by notesfromachair

Learning to Shut Up

There’s nothing like an international tragedy to bring out the wit in people. One doesn’t have to imagine the comic potential in Malaysia Airlines’ second airplane disaster killing hundreds of people because Jason Biggs does it for you.

Hard up for a Hamas joke for the next cocktail party you attend this week? Hey, Bill Maher can take care of it on your end:

And if you happen to be on TV hosting a live show when some horrific news story happens (which, let’s face it, is not an impossibility given the explosion of regular people like us on TV these days), you can always count on some random prankster to call in and lighten things the way this guy, posing as an eyewitness military expert, did for MSNBC’s Krystal Ball this week.

KB: Please tell us what you saw on the ground there in the Ukraine?

Prankster: Well, I was looking out the window and I saw a projectile flying through the sky, and it would appear that the plane was shot down by a blast of wind from Howard Stern’s ass.

KB: So it would appear the plane was shot down – can you tell us any more from your military training of what sort of missile system that may have been coming from?

Prankster: Boy, you’re a dumbass, aren’t you?

Click here to watch the unfortunate interview

Click here to watch the clip… if you can.

We’re all quite witty these days, aren’t we? And nothing’s off limits. Because if you think it is then you don’t understand comedy at all. And you’re too politically correct. Or a hypocrite who will laugh AT things YOU DO like but will become offended if someone pokes fun at something that hits too close to home – like a plane crash.

I mean, hell, even Dick Cheney chuckles in evil, ironic delight at being referred to as Darth Vader – what’s wrong with you?

The new way to be au courant, hip, happening and oh so clever is to publicly comment somewhere on something or, well, anything that is breaking news. And thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Twitter, Instagram and a handful of other people and stuff we all have ample means to do it. Yes, you get Warhol’s 15 promised minutes of fame for doing very little. What he didn’t bargain for is that the words and images you put out there will resonate for days, months or years later – long after your name has faded. Or perhaps even forever, which is a lot longer than that.

Unfortunately, this button does not exist.

I’ve certainly been guilty of this too. I mean, who could pass up a good rant against the extreme right wing, the US Supreme Court or the uncreative choices that double for mass entertainment from the Hollywood film and television industrial complex these days? Not me, it would seem.

Like many of us, I long to be heard by a world that too often seems either too noisy or indifferent to take the time out to listen to my pearls of wit and wisdom. How great that I get to be alive and in the orbit of Facebook, Twitter and many yet to be discovered systems that will now allow me to get my thoughts out there even faster –- perhaps even by boring a virtual hole through the cerebral cortex-ae of all of my millions of followers? You think I’m exaggerating? Hmmph – that’s what she (he?) said years ago.

It took the sudden death of a dear friend of 30 plus years yesterday to make me remember: Wait – it’s actually okay NOT to weigh in on everything – or even anything – if you don’t care to.

This friend, who had an illustrious show biz career in his field and had been sick but died rather suddenly, left very specific instructions for no funeral, no obituary and, really, nothing at all organized to commemorate his death. Having spent a lifetime behind-the scenes presenting the public lives of more famous people than you or I could count in an afternoon, it is not surprising that at some point he learned the hard earned lesson that many of us will eventually realize (and I’m paraphrasing here):

…in the end the spotlight means nothing except the heat of the moment. It’s irrelevant to who you really are or what, if anything, your life was really about. And if you keep chasing it, it will eventually bore a real hole so deep into your soul (Note: your brain will already be gone by this time) that there will literally be nothing left to you at all…

This friend also taught me another valuable lesson, among so many others. And that is that sometimes, more often than one imagines, not commenting might be the best strategy of all. Or at least withholding comments until you’ve had time to think awhile about what’s happened.

First steps are the hardest

My friend lived a lifetime of strategizing in both how to help people sell themselves and also speak to the media and was darned successful at it. It’s not that he wasn’t outspoken and didn’t speak up – it’s just that he knew that to do it all the time meant you were surrendering what little effect one has in the world. But to listen, and then think, and then listen some more before formulating your final thoughts and saying what was on your mind – was not only wiser but ultimately the most potent way of getting your own way.

Broadway legend Elaine Stritch, who died one day prior to my friend and whom I didn’t know personally, might disagree. She spent a lifetime speaking before she fully thought out anything and it seemed to work quite well for her. At least publicly. Or perhaps that was just acting and she kept much of what she really felt deep down inside. The latter just might be more likely, I can hear my friend saying to me and who am I to disagree with him.

She did it her way

No one knew their way around a celebrity better than he did and said celebrities adored him. I mean, can you say you turned down a full-time retainer with show biz’s one-time queen of media manipulation, Madonna, in her eighties heyday – – a moment when a truly skilled person could manage it all and a time, if you can imagine it , long before media was social and when tweeting was the sound of the noisy bird outside your bedroom window you wanted to shoot?

No, I didn’t think so. I thought he was a bit crazy to do so back then but years later I totally get the perils of working for a TRUE QUEEN. Though clearly all he had to do at the time was to take a bit of time to really, really, really think about it.

(Note: I do hope he can forgive me for dropping that one name when referring to him. Though if it’s any consolation, before writing, I did think about it).

In any event, back to the public’s right to know what you and I think about – everything. Do YOU stop and consider why anyone should even care what you think? OK, well I don’t. Not often enough. Forget about cats on Facebook and Instagram – we’re talking about off-the-cuff and immediate thoughts on death, carnage, politics, other people’s family members thrust into the public eye through rape, theft, divorce, robbery, pillaging, as well as attempted murder. On the other hand, it feels good to get it off your chest, doesn’t it? Okay, I’ll answer that, too – yes.

Of course, it is the height of personal irony that all of this is being written to you in a blog – a vehicle whose inherent purpose is to express personal views on a variety of subjects for public consumption. It is also quite paradoxical that you are most likely reading what is being said here through some social media tool whose entire existence has just been tried and found guilty by a jury of one (moi) for the deadened senses of the corrupt social culture we are all so (cue appropriate sarcasm) privileged to live in nowadays.

The Chair excluded, of course

Well, yes, I am nothing if not a contrarian, and an often ironic one at that. But in tribute to my late friend, who was quite savvy about this kind of thing even though he didn’t subscribe to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram – I’m going to from now on take a beat or two, or maybe even ten or twenty-three, before I open up my mouth, pen and fingers to type out my reaction to the grizzly events of the day. Or, well, at least think about doing so. Who knows, with all the pent up, thought out frustration I might become even more contrarily sarcastic than usual in a much more ironically intelligent way – lest you be concerned all of that self-reflection would cause me to lose my edge.

That’s probably the most fitting tribute I can give to a person who always did both – that is aside from shutting up entirely. Which, god knows, is not a real possibility for any of us anymore. Is it?

07.13.14

by notesfromachair

Little Orphan Emmy

It’s wrong that Tatiana Maslany didn’t get a best actress Emmy nomination this week for playing EIGHT distinctly different female clones on BBC America’s Orphan Black. Quite simply, Ms. Maslany’s work was THE BEST of any actor this season and I dare any of you to prove what I say is FALSE.

Oh, show me all the clips you want of Julianna Marguiles in The Good Wife and keep banging the Kerry Washington drum of she deserves an Emmy for anchoring the craziness of Scandal. It won’t matter. Both shows bore the hell out of me.

NEXT!

Yeah, I love Claire Danes in Homeland, sort of want to hang out with Michelle Dockery’s character on Downton Abbey and will even admit to finding Lizzy Caplan a little hot on Masters of Sex, which scares me a lot, not a little. None of this counts because Tati is the very definition of brilliant – my definition. And since anyone who knows me is aware that the entertainment business is my religion, no other definition really matters. Does it???

The US Supreme Court ruled recently in the Hobby Lobby case that a closely held company whose owners have strong religious beliefs can opt out of providing certain kinds of female contraceptive care it decides clashes with it’s deeply held views. This includes two types of IUD’s and two variations of the morning after pill.

Since I am a gay male and certainly not a gynecologist I can’t pretend to be an expert on the anatomy of any woman or her reproductive apparatus. In fact, not even Tatiana Maslany playing the Chair – which could undoubtedly be the role of her life – would convince you of that. Instead, we should probably bow to our leading scientific experts in the medical field – the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – since they represent 90% of those types of doctors in the US.

Emergency contraception will not disrupt an established pregnancy is their exact quote re the morning after pill in a brief the organization filed with the Court. You can read more if you like here.

They also agree with the overwhelming scientific evidence that IUDs are NOT in any way akin to abortion. Read more of what the experts have to say on this and numerous other points of the Supreme Court case here.

Certainly any person, which includes all corporations since they are now people, has the legal right to accept or reject overwhelming expert opinion. Hell, there are people who still believe the Earth is flat. In fact, a non corporate but still otherwise united group of people – the Flat Earth Society – resurrected themselves five years ago and sport among its most prominent members the musician Thomas Dolby. You don’t believe me on that one either? Read on here.

What seems quite problematic – and granted it’s a feeling, though court rulings have been made on less – is when public policy is dictated by what people merely feel rather than what has been empirically proven to be true at the time through logic and science. That is like allowing myself, my partner and two other close friends who watch Orphan Black to overrule the Emmy voters and present Tatiana Maslany that large pointy statuette even though she was not even in contention to receive it. Well, maybe that would be justice for SOME of us, but would that be justice for ALL? Yes I know, no one ever accused THE BiZ of being just – and God (or whoever I believe Her to be) knows I haven’t. Nevertheless, the point does still ring true.

I mean really.. get it together Emmys. You’re as bad as the government!

A closely held company in the U.S. is one that has more than 50 percent of the value of its outstanding stock owned (directly or indirectly) by five or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year, according to the IRS. Well, that doesn’t sound like all that many, so who really cares about this ruling, right? But as it turns out 90% of all of the companies in the US are closely held. In fact, they employ 52% of our total labor force and account for 51% of our private sector output. Look it up here.

What this means is that all of the women employed at these types of companies who already pay for contraceptive coverage under their insurance policies will now be paying for double the coverage they seek in an area that goes against the beliefs of their employer. It is also worth noting that adequate contraceptives could cost the average female minimum wage worker the equivalent of “a month’s salary,” according to another court expert.

Ain’t that the truth.

This might be off topic but I shudder to think what would have happened to me if my seventy something boss at Daily Variety in the late seventies had decided whether my psychotherapy bills gelled with his personal beliefs at the time. Suffice it to say I would probably not be well enough to be writing this now. Though untreated I certainly would have had enough personalities for an actress the caliber of Tatiana Maslany to sink her teeth into. So there is that.

It personally offends me that the voters in part of my TEMPLE OF ENTERTAINMENT, the Television Academy, have for SEVEN LONG YEARS denied Jon Hamm his much-deserved Emmy Award for, among other things, making the character of Don Draper an international icon of hyper-maleness. And if you don’t think this goes against every moral fiber of my being on the scale of what’s right and wrong then you don’t know me very well and, most certainly, haven’t read enough of Notes (Note: Click here for references). But much as I still adore all things ham Hamm and Mad Men, and still believe Matt Weiner runs the best overall scripted show on television, I can’t make you adhere to my deeply held religious beliefs on this one. Even a lawsuit to the Television Academy wouldn’t work since everyone knows nothing about Show Biz is democratic. Certainly it’s barely legal.

Don’t worry Chair. Let’s go to Burger Chef.

That being said, the last time I checked we theoretically do live in a DEMOCRACY – not a THEOCRACY. We are primarily a country of immigrants who left the very many countries of our collective births in order to escape oppression, often due to religious wars. That was the case for my Jewish ancestors from Russia, Poland and Hungary. What about yours?

Therefore it seems to me the height of hypocrisy in a non-sectarian society that any group of people (bosses) could opt out of the law of this land and decide some parts of legal public policy don’t apply to them due to their personal views. The profits of any public or private corporation in the U.S. benefits from the infrastructure the country provides and is obligated to live under the laws of the land. Not to mention its employees are entitled to benefit from the rights and laws that land provides them. Would that I could have siphoned my tax money out of the War in Iraq – or better yet away from anything to do with George W. Bush’s inauguration. Certainly I wouldn’t have paid for Dick Cheney’s salary or for one stick of furniture in his office. Everything about the man goes against my deeply held moral beliefs and personally offends me.

Yet that’s not the way it works. Not in government and not even at the Emmys. Not only will Tati not win in her category but my favorite Hamm (which is saying something for a Jewish boy) will once again go away empty-handed because nothing is going to stop Bryan Cranston from winning best dramatic actor in a series for the final season of Breaking Bad.

Surely, the US Supreme Court is not lagging behind the amoral guidelines we here in Hollywood adhere to. Or are they?