Jesus…it’s taken a bit of sleuthing, but I thought I’d let people know that the $50million in stimulus money set aside for the NEA by the House survived the House/Senate conference intact. It takes some looking, but you can see a summary of funding here.
So…it’s a miracle. Whew. Now just pass the fucker, let Obama sign it, and let’s get on with our lives already.
S
John McCain gets down to the rock’n’roll these kids are talking about….
There’s a group on Facebook sending letters to good old (old) John McCain (R-PTSD) about what artists do as he recently said: “$50 million in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts — all of us are for the arts,” McCain said. “Tell me how that creates any significant number of jobs?”
This is an important matter. It is also an irresistable opportunity for snark. Consequently, here’s my “Dear John” letter. The whole thing wouldn’t fit on the Facebook page, but this is the entire message I sent to him. I can’t wait to hear back!
——————–
Dear John– I understand you are not aware of how funding for the arts creates jobs. So, I’d like to tell you what I do for a living.
I am a playwright. I write plays for theatres to produce. When a theatre agrees to produce one of my plays, they pay me a fee, which I use to pay my mortgage. When I pay my mortgage, that’s one less home going into default and one less bad loan that has to be covered by the government to prevent the financial system from collapsing.
Also when a theatre produces one of my plays, they hire a director, actors, set designers, light designers, property designers, sound designers, stage managers, box office managers, public relations professionals (who disperse money for advertising), and other theatre professionals, many of whom have advanced degrees from universities who have received their tuition.
When a patron chooses to come see my play, they buy a ticket or tickets. They and their friends may also choose to have dinner before the play, which means they go to restaurants, order food, tip waiters and waitresses, and so on. If they drive, they purchase gas to operate their automobiles and often they pay for parking. Many times, if my play has entertained them or provoked discussion, they will go for a drink afterwards, which usually means they spend a few bucks. You like to have a drink now and then, right? And they often make plans to see their friends again, which means they’ll get together and do something at a later date, which usually entails spending more money. To get home, they’ll either drive, or maybe they’ll pay for a taxi. Or, even if they’ve had one or two drinks too many, are tired, or are visiting from out of town, they’ll stay a hotel that night.
People even sometimes fly in from out of town to see one of my shows, which not only involves staying in hotels but requires purchasing airline tickets. So that’s how a silly little bit of “entertainment” affects the economy. Clearly, I should charge more for my plays.
But then, I think you know all that, and you’re just playing politics with the whole
arts issue because a good many of your supporters feel that the arts industry is dominated by liberals, and, as they’re conservatives, singling out the arts is a way to “stick” it to the opposition while pretending to be a great defender of the budget. But we’ll just leave that little inconvenient wrinkle between the two of us, uh?
Thank you so much for asking what I do. One of the traits that helps playwrights do our work is staying informed as to how the world, including politics, works. So I do. It comes in handy when I’m writing. Especially about politics.
Sincerely,
Steve Patterson
Playwright
Portland, Oregon
Well, they’ve come to some kind of agreement, and, ironically, it’s in the general ballpark of what Obama originally asked for. Which has to be some kind of miracle.
A couple thumbnail observations….
If this pisses off people on the far right and far left, they probably got it where it’ll do the most good.
Parts of it will suck.
$789 billion (the number being bandied about) is better than $0 being spent on a stimulus, and the one thing we do know from history is that government spending (sorry, conservatives) promotes growth. (It promotes inflation, too, but I think that’s the last of our worries right now.)
Unless this sucker falls apart between now and Monday, when Obama’s planning to sign it, Barack Obama has already been a devastatingly effective president. (Whether it saves the economy or not remains to be seen.)
It seriously blows to be a Limbaugh conservative right now. Heh.
We should all strap it and put on our helmets. This is going to be “interesting”….
S
So, it’s like this with writing. You can’t find your way through to a new piece unless you work at it. But you can’t make it work until it’s ready. Which means that you spend a lot of time wandering around glassy-eyed, stumbling into posts, getting honked at by cars, or unnerving people on the bus who think you’re staring at them, while all the time, the editor in your head runs images, snippets of dialogue, soundtracks, in an unending, meaningless collage. And you generally are kind of a dick to be around because you only care about this chaotic state you’re in, and you assume everyone else is as crazy as you are.
Then suddenly, usually without warning, you lay your limp, weary pen once more against your rumpled, exhausted notebook, and–BAM!–you’re off. And you’re like, uh…what the hell is going on? What’s going on is you’re writing, and suddenly life seems simpler. And more sunny.
Which is to say that I’ve been living with the pre-writing bends for almost a year on a particular project, and this weekend it jumped up and danced for me and got all weird. And now I’m hanging on and going…wherever we go. Which is a lot better than drifting through life with “No Surprises” playing on an endless, interior loop and generally feeling just a little more miserable than Thom Yorke.
The really perverse part? Every single, goddamn time, you have to get to a point where you forget this is how it works; so that when you actually pass into the writing state, you kick yourself for forgetting, knowing full well that, when it’s over, you’ll just go and forget again.
Want to be a writer? Nothing says glamour like a 1,000-yard stare.
No surprises. Heh.
Some of you will care about this:
You know who you are. And you know what you’ve done.
Hope you find some new kinds of kicks, Lux.
SP
…and what happens?
Actually what happens is Open City, a project dreamed up by PlayGroup, Portland Center Stage’s ongoing playwriting workshop. In short, we all nominated eight locations in Portland, wrote them on paper, tossed the paper into a hat (or a mayonnaise jar…I can’t remember), drew our locations, then drew our number of players. And wrote. And it’s freakin’ cool. (Except my piece.)
The playwrights are: Althea Hukari, Shelly Lipkin, Ellen Margolis, Steve Patterson (I just wandered in from the street, looking for beer), Andrea Stolowitz, Patrick Wohlmut, Nick Zagone, and Matthew B. Zrebski. Matt’s directing. The cast is: Deirdre Atkinson, Ben Buckley, Timothy M. Hill, and Lara Kobrin.
It’s Monday, February 2, 2009, at 7:30pm at The Gerding Theater, Portland Center Stage at The Armory (that’s the big stage, folks). Admission is free. Plus it’s the cherry on top of the fabulous Fertile Ground City-Wide Festival of New Works, which means there’s a party afterwards. With beer. So wander in.
Mill Mountain Theatre hangs it up….
Theatre de la Jeune Lune already has. Lack of sufficient funding.
Madison Repertory Theatre says so long…
But don’t worry! Broadway plans to do a musical adaptation of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
S
John Updike died today at age 76. He wasn’t one of my favorite authors, but I had tremendous respect for him and his accomplishments. He came from a generation of authors that now seems a little larger than life, even though his specialty was observing the small gestures and hanging moments that comprise our lives.
S
My friend and colleague, Ami Sallee Corley (a superb actress who’s played the leads in my plays “Waiting on Sean Flynn” and “Delusion of Darkness” at Tampa’s Jobsite Theater), has been invited to begin blogging on the arts for Tampa’s Website “Creative Loafing.” Her first column asks a question that I think artists in Portland…and in Minneapolis, Seattle, Austin, etc., can identify with, which is: when it’s so tough to make a living from your art in your community, why stay?
(Possible Answer: It’s Tampa. The cigars, of course.)
Next weekend, representatives from the Dramatists Guild are coming to Portland to hold a Playwrights/Theatre Town Hall Meeting, and this may well be a pertinent question to ask, given that they have members in communities across the country and are privy to this dilemma and the many ways artists have found to address it.
Steve
This one’s for my friends at Portland Center Stage….
Steve Patterson's Splatterverse 