Just go the Mayne Stage website, go the “Vic & Paul Show” page — and type in the promo code “paul” when ordering your tickets.
This offer is good through Halloween! No tricks – just treat yourself (and a friend) to laughter and libations at “The Vic & Paul Show”.
(Discount not available for all dates.)
Get your tickets now – before the holiday rush!
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation
My good friend, the great artist Ron Crawford, went to Zuccotti Park on Friday October 21st and did what he does best: capture a scene in a few dynamic sweeps of his gifted pen.
Click on the drawing and blow it up.
I always love to see which details Ron chooses to focus on in his inspired sketches — like the word “Empathy” and the concerned fellow with a briefcase in the foreground.
Thanks, Ron – for giving those of us who can’t be there an eyewitness view of Occupy Wall Street that is, in many ways, more personal and revealing than a photo. (More drawings after the video.)
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, Music
With apologies (and thanks) to Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, a marching song for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
To listen, click on Wall Street Calling.
WALL STREET CALLING
Wall Street calling to American towns Resistance declared, and protest come down Wall Street calling to the rest of the world Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls Wall Street calling, the gamble’s gone bust, Phony Reaganomics has bitten the dust Wall Street calling, see the cops got no swing ‘Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing
Justice is coming,
karma’s coming ‘round
Payback expected,
the moguls goin’ down,
Too big to fail,
but I have no fear
‘Cause Wall Street is calling, and I…
I occupy Wall Street!!
Wall Street calling to the Tea Party clones
Forget it, brothers, they’ve stolen your bones
Wall Street calling to the Democratic left
Better start marching, and draw another breath
Wall Street calling, and I don’t wanna preach
But this is our moment, the goal’s within reach
Wall Street calling, there’s light after dark
When we stand together in Zuccotti Park
Justice is coming,
karma’s coming ‘round
Payback expected,
the moguls goin’ down,
Too big to fail,
but I have no fear
‘Cause Wall Street is calling, and I…
I occupy Wall Street!
Wall Street calling, yes, now is the time
To start standing up for the 99
Wall Street calling – We’re not goin’ away
City by city – we’re seizing the day
Wall Street calling
Occupy D.C.
Wall Street calling
Occupy Detroit
Wall Street calling
Occupy Cleveland
Wall Street calling
Occupy L.A.
Wall Street calling
Occupy Portland
Wall Street calling
Occupy Austin
Wall Street calling
Occupy ‘Frisco
Wall Street calling
Occupy Boston
Wall Street calling
Occupy Salt Lake
Our band’s lead guitarist, Riffmaster Peter Van Wagner, a stellar musician in his own right, sent me these two wonderful photos (see below). Pete said, “A buddy of mine sent this to me, so I’m passing it on.”
And I’m glad he did.
The photos capture two pages of notes on which jazz saxophone player Steve Lacy outlined the advice he got from the great jazz man, Thelonious Monk.
Lacy played with Monk in the late 50’s and early 60’s. The notes speak for themselves. It’s impossible to imagine more perfectly profound musical wisdom crammed into two small pages.
If you’re intrigued by Steve Lacy’s notes on Monk’s musical advice, check out this great blog article for more information on this wonderful document.
At long last, after three decades of Reaganomics and Wall Street sociopathology have hollowed out the US economy and shifted an ever-increasing percentage of our nation’s treasure to the coffers of the ruling class (in a redistribution of wealth that would make Robin Hood blush) – the youth who have been handed an empty burlap sack labeled “The American Dream” have taken to the streets to Occupy Wall Street.
And while the GOP and the corporate media pretend to be confused about what these demonstrations are all about, it’s clear to most of us: 99% of Americans are getting screwed by a economic/political system that is rigged in favor of the wealthy, the powerful, and their multinational corporations.
In recent days, the Occupy Wall Street movement has begun to articulate a message, if not a list of demands. Trying to remain inclusive, movement leaders (who spend a lot of time trying to reach small “d” democratic consensus) have largely been content to raise questions and provoke thought and discussion, rather than declare themselves for a specific agenda of legislative and legal solutions to the class warfare being waged against the 99%. The fact that the Occupy Wall Street movement is growing is a sign that their Socratic method is working – even if it confuses Fox & Friends.
Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, I’ve given thought to the questions raised by those young patriots in lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park – and have arrived at 10 suggestions for an as-yet-to-be-written Manifesto of the 99%.
1. Greed is not good
Sorry, Gordon Gekko, but you and your ilk have had 30 years to make your case – and you’ve failed. Your supply side rising tide did not lift all boats — only your mega-yachts. The Ayn Rand devotees in the GOP can push that everyone for his own interests, dog-eat-dog mantra all they want – but that dog won’t hunt. It’s time to relegate Greed to its ignominious place among the 7 Deadly Sins.
2. Corporations are not people
Sorry, Justice Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy, but corporations are organizations licensed by the government (We, the People) to transact certain business under the law (again, We the People). In exchange for this license – which carries with it certain benefits and protections — We, the People can set legal limits to what corporations can and can’t do, and that includes making sure that big business can’t corrupt our electoral system by pouring anonymous billions into political advertising campaigns.
3. Fair trade not free trade
NAFTA, CAFTA, I don’t care which Free Trade treaty our government has signed, American workers have gotten the raw end of the deal. As long as Mexican, Chinese and other foreign workers can be paid a pittance compared to the American labor force, and the companies that hire them don’t have to operate under the same standards for worker safety and environmental protection that Americans have fought for a century to establish in this country – then THAT may, indeed, be free trade. But it is trade free of fairness to struggling American labor and the precious, endangered environment we all share. I’d rather see protective tariffs return than continue to see “free trade” agreements send us racing to the bottom.
4. Privatization is not a panacea
I have one question for those who say the U.S. Post Office should be run like a business – or that the Post Office should be privatized. Is it profitable for the Post Office to pick up a few letters from farmers on remote farms in Iowa – or down in some isolated Appalachian valley? No, it’s not. A for-profit operation would soon decide that delivering a postcard to Granny down in the holler wasn’t worth their time and effort. That’s why the U.S. Post Office can’t be run like business: it’s an egalitarian service to all Americans.
Consider this: Haliburton had a contract to feed our troops in Iraq (something the Army used to do for itself.) There’s an age-old military practice of staggering meal times for smaller groups of soldiers in a combat zone to avoid predictable concentrations of troops that the enemy can exploit. If the bad guys know all our soldiers eat regularly at a certain time – boom! That’s the time to hit us. But Haliburton decided these staggered times and smaller groups were not cost-effective. It was more profitable to have fewer meal times for larger groups of troops. Thus, on December 21, 2004 — as hundreds of U.S. troops and other personnel crowded into a large mess tent in Mosul for their midday meal – a suicide bomber struck, killing 22 troops and contractors and injuring 69. How many lives would have been saved if the Pentagon had not privatized the feeding of our troops?
5. The unions make us strong
The 8-hour workday. The 5-day work week. Overtime. The end of child labor. Occupational safety standards. Vacation pay. All of these things we take for granted are part of our nation’s fabric because of blood, sweat and tears shed by organized labor. That’s why the conservatives hate unions. That’s why the corporate elite supports GOP governors who run as moderates – then quickly pivot hard to the right to enact their anti-union agendas. We’ve seen it in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Maine, etc. The right wing may have been successful since the Reagan administration in portraying organized labor as corrupt (sometimes with good reason) and detrimental to free enterprise – but, all in all, the unions make us stronger.
6. Taxes pay for the commons
Rachel Maddow says it all in one of her television commercials. Standing in front of Hoover Dam, she makes the point that no person could have paid to build such a massive public works project, no town could have done it, and no state could have done it: it took a nation to build Hoover Dam. The same is true of the Interstate Highway System we all drive on, the water systems we all drink from, the public schools, the military, and that damned Post Office. Locally, our taxes pay for cops, firefighters and other first responders. Taxes make these institutions and services (collectively “the commons”) possible. Taxes are the cost of a civilized society. Ss Elizabeth Warren has so succinctly pointed out, the wealthy benefit more from the commons than the rest of us – and therefore, should pay a fair share of the taxes.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you.
“But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You don’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did.
“Now look. You built a factory and turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
7. Health care is a human right
Health care is not a commodity and does not work within the capitalist, for-profit, supply and demand economic model. Why not? It’s simple. If I want to buy a car, I have lots of options. I can buy an expensive new car, a low-cost used car, or a “previously owned” car (which is somewhere in the middle). I have lots of different makes and models and dealerships to choose from. And, if I don’t like the price – I can just walk away. Take the bus, carpool, or ride my bike if I need to.
But if your dad drops to the floor suffering a heart attack and the paramedics take him to the nearest emergency room – and he needs emergency bypass surgery – you don’t have a choice. You can’t check out the prices at other hospitals. You must do what’s possible at that moment to save your dad’s life. Likewise, if you have breast cancer, you’re not going to shop for the cheapest treatment — no matter what you’re financial situation is. You must have the most effective course of treatment your doctors recommend, whatever the cost. Capitalist rules don’t apply in health care – which is why all the other industrialized, civilized countries have national non-profit health care systems. Duh.
8. Fossil fuels are so 20th Century
Do I really need to point out that we can’t keep drinking oil? China is getting out front in the solar energy industry while the GOP grandstands on the Solyndra “scandal”. The real scandal for the GOP is that the Obama administration appears willing to act on a policy that generations of politicians on both sides of the aisle have only given lip service: end American dependence on foreign oil. Obama also talks a good game about making the U.S. a leader in Green technology and the solar, wind and geothermal energy sources of the future. Let’s hope it’s not just talk. So far, there are encouraging signs that the President means what he says. (We’ll see what happens with that Keystone XL shale oil pipeline.)
9. Voter ID laws = voter suppression
Voter fraud is not a problem in this country. The statistics make it clear that our democracy is not threatened by voter fraud. However, our democracy is threatened by the new Jim Crow: GOP-sponsored voter ID laws in an increasing number of Republican-controlled states. In order to defend against a non-existent threat, GOP lawmakers are making it harder for older and poorer folk to vote. Why? Because older and poorer folk (especially minorities) tend to vote for Democrats. When you hear the words “voter ID” – it’s all about voter suppression.
10. Jesus was a liberal
Sorry, all you conservative evangelicals at the Value Voters summit, but Jesus was a lefty. He was all for helping the poor and the sick. I don’t remember a single miracle in which Jesus restored a merchant’s business to profitability. In fact, He had some tough words for the rich.
“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” No ambiguity there. Now, Jesus wasn’t into class warfare. In fact, He wasn’t into war at all. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” I could go on and on. Jesus never uttered a word against homosexuals, He urged us to visit people in prison, and He wanted us to, above all, “Love each other as I have loved you.” Sounds like one of those freaking, bongo-playing hippies in Zuccotti Park. Bless them all.
Filed under Politics
It’s a holiday homecoming party for the ages. Get your tickets now! Better yet — get your friends together and contact Nili about group sales. And don’t miss the December 30th performance, followed by Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation. This is gonna be fun! 
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation
On October 4th, Jim Newton’s Presidential biography, Eisenhower: The White House Years arrives in bookstores.This is exciting news. Not just because the author is a very dear friend of mine – but because I can’t think of a more apropos time since his Presidency ended in 1960 for us to look back on Ike’s two terms in the Oval Office.
My buddy Jim Newton is a veteran newspaperman who began his career at the New York Times. Since I’ve known him, he’s been an editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he’s now the editor-at-large. In 2006, Jim wrote a definitive biography of Chief Justice Earl Warren entitled, Justice for All.
Now, he’s focused his brilliance and talent on the man who put Earl Warren on the court.
Hold on. It was Republican who put the classic “activist judge” Earl Warren on the Supreme Court?
Indeed. And that’s just one of the reasons it’s a good time to revisit the Eisenhower Presidency.
More than a half-century after Dwight D. Eisenhower left office, his old campaign slogan “I like Ike” has become a cliché. But, in this era of Tea Party Republicans and Ronald Reagan worship, it’s nostalgic to recall a Republican President who would never have said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
That kind of simplistic, anti-government demagoguery would not have appealed to the complex man who built our interstate highway system and sent Federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce school desegregation.
In a move that would be anathema to today’s dogmatic GOP states’ rights defenders, Ike ordered units from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock on September 24, 1957. The next day, those soldiers escorted nine black students through the front door of Central High and into its formerly all-white classrooms. Of course, Ike had some previous experience with the paratroopers of the 101st. 13 years earlier in a little dustup called D-Day on June 6th, 1944. The Screaming Eagles followed Ike’s orders into their drop zones behind the beaches at Normandy – and into the hallways of a Little Rock high school.
But Jim’s book is not about General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander who led his forces to victory in World War Two. It’s about the Eisenhower, who, like George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant, went from the highest-ranking military leader in an epochal war to Commander in Chief as the thirty-fourth President of the United States.
I was born in 1958 during Ike’s second term, but John F. Kennedy was the first President that I was aware of – and my first clear memory of Kennedy was watching his funeral on TV.
During my boyhood, President Eisenhower was a distant figure: even more dimly remembered than General Eisenhower, the hero of D-Day and all those World War Two movies I loved and re-created in my backyard.
Comedians made jokes about Ike playing golf and how homely his wife Mamie was. After the glorious Jackie Kennedy enchanted The White House, dowdy Mamie didn’t have a chance.
By the time I was in high school, my sense was that Eisenhower’s Presidency, if I thought of it at all, didn’t amount to much. He was a dull President in a dull time. Thank goodness, 16-year old Paul didn’t write the book on Ike.
I certainly wasn’t alone in thinking of Eisenhower as little more than the Caretaker-in-Chief, hitting the links with Bob Hope and presiding over an easygoing, black & white, “Leave It To Beaver” American society. Long after I graduated from college in 1980 that was still the prevailing attitude about Ike’s time in the Oval Office. There was, however, residual gratitude on the Democratic Left for Eisenhower’s lukewarm endorsement of Vice President Dick Nixon in the 1960 race against Kennedy.
The laugh was on Dick. Dick got the last laugh.
Pressed by reporters to give an example of Nixon making a key contribution to his administration, Ike said, “Give me a week and I’ll think of one!” Priceless. Nixon went on to lose to Kennedy in one of the tightest Presidential races in American history. Nixon got the last laugh, though. Not only did Tricky Dick win the White House eight years later – that same year, 1968, Nixon’s daughter Julie won the hand of Ike’s grandson David in marriage.
But, looking back at Ike’s Presidency, it’s hard to imagine why, as a callow youth, I thought his time in office so inconsequential. Eisenhower was the second President to have an atomic bomb in his arsenal — and he refused to use it. He kept radical anti-Communist McCarthyism at arm’s length until it became, as he called it, “McCarthywasm.”
And, after lifting the nation out of its post World War Two debt, he was the last president until Democrat Bill Clinton to leave office with a budget surplus. The top marginal tax rate under Eisenhower was 91%. George W. Bush slashed that rate to 35%. Ike paid for WWII and built our highway system. George W. Bush built nothing and left us in debt to China.
For these, and many more reasons, this lifelong Democrat likes Ike. And I like Jim’s book. But you don’t have to depend upon my endorsement (which is so much more enthusiastic than Ike’s backing of Nixon) – you can just check out these amazing reviews…
“A truly great book, spirited, balanced, and not just the story of President Eisenhower but of an era.” Bob Woodward
“
Jim Newton does a masterful job illustrating the forces that confronted Dwight Eisenhower during his years in the White House, from nuclear politics to race relations to the federal debt and deficit. He paints a vivid portrait of a president struggling to find middle ground—sometimes successfully, sometimes not — but always with the good of the country in mind.”
Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator
”
“Newton’s contribution is as cogent an inventory of Eisenhower’s White House years as I’ve ever read… This is a book for all who are interested in a better understanding of how America and the World were shaped post–WWII and for those who aspire to lead: Read Newton’s book first.”
Chuck Hagel, U.S. Senator (1997–2009)
“Ike’s wisdom, born of experience and intellect, is on display in this important book, which heightens appreciation for his leadership. Newton reveals, for instance, that after the Korean War, only one American soldier was killed in combat during Eisenhower’s presidency. This volume contributes to our understanding of an outstanding human being.”
George P. Shultz, 60th U.S. Secretary of State
“Jim Newton’s ‘Eisenhower, The White House Years’, simply and eloquently, delivers the man, his Presidency and, if America is paying attention, the life lessons that are his legacy.”
Norman Lear
“Jim Newton’s brilliant reassessment of Eisenhower’s presidency is long overdue, and his book makes it clear that Ike was indeed a great president. Ike’s insistence on always doing the right thing for the country despite party pressure and personal predilection serves as a valuable model for politicians in all three branches of government.” Former FBI Director, William S. Sessions.
Buy my friend Jim Newton’s book today — and learn what a principled, heroic Republican used to be. And, alas, you’ll know why bipartisanship is a thing of the past.
I still like Ike.
Now more than ever.*
* With apologies to Nixon’s 1972 campaign.
What do Leopold & Loeb’s original 1924 ransom note, Patricia Neal’s 1972 Golden Globe, one of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s 1978 college blue books, and Practical Theatre Company memorabilia, circa 1979-1989, have in common?
This year, everyone who ever worked at The Practical Theatre Company has been accorded a great honor by Northwestern University. For generations to come, a decade’s worth of our adventures (and some misadventures) — from “Clowns” to the musical “Rockme” — are now enshrined among the Special Collections in the Northwestern University Archives.
The written and videotaped record of that brilliant, madcap, kinetic and creative period — from Shanley Hall to the John Lennon Auditorium, from Piper’s Alley to Briar Street – have been lovingly placed upon the venerable shelves of the Old Deering Library. (Not the concrete monstrosity built in 1970 – but the grand cathedral-like edifice, built between 1931 and 1933 and, perhaps apocryphally, derided as an “upside down pig” by Frank Lloyd Wright.)
This vulgarity is not the PTC archive's home. We're in the magnificent old library building. Yeah!
How did this come to pass?
The 4-part PTC history I penned for this blog got the attention of University Archivist, Kevin B. Leonard, who made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: a chance to place the tangible history of the PTC in safekeeping at Northwestern Library, where it can be studied by students, researchers, writers, and anyone with an interest in the exploits of the Practical Theatre, Chicago theatre in the 1980’s, improvisational theatre, and the legend of Tomaloochie Falls.
I’ve been hauling the PTC’s history around in as many as twenty battered cardboard boxes, from house to house, and state to state for over two decades. And it’s a very heavy history.
A couple of years ago, my wise and wonderful wife, Victoria, urged me to clean up our cluttered garage and turn it into a room that our teenage daughters could use for music and recreation.
A key part of that effort involved opening all those dusty, damaged boxes of PTC files, photos, artwork, oddities and rarities and putting them into file cabinets where they’d be out of the way – and protected.
Some of this stuff had not been seen by anyone since it was packed up when we left The John Lennon Auditorium in 1985.
Now that this jumbled mass of an archive was stuffed into file drawers, it was easy to get lost for hours poring over ancient documents, from “Bag O’ Fun” scripts, to PTC Board meeting minutes, and other goodies, including season brochures and posters illustrated by a grand gallery of great artists: Ron Crawford, John Goodrich, Paul Guinan and Gary Whitney, among others. These rediscoveries inspired my blog series on the PTC’s history – and provided the graphic material that brought those articles to life.
But as I transferred those precious pieces of history from cardboard boxes to metal file cabinets, an alarming number of water-damaged documents reminded me of how a flash flood in the basement of my first home in Woodland Hills came dangerously close to destroying this accumulated treasure of legendary theatrical lore. So, when the NU Archives offered to provide a safe home for the documentary history of the PTC, I was happy to get this trove off my hands and into the grasp of professional archivists.
Over the course of six months, working some weekends and grabbing a few hours here and there, I dove into the process of sorting and arranging all those bulging file cabinets full of raw, confused files into something the NU Archives could work with upon receipt. I suppose I could’ve just sent Kevin Leonard the whole, unadulterated pile of Practical – but Mama Barrosse raised me better than that.
Finally, the PTC archives were ready for delivery, along with four boxes of my personal papers, covering my post-PTC adventures and TV shows like Totally Hidden Video, Strange Universe and Behind the Music. I was relieved to know that, after all these years, this archive was headed home to Northwestern, where the whole adventure began.
From: Paul Barrosse
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2011
To: Kevin B Leonard
Subject: Practical Archives
Hi, Kevin!
I dropped the boxes off at UPS on Monday night — so they probably got shipped to you on Tuesday.
One note: Each box has files arranged alphabetically — but each box goes A-Z.
For instance, you may find files for “Art, Ruth & Trudy”, “Babalooney” and “Scubba Hey” in several boxes. Generally, this is not the same material, but additional material I discovered as I filled each box.
See you soon, Paul
In mid-September, I flew to Chicago with my daughter Emilia, a junior at Northwestern. I had three good reasons for the trip.
I had to help Emilia move into an off-campus house.
My daughter Emilia on move-in day with an armload of important staples.
I wanted to check out the fabulous Mayne Stage in Rogers Park, where The Vic & Paul Show will run this December 20th through 30th. (Have you gotten your tickets yet?)
Bea Rashid joined us for our visit to the exquisite Mayne Stage cabaret in Rogers Park.
And I wanted to meet with Kevin Leonard and confirm that my boxes had arrived at the NU Archives.
The boxes had arrived. And here they are — in Kevin Leonard’s really cool office in the basement of Deering Library..
Now, the history that so many of us – NU alums and non-alums alike – made together in the 1980’s is now home alongside the papers of such notables at Patricia Neal, Frank Galati and Viola Spolin, the Queen Mother of improvisation.
BTW – Viola’s son, Paul Sills, founded the Story Theatre in the Piper’s Alley space behind Second City: the very same space that became the PTC’s Piper’s Alley Theatre – home of The Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee, Megafun, and Babalooney. (There are a lot of cool connections to be made at the NU Archives.)
Soon, the list of everything that’s available for study in the PTC archives will be accessible online through a searchable database.
I encourage you to drop by Old Deering Library and pay a visit to the Northwestern Archives. Check out the Special Collections — and get your hands on the history of The Practical Theatre Company. Especially those of you who helped to make that history.
Kevin Leonard might have some really cool things to show you.
I’ve been in Evanston, Illinois this weekend (or was it Liverpool?), and I ran into a fellow who purports to be John Lennon’s cousin, Lon Lennon. (See photo above.)
The guy is the right age. Older than me. Plus, he has as uncanny knowledge of rock and roll trivia, especially The Beatles, all the British Invasion bands, and (oddly enough for an Englishman) The Beach Boys.
One thing though: I’ve seen him play a ukulele. However, I’ve seen Paul McCartney play a ukulele.
And I know George Harrison was a ukulele player.
So, he might actually be a legitimate Beatle cousin.
Somehow, I don’t think we’ve heard the last (have we even heard the first?) of Lon Lennon.
Did Lon introduce John to the ukulele? Or was it the other way around? I should have asked Lon when I had the chance.
Click CD photo for music & info!
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 