Absolutely free and I still wanted some money back...

We got some free tickets to Brooklyn The Musical this past week. I've wanted to see the show for some time now and I went in ready to love it. I tried to like it. I really, really tried.

Everything in this show is recycled. And that is both the show's major disaster and single notable element. The recycling starts as soon as you enter the theater and realize that the set is a dumbed-down version of Rent's stage, complete with onstage trash and scaffolding. As the cast appears in their dirty trash-picked attire, we recognize that these kids are homeless and downtrodden, but as the cringe-worthy first number begins, we recognize that these kids come with a message of hope and love. And cliche.

We are supposed to be transported to the magically dirty borough of Brooklyn, specifically under the Brooklyn Bridge. Instead it feels like you've been transported to the magically long-running Rent's Nederlander Theater, specifically four years ago when that show's cast was still energetic yet crappy. The show tries to depict Brooklyn as a place filled with grime and streetsingers, but falls very short of capturing anything of substance that wasn't left over from Jonathan Larson's East Village. Really it could be any slum in the universe and does nothing to capture Brooklyn.

The show goes to great lengths, as the narrator constantly reminds, to explain that they are trying to tell an urban fairy tale. What that fairy tale is about is impossible to say because there is no focus. It starts with a recycled Miss Saigon plot, with two lovers being torn apart by war leaving a child in their wake. To be more exact, its the first draft of Miss Saigon that someone pulled out of the trash.

Narrated by a "Streetsinger" (Cleavant Derricks, Tony winner for Dreamgirls), the musical tells the rags-to-riches story of the title character, Brooklyn (Eden Espinosa), a young woman living in Paris whose parents are Taylor (Kevin Anderson), a troubled, drug-addicted Vietnam veteran, and Faith (Karen Olivo), a dancer. Orphaned at a young age by her mother's untimely death and her brokenhearted father's abandonment, Brooklyn travels to America in search of both a pop music career and her father. There she comes into conflict with the sassy Paradice (Ramona Keller), who doesn't exactly welcome the competition.

My recap does the show way too much justice though, as it implies the plot is not a jumbled mess. At first you ask yourself, "is this show about unrequited love, or family, or happy endings, or an American Idol sing-off?" By the sixth terrible song, the question becomes, "who cares?" For a group of down-on-their-luck homeless, they are awfully perky. If the program insists the time is the present, and the father fought in Vietnam (which leads to one of the most absurdly cliched and badly done sequences on Broadway), how is the daughter only 20? I would suggest you do the math, but even that would be too much effort . The entire show asks nothing of the audience. No need to think here. Just believe in miracles. Or something.

Every song seems to have been written by someone who grew up not on musicals, but on American Idol. The overly-emotive and embarrassingly corny lines are unreal. We learn that "life is like a shooting star," that "when you change someone's life, you change your own," and that, yes, "the world's a stage and we are the players." Not surprisingly, Brooklyn insists "I believe in miracles" and "love will conquer all." Groundbreaking! GAG! To be fair though, the two main divas can sing and they belt the hell out of this drivel at every turn.

There isn't any element of originality or truth to be found here. Especially if you are looking for the real Brooklyn character. Rather than having any poignancy or power to the music, practically every song is a screamer, as if any one of them could be the big finale. I found myself praying that were true. "Maybe this is the last one. Okay how about this one, please?"

The one success that Brooklyn can tout is the endlessly inventive costumes by Tobin Ost. Much like the uninspired set, the costumes are made by recycling garbage and city detritus into clothes and accessories. Tube socks become elbow-length gloves. Doritios bags become a stylish headdress. Bubblewrap becomes an elegant stole. And police tape and garbage bags become a surprisingly sexy skin-tight evening dress. The designs are inspired, but when you leave a musical humming the costumes, you know the show is a disaster.


An ill-conceived show, recycled from past shows and bad pop songs is embarrassing enough to have on Broadway. As the only new musical till next year, Brooklyn The Musical will not do. When one produces a show this terrible the least they could do is provide an intermission to allow the audience to leave during in protest. Being denied an indignant early exit just proves what little respect the show's producers have for a Broadway audience.

One of these things is not like the other...

Let's compare and contrast headlines..

From the AP:

AP Poll: Bush, Kerry in Dead Heat

In the AP-Ipsos Public Affairs poll, the Democratic ticket of Kerry and Sen. John Edwards got support from 49 percent of those who said they were likely to vote, and the Republican team of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney got 46 percent, within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

From Reuters:

Reuters Poll: Bush Grabs One-Point Lead on Kerry

President Bush opened a slight one-point lead on Democratic rival John Kerry in a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

Someone explain to me how a three-point lead in Kerry's favor is a "dead heat," while a one-point Bush lead is a "slight lead." This is what I mean when I talk about a bias in the media. There is no objective standard in these stories, they just spin it however they feel might be more compelling. Perhaps they are trying to make Kerry out to be the underdog so when he wins they will have every opportunity to make Red Sox analogies.

Because after all, frivolous analogies are the only thing that sustain them anymore.

I believe the children are the future...

The kids of the nation have spoken and they have declared their choice for the next president of the United States.

Nickelodeon's You Pick the President program aired last night. All the ballots were cast and they announced John Kerry to be their choice.


The kids have successfully chosen the President in every single election they have been around to do this (or at least the popular vote, they chose Al Gore in 2000). Does this say anything about the upcoming election? I can't say. But at least we know Kerry gets the pre-youth vote.

Just like Jimmy Olsen...

Check this out.

Yeah I know it's a mediocre review. (The show is much funnier than the reviewer lets on, I assure you.)

But check out that photo credit.

That's right. I knew I'd get my name into the Times one way or another.

No more secrets, please...

This is shocking. The LA Times is reporting that the CIA is being forced to withhold a damning report about 9/11 that threatens to name names. Reportedly they won't be releasing the report till after the election.

The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.

"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago asking for it to be delivered. "We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."

We should all be concerned. They refused to support the 9/1 commision. Then begrudgingly allowed it, while doing their best to stonewall it at every turn. Now they won't let the CIA release their report because it may be embarassing for them. When does it end? We need another Daniel Ellsburg to be patriotic whistleblowers and release documents such as this. We don't have much time left to get these papers out there. If there is going to be an October surprise let it this be it and let's help Kerry shore this thing up.

Screw the village; it takes a reality-based community...

I just finished reading The New York Times Magazine piece on the Bush presidentcy and faith. It's an extremely chilling story that everyone should look at before they cast their vote in 2 weeks. The piece focuses on Bush's consistant use of Messianic language and his stubborness and false confidence masquerading as faith. The author Ron Suskind has been far from the White House's good graces for some time, as a writer for Esquire and the author of The Price of Loyalty. But Suskind has talked to aides on the inside who try to explain the way they all think in the Bush administration. Apparently, they do not care to focus on reality or science or empirical rational. But don't take my word for it. By their own admission:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

This is the kind of righteous indignation that permeates this administration. This hubris is what will lose the election for them. That and their total incompetence. It's hard to wrap my head around people who think the way they do. But they tried to explain to Suskind the differences.

"And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

They really do not have much respect or even understanding of most Americans in between coastlines. There are plenty of liberals in these states and plenty of good Republiacns who will stand up and say no to a leader who is getting closer and closer to the totlitarianism in language, if not entirely in deed. Faith is great for a lot of people. But blind faith in bad government is as unAmerican as it gets.

America is about invention, about equality, about hope, and about progress. But above all else it is about reality and enlightenment.

It's no about God, Mr. President. It's about people.