As IF Times

link Live-music industry hits sour note.

Nothing is impervious to economics.  The entertainment business has cruised along for years somewhat detached from the realities of the real world’s economic vicissitudes, apparently immune to negative payday shock.

Even as people were losing jobs and incomes fell in aggregate all over North America, touring acts could still command big dollar tickets for their engagements. It was as if entertainers were immune from the financial concerns of the plain folk.  Certainly some factors were in play which served to work to the benefit of a particular niche of the touring community.  There always seemed to be an appetite to see the old classic groups from the younger days of the baby boom generation.  Such well worn acts as Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones etc., still commanded big audiences and even bigger ticket prices from those reaching back to memories of their youth. 

The top echelons of entertainers will always get the big demand.  Elton John can probably still draw a big ticket crowd.  However, when farewell tours 2 and 3  of some second tier 70′s group comes along, the scarcity and novelty factors wears off.  Is it really a lifetime event to see somebody belting out youthful standards at 60 to 70 years of age?  Do people really care to see Cher or Tina Turner on stage  in support hose?  Not that the music’s not good, in fact, it’s hard to imagine that what passes as popular music today will have the longevity to attract audiences 40 years down the road.  It’s just that everything has its time.  If this were not the case, we’d be listening to flapper music on the oldies’ stations.

The other issue of course is price.  You may be able to command premium prices for the first few tours, but who wants to pay $200, $500, or $1000 to see Sir Paul or Sir Mick?  For $30 bucks, you can buy the live DVD and not have to put up with the lousy PA systems at most venues.  And that’s for the top tier acts. 

Nowadays, everyone who can hold a guitar in one hand is pushed by the marketing and PR machines as the next great sensation.  As if.  The Jonas Brothers may be a sensation to their promoters, but they’re no Donny Osmond in his time.  It’s all the same biddy bop stuff.  People are forced to be more discriminating with their entertainment dollars.  Make it $20 bucks to see a concert, then you’ve got something.  Of course at those levels, singers won’t get paid wheelbarrows of money to croon their tunes, but the pay scale for all entertainers is overdue for a serious reckoning.  As noted earlier, people will pay for what they perceive to be a worthwhile experience, but most stuff out there these days is filler at best.

According to Pollster, www.pollster.com  the top draws for 2009 were:

Pollstar Top 50 Tours of North America:

Rank              Total Gross*              Artist
1                   123.0                       U2
2                   94.5                         Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
3                   88.0                         Elton John / Billy Joel
4                   82.5                         Britney Spears
5                   77.9                         AC/DC
6                   71.1                         Kenny Chesney
7                   69.8                         Jonas Brothers
8                   56.9                         Dave Matthews Band
9                   54.5                         Fleetwood Mac
10                 53.4                         Metallica

Looking at this list, you can see that at least half can be considered nostalgia acts, at least a couple are about to expire pop acts and at least 2 catering to specific music genres, ie country or metal which don’t necessarily count on recent material.  

When you look at the bottom top 50 acts:

42                 21.9                         Eric Clapton / Steve Winwood
43                 21.8                         Kings Of Leon
44                 21.3                         Leonard Cohen
45                 20.4                         Bob Dylan
46                 19.7                         “So You Think You Can Dance”
47                 19.1                         Barry Manilow
48                 18.8                         Journey
49                 18.7                         Jimmy Buffett
50                 18.5                         Luis Miguel

we can see that most of these are nostalgia gigs.  I say that’s all good for them and bravo.  Heck, I’d still go see Eric Clapton, but not in a stadium of 60,000 and not for $200 a throw.  His CD’s are just fine.  This may all work out for the better for small indie artists.  People may find an appreciation for unhyped talent.

Next on the austerity program…sports.

link Val Kilmer Fights Over Words in Bid to Convert New Mexico Ranch to B&B – WSJ.com.

This is the flip side of the free speech privilege.  Certainly you can say what you want in America for the most part, but people should know that there are consequences to what you say.  Hollywood celebrities are accustomed to having their pronouncements accepted as gospel by their adoring fans, agents and acolytes, but the fact is, much of what they say is plainly stupid, offensive or both and as in this case, people not in the fan circle may not be amused.  If you call your neighbours red neck drunks, don’t expect kisses blown at you if you meet them at the bar.  Whereas a witty wisecrack will get you a  mention in TMZ, in real life, it could get you a purple nerple.

Free speech means that opinions are offered for public consumption whether or not they have any basis of fact or redeeming value.  This blog is an example.   Hopefully the general public will over time be able to discern the nuggets of genuine thought from the verbal inanity that constitutes most of what passes as wisdom offered by ‘celebrities’.  By coincidence, I happened  to be browsing through a local bookstore recently and was amused to see weighty tomes of deep thought offered by the likes of Russell Brand, Steven Colbert and Jesse Ventura.  This should be an inspiration to all that in a free, capitalist society, even the likes of these people can convince a publisher to package their world views for public consumption.  As if the world is remotely interested.  We’re all awaiting the lucky publisher of Pee Wee Herman’s views on regressive taxation as well.

Can anyone imagine such pearls of wisdom being acceptable in places like Iran or China?   Anyone who argues that the western model of society is broken and that we should aim  to emulate  the socialist regimes of Cuba or Venezuela should attempt to have their lofty opinions published in those countries.  It’s altogether different  to have your thoughts exposed to an informed audience than it is to pander to a naive or uniformed fan base.  What most of these vocal celebs fail to grasp is that amusing people is not the same as enlightening people.  To paraphrase the inscription on the rear view mirrors of cars, “your opinions may matter less than you think”.

So, getting back to our hero Val, some intemperate comments made  about his neighbors in the past have come back to bite him.   All they’re asking for is an apology.  Frankly, I’d be surprised if anyone on the committee has lost a minute of  sleep over Kilmer’s past comments.  I think they’re just tired of ‘celebrites’ dissing the little folk without thought to consequences.  Come on Val, you’re an actor, act like you’re sorry.  That way you can believe that anyone really cares what you think.

link Director James Cameron says BP turned down help offer – Yahoo! News.

Why doesn’t someone just listen to this guy?  He’s obviously convinced that his ability to create fake characters and make believe worlds has also conferred upon him  the powers to do real life things.  In fact, if I may be so bold, I can suggest a way in which Cameron can easily fix the Gulf leak.  Invent an avatar that can swim to depths of a mile underwater and bring along numerous rolls of Mighty Fix It, that silicon product that’s being hawked on network TV.  Once the cartoon, oops, the avatar wraps up the opening in the pipe, tada!

Of course, this wouldn’t be interesting entertainment.  You’d have to script a love interest as well, so other cartoons would have to be written in before the actual fix can occur. In line with what happens in the movies, this should all be resolved in about two and half hours.

At sea level, pressure on a body is about 14 psi.  In water, according to calculations, pressure at about 1 mile beneath the ocean’s surface is about 2400 psi, enough to crush any human being without sufficient body fat to withstand the enormous forces, except perhaps Michael Moore.  Cameron would have to design an especially rigorous cartoon in order to survive these great depths.  This may not be as easy as it sounds, since there are logistics involved.  Will the cartoon be a male or a female character? Will it be a white, blue, or some indistinguishable amalgam of ethnic make up?  Will they have 4 fingers or only 3 as per most cartoons? Would they be able to handle the rolls of Mighty Fix It with only 3 fingers?

Another possibility is to employ creatures that are already capable of moving at those depths.  Why not enlist  whales or giant squids to help plug the pipeline ala Flipper?  If only serving to give rides down to the leak site for the cartoons, or at least to hold the flashlights, these creatures can be of great help.  All of this may be moot however, because the ultimate solution is to create a time machine which would allow us to go back and cancel the leak in the first place.  All these solutions are possible…in his fermenting head. 

Sadly for us, Cameron happens to live in the real world, not the make believe planet that he seems to inhabit with many of the Hollywood delusional set.  For many of these people, reality is something the regular folk have to deal with.  They live in a world of fawning agents and adoring fans, leading their fantasy lives  in the fake worlds they populate.  And that’s all fine.  In order for these people to be ‘good’ at pretending to be other people, I suppose they have to buy into the fantasy completely.  For most of them however, having to deal with the realities of a world where things don’t get tied up neatly in 2 hours is a huge shock and they are probably wholly unprepared for those results. 

The only person who came out of the hollywood miasma with any vision was Ronald Reagan and he was successful because his ideas were rooted in reality and common sense, ideas  which stood him far apart from the elitist Hollywood crowd.  However, for every one of him you have an ocean of fantasy life entertainers who purport to have solutions to society’s ills, people with no real life experience.   The truly sad part is, they can actually convince some of the public to believe them.  The first few lines of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody sums this up for me:

Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide

No escape from reality…..

These people are entertainers.  They have decided to sidestep an education in hard sciences, math, physics or  engineering in order to capitalize on their skills at make believe.  Can you imagine in any other culture or time when the rulers would take the advice of the court jesters for military or economic guidance? Picture the scene circa 1491 or so in Spain.  Chris Columbus is asking for dough to explore for a path to the west indies by ship.  “Oh wait”, the Queen exclaims, “let me consult with my juggler.”  Or imagine if you wound up at a bar in the seedy side of town surrounded by hostiles.  Would you want 120 pound  Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz to come in and “heyyy” the thugs away?  As if.

Getting back to Cameron, talented as he is and with intents that are undoubtedly sincere, let’s just keep his fantasies on the screen and away from real life before he makes us all blue.