Entries Tagged 'Business' ↓

I put on a suit and tie last night and tried to pass my way into high society. I attended a charity auction for my employer, an annual event that raises literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few hours time.

With honorary co-chairs from the worlds of fashion and show business, like Todd Oldham, Lucie Arnaz, Alan Cumming, Eve Ensler, Natasha Richardson and Susan Sarandon; donated auction items from some of the largest companies and finest boutiques in New York; and personally shot donated photographs from still more celebrities like Fran Drescher, Missy Elliot, Linda Evangelista, Tim Robbins and Chloe Sevigny, the event drew some of the wealthiest people with a social conscience to the Puck Building in SoHo.

As someone who has spent most of his life either in the arts or the non-profit world, I don’t often rub elbows with the fashionistas and glitterati. (Ok, I never do. I told you I was trying to pass.) In both a silent, and a live auction conducted by an auctioneer from Sotheby’s, this was the crowd that can start the bidding at a high four figures and work upward, all with ease. People with perpetual tans, not from spending the afternoon under a sun lamp, but because they flew in from their winter home on an island somewhere. People so rich, an unshaven rumpled look is a fashion–not income–statement. In other words, people not like most of the folks I know.

The overwhelming majority of the clients our agency serves are people of color, mostly low-income, previously homeless, some formerly incarcerated or marginally educated, all living with HIV/AIDS. Our donor base is, ethnically at least, the exact opposite. Affluent Whites, many of them gay men, often coupled. Older, White presumably heterosexual couples were also in attendance. The absence of well-heeled Blacks (who do live in this city, I’ll have you know) as well as a significant number of Black gay couples was quite noticeable however. It was interesting to see how simple it is for some people to support their pet projects when they have the financial wherewithal to do so. Perhaps one day, I’ll hover in that world legitimately.

The food was sumptuous and the drinks flowed freely, both served by more gay wait staff than you can sling a dead cat at. But shirtless bartenders at a charity function is a bit over the top, don’t you think? I bid on a few silent auction items but haven’t heard yet if I was high bidder. At one point, our CEO and I were in a bidding war for the same item. Following the live auction, a musical guest, the lovely and talented Billy Porter sang, “The Look of Love” and I swear he was singing it directly to me. (He was. I swear!)

When it was over, I got my coat from the check room and was given a very heavy gift bag courtesy of InStyle magazine, and as others filed out into taxis and private cars, I hopped the D train back to reality.

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 got caught up in the series a few episodes in. I had heard about it from friends and tuned in just by chance. Weird little Sam was on the hot seat then and I thought it was kind of amusing how a team of cocky guys misled by an equally self-assured but incompetent Trump-wannabe got bested by a group of then cooperative and collaborative women. I decided to check back the next week.

The show made for great drama. I don’t usually care for reality shows, but this was Survivor in business suits. Sports, action adventure, type “A” individuals clawing their way to the top. Skillfully edited, each episode built tension from first minute to last. Each episode played up the kind of personalities, cunning, guile, and back-stabbing that soap opera producers can only dream of, except this wasn’t scripted.

And then there was The Donald. The ugliest hair on television, the billionaire uber-ego who puts his name on everything he owns, had an entire hour each week to self promote, something he does even better than manage real estate.

I suppose that’s where I am most conflicted. This show I made sure to watch each week espoused the very values I absolutely loath. It is naked capitalism at its very worst.

I made the conscious decision not to work in the private sector almost two decades ago after a brief stint with a very successful AM radio station that along with its sister FM station was garnering 53% of all the advertising revenue in a 20 station market. When they told us this information, we looked at our paychecks and something didn’t add up. Despite the best intentions and hard labor of any worker, in the private sector you’re really only working to make the top execs and stockholders richer. At the first sign of an economic downturn, they will always remind workers of their true worth to the company.

So I cut and ran for first government work, then the arts, now the non-profit community and I haven’t looked back. Despite the recent challenges, I have the most important thing to me: self respect and the knowledge that my work makes a contribution to the greater good of society.

After firing a bunch of competent, capable and possibly decent people who had dutifully jumped up and down like trained animals for the opportunity, it came down to just two for Thursday night’s two hour finale.

Bill beat Kwame and now gets to go home to Chicago and manage another exclusive luxury building that will bear the Trump name. He’ll be paid handsomely no doubt, but The Donald will get paid a thousand times more. And do the folks barely scratching out a living in the Windy City need another temple of ostentatiousness? I’m sure neither Trump nor Bill cares.

Don’t worry about Kwame, that handsome and unflappable brother will land on his feet despite Omarosa’s best attempts at sabotage. Some company will snap him up, and he’ll get a six or seven figure paycheck again one day, a nice house in the country and a trophy wife. Will any of his efforts wind up helping people like his grandparents who never got to go to a prestigious school like Harvard? Who knows?

And Omarosa. Oh Omarosa. She once said, if Kwame took her to the boardroom she was gonna take him out. Maybe that’s why she did what she did. I could make analogies to slaves selling each other out for the right to sit closer to master, but I won’t. Supposedly she has endorsement deals on the horizon as a result of this show. She’d better make the most of them, because nobody will be calling with a regular job any time soon. Out of 15 minutes of fame, she’s got about 12 left.

Next September, they’ll give us The Apprentice 2, and who knows how many more years it will continue. Maybe Trump will re-staff his entire corporation through this process? Other companies are already imitating the competitive team concept as a way of weeding out their weakest links. God help us all.

It all smacks of so much greed and misplaced values.

It wasn’t a drop dead letter, but it was heart palpitating nonetheless.

We got word at work today that a large federal grant we were counting on to be able to save and in fact expand our program did not come through. There were two such grants from the CDC we were waiting to hear about since last week. We didn’t get either.

There are two other grants on which we are awaiting, possibly as early as next week, that might create positions we can pursue, albeit in different work. Otherwise yours truly will be back pounding the pavement come June 30.

At this point in my life, I am sooo not looking forward to job hunting.

The greatest jazz radio station in the world, WBGO-FM, just redesigned its website. Go check it out. There’s a wealth of information on it, and you can even listen in from where ever you are in the world. It’s a non-commercial, listener-supported station (otherwise why would I be plugging it) and you can even become a member (like I am) by making a pledge online, and get lots of cool CDs and merchandise in return.

In the vast radio wasteland that has resulted from FCC deregulation, media mergers and the continual concentration of media ownership into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals and corporations, this station is a breath of fresh air, not only in providing the only 24 hour jazz station in the New York-Newark, NJ metropolitan area, but in its consistently award winning news and public affairs coverage of local issues.

It is the only station I listen to.