LOCAL2013: Meet the Candidates Forum... Met the Candidates!

I'm pretty gosh-darn exhausted, but initial impressions upon getting home from the Meet the Candidates Forum was that a packed-full room of enthusiastic, interested artists was presented by four full panels of city-wide candidates who spoke -- at times humorously, at times substantively, at times passionately -- about what exactly can be done for the arts, and for artists.

It was a shot in the arm, and a kick in the butt. Now comes the hard work -- voting on candidates to endorse, and then fighting to get them elected. But we're in the room, and we're being heard.

HOW WE MAKE THE CASE: It's Fair To Get Paid

An artist really eloquently puts why it's important for artists to get paid for their work:

 

It's becoming a bigger and bigger cultural conversation, whether it's the Upright Citizens Brigade or The Atlantic. As the technology of mass communication (and, with 3D printing, duplication), the economics of "Free" is going to become a bigger and thornier issue. A larger-than-ever slice of our economy is going to be maintained by freelancers and consultants, and that can be a double-edged sword.

LOCAL2013: The First Step Towards Having A Voice is to Show Up

That's right. If you say you do socially conscious work, or you think that the City could be doing more to be supporting the arts, then you have no excuse not to come to the League of Independent Theater's Meet the Candidates Forum this Tuesday, March 12th, 6:45PM at the Players on Gramercy.

Here are the politicians who are going to be there:

Opening Remarks by 

Jimmy Van Bramer, City Council Member and Chair, Cultural Committee
Keynote Address by 

Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President

Tom Allon (Mayoral)

Kevin Coenen Jr. (Mayoral)

Robert Jackson (Manhattan Borough President)

Julie Menin (Manhattan Borough President)

Peter Vallone, Jr. (Queens Borough President

Letitia James (Public Advocate)

Jenifer Rajkumar (CC Manhattan 1)

Corey Johnson (CC Manhattan 3)

Yetta Kurland (CC Manhattan 3)

Ben Kallos (CC Manhattan 5)

Hill Krishnan (CC Manhattan 5)

Marc Landis (CC Manhattan 6)

Mel Wymore (CC Manhattan 6)

Mark Levine (CC Manhattan 7)

Cheryl Pahaham (CC Manhattan 7)

Angel Molina (CC Manhattan/Bronx 8)

William Russell Moore (CC Bronx 18)

Matthew Silverstein (CC Queens 19)

Laurie Cumbo (CC Brooklyn 35)

Kimberly Council (CC Brooklyn 37)

That's right, from across the city, these candidates are going to be telling us why the League of Independent Theater should endorse them.

And if you attend, you can vote and tell us who should get the endorsement.

They're going to be discussing this platform:

As a pro-performing arts elected official, I will work to:

1. Create access to low-cost and/or no-cost Community Facilities Spaces that are currently available and remain unused throughout the City through the creation of a Community Facilities Space Database.

2. Create access to empty and unused City property to be re-purposed as temporary rehearsal, office and (if appropriate), performance space.

3. Include non-profit performance venues in the favorable electricity and utility rates enjoyed by religious institutions and the VFW.

4. Implement a proposal that would reduce or eliminate property tax assessments for those non-profit organizations that have an artistic mission and/or rent performance space to similar non-profit performing arts groups with artistic missions of their own. This proposal was unanimously ratified by all twelve (12) Manhattan Community Boards.

5. Secure affordable permanent low-cost housing for working artists. In addition, work to provide access to affordable healthcare for these artists, depending on the status and reach of the Affordable Care Act at the time of negotiations.

6. Support the commission of an economic impact study for the independent theater territory.

7. Work with the Department of Cultural Affairs to expand the Cultural Institutions Group to include the independent theater sector’s anchor venues.

8. Install plaques at sites of historical import and rename streets after the founders of the independent and Off-Off Broadway community.

It's all there -- clear, immediate ways that these politicians can make an impact for our local artistic community. And you can't influence unless you come.

Please RSVP now -- we've had to turn away candidates and we will be packed from floor to ceiling. The initial response has been overwhelming, and if we follow through on this, we can actually have a big political impact this election.

ART ECONOMICS: Just When You Thought Artist Pay Could Go No Lower...

... it goes negative! Performers in Hair paid a $495 enrollment fee to perform.

TV: The Dysfunctional World of Sports Broadcasting

If data-driven web-series are the future of television, then the horse-and-buggy is probably sports broadcasting. The content is every bit as desirable now as it was in years past, but the model is bizarre. For example, because of rising licensing costs, people who don't watch sports have to pay for it on their TVs:

Time Warner Cable subscribers in Southern California will eventually see their monthly bills increase thanks to an impending $7 billion deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, believed to be the most lucrative for any sports team in history. DirecTV, the country’s most popular satellite service, and Verizon FiOS have started adding a $2 to $3 monthly surcharge in markets like New York and Los Angeles to pay for regional sports networks.

And on the flip side, if I want to watch anything online, I typically can in a legal format -- except sports, because I don't pay $75/year for ESPN or other sports networks on my television.

LOCAL2013: State of the Borough Address

On Thursday, I attended Scott Stringer's final State of the Borough Address as Manhattan Borough President -- although really, it also served as a campaign event for his run for comptroller. (Since I've been asked five times since Thursday, the Comptroller controls the city's finances).

The event looked back on seven years of Stringer's term as MBP and gave him a chance to reflect on his accomplishments -- working to lower property-tax on vacant properties, working to support gay marriage, etc.

A few thoughts:

NATIONAL BLACK THEATER

What was fascinating to me, however, was the accomplishment that Stringer chose to highlight through the keynote speech. The keynote was delivered by Sade Lythcott, CEO of the National Black Theater, which was on the verge of being shuttered due to four years of lawsuits with Applebee's. Stringer had stepped in to mediate the dispute between both parties, which prevented the National Black Theater from being closed.

There was a lot to brag about in Stringer's package, but that's the narrative he decided to make the centerpiece of the evening: how an important cultural institution was protected from being closed.

Now, during Stringer's term, plenty of other theaters did not make it, so it's worth putting it in the larger perspective, but for those of us who have despaired that politicians would ever value the arts and their integral part of society, at this event it wasn't even a question.

LANGUAGE

I was tracking how people were talking about the arts and culture over the course of the evening. The gentleman from the Met described Sade as "Creative. Entrepreneurial. And dedicated to her borough." Sade said that "Harlem is what it is because of its arts and culture. And Stringer himself said that his goal was to make New York a "Vibrant and creative city," and wanted it to be a home for "creative class jobs" to make New York a "Financial and Creative Capital" in the world.

THE PERFORMING ARTS PLATFORM

The first two sections of the Performing Arts Platform deal with getting underutilized made available to artists to help increase the artists' access to inexpensive rehearsal or performance space, as well as the need for affordable housing. Stringer, while MBP, authored reports on how underutilized space could meet affordable housing needs -- not too dissimilar to the proposals we've outlined. The same can be done for the arts; especially as it comes to city property which is underutilized.

TECHNOLOGY: Terrifying Fact of the Day

You have to read this Salon article about how House of Cards is a new frontier of creating content based on what producers will think we like -- only using hard data rather than guesswork:

For at least a year, Netflix has been explicit about its plans to exploit its Big Data capabilities to influence its programming choices. “House of Cards” is one of the first major test cases of this Big Data-driven creative strategy. For almost a year, Netflix executives have told us that their detailed knowledge of Netflix subscriber viewing preferences clinched their decision to license a remake of the popular and critically well regarded 1990 BBC miniseries. Netflix’s data indicated that the same subscribers who loved the original BBC production also gobbled down movies starring Kevin Spacey or directed by David Fincher. Therefore, concluded Netflix executives, a remake of the BBC drama with Spacey and Fincher attached was a no-brainer, to the point that the company committed $100 million for two 13-episode seasons. 

“We know what people watch on Netflix and we’re able with a high degree of confidence to understand how big a likely audience is for a given show based on people’s viewing habits,” Netflix communications director Jonathan Friedland told Wired in November. “We want to continue to have something for everybody. But as time goes on, we get better at selecting what that something for everybody is that gets high engagement.”

During last night's blizzard, I watched the first episode, and I felt kind of let down. Spacey is Spacey, the way he always is; some of the lines came across as ridiculous, and honestly Lincoln did a better job of pacing a story about legislation and political intrigue. But it's a bigger story -- can entertainment be created by data?

We'll see.