Jenny Sanford is the first lady of South Carolina, and might have been in the running for next first lady of the United States. That is, until that wild and wacky hiker of a husband of hers confessed to spending Fathers Day down in Argentina, doing the dirty tango, thus putting a rather abrupt end to his political future and probably his marriage.
Please shout: Olé!
Jenny seems like a nice woman. So I thought I would send her some words of advice. Sure, she’s probably getting plenty of that already, but mine is different, because I’m putting my advice in a song.
To get the most out of this, you will need to sing it as you read it. I’m not kidding. This is the only way it’s going work.
But first, I will need you to go grab some of your favorite gangsta rap music and play it until you are immersed -- mind, body and soul. Select that tender tune you first heard blasting out of car, in line at the drive-thru, or stopped next to you at an interminable red light, to which you responded by racing to the mall in breathless pursuit of your very own CD, which you’ve been saving, like a chilled bottle of champagne, for the right occasion, which just happens to be right now.
So pop it in, and by all means, crank up the volume.
Please no cheating. I shouldn’t have to say this, but you will not get the same effect from Rod Stewart’s Greatest Hits or anything from Norah Jones. That stuff will not help you with the proper interpretation of my song. In fact anything like that will kill the message, not to mention the rhythm.
O.K. I’m assuming you’ve done as I asked, and your mind and body are now on the same wavelength with mine. But first let’s do a short warm-up exercise to help open your lungs and close your mind. Ready? All together now, one…two…three…sing…
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
KEEP THE HOUSE!
DON’T BE A MOUSE!
DUMP YOUR SPOUSE!
Again. This time, Louder.
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
KEEP THE HOUSE!
DON’T BE A MOUSE!
DUMP YOUR SPOUSE!
I can’t hear you! Jenny can’t hear you!
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
KEEP THE HOUSE!
DON’T BE A MOUSE!
DUMP YOUR SPOUSE!
Great. Now please take a moment to catch your breath.
Now visualize yourself staring straight into the MTV camera.
You should try to come up with a threatening facial expression. Think gangsta. And, for the best possible delivery, keep pointing your index finger as though you’re jabbing it into someone’s chest.
Oh, one more thing: there’s no profanity in my lyrics. If you really dig your gangsta rap, feel free to drop-in the F-word, wherever you think it’s needed.
Ready? All together now, one, two, three…
HE WENT TO ARGENTINA TO PLAY WITH HIS CHIQUITA
DON’T CRY FOR HER LIKE YOU DID FOR EVITA
THANKS TO HER HE’LL NEVER BE PREZZ
BUT HE’S THE ONE TO BLAME LIKE JUST YOUR GUT SAYS.
HE’LL APOLOGIZE WITH NOTHING BUT LIES, SO JUST…
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
HE WENT BEFORE THE CAMERAS TO TELL HIS STORY
HE LOOKED SO STUPID, HE’LL NEVER HAVE THE GLORY.
JEN, YOU DID THE RIGHT THING BY NOT JOININ’ IN
THAT MISSUZ SPITZER THING CAUSES CRAWLIN’ OF MY SKIN.
LET HIM TWIST ALONE, TOTALLY ALONE, AND…
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
HIS AIDS COME TO YOU. THEY BEG AND CAJOLE
TO SAVE HIS FUTURE IS GOOD FOR THE PARTY
BUT HER TAN LINES TRUMPED ALL THAT FISCAL CONTROL
THOSE PLEAS FOR FORGIVENESS ARE PRETTY DAMN TARDY.
STAND IN HIS WAY? STAND IN HIS WAY? YOU’LL…
TRIP THAT LOUSE!
TRIP THAT LOUSE!
HOLIDAYS ARE COMIN’ AND THIS GETS STICKY
HAVIN’ HIM AT THE TABLE SHOULD MAKE YOU SICKLY
THIS TURKEY-GUY PLEASE KEEP OFF YOUR LIST
HE CAN GO SALSA WITH HIS ARGENTINE MISS.
LEAVE HIS CHAIR EMPTY, JUST…
SKIP THAT LOUSE!
SKIP THAT LOUSE!
HE’S PROBABLY TELLIN’ YOU HE’S FILLED WITH REMORSE
HE WANTS TO BE PUNISHED, BEATEN WITH FORCE
DON’T HESITATE. THIS WILL MAKE YOU FEEL GOOOOD
GRAB SOMETHING ROUGH, HIDE HIS FACE WITH A HOOD
AND WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT…
WHIP THAT LOUSE!
WHIP THAT LOUSE!
AS HE CRUMBLES, TEARS OF PITY YOU MAY SHED
YOU MAY EVEN WEAKEN AND LET HIM INTO YOUR BED
HE MAY HAVE HIS WAY, THEN FALL OFF TO SLEEP
WHILE HE’S LYIN’ PEACEFUL, REMEMBER HE’S A CREEP.
GO GET YOUR SCISSORS AND…
SNIP THAT LOUSE!
SNIP THAT LOUSE!
THE DAY WILL COME WHEN YOU’RE READY FOR SOME FUN
TRY SAN DIEGO FOR ITS SURF AND ITS SUN
FIND A BLOND SURFER FOR YOUR OWN BOY HOTTIE.
WHEN THE GOV ASKS WHY? IT’S THAT TWENNY-SOMETHIN’ BODY.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO…
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
FLIP THAT LOUSE!
A very special thanks to those of you who actively participated. If Jenny will sing this number with the same sneering, finger pointing, take-no-poop attitude, she’ll be just fine. Trust me. Music works miracles.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Mama and The Papa
Her nickname was Mama, pronounced Ma-maah. She was a black woman from Louisiana, who came to New York to begin a career that she would not be allowed to pursue in almost any other U.S. city. In 1961 she rented the basement of a building on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and started an experimental theater, which she named Café La Mama.
She started her theater to help two of her friends who wanted to be playwrights. Even back then, Broadway was ruled by box office mainstreamism, and Off-Broadway -- once a freer alternative -- was fast becoming a near clone. The fresh artistic voices that were often angry, irreverent, even revolutionary, found homes in the random collection of New York churches, cafes and basements that became collectively known as Off-Off-Broadway.
La Mama began with tiny audiences. Mama would walk on stage before each performance and ring a cowbell to get all five or ten, in attendance, to stop talking. To sustain the theater and the playwrights and actors who slept on her floor and ate her food, Mama kept her day job.
They did daring, ground-breaking work in that basement at 321 Ninth Street, work that got them noticed, but they were forced to move, several times – pushed out by complaining neighbors, racism, phony charges of prostitution, zoning regulations, and license requirements aimed at cleaning up the riff-raff.
New York was not hospitable, but Mama dealt with it all, attracting, protecting, and nurturing new artists, allowing them to push the artistic envelope, while she battled city hall.
Mama’s real name was Ellen Stewart. You can be an avid theatergoer and not recognize the name. She was a tireless promoter, but never a self-promoter, which might explain why the names of some that she nurtured: Sam Shepard, Terence McNally, Nick Nolte, Bette Midler, Harvey Keitel, Danny DeVito, James Coco, and Al Pacino are more recognizable. Ellen introduced Harold Pinter to American audiences.
In 1965 Ellen took her show on the road. Her troupe performed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Denmark, and eventually in more than 70 countries. Ellen spread the gospel of experimental theater all over the world, and brought the world’s artists back to La Mama.
In the late 1960s, La Mama, the anti-Broadway, harnessed the energy, creativity, and social upheaval of the times in ways that sometimes pushed their productions onto Broadway stages, Hair, Godspell, and Jesus Christ Superstar started at La Mama before going neon.
Even with success, La Mama lacked a permanent home, that is, until 1970 when Ellen’s tenacious fundraising, having won grant money from the Ford, Rockefeller, and Kaplan foundations, enabled La Mama to buy its own building, from which it could not be evicted.
That is, until 1992, when the theater was threatened with foreclosure and needed to be saved.
Friends, made along the way, helped rescue La Mama. Friends like Robert DeNiro, Estelle Getty, Sally Kirkland, F. Murray Abraham, and Billy Crystal. Mama was never about getting rich, and maybe that had a little something to do with earning the respect and admiration of those who mattered most.
For nearly 50 years, Ellen Stewart has provided a stage for the new, the original, and the provocative.
Still, her work is not done. Asclepius is now running at La Mama. Asclepius was the Greek god of medicine and healing. Some think the play is Ellen’s poetic commentary on our present health care system. Asclepius was conceived, written, and directed by Ellen Stewart. She is believed to be 91 years old, and has been in ill health for the majority of those years.
The story of Ellen Stewart and La Mama -- from a dingy dirt floor basement to one of the most influential forces in American theater -- really is quite a story.
But it is not the story I came here to tell.
You see, in 1950, when Ellen first arrived in the Big Apple, with sixty dollars to her name, it was to pursue her dream of becoming…
…a fashion designer.
Alone and broke, she walked into St. Patrick’s Cathedral, lit some candles, and prayed for a break. On the way out, she noticed the sign across the street for Saks Fifth Avenue. She had never heard of Saks Fifth Avenue, but she walked in, found the personnel department and asked for a job. While sitting there, designer, Edith Lances walked in, looking for someone to snip threads from brassieres. Instantly, Ellen had a job.
If you don’t have religion, that might make you reconsider.
Black women who worked at Saks were required to wear blue smocks. I’m sure all blue smocked black women looked pretty much alike to everyone else. Maybe that was the point: to conceal their individuality. But, customers began to notice the colorful handmade clothing that Ellen wore under her blue smock. They wanted to know what department they could visit to buy something like it for themselves.
Three months after starting at Saks, snipping threads from bras, Ellen became executive designer of sportswear. Her designs were a sensation. She became the only American to have two gowns at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. The career of her dreams was now reality.
And she lived that reality, until her health made her quit. She had a heart condition and more. Ellen does not shed much light on the details of her life. Those who love her story are left to connect the dots themselves. But she ended up resigning from Saks and doing freelance designs for Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.
Then, she had a nervous breakdown. She went to Morocco for a change of scenery and a change of life. She rested and reflected. Then, she returned to New York, rented a basement and opened her theater.
And now, as commentator, Paul Harvey used to say, you know the rest of the story.
Well, not quite. There’s still a piece missing.
And here it is.
When she first arrived in New York, in 1950, she explored the neighborhoods. On the Lower East Side, she happened onto Orchard and Delancy Streets, where the sidewalks were crammed with tables and pushcarts, piled high with fabric.
There she met Abraham Diamond. The elderly Jewish merchant and the black woman from Louisiana became friends. When she’d visit, he would hand her a packet of fabric with a request to make something special. She would come back, wearing what she had made, and he would parade her around, showing off her creations -- the creations that, at Saks, would be seen and admired, sticking out, irrepressibly, from under her blue smock.
The fabric, of course, was a wonderful gift, but perhaps not as precious as the accompanying words of advice, that to find fulfillment, she should have a pushcart, and that she should push it for others.
Ellen later said that, while recovering in Morocco many years later, the words of the man she called, Papa Diamond came back to her.
The basement she rented at 321 Ninth Street was supposed to be a studio, for displaying her designs. Instead it became Café La Mama, with a pushcart wheel hung over the entrance.
Find fulfillment by pushing the cart for others. Interesting concept.
------------------------------------------------------------
Postscript: It is not easy to obtain the facts of Ellen Stewart’s life. Do the research and you will find contradictory information on her age, place of birth, the exact nature of her health problems, and other details that would normally be easily accessible. But, on personal matters, Ellen has not been one to set the record straight. One day there will be a definitive biography, written by a privileged member of her inner circle. Until then, she will live in the kind of mystery that surrounds an avant-garde stage character. And, she probably prefers it that way.
She started her theater to help two of her friends who wanted to be playwrights. Even back then, Broadway was ruled by box office mainstreamism, and Off-Broadway -- once a freer alternative -- was fast becoming a near clone. The fresh artistic voices that were often angry, irreverent, even revolutionary, found homes in the random collection of New York churches, cafes and basements that became collectively known as Off-Off-Broadway.
La Mama began with tiny audiences. Mama would walk on stage before each performance and ring a cowbell to get all five or ten, in attendance, to stop talking. To sustain the theater and the playwrights and actors who slept on her floor and ate her food, Mama kept her day job.
They did daring, ground-breaking work in that basement at 321 Ninth Street, work that got them noticed, but they were forced to move, several times – pushed out by complaining neighbors, racism, phony charges of prostitution, zoning regulations, and license requirements aimed at cleaning up the riff-raff.
New York was not hospitable, but Mama dealt with it all, attracting, protecting, and nurturing new artists, allowing them to push the artistic envelope, while she battled city hall.
Mama’s real name was Ellen Stewart. You can be an avid theatergoer and not recognize the name. She was a tireless promoter, but never a self-promoter, which might explain why the names of some that she nurtured: Sam Shepard, Terence McNally, Nick Nolte, Bette Midler, Harvey Keitel, Danny DeVito, James Coco, and Al Pacino are more recognizable. Ellen introduced Harold Pinter to American audiences.
In 1965 Ellen took her show on the road. Her troupe performed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Denmark, and eventually in more than 70 countries. Ellen spread the gospel of experimental theater all over the world, and brought the world’s artists back to La Mama.
In the late 1960s, La Mama, the anti-Broadway, harnessed the energy, creativity, and social upheaval of the times in ways that sometimes pushed their productions onto Broadway stages, Hair, Godspell, and Jesus Christ Superstar started at La Mama before going neon.
Even with success, La Mama lacked a permanent home, that is, until 1970 when Ellen’s tenacious fundraising, having won grant money from the Ford, Rockefeller, and Kaplan foundations, enabled La Mama to buy its own building, from which it could not be evicted.
That is, until 1992, when the theater was threatened with foreclosure and needed to be saved.
Friends, made along the way, helped rescue La Mama. Friends like Robert DeNiro, Estelle Getty, Sally Kirkland, F. Murray Abraham, and Billy Crystal. Mama was never about getting rich, and maybe that had a little something to do with earning the respect and admiration of those who mattered most.
For nearly 50 years, Ellen Stewart has provided a stage for the new, the original, and the provocative.
Still, her work is not done. Asclepius is now running at La Mama. Asclepius was the Greek god of medicine and healing. Some think the play is Ellen’s poetic commentary on our present health care system. Asclepius was conceived, written, and directed by Ellen Stewart. She is believed to be 91 years old, and has been in ill health for the majority of those years.
The story of Ellen Stewart and La Mama -- from a dingy dirt floor basement to one of the most influential forces in American theater -- really is quite a story.
But it is not the story I came here to tell.
You see, in 1950, when Ellen first arrived in the Big Apple, with sixty dollars to her name, it was to pursue her dream of becoming…
…a fashion designer.
Alone and broke, she walked into St. Patrick’s Cathedral, lit some candles, and prayed for a break. On the way out, she noticed the sign across the street for Saks Fifth Avenue. She had never heard of Saks Fifth Avenue, but she walked in, found the personnel department and asked for a job. While sitting there, designer, Edith Lances walked in, looking for someone to snip threads from brassieres. Instantly, Ellen had a job.
If you don’t have religion, that might make you reconsider.
Black women who worked at Saks were required to wear blue smocks. I’m sure all blue smocked black women looked pretty much alike to everyone else. Maybe that was the point: to conceal their individuality. But, customers began to notice the colorful handmade clothing that Ellen wore under her blue smock. They wanted to know what department they could visit to buy something like it for themselves.
Three months after starting at Saks, snipping threads from bras, Ellen became executive designer of sportswear. Her designs were a sensation. She became the only American to have two gowns at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. The career of her dreams was now reality.
And she lived that reality, until her health made her quit. She had a heart condition and more. Ellen does not shed much light on the details of her life. Those who love her story are left to connect the dots themselves. But she ended up resigning from Saks and doing freelance designs for Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.
Then, she had a nervous breakdown. She went to Morocco for a change of scenery and a change of life. She rested and reflected. Then, she returned to New York, rented a basement and opened her theater.
And now, as commentator, Paul Harvey used to say, you know the rest of the story.
Well, not quite. There’s still a piece missing.
And here it is.
When she first arrived in New York, in 1950, she explored the neighborhoods. On the Lower East Side, she happened onto Orchard and Delancy Streets, where the sidewalks were crammed with tables and pushcarts, piled high with fabric.
There she met Abraham Diamond. The elderly Jewish merchant and the black woman from Louisiana became friends. When she’d visit, he would hand her a packet of fabric with a request to make something special. She would come back, wearing what she had made, and he would parade her around, showing off her creations -- the creations that, at Saks, would be seen and admired, sticking out, irrepressibly, from under her blue smock.
The fabric, of course, was a wonderful gift, but perhaps not as precious as the accompanying words of advice, that to find fulfillment, she should have a pushcart, and that she should push it for others.
Ellen later said that, while recovering in Morocco many years later, the words of the man she called, Papa Diamond came back to her.
The basement she rented at 321 Ninth Street was supposed to be a studio, for displaying her designs. Instead it became Café La Mama, with a pushcart wheel hung over the entrance.
Find fulfillment by pushing the cart for others. Interesting concept.
------------------------------------------------------------
Postscript: It is not easy to obtain the facts of Ellen Stewart’s life. Do the research and you will find contradictory information on her age, place of birth, the exact nature of her health problems, and other details that would normally be easily accessible. But, on personal matters, Ellen has not been one to set the record straight. One day there will be a definitive biography, written by a privileged member of her inner circle. Until then, she will live in the kind of mystery that surrounds an avant-garde stage character. And, she probably prefers it that way.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Dear Ford Motor Company, I Have An Idea...
That’s right FMC, I have an idea, and I think you’re going to like it.
But first, let me just say congratulations! You won. You played it perfectly by not taking the bailout money. GM took piles of it and then went back and begged for more, and now they’re in Chapter 11 anyway. It couldn’t have worked out any better if your own writers had written the script.
And by the way, did they? Just thought I’d ask.
Didn’t you just love (privately, of course) that little business of closing all of those dealerships with almost no notice? What mischievous Tokyo consulting firm suggested that PR triumph?
Story after story of family-run dealerships, doing business in their communities for generations, sponsoring little league teams, supporting the local theater company, remaining loyal to GM and Chrysler through good times and bad, suddenly and callously forced to sell the their cars at huge losses – cars they had bought in good faith, cars they were often pressured to buy – putting their employees out of work and driving the owners into financial ruin. Nice.
And won’t that be the gift that keeps on giving, as we get to drive by all the prominently located shuttered dealerships, in buildings that will likely sit depressingly empty for a very long time, serving as monuments to incompetence. Catchy phrase, don’t you think?
So, while GM continues to implode (and Chrysler, well, I think we can safely forget about them. Can’t we?), Ford is fast on the way to becoming America’s Car Company.
And, your brilliant strategy is starting to show.
Your cars have been getting some very impressive reviews. I rented a Fusion recently. Not a bad car at all. And, I can see myself driving a Mustang, or maybe an Escape, but I’ll get to that later.
In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed at least three taxicabs that were Escape hybrids.Yup, the next time the price of gas goes out of sight, those guys will be shuttling passengers without losing profits. Smart. Very smart. It’s great street-level, sticky advertising, and it won’t cost you a dime.
And, speaking of great street-level, sticky advertising, here’s my idea.
This has been a bitch of a year for all of us. You’re probably stuck with some cars that, sadly, will never get sold. I’ve heard that some of those cars will eventually be worth less than the ground they sit on and will be sent to the crusher to be turned into metal splinters.
I would like you to save one of those for me. My Subaru Forester is on its last legs. I’ve been driving foreign cars my whole adult life. It’s time for me to get with the program – The Ford Program.
Here’s my deal. Give me one of those cars. Like a lot of people, I happen to be a victim of this very dismal economy. But, please do not think that I’m asking for a gift. Far from it. I want you to turn the car into a mobile billboard. You could paint a powerful message on both sides like: Ford Escape Hybrid – 34-MPG City, or Most Fuel-Efficient SUV On The Road Today – something like that.
Your job is to figure out the message and my job will be to get out there and spread that message. And I just happen to have a few strategies for doing this.
STRATEGY #1:
I call this my CAN’T MISS ME IF THEY TRY STRATEGY.
I would intentionally get caught in traffic jams, where I’m on a highway, heading in the jammed up direction. Where heading south is bumper to bumper, I would be heading south.
I would be sure to be in the left hand lane, so that free flowing traffic, heading north would have to see your mobile billboard, and I would smile and wave as those cars pass by. They would plainly see how much I was enjoying the traffic jam in my comfy, fuel stingy Ford.
I would commit to doing this at least three days per week, for at least an hour per day. We’ll put that in my contract.
STRATEGY #2:
I call this my HOW MANY CASES OF TOILET PAPER WILL FIT? STRATEGY.
I will make weekly trips to Costco, where I will buy cases of as much bulky product as could be neatly packed into the car.
First, I would be centrally parked so that shoppers going to or from the store could watch me cheerfully loading cases of toilet paper, paper towels, humongous bottles of salad dressing and tomato sauce, into the cargo space. While loading my mobile billboard, I would loudly remark, “I can’t believe how much this car can hold. It’s practically impossible to fill this baby up.”
STRATEGY #3:
This little gem is called the HERE COME THE ELEPHANTS STRATEGY.
For exposure to pedestrian traffic, there is nothing better than being downtown when families are walking from the parking garages to the civic center or arena to go see the circus. The trick here is to be stuck at a crosswalk where the pedestrian traffic never lets up. If you don’t hit it just right, you circle around until you do.
It’s not just circuses. This strategy works great for sporting events, home or garden shows – any event where pedestrians cheerfully exercise their right to ignore green lights and saunter across busy streets, sticking it to people behind the wheel. I confess, I don’t understand the mentality, since most of those pedestrians had just, themselves, been behind the wheel. But, no matter, it works every time.
Well FMC, are you with me so far? Admit it, you like this, don’t you? Now, let me give you the big picture, which is not just me out there spreading the good word about America’s Car Company, its lots of us. It’s an army of highly trained, super motivated, unemployed foot soldiers (make that: car soldiers) positioned strategically across the country, on a mission.
Are you seeing the heartwarming PR in this fabulous campaign?
Well, Ford guys, that’s just a taste. I have other ideas. Lots of them. But, I don’t want to give them away all at once. If you like this deal, I’ll be happy to send you a proposal with lots of detail. I don’t want to be negative, but I did see that movie about the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper, who brought his idea straight to you and you stole it, basically ruining his life.
Look, we’ve all done things we’re not proud of. And, besides, that was the old Ford Motor Company.
The new Ford Motor Company has found its Focus, created its Fusion, made its Escape, and gained its Edge. Pretty good, hah? And, there’s a lot more where that came from.
I’ll be waiting for your call. Oh…and, red, if possible.
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