Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Why Print Media is Declining

I overheard this in a coffee shop yesterday between someone who works at one of our rapidly disappearing local papers and one of their customers. The employee of the paper was bemoaning the decline in circulation, advertising, layoffs, etc...  The customer just looked him in the eye and said,

"Why do I want to read your paper anymore. All you do is print how much life, politics, the economy, government, and everything else sucks, and is going to get worse, and we don't even get the benefit of that being written by someone local. Why do I want to read what that garbage."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Budget Bumbling

The Obama administration released an outline of its budget today and of course every third grader could have predicted the resulting hue and cry that came out of the Republicans, as well as the chorus of defenses that the Democrats were singing. It’s a shame the Republicans don’t have any imagination or smarts left. But then, hey it is early in the game and this is only an outline without details as of yet.

As the mouthpieces waggle their lips spouting ridiculous rhetoric, there are few key points that I’d love to make.

Before I get to that, I can’t vouch for the budget, and I can’t vouch against everything that is being criticized. I’m sure there are some things in the budget that I would personally be against. I am prepared to take the President at his word about transparency, and anyone who doesn’t think it will take some for that to be proven true or false is nothing but a sniveling opportunist at best. I buy the rationale that has been laid out about putting everything on the table, including the costs for the current wars that were previously off the table, and I buy the general logic that has been offered so far.

But to those points.

• Any politician, media type, or mouthpiece who tries to tell you that we aren’t going to need to raise revenue some way to get out of the ridiculous mess we’ve been accumulating over the last 20 years or so deserves to be tarred and feathered in public. Keep in mind that 44.5% of our nation’s debt was owned by foreign countries at the end of 2007. That percentage is probably higher now. Can we just stop that hypocrisy now.
• Can we just stop the farce that will continue about reporting on the budget battles ahead before they start? In a time where the media (all forms) are struggling to make ends meet in a disappearing economy, don’t you think folks would flock to their products if they actually offered some honest, non-politically connected analysis of this, instead of just parroting whatever talking points will come out of either side? Just a thought.
• While the Obama administration is playing (rightly so in my opinion) the transparency and honesty cards, let’s have them roll back the clock to last fall and tell us once and for all what happened prior to that weekend in September that apparently pulled the keystone out of the very shaky architecture that was holding the entire house of cards together, and had been for years. Let’s find out what shook our confidence so much so, that it changed the con game that was our economy into a sinking ship. Let’s get to the real bottom of this instead of just prolonging the guessing game, no matter how ugly, no matter where the chips end up falling.
• I see today that seemingly permanent boil on the country’s butt and sexual pervert, Dick Morris is blaming Obama for spreading the panic. His rationale is that a president needs to be more of the optimist in chief and not the truth teller, and he conveniently forgets how we got here. I guess he’d rather Obama speak up and tell us all to go shopping. Fair enough, it is a new day, and he’s allowed his opinion, and yes, it seems with every painful step that the Obama administration is taking, we see bad news follow. I’d lighten up on the current blame though if I were you Dick. Because if we ever do roll back the clock to look at where these problems began, I think we’ll find that you were slobbering in that president’s here as he worked to co-opt the Republican agenda, egging him onwards while you were diggling with call girls. The point of this point isn’t to single out Morris. Everyone on either side knows he’s just a sad clown outside of the center ring, who keeps the crowd entertained.  My point is I’d like to start singling out individuals, whether they be politicians, advisers, media types, bankers, lawyers, whatever, who had a hand in all of these shenanigans. The only way we might leaders and heroes to get us out of this mess is to identify some of the villains.

I’m sure I’ll have more as this goes on, but that’s enough food for thought at the moment.

Are Summer Theatre Subscription Sales a Positive Economic Indicator?

Reading the dismal economic news and struggling through a difficult third quarter here where are sales and donations are down at Wayside Theatre, there is an interesting trend that we, and some of our sister theatres are seeing.

Theatres that run during the summer months or begin their seasons in the summer and run the full year (as we do) typically being their push for subscriptions at one of two times. We take the path where we do our “early renewals” or “early bird” plans in December each year. This is when we hope for our existing subscribers to renew for the next year. We also acquire new subscribers during this period. Many take the path of beginning their push around the first of March or so.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised by our early renewal and new subscriber rate. We’re seeing a return of 70% which is a record for us during this time. At the recent Unified Professional Theatre Auditions, where over 80 producers gathered to audition over 800 actors for their next season, those of who pushed next year’s subscriptions in December were seeing similar results. In fact, we were all somewhat astonished and relieved to hear that others were experiencing the same thing.

The conversations typically went, “You, too?” “Do, you know why?” “Me, neither.”

There are reasons for this upsurge in subscription renewals although I think it is hard to pin it down completely in our case, but here are two.

1. Most theatres are going very mainstream in their programming for next year, appealing to the broadest common denominator.
2. Many of us are running promotions that allow this year’s subscribers to see next year’s plays at this year’s prices, ahead of a price increase.

But, whatever the reason the timing is very intriguing. Folks purchased in December and January for product they won’t receive until June or beyond. This came as we were hearing daily about the dire economic situation, and as reports are now coming to light at a time that consumer spending was down. (As if we needed the latest round of reports to tell us that.) It also came at a time when many of us running Christmas shows experienced less than usual sales volume.

Are folks betting that things will be better by summer in this winter of discontent? It sure feels that way.

The Neighborhood Foreclosure Question

I’m no real estate expert and I’m no financial expert. We keep hearing that if a foreclosure happens next door to a house where its owners have been “playing by the rules” and paying their bills, that it affects the value of all those homes in the neighborhood, whether they are doing the right thing or not.

I know that’s the way the system has always worked, the market decides.  But isn’t the market people? Isn’t someone responsible for making that assessment? People make these decisions and the phrase “market” is just a cover for that and has always been.

So, if people make these decisions and assessments, can’t we attack that problem? Isn’t it conceivable (at least as concept) to say, we screwed the pooch on this housing thing looking for ways to create something out of something less? While we’re looking for ways to help out, can’t we restructure the way we perceive the value decline (or add) in this crisis? Isn’t the assessment game a part of the problem?

I’m sure there are real answers to the questions here, and I’m sure there are fake answers as well. (I define fake as in how we faked our way into this whole thing in the first place.)

Isn’t it time to take the mask off the market? In the little theatre in my mind we’d all better off if we stopped saying “let the market decide” and start identifying who the players are.

Again, I’m no expert here, I’m just asking.

The Invisible Octopus

This is just too much fun to watch. Apparently this Octopus has chameleon like qualities. Watch the video, especially the slow motion replay at the end. Fun and spooky.

 

Via The Inquisitr

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s been awhile, but here’s the return of Sunday Morning Reading.

The title of this article, Everyone Loves Google, Until It’s Too Big, could be written as Everyone Loves (fill in the blank), Until It’s Too Big. We love to watch the fall as much as we celebrate the rise.

It’s Oscar night (yawn). Here’s a link to what somebody thinks are Oscar’s greatest snubs via Newsweek.

Nate Silver of 538.com who predicted with some pretty good accuracy what would happen in the recent election has picked his Oscar winners.

This goes against my “tuning out” post of yesterday. George Soros says the worst is yet to come. Amazing how we listen to this guy.

A judge says that a news scoop is “quasi-property” and can be protected like copyrighted material. Note that one of the qualifiers is that the “plaintiff generates or gathers information at a cost.” Ha.

Frank Rich on What We Don’t Know Will Hurt Us. He’s right. We don’t want to know the bad news even when we know it is staring us in the face.

The Wyoming Senate has voted to end Internet hunting. Who knew there was Internet hunting? Apparently you can (or could) log on to a site and shoot animals with a remote controlled rifle attached to a web cam.

Did Google Earth discover Atlantis with its Google Ocean extension? Google says no. Fun if it was true.

Keepers of the American Values Flame

Bernie Madoff

Michael Phelps

Sarah Palin

Rod Blagojevich

Allen Stanford

Donald Trump

Rush Limbaugh

Roland Burris

A-Rod

The US Congress

Rick Santelli

Louie Gohmert

Michelle Bachmann

Karl (I want immunity) Rove

The New York Post

Phil Graham

Sean Hannity

I imagine the list will just keep getting longer.

Instant Commentary on the Game We’re Playing

For the first time in my life I think I’m about to tune out. It’s not that I’ve got enough on my hands trying to keep things afloat in my own end, I do.That’s not why. The reason is simple really. Every day, every hour, basically almost every minute we get constant commentary on the craziness that is all around us. In the end, all of it is essentially meaningless. But yet the constant cacophony of commentary via the traditional media, (I’m not sure what that means anymore), the Internet (I’m not sure what that means anymore either) and everyday chatter is beginning to sound like the barnyard noise in a chicken coop. There’s lots of of it, and it is so much the same that it means nothing.

Of course that’s human nature. When we witness something awful we talk about it. Unfortunately, those who are paid to talk about it keep doing so in ways that do nothing but add to the din, and I fear add to the problem. The nattering nabobs can’t be blamed too much, I guess, because they’re just doing what they do to earn a paycheck, and goodness knows they’ve proven that they know very little in all of this. Of course they still pretend to in the same way they pretended to know so much while we got into this mess in the first place.

It is almost like watching any sports game and having the announcers declare the winner or the loser of the contest based on each pitch, each pass, or each play in a game. This one is just getting started and the outcome is certainly beyond anyone’s predictions.

Two things are becoming increasingly obvious to me. First that the problems we all face are larger than anyone wants to let on, or being kind, that anyone can grasp. Second, that the attempts to hang on to some degree of normalcy as we struggle through are becoming self defeating.

I know that sounds overly cynical, but I also know life will go on in some fashion.

The folks doing the hard work of trying to put together solutions are not to be envied. Their task is enormous and perhaps beyond compare. The folks doing the commenting though need not only to back off a bit, but quit stuffing their own ego sock in the process. I suppose they think they are helping in some fashion (in some cases; others do it just to cause a momentary uproar), but in the end they are destroying the fine line we are all walking these days as they continue to trod forward. Perhaps that will be a positive result when all is said and done, but like the problem itself, that will take time to assess and measure.

It is not that I’m sick of the commentary or the commentators, I’m just tired of watching ignorance and blatant hypocrisy masquerade as authority. They have nothing to offer anymore, and perhaps the tragedy of it is, they never did, except that which we bestowed on them. I’m not talking about just media mouthpieces either. I’m also including supposed leaders who are supposedly leading through this. More than our financial infrastructure has been damaged, and yes the confidence (con game?) that it was built on has been ripped asunder as well.

The farce that has long been the foundations shoring up the institutional phrases we cling to for security and comfort  (democracy, the market, economics, politics, business, capitalism, socialism, etc… ) have been exposed, and for those paying attention, the farce just isn’t funny anymore.

Thoughts on Thoughts

As I continue to swim upstream on a number of fronts and watch news items fly by me heading the other way on the current, I catch and grasp some of what’s going on, and try to play catch up when I can take a brief pause now and then.

Here are a random collection of thoughts on a random collection of things that I’ve picked up on recently.

Politics as usual. It seems like Congress is still the biggest collection of idiots ever assembled on the planet in watching the fight over the stimulus plan. The Republicans are so feckless that they can’t even inspire a decent Saturday Night Live sketch, even with Dan Ackroyd. I always believed Obama would have as much, if not more, trouble from the Democrats as he does with the Republicans, and as long as Pelosi and Reid are in charge, I’m thinking I’m right.

Speaking of the Obama administration, it seems like they are doing a decent job on some fronts, but failing miserably when it comes to others. I guess that’s par for the course, but disappointing in the early going.

Instant gratification. What is the news media going to do while it is waiting for whatever will come from the stimulus bill to either work or not? Flail hopelessly? Continue to prove as ineffectual as they have so far? Continue to try and frighten the hell out of us? Haven’t they proven that all the business reporting in the word is to be kind: completely bogus and as much of a sham as political reporting is? I like the suggestion I heard last week. Nationalize the media, shut them down for two weeks, and watch the economy take a turn for the better.  I think there is merit to that.

Is anyone else tiring of the Icarus like behavior of athletes these days? A-Rod. Michael Phelps.

I’m very glad to see that funding for the National Endowment for the Arts survived in the stimulus bill.

The actors union says the effect that the economic downturn is having on the arts is “a galactic catastrophe.” Not sure how I feel about that hyperbole.

Why does Comcast hate MSNBC here where I live. The sound quality is awful on that station and that station alone. Commercials (not that I care about them,) are frequently interrupted before they complete. On a rare night of watching the boob tube, I counted at least 15 commercials that advertisers should demand make goods for.

One thing I hope the “galactic economic catastrophe” changes is the ridiculous timetables for stocking merchandise is stores way ahead of season changes. I was in Kohl’s before my recent trip to buy a belt. I was surrounded by shorts, summer shirts, and the like. The temperature was freezing outside (this was before our recent spate of warm weather, since subsided.) At least 3 customers I ran into were complaining about the fact that they couldn’t find winter weather clothing in the store. I’m not sure, but I think we were about the only 4 customers in the store.

This story on the rise and fall of Mr.. Peanut man, added to the spate of stories of greed, corruption, stupidity, etc.. that have accompanied our recent woes, makes me wonder if we haven’t reached a point where we need to pull back the curtains on this farce to reveal just how sorry the human race has become. It also makes me fear tremendously for future generations. Ah the human condition. Although I don’t think Rod Blagojevich qualifies as a part of the human condition.

The Spirit Maker Magic Scarf

Yes, we celebrated my wife’s birthday last night and it was actually a wonderfully low-key fun time with lots of chocolate, some good wine, and some good chit-chat with friends and co-workers. (You can find some pictures on this Flickr feed.) 

Thomasin got a Spirit Maker Scarf as a gift and from the looks of it, this one is pretty flexible. And fun. Well, I’ll let you decide.