The Big Three and Thee

Are there any people out there who still believe that what's good for General Motors is good for America? Those are the people who will no doubt support the $25 billion bailout package being sought by GM, Ford and Chrysler. Others, like me (and some members of Congress) have to question whether this is a wise move or more likely throwing money at a problem and hoping it will go away. The Big Three may become the Big Two or the Only One after this financial crisis resolves itself, but the industry has been in trouble for some time, hemorraging losses year after year as foreign car companies steadily captured more and more of the U.S. market. American consumers are not buying American cars as they once did. Credit Japanese and German carmakers with building a better, more fuel efficient series of vehicles that have left American car buyers clammoring for more of the same from their domestic carmakers. When gas prices were hovering around the $4.00 mark, those in fuel efficient gas-powered foreign autos or hybrids weren't exactly smiling, but they weren't wincing in pain like those driving American guzzlers. With the exception of a used Datsun that I drove back for a short time in the 70s following an accident and an ill-fated day that I bought a used Porshe only to have it fail, I have only owned one foreign car for more than a year, a Volvo. I don't believe there are quite as many American consumers who can claim that track record. Nevertheless, I can understand the need to move to a better, more efficient product. The American people have cast their votes with their wallets and pocketbooks. I believe that a handout is not necessary, but a hand up is. I am concerned about the possibility of American workers losing as many as two million jobs and the residual fallout from that. I'm also concerned about what those lost jobs could mean to local communities as car dealerships reel in economic disaster. The Big Three need to realize that the federal government doesn't want them to fizzle, but it's not willing to prop up failing businesses with wads of cash that will quickly evaporate. There's no doubt they would be back for another handout in short order. At $154 million per day in losses, it's time for the Big Three to start figuring out how they can work with the United Auto Workers, rein in these staggering losses, and come up with options on how they can maintain what little part of the marketplace they still cling to. These hard decisions will have to be made soon whether a bailout is possible or not. Perhaps the CEOs of the Big Three had this to mull over as they flew back to Detroit aboard their private jets, winging their way back to their boardrooms.

Fringe benefits and no bonuses

The New Orleans Fringe Festival closed out its inaugural run last night and with few exceptions, I found it to be an incredibly successful four days of theatre, dance and innovative experimental multimedia. I was blown away with the caliber of performances and by the numbers of attendees who gleefully paid their $7.00 per ticket to attend the shows at six different main venues and seven alternative venues organized by the artists themselves. For the first year, it proved to be a well-run venture that brought in many dollars to participating venues. Although I was only able to see three shows on Sunday in addition to the four on Saturday I had written previously (see "Scurry with the Fringe on Top"), I found the shows to be worthy and with sufficient production values to make the presentations enjoyable. Shows that I saw ran the gamut from dark comedies to experimental theatre. Le Chat Noir's "...in other words, New Orleans," started off the Fringe shows that I saw Sunday. The ten short one act plays focused on New Orleans and its recovery efforts. The cast was composed of ten talented local players, some of whom were writers like Vernel Bagneris ("One 'Mo Time") and Jamie Wax ("Goin' To Jackson"). Following that show I rushed off to see other Fringe projects in the French Quarter and Faubourg Marigny. "Danny the Diver and Luna" at St. Mark's Community Center was an incredible ballet of light, color and music produced by three overhead projector operators playing to a pre-recorded soundtrack. The three projectors would turn on and off in synchronicity providing brilliantly crafted concordance telling the two stories in seamless fashion on the large screen. I watched in amazement as they told their tales with the two file boxes of prepared transparencies, shifting them ever so carefully or rolling them across the face of the projector in concert with one another. Ponder one aspect of their artistic achievement, which is that everything they do is upside down. So, if a fish has to swim from top to bottom on the screen, it would be moved from the bottom of the face of the projector towards the top. Puppetry was the focus for the final show of the night. "The Tragical Ballet of Black Bonnet" was produced by a local troupe and was based on the true story of a Scottish kitchen maid born with...er...an extra set of plumbing.

Goldman-Sachs top seven executives decided today they would not accept bonuses this year. How benevolent of them. After all, they each make a base salary of $600,000, which would seem pretty high for most executives. Last year's bonuses ran $19 billion and was split between them, so their decision will cost them over $2 billion each. With the current financial crisis and recession (yes, we can say that word) in place, I am glad that somebody out there is admitting that this is probably not the time to accept payment for what might be considered disastrous fiduciary stewardship. Hard times demand sacrifices. Now if we can only get the top hedge fund managers to take a similar posture and give some of their bonuses back to their companies.

Scurry with the Fringe on top

The inaugural New Orleans Fringe Festival kicked off this past Thursday and already, before it's even closed down, it is a runaway success. With dozens of shows in nearly a dozen venues, the areas of Faubourg Marigny and Bywater have been blessed with fair weather and huge crowds at small houses that have been packed with eager theatregoers and aficionados of dance. The success of the New Orleans Fringe Festival in only its first year has got to be due to the diligence of its creators Kristen Evans and Dennis Monn. Monn is the artistic director, while Evans is the executive director. The two have assembled a Cracker Jack staff of mostly volunteers and patterned it after other successful Fringe festivals, the granddaddy of all located in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Fringe began in 1947. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is known for dozens of street venues with performers putting on well-done original pieces or street performers doing their own eclectic thing. In any event the concept of a Fringe festival has spread like wildfire across the country. The New York Fringe Festival, for example, has garnered for itself quite a reputation for engaging and sometimes experimental theatre and there are several past entries at the New York Fringe that appear at this year's New Orleans Fringe Festival. This first festival has provided quite a number of quite reputable productions, each running about an hour in length. The price of pre-purchased tickets from the festival tent is only $5.00 each, but everyone has to purchase a $3.00 Fringe pin with any ticket purchase, so the cost is really $8.00. Tickets purchased at each venue cost $7.00, but the cost of a Fringe pin puts that up to $10.00. I must confess that I had not expected the large number of interested and attentive crowds that have attended all the shows. Some of the shows I caught on Saturday were "Galveston," a story about an old curmudgeon who considers himself "the greatest lover on the island" and his erstwhile 15-year-old "son" and best friend, whom he sends off to drown his girlfriend at her request so that she can be resuscitated and thus reborn. "Baby Boom" was a dark comedy that depicted a couple who find a machine gun in a baby basket left at their doorstop and who decide to raise it as their very own child. "The Last Castrato" was another dark comedy about a man born without genitals who loses it. The last show on my card Saturday was "Stripped," directed by Francine Segal and starring herself and Diana Shortes as Baroness Pontalba and Jennifer Pagan as an unnamed Latino who has come to the United States to better herself. It was a packed house for a show that started at 10:00 p.m., which is absolutely incredible when one thinks about it. It's great to see audiences enjoying themselves, but even better to see the talented ensemble that is New Orleans theatre showcased in so many different venues. Good luck to the Fringe and I can't wait to see what goodies they bring tomorrow and on into next year.

Jimi's band is complete now

Drummer Mitchell at left with Hendrix and bassist Redding

Some of you are either too old or too young to know who Mitch Mitchell was. If bassist Noel Redding's death in 2003 didn't affect you, then most likely Mitch Mitchell's passing in a Portland, Oregon hotel room yesterday morning won't make any impression either. But for those of us who grew up in the Sixties and Seventies -- those flower children and rockers who were defined by Woodstock, Haight Ashbury and the sexual revolution -- his death is significant. Mitch Mitchell, born in Ealing, England some seven years before me, achieved fame as the jazz tinged drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Noel Redding was the bassist and Jimi, of course, provided the left-handed lead guitar and lead vocals. It was one of the few trios in rock history that achieved any lasting effect. Most bands have always had a lead and a rhythm guitar who played against one another. That was the genius of Jimi Hendrix. No one could ever play rhythm against him, so he decided there was no need for one. Recently, Mitchell had attempted to capture lightning in a bottle for the second time, when he headed up the Experience Hendrix Tour. That tour ended last week and the 61-year-0ld performer was taking it easy over the course of a four-day vacation when he suddenly and unexpectedly died. If you ever saw a picture of Mitch Mitchell, you would say he was the perfect counterpart to Hendrix. Mitchell's wildly teased mane and colorful clothing was a complement to the leader of the band and his playing was termed by many as explosive and frenetic. He was a vital part of what made Jimi Hendrix the star he became and his passing would be considered a bigger deal had the Seattle-born guitarist lived longer than 1970. We all miss Jimi, but with Mitchell's passing yesterday and Redding's passing five years ago, the band has finally reunited. If I close my eyes, I can swear I can hear "Voodoo Chile" being played one more time....

Studying for my cousin's Bat Mitzvah

Leave it to me to volunteer. If Rodgers and Hammerstein were still alive today, they would probably write a new song titled "I Caint Say No." Hmmm...well maybe they already did do that, but it would, nevertheless, still be a valid consideration for me. Ask me to do something and watch what happens. Yes, it gets done. Anyone who knows me knows that I rarely lack for something to keep me occupied. A few days ago I made plans to attend my second cousin's Bat Mitzvah in Los Angeles and was asked via an e-mail by her mom to read one of the Torah portions aloud during the services. It is a high honor to be asked, but it requires a great deal of study in order to do it properly. So what did I do? Did I graciously decline and state how honored I was in being asked? Did I make it a point to point out how difficult it would be for me to prepare for such an event? Did I quite rightfully suggest that it would be too much for to deal with in conjunction with my regular and extracurricular activities? Nope. I answered back in the affirmative and asked what aliyah (section) she had in mind. Hmmm....nothing like adding to my workload and increasing the pressure upon me. In the words of the queen of American theatre, Helen Hayes, "When you rest, you rust." Well, as I oftentimes figure, they'll always be a time for me to rest once I've passed on. In the meantime, it's back to get back to work.

When we beat swords into plowshears...

Today we honor those who have gone to war or served to protect our citizenry on behalf of a grateful nation. While I feel that I am more than appropriately patriotic on a number of fronts, I don't have any surviving members of my immediate family who are among current U.S. veterans. There are two uncles on both sides. The first, my 86 year-old Uncle Irvin fought in World War II as a Marine, but my father, who was his junior by just three years, never had the opportunity to join the military. Most did. Roughly half of his graduating 1944 class at L.S.U. perished in the war. Being a chemical engineering graduate, he was immediately issued a military exemption and sent to a small town in Tennessee to work on a secret engineering project whose success would ensure the eventual end of the conflict. My father worked with uranium isotopes and was even exposed to uranium gas at Oak Ridge where only a few people understood what the Manhattan Project was all about. Although I am very proud of what he accomplished in the war effort, he had no uniform or medals to show for what he did. He had no tales of being pinned down by enemy fire in France or bravely storming Mt. Suribachi. Of course, I was glad that he did not have to undergo the terrors of a battlefield, but it is ironic that he was exempted from military service and was exposed to gas, while his father fought against the Axis in World War I. My grandfather was a part of the Rainbow Division that went "over there" and he experienced the inhumane war machine that used mustard gas to fill the lungs of thousands of soldiers, most of whom suffered horrible deaths. My grandfather survived his tour of duty, but just barely. Another soldier on the other side likewise survived a gas attack during the same war and spent several weeks convalescing at war's end. That German corporal named Hitler went back to his home and began a campaign of hate that embroiled into the World War II and the Holocaust. Meanwhile, my grandfather came home and eventually married my grandmother who bore him my father and later my dad's brother Joel (the second uncle of whom I spoke earlier) nine years later. Although my dad never served, his younger brother became a doctor and served in Japan as a member of the Air Force Medical Corps. I remember how proud my grandmother was of his service to his country and how glad she was that he served in a time of peace. It was different during my time to be called up for military service. There was a draft on and the war the nation waged in VietNam was one that split the country politically and philosophically. I don't know what I would have done had my draft number been number one as it was for those born on my birth date in 1955. I would like to think that I would have answered the call to arms and proudly served my country as did my paternal grandfather and at least one of his brothers. It is those simple men and women who serve this country that continue to guarantee freedom for our citizens and promote our democratic ways in a world where many would like to see a weak or impotent U.S military. While John Lennon imagined there were no countries, it is the realist in me that recognizes that idealism doesn't work in an imperfect world. Perhaps one day there won't be a need for soldiers and veterans, but until that day I am holding to the Scouting motto that says "Be prepared."

"God on Trial"

I was alerted at the last minute last night about a PBS "Masterpiece" drama titled "God on Trial" based on a supposed real life occurrence at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Obviously, the well-written BBC drama lent itself to an examination of the horrible conditions Jews and others were subjected to at the death camps in general and in particular at that ghastly place. Moreover, it was an opportunity to explore the major issue confronting the surviving Jews after the Holocaust was over: namely, where was God during those intolerable times? How could God allow His "chosen people" to be so callously dispatched by such malevolent monsters when they had clung to their beliefs so tenaciously? What was God's plan in all of this or was there no plan at all? Was it all a matter of man's free will running amok? Or were the best among the Jews, their most precious of victims, destined to be slaughtered for some divine plan unknown to them at the time? It was a wrenching production that spared the viewer the most vile and sinister portions of what Auschwitz residents endured, but expanded what might have been a simple storyline into a philosophical and religious in-depth exploration. This was a group of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary times. Some were deeply devout and tried to explain their circumstances as a redaction of God's will, while others who had lost their faith questioned the very existence of an Almighty being who could allow the Holocaust to take place. The fast-paced script brought traditional Jewish thought and challenged it in a courtroom-like setting set in an Auschwitz dormitory. The British actors were superb with outstanding performances by Rupert Graves, Anthony Sher, Stellan Skargård and Dominic Cooper among others. If you missed it, I suggest you keep your eyes peeled on PBS for a repeat performance. While not a historical certainty, the trial is a fascinating tool to bring into view the soul searching that tested the faith of all who lived during those trying times. This very strong drama provides its audience with philosophical and theological issues and makes for compelling, not-to-be-missed TV viewing.