Climate Changed

Congratulations to the Mendocino Film Festival for an excellent offering of an independent, inspiring and educational visionary feast attracting a huge turn out that filled up the town coffers, hotels, restaurants, and spirits.

Luckily, the strange weather we're having didn't interfere with the festival unlike dozens of other outdoor venues that didn't take into account the fact that the climate has changed. I know we always talk about climate change but I think we can all agree something has definitely CHANGED.

When it's raining we as a species naturally migrate to the theater. Whether it be movie or live, we thrive in the dark chamber tucked in with our clan, a frosty or hot drink, a pastry and or the traditional buttered popcorn.

Sheba and I flew to New York last week to indulge ourselves in Broadway theater as a birthday present to me. We headed to my motherland to celebrate my 51st year here on earth. Talk about change honey, When I was a kid in NYC, Times Square was a Den of inequity. Prostitutes, drug addicts, a lot of crime. Today it is a sparkly clean Megawattage metropolis blasting beams of 50 story high digital images and eye candy including the Hershey Chocolate Cathedral catty corner to the M&M Emporium, and the Disney Store.

We stayed on 49th and Broadway at the Mayfair a classic old hotel , next to the Eugene O'neill theater, where we could see the Actor's church, St Malarky's from our window. Sheba had made a substantial pledge to KZYX and we received the premium of Dinner and a show with Amy Goodman which was our original motivation to go east.

The show was of course, Democracy Now! and dinner well, Amy was uber busy and so we had to take a rain check on that. We did, however, get to go to her new studio at 7:45 am in the Chelsea district. We got to say hi and have our picture taken with Ms. Goodman, but with pitching for pledge drives and the Arab Spring she was spinning in so many directions. You can tell by the speed of her monologues and sign offs, the lady has a lot on her plate.

We sat with other generous donors in the viewing area of the studio with a big screen TV so we could watch all the international video feed. We could see Amy through the glass partition sitting at her round table next to Juan Gonzales and featured guests. (We actually got to ride in the elevator with Juan. He is a very nice guy.)

One of the top stories of the day was the torture and killing of the 13 year old Syrian Boy, Hamsah al Kateeb, as reported by the recently released Al Jazeera Journalist Dorothy Parvaz who had just been released from Iranian Prison. Two intense stories wrapped up into one. These stories were so painfully heartbreaking. Some things never change.

I had to ask myself, how does she do it? How does she carry on day in and out reporting on this insane violence? I know she says, "this is the war and Peace report." But we rarely hear the Peace report. We wanted to hang out with Amy and basically interview her, not about the news, but about her. The first question we wanted to ask, posed by my friend Mickey was, "What do you do for fun?" I hope there's something truly wonderful in Amy's life besides the privilege of being a broadcast journalist.

We wanted to grab her and take her with us to see the Book Of Mormon, the hottest ticket on Broadway. This outrageously funny, irreverent, uplifting musical comedy was written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone creators of South Park along with Robert Lopez creator of Avenue Q. If you are familiar with either of these shows you gotta know, there's a lot of cursing, but besides that, this is the most powerful religious and social satire combined with the most fantastic musical score to invade Broadway since I've been going and that's nearly fifty years.

We follow the story of the virtuous egomaniac Elder Price and the simpleton, Elder Cunningham assigned to Uganda for their missionary posts. Naive as well, Mormons, who according to one of 16 pitch perfect Broadway show tunes, "Just Believe" are immediately introduced to the reality of life for the poor people of Uganda where %80 percent of the people have AIDS, female circumcision is rampant,Warlords are killing people at random and their only defense is to dance and raise their voices in thrilling African unity to essentially give God the finger.

The ensuing comedy is scathing, pathetic, obscene and really truly funny. This show has the unique ability to educate audiences about female genital mutilation and bring important focus to the epidemic. I was very impressed. Everyone at the 1st Wed. Matinee where I overheard one woman say she was 91 years old, gave an instant and enthusiastic standing ovation at the final curtain.

I must say that while I did very much love this show, without the obscenities it wouldn't be as funny. It's as though our sense of humor has stalled in the potty stage. When I was growing up, a show like this would never, never make it to the stage. But that's changed now. So it's not just the climate that's changed, it's everything. And while we've been hoping for change, I wish we'd been more specific.