senator tourist...
Posted on 08/10/2005 6:48:02 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Memo to: Hillary Clinton, Her Indescribable Holiness
from: Irv, New York Impresario
re: your Presidential Gig
Hillary, baby,
Yes, I know the last time I offered you show biz advice, it was about your senatorial shtick. I said it wouldn’t work, and offered several reasons. You were right and I was wrong. But now you’re looking at a bigger league.
You’ve put yourself in a great position to have a shot at the presidential gig. The Democratic Leadership Committee has just made you chairman (you don’t mind being referred to as a man, do you?) of the effort to write a new platform for the Democrats. The DLC is the reasonable wing of the Democrat Party, as opposed to the Howard Dean/George Soros/Al Franken wing. The Dean Wing are, of course, barking mad.
Don’t tell me you’re just seeking “to serve the people of New York” as a Senator. This is Irv. I can smell ambition a mile away. Upwind. In a rainstorm. Save the senatorial tapdance for the folks who engage in “the willing suspension of disbelief,” as Robert Penn Warren wrote.
So, you get to write reasonable-sounding platitudes for the DLC, which will then become the platform of the Democrat Party. Your hard-wired audience, the Kool-Aid drinkers, will know that you don’t really mean it. “Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Know what I mean?” quoting “Spamalot.”
Press reports on that script assignment you got said that the Democrats have to be "for something." Anything in particular? Or just something? What is this? Pin the beliefs on the donkey? Just blindfold the kids, spin them around three times, and turn them loose. What fun! But I digress.
In accepting that DLC script assignment, you said, "We Democrats have not yet succeeded in isolating and defeating the far right in part because all too often we have allowed ourselves to be split between left, right and center.” Half of that is spot on. Nothing in the theater succeeds without a clear point of view, whatever it is. The worst reviews say, “This movie/play never figured out what it was trying to do.”
You can pretty well guarantee that you get the nomination, and get to write the platform. But that’s the same as getting a callback in auditions. It don’t guarantee you get the role, much less that you’ll be boffo on Broadway.
Well, actually, you already ARE boffo on Broadway. That’s just what may causing you to mislead yourself. This time, the casting director will not just be 10 million New Yorkers. It’ll be 100 million Americans in all 51 jurisdictions. Fifty jurisdictions, really. The District of Columbia would vote for a dead skunk on the Democrat ticket. (No offense meant, sweet cheeks. That’s just a figure of speech.)
For you to win over the audience, and play the role for four years – or eight years – more than half the audience have to like or admire you in some way. A few examples: Will Shakespeare knocked ‘em dead with “The Taming of the Shrew.” Would he have succeeded under the title, “The Shrew Wins Again”?
Or, take the musical version of the same plot. Cole Porter was “the top, the Mona Lisa” with his score for “Kiss Me, Kate.” Would he have succeeded as well with the title, “Throw Another Lamp at Me, Kate”? Or, just take one number from that show: Imagine the production number, “Another Op'nin', Another Show,” and at the end of that, you come on stage. There would be cheers, but there would also be boos, like at the benefit in New York for police and firemen.
Applause can stop a show, in a good way. But boos can kill a show.
Just try to consider your life as the subject of a musical comedy. Both serious and absurd have succeeded on the stage. There was an opera entitled “Nixon in China.” And “Jerry Springer” is now packing them in, in London. But can you think of any way that your story could succeed on stage?
Some dark subjects have made successful musicals. A man-eating plant succeeded (“Little Shop of Horrors”). Even a man-eating man succeeded (“Sweeney Todd”). But I just cannot imagine a successful musical about Lucrezia Borgia, or Lady Macbeth. You see my point?
You need an out-of-town tryout. A week somewhere in the Midwest. See if you come home covered with bruises from being touched with 11-foot poles. Bottom line baby cakes, it just won’t play in Peoria. (I’m thinking the exact opposite of Gwen Verdon in “Damn Yankees” that I saw out-of-town, fifty years ago.)
Love & Kisses,
Irv
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
John / Billybob
I may not sleep for a week because of that.
Bump
Thanks Congressman BillyBob
Except during the reading of the first sentence, I can picture steam coming out of her ears as she reads this.
Great post! Love the sarcasm.
Good on you John!
|
WHY MISSUS CLINTON IS DANGEROUS FOR THE CHILDREN, FOR AMERICA, FOR THE WORLD madhillary.com (coming soon) madhillary.blogspot.com COPYRIGHT MIA T 2005 |
So, a good bit of the culture of New York was present in Baltimore. (Yes, Baltimore does have a theater scene, music, nightclubs, etc.)
John / Billybob
But Irv they love me in Detroit, South Chicago and Milwaukee. Those are in the Midwest.
: ^ )
Exactly!
...and where I was raised the saying goes like this..."that dog don't hunt!"
And she wont. Well said BB!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
