Monday, November 21, 2016

Artists on the Frontlines

People are comparing our situation through less than subtle artistic interpretations this week, from revamped comics to musicals. And music acts are singing their sympathies for those horrified by the new regime.

Who hasn't recently re-shared  famous "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" from Cabaret? Some are recommending dystopian classics like The Handmaid's Tale, no longer a cautionary tale, but an accurate prediction.

Perhaps you watched, or refused to watch them, because it's happening in real life, which perhaps relegates musical theatre metaphors of fascism to the redundant file.

Or, more more immediately, you hopefully watched the zillion-shared video of Victor Dixon, on behalf of the cast of Hamilton addressing the retreating VP-elect Pence, who had been booed during his attendance of the hit musical about, ironically, a lefty radical vice-president. 

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Politics in the Pages

I once served Donald Trump dinner while a cater waiter in the 1980s, at The Frick Mansion, I recall, and in retrospect, it was the lowest day of my employed life. He didn't even clean his plate; total loser.

The arrogant, bigoted, serial adulterer and now-Republican presidential candidate –update: President-elect– was at the time one of New York City's many bloated egos of metropolitan life, and a mere casual mention in my second novel, Monkey Suits. The book's main nemesis, as covered in a previous post, was a hybrid of closeted millionaire Malcolm Forbes and sinister writer and homophobe William F. Buckley, Jr.

Trump was just a sidebar, a boldface in the gossipy style of that book. I never could have imagined that we'd get to where we are today, mere hours from a presidential election where Hillary Clinton, a woman with decades of political experience, (update) won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, against Trump, a bankrupt (financially and morally), bloviating serial lying asshole of preposterous proportions.