheless.

So I have been watching with interest the ongoing negotiations between Equity and the League of American Theatres and Producers, the coordinating body for producers. The two sides reached a tentative agreement late on Monday after talks had broken off over the weekend.

The contract between the two expired June 27, and negotiations were held since then to try to resolve the issues of nonunion tours, soaring health care costs and worker safety. Tentative agreements had been reached on the last two items, but the thorny issue of nonunion tours kept both sides far apart and threatened to force actors to the picket lines.

Now you may need a little background. Despite the astronomical salaries granted to some big name movie stars, actors as a group are not rich. Performers in any medium who make over $50,000 a year represent less than 1% of the total population of professional unionized actors. The vast majority of working actors will earn less than $5,000 in any given year. And stage performers are the poorest.

Where movie and television actors have the benefit of larger national exposure and thus high revenue potential, not to mention residual payments, theatre is live and local. The only people who see it and pay for it are the audience members in the city where the play is staged. Thus pay scales for Equity members are more working class, even on Broadway. Payment for nonunion stage actors is often exploitative.

That was the sticking point over the issue of nonunion touring shows. You see, a Broadway play, produced under an Equity contract, develops the show’s reputation and following. Whether it’s Rent, The Producers, Hairspray or some other show, its glamour is created while it plays in New York. Then after the show closes or it makes back its money to investors, the rights are licensed to a touring company to mount a production that will travel around the country to smaller communities, to make even more money.

The problem, as Equity sees it, is that experienced professionals are not used in these shows, thus depriving working actors from making a living, while producers make tons of money charging high ticket prices while paying nonunion actors non-living wages. (There are horror stories about how little some of these people are paid while expected to survive on the road.) Audiences in these small towns are also being deceived, because they think they’re seeing “Broadway” shows.

It is a system that only benefits producers and simply isn’t fair. As far as the union is concerned a new contract agreement without changes to the touring system was a nonstarter.

Luckily, producers have come to their senses. When weekend talks broke off, and Equity scheduled a meeting to discuss a strike authorization from members, producers for two shows broke ranks with their bargaining unit and signed an interim agreement on their own with the actors. Obviously recognizing a lack of unity on their side, and fearing a repeat of last year’s four day musicians strike that cost them $5 million dollars, producers sat down with union reps Monday and reached a tentative agreement. The agreement will need ratification by rank and file members on both sides in order to be finalized.

This is welcome news to all the people who enjoy live theatre, but more importantly to all those who make their living from it. Despite the perceptions of some who think acting is a frivolous pursuit, or not much more than a hobby, certainly not “real work,” it is profession with a long history of giving millions of people great joy, excitement and enlightenment. All actors want is the right to work at a fair and decent wage.

I never intended this space to become the Philatelic Society News. It just happens to be working out that way because the United States Postal Service appears to be one of the only institutions regularly recognizing the achievements of Black Americans, some of whom are also Black and gay.

The latest figure to be honored with a commemorative postage stamp is the late author, poet and playwright James Baldwin, who will be officially honored on July 23 during a ceremony at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in his native Harlem, New York. The stamp is the 20th in the Postal Services’ Literary Arts series. The event is free and open to the public.

During his adolescence, Baldwin (1924-1987) planned a career as a minister and was active for a time as a young preacher. However, by the time he graduated from high school, he had published articles, plays, fiction and poetry in his school literary magazine, and he knew he wanted to be a writer. He counted Dickens, Dostoevsky and Harriet Beecher Stowe among the authors who influenced his desire to write. Traces of the preacher remain in the biblical rhythms and allusions in Baldwin’s prose.

Baldwin’s first novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” published in 1953, was partly autobiographical. This account of a young boy’s struggle with personal and spiritual issues elicited praise for Baldwin’s exceptional talent. His first essay collection, “Notes of a Native Son,” published in 1955, enhanced his reputation as a master of American prose.

Baldwin’s work eloquently articulated the complexities of race relations during the years when the civil rights movement was at its height. “The Fire Next Time,” published in 1963, solidified Baldwin’s status; that same year, his success landed him on the cover of Time magazine.

Baldwin’s novels include “Giovanni’s Room” (1956); “Another Country” (1962); “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone” (1968); “If Beale Street Could Talk” (1974); and “Just Above My Head” (1979). His plays are “Blues for Mister Charlie” (1964) and “The Amen Corner” (1968). A collection of short stories, “Going to Meet the Man,” was published in 1965. Other works include “Jimmy’s Blues,” a poetry collection published in 1985, and essays and nonfiction including “Nobody Knows My Name” (1961); “No Name in the Street” (1972); “The Devil Finds Work” (1976); “Evidence of Things Not Seen” (1985); a screenplay, “One Day When I Was Lost” (1972); and “The Price of the Ticket,” a collection of essays printed in 1985.

James Baldwin received many awards during his lifetime, including France’s highest civilian award, commander of the Legion of Honor, presented by President Fran�ois Mitterrand in 1986. He died at his home in France on November 30, 1987, at the age of 63.

Stamp artist Thomas Blackshear II based his portrait of Baldwin on a black-and-white photograph taken around 1960, probably in New York. The stamp background is evocative of Baldwin’s novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” set in Harlem, and is based on a photograph by Berenice Abbot taken in Harlem in 1938.

HOW TO ORDER THE FIRST-DAY-OF-ISSUE POSTMARK
Customers have 30 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at their local Post Office™, by telephone at 800-STAMP-24, and at the Postal Store at www.usps.com/shop. They should affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes (to themselves or others), and place them in a larger envelope addressed to:

JAMES BALDWIN COMMEMORATIVE STAMP
POSTMASTER
821 8TH AVE RM 2029B
NEW YORK NY 10199-9998

After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark. All orders must be postmarked by
August 21, 2004.

It has been awhile folks, so put away those books and get ready to answer all questions completely. No cheating off your neighbor, and there is no curved grade.

1. When was the last time you ate or drank something straight out of the container it came in, instead of using a dish or cup?

2. When you are home alone, do you always close the door when you go to the bathroom?

3. At your place of employment, how long can you get away without doing any work before someone will notice?

4. Given your current health status, what do you think will be your cause of death?

5. Read any good books lately?

6. What are your strengths?

7. What are your weaknesses?

8. Who is a person you have lost touch with, to whom you wish you could reconnect?

9. What is your natural environment?

10. Which most influences your ability to get the things you want, resources or motivation?

EXTRA CREDIT

If an intruder broke into your home while you were sleeping, what and where is the nearest weapon you can get your hands on?

Pencils and pens down. Time to share your answers.

1. This morning. I ate a third of a can of pineapple chunks straight out of the can. I saw no reason to waste a good dish.

2. Yes. I was just raised that way. I don’t know why however.

3. Ha! Days. I can get away with doing nothing until weekly supervision or staff meeting, when I’m expected to show something. But that doesn’t mean I do that, however.

4. If I continue to live in New York, it will probably be some stress-related disease, like a massive heart attack or esophageal cancer brought on by the acid reflux I sometimes suffer, probably in my late 50’s or 60’s. If I move away, I may get to benefit from the good family gene pool and live until my 70’s, 80’s or even 90’s, where it will be complications from Alzheimer’s or a stroke or one of those falling injuries old folks get.

5. I never read fiction and usually have a couple of nonfiction books going simultaneously. I’m reading The Complete Caterer right now and may return to We Real Cool by bell hooks which I started awhile back.

6. I think I’m an excellent verbal and written communicator, and a good problem solver. I can advise anybody on how to do anything, and often do (even if they don’t ask). LOL

7. Indifference, laziness, extreme self-criticism. I’m never satisfied with my own accomplishments and can lose interest if I don’t think I’m progressing fast enough.

8. Probably Tim, although I saw him in April. It was the first time in ages, and I realized how much I miss his friendship.

9. Indoors, with the air conditioning and television on, close to a well-stocked kitchen.

10. Motivation. I’m very deliberative and have to convince myself I can achieve my goal before I do anything. Once that’s done, I can usually find the resources.

EXTRA CREDIT

I’ve got a two foot Maglite flashlight next to the bed that I could swing quickly and do some damage. Other than that there’s a police nightstick in the closet.