Thursday, February 26, 2015
Unintended consequences, or....
Wow, was I off the mark.
http://chiefexecutive.net/New-York-is-the-49th-Best-State-for-Business-2014
I've written about New York's lousy business climate before, and just finished a short post on how the State government chose New York City's drinking water over the needs of the Southern Tier. As mentioned, I agree with Albany's decision, as fracking cannot be done safely. Only when we have no choice but to access that source of natural gas should it be done. We're not even close to that point.
I also wrote a post about cutting corners and cost-saving is affecting the education industry, and added a small note about Chili's at the Palisades Mall uses tablets at each table to expedite payment, ordering, etc. There's been even more automation, with some restaurants allowing you to order online before you go, and your food will be ready right around the time to sit. I can't imagine this will up-sell appetizers, but it will make for a much more efficient dining experience.
This isn't the reason people eat out, at least as I was always told by my managers. People go to restaurants to be served; the food is almost secondary. You sit, order, chat with your date, people watch, flirt with the waitresses (wait, that's just me...), and someone cleans up when you leave. To reward good service, you leave a nice tip, and in deference to our hyper-connected times, a good review on Yelp. I suppose the ability to order online will be seen by some as a good thing, but I doubt I'd use it. Servers cost so little, I remarked in my prior post; why wouldn't a restaurant want to employ an army of them?
Well, waiters and bartenders and busboys were cheap. We earned a few bucks an hour to pay taxes on our declared tips, and maybe we had enough left over to get lunch. If you wanted more earnings, you had to be better at your job. The more tables you could handle, the better your section and shifts. When you mastered pouring a perfect pint of Guinness, complete with a shamrock in the foam, the more likely you were to work St. Patrick's Day and rake in cash with a shovel. You'd probably get a few phone numbers from Irish aux pairs as well. When I ran food at the Rainforest Cafe, I always bussed dirty dishes, dropped extra napkins, plates for rib bones, etc. These small extra steps made the other servers' jobs easier, earning everyone better tips. The lynchpin for all of this was that your paycheck was a joke. My hourly pay was $4.00 an hour, so I had great motivation to hustle like a fiend. Well, New York, in its infinitesimal wisdom, decided this wasn't good enough, or grossly unfair, or felt that it encouraged good working habits. All tipped employees, i.e. those hourly positions that were exempted from the federal minimum wage, are now paid a whopping $7 an hour.
Of course that seems nominal in the grand scheme of things, but it will hurt small mom and pop restaurants. In the oft-mentioned city of Binghamton, Scott said that the early bird dinner specials will disappear or the restaurants will simply close. Other places will be forced to let people go. The places that survive will continue to push online ordering and table reservations to increase volume where applicable, and somewhere down the line we will all pay more to eat out. I hate this policy, not because I don't want servers to make money, but because I feel it will cost jobs. Waiting tables was so important to my returning to New York, and if this policy was in place, would the job have been available? It's hard to say. At some point soon, I'll be sitting at a table and I'll have no choice but to order via a computer, and I will be deeply sad. There should be a young person taking that order, earning tips, learning her way in the world and planning to have fun when the shift was over. Eventually, it won't happen because the opportunity will be gone. What will she do then?
http://chiefexecutive.net/New-York-is-the-49th-Best-State-for-Business-2014
I've written about New York's lousy business climate before, and just finished a short post on how the State government chose New York City's drinking water over the needs of the Southern Tier. As mentioned, I agree with Albany's decision, as fracking cannot be done safely. Only when we have no choice but to access that source of natural gas should it be done. We're not even close to that point.
I also wrote a post about cutting corners and cost-saving is affecting the education industry, and added a small note about Chili's at the Palisades Mall uses tablets at each table to expedite payment, ordering, etc. There's been even more automation, with some restaurants allowing you to order online before you go, and your food will be ready right around the time to sit. I can't imagine this will up-sell appetizers, but it will make for a much more efficient dining experience.
This isn't the reason people eat out, at least as I was always told by my managers. People go to restaurants to be served; the food is almost secondary. You sit, order, chat with your date, people watch, flirt with the waitresses (wait, that's just me...), and someone cleans up when you leave. To reward good service, you leave a nice tip, and in deference to our hyper-connected times, a good review on Yelp. I suppose the ability to order online will be seen by some as a good thing, but I doubt I'd use it. Servers cost so little, I remarked in my prior post; why wouldn't a restaurant want to employ an army of them?
Well, waiters and bartenders and busboys were cheap. We earned a few bucks an hour to pay taxes on our declared tips, and maybe we had enough left over to get lunch. If you wanted more earnings, you had to be better at your job. The more tables you could handle, the better your section and shifts. When you mastered pouring a perfect pint of Guinness, complete with a shamrock in the foam, the more likely you were to work St. Patrick's Day and rake in cash with a shovel. You'd probably get a few phone numbers from Irish aux pairs as well. When I ran food at the Rainforest Cafe, I always bussed dirty dishes, dropped extra napkins, plates for rib bones, etc. These small extra steps made the other servers' jobs easier, earning everyone better tips. The lynchpin for all of this was that your paycheck was a joke. My hourly pay was $4.00 an hour, so I had great motivation to hustle like a fiend. Well, New York, in its infinitesimal wisdom, decided this wasn't good enough, or grossly unfair, or felt that it encouraged good working habits. All tipped employees, i.e. those hourly positions that were exempted from the federal minimum wage, are now paid a whopping $7 an hour.
Of course that seems nominal in the grand scheme of things, but it will hurt small mom and pop restaurants. In the oft-mentioned city of Binghamton, Scott said that the early bird dinner specials will disappear or the restaurants will simply close. Other places will be forced to let people go. The places that survive will continue to push online ordering and table reservations to increase volume where applicable, and somewhere down the line we will all pay more to eat out. I hate this policy, not because I don't want servers to make money, but because I feel it will cost jobs. Waiting tables was so important to my returning to New York, and if this policy was in place, would the job have been available? It's hard to say. At some point soon, I'll be sitting at a table and I'll have no choice but to order via a computer, and I will be deeply sad. There should be a young person taking that order, earning tips, learning her way in the world and planning to have fun when the shift was over. Eventually, it won't happen because the opportunity will be gone. What will she do then?
Saturday, February 21, 2015
It was the best of states; it was the worst of states, or...
I'd like a state of impotent rage for $200, Alex.
When I was a wee lad, enjoying my misspent youth, I was a huge fan of the Anarchist's Cookbook. Written by William Powell during the Days of Rage in the early 70's, it contains recipes for rudimentary bombs, LSD, clapboard grow houses, etc. In addition to it's formulas, you can also read the political stylings of an anarchist living in New York City when the NYPD was spying on groups and individuals illegally; Nixon's dirty tricks campaign was in full swing, Kent State had just occurred, and the Weather Underground was bombing buildings. Needless to say, the author's views were more than a little cynical. In Dungeons and Dragons parlance, he was chaotic neutral. Protests were merely a great way for women to get raped, and for men to be beaten by police after arrest. The system will not change by holding placards and singing songs. The system needs to be smashed and replaced by an absence of government. An anarchist believes people will self-organize and form a free community. Katrina's wake showed this is wrong, however. Abbie Hoffman, by 1971 an aging hippie, more or less agreed with Powell in his dismissal of protests. People needed more concrete actions to destroy the State, though in Hoffman's case, a communist government was to be installed. Both were wrong, and both failed. The system does change, though rarely as quickly (or as permanently) as some would like. Moreover, the "system" will always exist. Even Occupy Wall Street, in its desire to actually accomplish things, had to move its council outside of the main protest area; they couldn't make any decisions otherwise.
This leads me to what I learned today. As I mentioned in this space prior, New York State is really two states: New York City and its surrounding areas, and everything else. Moreover, the power of New York City overshadows the rest of the state to the point that Upstate has had no real voice for some time. It used to be that the Assembly was the voice of Downstate, and the Senate was the voice of Upstate. The Senate has a clear Republican majority at this point, but the influence is nominal. The governor could go either way, but usually sides with liberals and NYC. Gov. Cuomo certainly follows that model, and nowhere is he more loyal to New York City than with fracking in the Southern Tier, aka Binghamton.
Binghamton sits on the Marcellus Shale formation, in between Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers, and is fairly close the New York City watershed system. This proximity provides the tension between the economic needs of Binghamton and the rest of the Southern Tier, versus New York's need for clean drinking water. The concerns of both are real. However, New York State runs itself with the needs and values of Manhattan placed front and center, so property taxes are sky-high throughout the state, and public pensions and benefits, put in place when Binghamton had a huge IBM presence and Buffalo was called the Electric City thanks to hydro-power from Niagara Falls, are incredibly generous. Neither can be sustained, but don't tell that to the town councils or Albany. I can only guess that the local governments were hoping for a windfall from all that natural gas, allowing these bodies to never have to confront the unsustainable benefits they maintain. Albany doesn't seem to care one way or the other. When determining what areas would get casinos, Binghamton was left out. Now, I enjoy casinos, and am not against them philosophically, but to imply they're an economic panacea is idiocy. Binghamton is probably better off without a casino. To really create opportunity, casinos have to draw people from another area who generously leave their money at the casino then go home. If locals go, you're merely replacing one from of consumption for another. Scranton and Wilkes-Barre already have a casino in the Poconos, so why would anyone drive to Binghamton?
Though it pains me to say, New York City and Cuomo are correct about drilling. As lucrative as fracking might be, it isn't safe or clean. The environmental damage has been severe in other areas, and water quality has especially suffered, a risk New York cannot take. The key is what can be done to help the area in other ways, and there's a 50 billion dollar aid package, details presently unknown to me. Naturally, the locals don't feel the aid package is enough, and still want fracking. They also wouldn't say no to a casino.
The unhappiness with the situation has led to some elected officials to try to secede from New York. I sympathize entirely, but I also understand it's a useless a protest as when Abbie Hoffman and his minions stole the hands from the clock in Grand Central Station. The long haired hippie freak who did this had his head crushed by a police baton, and mayhem otherwise ensued. While I doubt violence will occur in response, I'm equally certain it won't result in Binghamton joining Pennsylvania. If Albany's assent is required, and it's acknowledged as such by all involved, and the reason the area wants to leave is to allow fracking, which has been banned in New York to keep drinking water safe, why would New York allow the area to split, knowing that fracking would then commence? What a total waste of time and energy.
While Binghamton suffers under the weight of obligations it cannot meet, and watches business after business and resident after resident leave, New York City (and Westchester) are doing fine. Billions continue to flow to Wall Street, and our cups overflow with tax revenues. When compared to the rest of the nation, this might be the best time in 100 years to live in the area. Outside of Washington D.C., what area in America is doing better?
The irony is that leaving the natural gas alone will benefit Binghamton in the long run. When the collapse occurs, and everyone is left scrambling to salvage whatever scraps of our society they can, all that energy will be needed, much more so than today. Sit tight Binghamton, eventually the yoke of your prior commitments and limitations will disappear and you can recover, returning to a place of industry once more.
When I was a wee lad, enjoying my misspent youth, I was a huge fan of the Anarchist's Cookbook. Written by William Powell during the Days of Rage in the early 70's, it contains recipes for rudimentary bombs, LSD, clapboard grow houses, etc. In addition to it's formulas, you can also read the political stylings of an anarchist living in New York City when the NYPD was spying on groups and individuals illegally; Nixon's dirty tricks campaign was in full swing, Kent State had just occurred, and the Weather Underground was bombing buildings. Needless to say, the author's views were more than a little cynical. In Dungeons and Dragons parlance, he was chaotic neutral. Protests were merely a great way for women to get raped, and for men to be beaten by police after arrest. The system will not change by holding placards and singing songs. The system needs to be smashed and replaced by an absence of government. An anarchist believes people will self-organize and form a free community. Katrina's wake showed this is wrong, however. Abbie Hoffman, by 1971 an aging hippie, more or less agreed with Powell in his dismissal of protests. People needed more concrete actions to destroy the State, though in Hoffman's case, a communist government was to be installed. Both were wrong, and both failed. The system does change, though rarely as quickly (or as permanently) as some would like. Moreover, the "system" will always exist. Even Occupy Wall Street, in its desire to actually accomplish things, had to move its council outside of the main protest area; they couldn't make any decisions otherwise.
This leads me to what I learned today. As I mentioned in this space prior, New York State is really two states: New York City and its surrounding areas, and everything else. Moreover, the power of New York City overshadows the rest of the state to the point that Upstate has had no real voice for some time. It used to be that the Assembly was the voice of Downstate, and the Senate was the voice of Upstate. The Senate has a clear Republican majority at this point, but the influence is nominal. The governor could go either way, but usually sides with liberals and NYC. Gov. Cuomo certainly follows that model, and nowhere is he more loyal to New York City than with fracking in the Southern Tier, aka Binghamton.
Binghamton sits on the Marcellus Shale formation, in between Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers, and is fairly close the New York City watershed system. This proximity provides the tension between the economic needs of Binghamton and the rest of the Southern Tier, versus New York's need for clean drinking water. The concerns of both are real. However, New York State runs itself with the needs and values of Manhattan placed front and center, so property taxes are sky-high throughout the state, and public pensions and benefits, put in place when Binghamton had a huge IBM presence and Buffalo was called the Electric City thanks to hydro-power from Niagara Falls, are incredibly generous. Neither can be sustained, but don't tell that to the town councils or Albany. I can only guess that the local governments were hoping for a windfall from all that natural gas, allowing these bodies to never have to confront the unsustainable benefits they maintain. Albany doesn't seem to care one way or the other. When determining what areas would get casinos, Binghamton was left out. Now, I enjoy casinos, and am not against them philosophically, but to imply they're an economic panacea is idiocy. Binghamton is probably better off without a casino. To really create opportunity, casinos have to draw people from another area who generously leave their money at the casino then go home. If locals go, you're merely replacing one from of consumption for another. Scranton and Wilkes-Barre already have a casino in the Poconos, so why would anyone drive to Binghamton?
Though it pains me to say, New York City and Cuomo are correct about drilling. As lucrative as fracking might be, it isn't safe or clean. The environmental damage has been severe in other areas, and water quality has especially suffered, a risk New York cannot take. The key is what can be done to help the area in other ways, and there's a 50 billion dollar aid package, details presently unknown to me. Naturally, the locals don't feel the aid package is enough, and still want fracking. They also wouldn't say no to a casino.
The unhappiness with the situation has led to some elected officials to try to secede from New York. I sympathize entirely, but I also understand it's a useless a protest as when Abbie Hoffman and his minions stole the hands from the clock in Grand Central Station. The long haired hippie freak who did this had his head crushed by a police baton, and mayhem otherwise ensued. While I doubt violence will occur in response, I'm equally certain it won't result in Binghamton joining Pennsylvania. If Albany's assent is required, and it's acknowledged as such by all involved, and the reason the area wants to leave is to allow fracking, which has been banned in New York to keep drinking water safe, why would New York allow the area to split, knowing that fracking would then commence? What a total waste of time and energy.
While Binghamton suffers under the weight of obligations it cannot meet, and watches business after business and resident after resident leave, New York City (and Westchester) are doing fine. Billions continue to flow to Wall Street, and our cups overflow with tax revenues. When compared to the rest of the nation, this might be the best time in 100 years to live in the area. Outside of Washington D.C., what area in America is doing better?
The irony is that leaving the natural gas alone will benefit Binghamton in the long run. When the collapse occurs, and everyone is left scrambling to salvage whatever scraps of our society they can, all that energy will be needed, much more so than today. Sit tight Binghamton, eventually the yoke of your prior commitments and limitations will disappear and you can recover, returning to a place of industry once more.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Unnoticed privilage or...
Willkommen! Life is a cabaret.
I've lived in New York for 34.5 of my 44.2 years, and until Saturday, never attended a Broadway show. I'm not a theater person by nature, but meeting one Ashely Wool and watching her on stage slowly turned me into an appreciator of musical theater. With that and the chance watch to Emma Stone prance about in her (modest) undies, I plucked down $88 for an obstructed view rail ticket, hopped in the Smarschmobile, and braved a wintery, snowy Saturday to see Cabaret, quite possibly the least likely choice I could think of. Any time I doubted myself, I thought of Emma Stone. Although I haven't blogged about it much, I'm on the same mission in 2015 as I was in 2014: pay all my bills ahead, then pay off the car and my retirement loans. As such, the jaunt to Manhattan wasn't really in the budget, but all work and no play makes Brian a grouchy boy. A tweet-sized review is that the production was terrific. The cast was great; the music was great, and it was worth every penny. An amazing experience, I'll certainly attend more Broadway productions. However, I doubt that any play I'll see after this would hit me in quite the same way as Cabaret, but not only for the reasons one would expect.
To supply context, I'm attenuated to threats against freedom and the dangers of a coercive State. This is certainly from my dad, a post-war German baby who survived a Soviet concentration camp and displacement from the Sudetenland in the now Czech Republic to a very small town in Bavaria, where he suffered from malnutrition and rickets. He loved Nixon and Reagan, and hated Leftists of all stripes. I'm not as extreme, and I couldn't be living in Westchester. You could say I'm a little over-vigilant, a charge I won't dismiss out of hand. Still, I'm pretty good at sensing trends, and the path America and the rest of the West is taking scares me greatly. Almost everything written on this blog has that as subtext; it's inescapable for me and all that I do. Seeing this play, of all the plays available, would force me to confront not only the legacy of my heritage, but my own fears about the future. Emma Stone, Brian, keep thinking of Emma Stone.
The drive down and parking were shockingly easy. I found a spot on the street directly across from the theater, paid my meter, and found myself with a few hours to kill. I wandered around the city, grabbing Starbucks, a snack, lunch, etc. Not entirely sure my space was really legit, I stayed close and kept an eye on the car. After eating, a few calls, and charging my phone, I entered the theater, formally known as Studio 54, as in the famous coke-filled sex-drenched nightclub of yore. Without any basis for comparison, I don't know what was original, but the carpet was garish enough (leopard print!) and sticky enough to convince me it could have been the original. The lobby and front doors looked untouched as well. Passing a kiosk of souvenirs, I stopped and told my budget to please shut the fuck up, picking up a coffee mug for myself, another for Ashely, a CD for Karl, and a t-shirt. The prices doesn't matter, and the money I spent is irrelevant. I love what I bought. Finding my seat, I was way to the right of the stage, but I wasn't too far away either. My view really was obstructed, with a small, though noticeable, portion of the production only in view while risking serious neck injury. Also, I was directly behind the sign-language interpreters, so there was a spotlight interfering with my low-light vision. Since this was my first show, I didn't care. As the other patrons took their seats, I was lucky to be joined at my rail by two Broadway vets from New Jersey. A mother and adult daughter, we chatted, and they were in shock that this was my first show. That level of surprise was becoming a theme, and a little annoying. After all, the best part of virginity is losing it. This deflowering involved far less recreational drug use, thankfully, though I would have enjoyed another card game. The show began with Alan Cumming as the Emcee, and the star of the show.
As mentioned, the show's plot and themes are... complicated for a German-American like myself. It is set around an adult club (cabaret) in Berlin between the World Wars. Berlin's decadence at the time is well established, and it's permissive attitudes towards sexuality and sexual identity and identification are similarly known. This is was demonstrated by the first number: "Welcome, " which is probably the song everyone thinks of when they hear the play's name. You meet the Emcee (Cummings), and the ladies who work at the club, who may or may not be strippers, and at least one who is definitely turning tricks on the side. He beckons you to join them. Yes, the German nation is falling apart, and the Weimar Republic is failing the people, and it's cold, but you can come inside and forget your troubles, watch the ladies, have a drink, etc. Berlin was a perfect place to forget yourself. This is where the poor sight line hurt me. Part of the stage was recessed, and I didn't know it until the Emcee introduced the orchestra. I craned my neck and got something like a glimpse.
Berlin was a turbulent place, as per the opening number. People came and went, and of those wanderers are the two main characters: the British cabaret singer Sally Bowles and American author (in theory) Cliff Bradshaw. He's also the audience proxy. Both are based off real people. Sally Bowles was Jean Ross, and Cliff Bradshaw was a loose version of Christopher Isherwood, a British author who lived in Berlin during the time the play is set and knew Ms. Ross. He wrote the novellas on which the play is based. Miss Ross, the Paris Hilton of Berlin in 1931, was a lounge singer of no real talent, save that she couldn't care less how you liked her singing, and Mr. Isherwood was a struggling writer when he lived in Berlin and who swung both ways (though he preferred boys in their late teens, according to Wikipedia). Paris had Hemingway and the rest of the Lost Generation drinking themselves stupid along the Seine; Berlin had cabarets, Mr. Isherwood, and free love in every combination. We all pick our poisons, eventually choking on the toxicity.
The play moves to a train where our American protagonist meets a German traveling to Berlin from Paris, evidently with some contraband. The smuggling was successful and the two start up a conversation. The introduction is spot on in its portrayal of how Germans interact with unknown and foreign people. They are formal, even stand-offish, but once you have a German as a friend, you have one for life; time and distance do not matter. I know this from personal experience. Of course, Herr Ludwig is a freaking Nazi, and was probably smuggling something terrible, but we don't know that yet, do we? All we know is that he wishes to improve his English, helps Cliff find a place to stay, and invites him for a drink at the Kit Kat Club where Sally will perform. He's seemingly a pleasant, nice guy! The worst part is that he probably is a nice guy in his mind. Germans are especially good at compartmentalizing. It's one of the flaws in the German psyche that the Nazis exploited to murderous effect. Eventually, our hero finds the rooming house to get a place to stay, and through a terrific song, he and the landlady make a deal. This is a good time to say that Linda Emond, the woman who plays Fraulein Schneider, was amazing, as was Danny Burstein, the gentleman who played her suitor: Herr Schultz . The cast was uniformly excellent, but the two supporting roles were filled superbly to the point we broke out in spontaneous applause twice. They stole the show, even form Alan Cummings. Both actors are up for Tony Awards, and for the first time ever I'd check the results, hoping to read that they won.
The next set piece introduces us to Sally Bowles, and I finally saw Miss Stone. My first thought was, wow, she really is that pretty! Second, she really is that pale, and third, her voice is just good enough to sustain the part. As per Ashely, the role doesn't require major pipes, but major star-power instead, which Emma Stone has by the pound. She commanded the stage. "Don't Tell Mama" was the first her first song, and she killed it.
This post isn't meant to be a line-by-line description, as I'm not a theater critic, but some synopsis is in order. The McGuffin of the play is Cliff's relationship with Sally, and it's certainly important, but the true story is the death of the listing, though democratic and representative, Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism, a.k.a, the Nazi party, and how it will affect the small community surrounding the Kit Kat Club, residents both decadent and pure. A growing cloud hangs over the play, and already I knew the ending more or less, but it didn't make the final scene any easier to bear. The final part of the first act is a party for the Jewish Herr Schultz announcing his engagement to Fraulein Schneider and where Herr Ludwig reveals his loyalties by wearing the Swastika armband. I tend to flinch when I see one, and this was no exception. Sally reveals that she's pregnant, and she isn't sure if Cliff is the father, though he doesn't care. The set piece ends with the Germans singing a nationalistic song, with slowly morphs into a goose-stepping march. Herr Schultz believes that it will all work out and this will pass. I guess he was right in this regard. Cliff berates Ludwig for the Nazis' views, but Ludwig wonders why that would impact their friendship. (Like I said, compartmentalization). The couple stand in Herr Schultz's produce store, and a brick is thrown through the glass. The first thing I thought of was Kristallnacht , the Night of Broken Glass. I even said the German word aloud in my surprise, using correct German pronunciation reflexively. My neighbors laughed and grabbed my arm in support. Herr Schultz said it was just children in need of supervision. I could only hang my head. With that we had the intermission.
I raced to the restroom, which had a line 7 men deep. The ladies were close to 60 deep, so I could stand to wait a few minutes. Gratefully relieved (and beyond glad I'm male), I chatted with my rail mates, who were fairly tipsy on overpriced wine. Alan Cummings dropped out of the sky on a moon swing which I know was part of the original club, though the moon was doing a bump of coke in 1978. He engaged the audience, took two people up on stage to dance and flirt. It was great fun, and leavened my mood a little bit. I really don't like Nazis.
The second act begins with the happy couple's engagement broken and Fraulein Schneider returning a lovely cut crystal fruit bowl to Cliff and Sally, who are living together. This part of the play contained the highlight for me: "What Would You Do?" sung by Ms. Emond. This is where my understanding of the play turned for me. Cliff is telling Sally and Fraulein Schneider to get out of Germany as soon as possible. Sally is in love with Cliff, but in love with Berlin's party scene more and doesn't want to leave, baby or no. Fraulein Schneider doesn't feel she could leave. What would you do if you were in her position? She survived WW1, hyperinflation, and she would survive this. She's too old to drop everything and move to Paris, or wherever. He and Sally fight and she leaves to work at the club once more to make money, as they're broke. He offers to sell her typewriter to buy train tickets to Paris, but she won't go. She sings one more time, belting out "Life is a cabaret, old chum," declaring to the world she won't leave. Oh Lord does Emma Stone nail this. The audience erupted in cheers as she finished her angry, desperate reprise. The next morning Cliff and Herr Schultz talk, with the latter moving to a different rooming house across town and Cliff scampering for France then home. Herr Schultz declares he is fully German, and he knows it will be all right. Cliff is not as convinced. Sally then arrives at the guesthouse cold, lacking her fur coat, which she traded to a doctor for an abortion. Cliff slaps her (nice work on the sound effect, by the way), but still wants her to join him to Paris, then America. She refuses, asking instead for Cliff to dedicate his book to her, now that he has something to write.
We last see Cliff on the train, beginning his book by reciting the lines: "There was a cabaret, and there was a master of ceremonies ... and there was a city called Berlin, in a country called Germany ... and it was the end of the world." And it was the end of that world. We close on the rest of cast seemingly interned in a concentration camp, with the Emcee revealing his camp uniform with a pink triangle and yellow star slowly walking to his and the others' doom, including Sally. Flakes fell from the ceiling, and the hissing of gas was heard, fade to black. Trying to process the last scene, I got in my car and headed home.
It was hard to see the last moments of the show due to my seat, and it's possible that only some of the characters were in the camp. That's the most likely scenario anyway. The Fraulein and the cabaret ladies were Germans after all, and if they were doomed, it was during the fall of Berlin in 1945, when the Soviets overran the city, destroying and raping everything and everyone they could find (including my great aunt). Estimates guess around 2 million German women were assaulted in this limited event. Alternately, they could have fled the city to Dresden, which was firebombed by the British, killing at least 25,000 people, and would have been considered a war crime had air attacks been covered under international law at the time. The same great aunt mentioned above survived this as well. Finally, the inspiration for Sally, Ms. Ross, did leave Berlin at some point, dying in England in 1973.
So it's obvious the play hit me where it hurts, but not in the location one would expect. My grandfather served in the Wehrmacht ( the regular German army) during WW2, but I never knew him. Also, he was just a soldier occupying Paris during the war, where he got drunk every day. No, my discomfort was caused primarily how I identified with the American Cliff, and his unique (and uniquely American) position. It all came into focus during "What would you do?" Cliff and Sally were in different positions than the rest of the characters. As visitors and dilettantes and full members of cultures that accentuated personal liberty, they had freedom and choices the others did not. The freedom I saw was psychological, not just legal. If your town, state (NY baby!), or even your nation was falling apart, you leave for greener pastures. Sally, crippled by her drinking, drug use, and youth, couldn't see what Cliff did, but she was still free to leave. She had options, though the character refused to exercise them. Cliff, not so steeped in the lifestyle of Berlin and willing to see the danger the Nazis represented, fled Germany while he still could. The others felt they were not in a position to follow, so they didn't have the luxury of believing him. Comforting lies and sensible compromises were all they could afford. Cliff and Sally had privilege, and that birthright was so ingrained into their psyches they didn't even know it was there. Until Saturday, neither did I.
White males are often accused of having undeserved privilege thanks to our plumbing and skin color. I've often dismissed the idea. Even if it's true, I can't change my race and certainly won't change my sex. I also won't somehow diminish my life goals or position simply to balance some fictional ledger. After watching the play, I realized just how entitled I am, and how I take my life and position for granted. When Cliff was trying to convince everyone to leave Germany, I was almost ready to scream at the stage: "Run!' "Get out while you can!' Of course, I say this in real life all the time. I think my friends are getting a little sick of it, honestly. No one likes a Cassandra. So here I sit, criticizing all I survey while I have a great position, make great money, help people go to college for a living, and get to travel, spend, and lounge around Starbucks pretty much whenever I want, and I'm grateful for none of it. I'm too busy obsessing about the end of the world, and perhaps, the loss of my privilege and my position. The rarefied air I'm breathing allows me the luxury of worrying about these things. Though I'm the citizen of the country in question, and not an itinerant writer who was a guest in the land of others, we are both offered friendship and opportunity in our locales. Cliff must seem like a total jackass, a Chicken Little screaming about the sky. I'm now believe I come across in much the same way.
Just like Cliff, all of this doesn't mean I'm wrong. It also doesn't mean I don't sound like a snotty, spoiled civil servant who doesn't know how good he has it. I still feel the country is on a dangerous path to ruin, which will replace the Republic of the United States with a police state. Whether those in charge are far-right or far-left means nothing to me. Either way, I'm the enemy. I work for the government, and part of the political class, so the "corn-pone Nazis" (as per James Howard Kunstler) would hate me. I'm Catholic, male, white, and Republican, so the Left would hate me. Now, could all this be true at some point in the future? It's a near certainty. Am I being punished for who I am or what I believe? Um... no. The play showed me real suffering, real fear, real discrimination. It also showed me a girl in a gorilla suit who doesn't look at all Jewish. If art is supposed to surprise and move the audience, then this show was art incarnate.
I've lived in New York for 34.5 of my 44.2 years, and until Saturday, never attended a Broadway show. I'm not a theater person by nature, but meeting one Ashely Wool and watching her on stage slowly turned me into an appreciator of musical theater. With that and the chance watch to Emma Stone prance about in her (modest) undies, I plucked down $88 for an obstructed view rail ticket, hopped in the Smarschmobile, and braved a wintery, snowy Saturday to see Cabaret, quite possibly the least likely choice I could think of. Any time I doubted myself, I thought of Emma Stone. Although I haven't blogged about it much, I'm on the same mission in 2015 as I was in 2014: pay all my bills ahead, then pay off the car and my retirement loans. As such, the jaunt to Manhattan wasn't really in the budget, but all work and no play makes Brian a grouchy boy. A tweet-sized review is that the production was terrific. The cast was great; the music was great, and it was worth every penny. An amazing experience, I'll certainly attend more Broadway productions. However, I doubt that any play I'll see after this would hit me in quite the same way as Cabaret, but not only for the reasons one would expect.
To supply context, I'm attenuated to threats against freedom and the dangers of a coercive State. This is certainly from my dad, a post-war German baby who survived a Soviet concentration camp and displacement from the Sudetenland in the now Czech Republic to a very small town in Bavaria, where he suffered from malnutrition and rickets. He loved Nixon and Reagan, and hated Leftists of all stripes. I'm not as extreme, and I couldn't be living in Westchester. You could say I'm a little over-vigilant, a charge I won't dismiss out of hand. Still, I'm pretty good at sensing trends, and the path America and the rest of the West is taking scares me greatly. Almost everything written on this blog has that as subtext; it's inescapable for me and all that I do. Seeing this play, of all the plays available, would force me to confront not only the legacy of my heritage, but my own fears about the future. Emma Stone, Brian, keep thinking of Emma Stone.
The drive down and parking were shockingly easy. I found a spot on the street directly across from the theater, paid my meter, and found myself with a few hours to kill. I wandered around the city, grabbing Starbucks, a snack, lunch, etc. Not entirely sure my space was really legit, I stayed close and kept an eye on the car. After eating, a few calls, and charging my phone, I entered the theater, formally known as Studio 54, as in the famous coke-filled sex-drenched nightclub of yore. Without any basis for comparison, I don't know what was original, but the carpet was garish enough (leopard print!) and sticky enough to convince me it could have been the original. The lobby and front doors looked untouched as well. Passing a kiosk of souvenirs, I stopped and told my budget to please shut the fuck up, picking up a coffee mug for myself, another for Ashely, a CD for Karl, and a t-shirt. The prices doesn't matter, and the money I spent is irrelevant. I love what I bought. Finding my seat, I was way to the right of the stage, but I wasn't too far away either. My view really was obstructed, with a small, though noticeable, portion of the production only in view while risking serious neck injury. Also, I was directly behind the sign-language interpreters, so there was a spotlight interfering with my low-light vision. Since this was my first show, I didn't care. As the other patrons took their seats, I was lucky to be joined at my rail by two Broadway vets from New Jersey. A mother and adult daughter, we chatted, and they were in shock that this was my first show. That level of surprise was becoming a theme, and a little annoying. After all, the best part of virginity is losing it. This deflowering involved far less recreational drug use, thankfully, though I would have enjoyed another card game. The show began with Alan Cumming as the Emcee, and the star of the show.
As mentioned, the show's plot and themes are... complicated for a German-American like myself. It is set around an adult club (cabaret) in Berlin between the World Wars. Berlin's decadence at the time is well established, and it's permissive attitudes towards sexuality and sexual identity and identification are similarly known. This is was demonstrated by the first number: "Welcome, " which is probably the song everyone thinks of when they hear the play's name. You meet the Emcee (Cummings), and the ladies who work at the club, who may or may not be strippers, and at least one who is definitely turning tricks on the side. He beckons you to join them. Yes, the German nation is falling apart, and the Weimar Republic is failing the people, and it's cold, but you can come inside and forget your troubles, watch the ladies, have a drink, etc. Berlin was a perfect place to forget yourself. This is where the poor sight line hurt me. Part of the stage was recessed, and I didn't know it until the Emcee introduced the orchestra. I craned my neck and got something like a glimpse.
Berlin was a turbulent place, as per the opening number. People came and went, and of those wanderers are the two main characters: the British cabaret singer Sally Bowles and American author (in theory) Cliff Bradshaw. He's also the audience proxy. Both are based off real people. Sally Bowles was Jean Ross, and Cliff Bradshaw was a loose version of Christopher Isherwood, a British author who lived in Berlin during the time the play is set and knew Ms. Ross. He wrote the novellas on which the play is based. Miss Ross, the Paris Hilton of Berlin in 1931, was a lounge singer of no real talent, save that she couldn't care less how you liked her singing, and Mr. Isherwood was a struggling writer when he lived in Berlin and who swung both ways (though he preferred boys in their late teens, according to Wikipedia). Paris had Hemingway and the rest of the Lost Generation drinking themselves stupid along the Seine; Berlin had cabarets, Mr. Isherwood, and free love in every combination. We all pick our poisons, eventually choking on the toxicity.
The play moves to a train where our American protagonist meets a German traveling to Berlin from Paris, evidently with some contraband. The smuggling was successful and the two start up a conversation. The introduction is spot on in its portrayal of how Germans interact with unknown and foreign people. They are formal, even stand-offish, but once you have a German as a friend, you have one for life; time and distance do not matter. I know this from personal experience. Of course, Herr Ludwig is a freaking Nazi, and was probably smuggling something terrible, but we don't know that yet, do we? All we know is that he wishes to improve his English, helps Cliff find a place to stay, and invites him for a drink at the Kit Kat Club where Sally will perform. He's seemingly a pleasant, nice guy! The worst part is that he probably is a nice guy in his mind. Germans are especially good at compartmentalizing. It's one of the flaws in the German psyche that the Nazis exploited to murderous effect. Eventually, our hero finds the rooming house to get a place to stay, and through a terrific song, he and the landlady make a deal. This is a good time to say that Linda Emond, the woman who plays Fraulein Schneider, was amazing, as was Danny Burstein, the gentleman who played her suitor: Herr Schultz . The cast was uniformly excellent, but the two supporting roles were filled superbly to the point we broke out in spontaneous applause twice. They stole the show, even form Alan Cummings. Both actors are up for Tony Awards, and for the first time ever I'd check the results, hoping to read that they won.
The next set piece introduces us to Sally Bowles, and I finally saw Miss Stone. My first thought was, wow, she really is that pretty! Second, she really is that pale, and third, her voice is just good enough to sustain the part. As per Ashely, the role doesn't require major pipes, but major star-power instead, which Emma Stone has by the pound. She commanded the stage. "Don't Tell Mama" was the first her first song, and she killed it.
This post isn't meant to be a line-by-line description, as I'm not a theater critic, but some synopsis is in order. The McGuffin of the play is Cliff's relationship with Sally, and it's certainly important, but the true story is the death of the listing, though democratic and representative, Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism, a.k.a, the Nazi party, and how it will affect the small community surrounding the Kit Kat Club, residents both decadent and pure. A growing cloud hangs over the play, and already I knew the ending more or less, but it didn't make the final scene any easier to bear. The final part of the first act is a party for the Jewish Herr Schultz announcing his engagement to Fraulein Schneider and where Herr Ludwig reveals his loyalties by wearing the Swastika armband. I tend to flinch when I see one, and this was no exception. Sally reveals that she's pregnant, and she isn't sure if Cliff is the father, though he doesn't care. The set piece ends with the Germans singing a nationalistic song, with slowly morphs into a goose-stepping march. Herr Schultz believes that it will all work out and this will pass. I guess he was right in this regard. Cliff berates Ludwig for the Nazis' views, but Ludwig wonders why that would impact their friendship. (Like I said, compartmentalization). The couple stand in Herr Schultz's produce store, and a brick is thrown through the glass. The first thing I thought of was Kristallnacht , the Night of Broken Glass. I even said the German word aloud in my surprise, using correct German pronunciation reflexively. My neighbors laughed and grabbed my arm in support. Herr Schultz said it was just children in need of supervision. I could only hang my head. With that we had the intermission.
I raced to the restroom, which had a line 7 men deep. The ladies were close to 60 deep, so I could stand to wait a few minutes. Gratefully relieved (and beyond glad I'm male), I chatted with my rail mates, who were fairly tipsy on overpriced wine. Alan Cummings dropped out of the sky on a moon swing which I know was part of the original club, though the moon was doing a bump of coke in 1978. He engaged the audience, took two people up on stage to dance and flirt. It was great fun, and leavened my mood a little bit. I really don't like Nazis.
The second act begins with the happy couple's engagement broken and Fraulein Schneider returning a lovely cut crystal fruit bowl to Cliff and Sally, who are living together. This part of the play contained the highlight for me: "What Would You Do?" sung by Ms. Emond. This is where my understanding of the play turned for me. Cliff is telling Sally and Fraulein Schneider to get out of Germany as soon as possible. Sally is in love with Cliff, but in love with Berlin's party scene more and doesn't want to leave, baby or no. Fraulein Schneider doesn't feel she could leave. What would you do if you were in her position? She survived WW1, hyperinflation, and she would survive this. She's too old to drop everything and move to Paris, or wherever. He and Sally fight and she leaves to work at the club once more to make money, as they're broke. He offers to sell her typewriter to buy train tickets to Paris, but she won't go. She sings one more time, belting out "Life is a cabaret, old chum," declaring to the world she won't leave. Oh Lord does Emma Stone nail this. The audience erupted in cheers as she finished her angry, desperate reprise. The next morning Cliff and Herr Schultz talk, with the latter moving to a different rooming house across town and Cliff scampering for France then home. Herr Schultz declares he is fully German, and he knows it will be all right. Cliff is not as convinced. Sally then arrives at the guesthouse cold, lacking her fur coat, which she traded to a doctor for an abortion. Cliff slaps her (nice work on the sound effect, by the way), but still wants her to join him to Paris, then America. She refuses, asking instead for Cliff to dedicate his book to her, now that he has something to write.
We last see Cliff on the train, beginning his book by reciting the lines: "There was a cabaret, and there was a master of ceremonies ... and there was a city called Berlin, in a country called Germany ... and it was the end of the world." And it was the end of that world. We close on the rest of cast seemingly interned in a concentration camp, with the Emcee revealing his camp uniform with a pink triangle and yellow star slowly walking to his and the others' doom, including Sally. Flakes fell from the ceiling, and the hissing of gas was heard, fade to black. Trying to process the last scene, I got in my car and headed home.
It was hard to see the last moments of the show due to my seat, and it's possible that only some of the characters were in the camp. That's the most likely scenario anyway. The Fraulein and the cabaret ladies were Germans after all, and if they were doomed, it was during the fall of Berlin in 1945, when the Soviets overran the city, destroying and raping everything and everyone they could find (including my great aunt). Estimates guess around 2 million German women were assaulted in this limited event. Alternately, they could have fled the city to Dresden, which was firebombed by the British, killing at least 25,000 people, and would have been considered a war crime had air attacks been covered under international law at the time. The same great aunt mentioned above survived this as well. Finally, the inspiration for Sally, Ms. Ross, did leave Berlin at some point, dying in England in 1973.
So it's obvious the play hit me where it hurts, but not in the location one would expect. My grandfather served in the Wehrmacht ( the regular German army) during WW2, but I never knew him. Also, he was just a soldier occupying Paris during the war, where he got drunk every day. No, my discomfort was caused primarily how I identified with the American Cliff, and his unique (and uniquely American) position. It all came into focus during "What would you do?" Cliff and Sally were in different positions than the rest of the characters. As visitors and dilettantes and full members of cultures that accentuated personal liberty, they had freedom and choices the others did not. The freedom I saw was psychological, not just legal. If your town, state (NY baby!), or even your nation was falling apart, you leave for greener pastures. Sally, crippled by her drinking, drug use, and youth, couldn't see what Cliff did, but she was still free to leave. She had options, though the character refused to exercise them. Cliff, not so steeped in the lifestyle of Berlin and willing to see the danger the Nazis represented, fled Germany while he still could. The others felt they were not in a position to follow, so they didn't have the luxury of believing him. Comforting lies and sensible compromises were all they could afford. Cliff and Sally had privilege, and that birthright was so ingrained into their psyches they didn't even know it was there. Until Saturday, neither did I.
White males are often accused of having undeserved privilege thanks to our plumbing and skin color. I've often dismissed the idea. Even if it's true, I can't change my race and certainly won't change my sex. I also won't somehow diminish my life goals or position simply to balance some fictional ledger. After watching the play, I realized just how entitled I am, and how I take my life and position for granted. When Cliff was trying to convince everyone to leave Germany, I was almost ready to scream at the stage: "Run!' "Get out while you can!' Of course, I say this in real life all the time. I think my friends are getting a little sick of it, honestly. No one likes a Cassandra. So here I sit, criticizing all I survey while I have a great position, make great money, help people go to college for a living, and get to travel, spend, and lounge around Starbucks pretty much whenever I want, and I'm grateful for none of it. I'm too busy obsessing about the end of the world, and perhaps, the loss of my privilege and my position. The rarefied air I'm breathing allows me the luxury of worrying about these things. Though I'm the citizen of the country in question, and not an itinerant writer who was a guest in the land of others, we are both offered friendship and opportunity in our locales. Cliff must seem like a total jackass, a Chicken Little screaming about the sky. I'm now believe I come across in much the same way.
Just like Cliff, all of this doesn't mean I'm wrong. It also doesn't mean I don't sound like a snotty, spoiled civil servant who doesn't know how good he has it. I still feel the country is on a dangerous path to ruin, which will replace the Republic of the United States with a police state. Whether those in charge are far-right or far-left means nothing to me. Either way, I'm the enemy. I work for the government, and part of the political class, so the "corn-pone Nazis" (as per James Howard Kunstler) would hate me. I'm Catholic, male, white, and Republican, so the Left would hate me. Now, could all this be true at some point in the future? It's a near certainty. Am I being punished for who I am or what I believe? Um... no. The play showed me real suffering, real fear, real discrimination. It also showed me a girl in a gorilla suit who doesn't look at all Jewish. If art is supposed to surprise and move the audience, then this show was art incarnate.
