Leaving Las Vegas

We all knew the day was coming, especially the last few years when the ringmaster of the annual 24-Hour event disappeared from sight during the wee small hours of the morning, but after 45 years, Jerry Lewis is retiring as host from the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Labor Day Telethon. That’s right, the now 85-year-old ‘Nutty Professor’ has but one more chance to try and get through his anthem song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the Rodger’s and Hammerstein musical “Carousel,” without having an emotional meltdown— Speaking of meltdowns! They’re knocking down the Sahara Hotel in Vegas where the MDA show first originated, which was announced on the same day that Jerry said he was leaving as the MDA host. You don’t suppose they’re trying to kill two birds with one stone, do you?

 

Nah… Jerry’s a tough old bird, with a foul mouth to boot. In 2007, the then 81-year-old dropped an anti-gay slur in the 18^th hour of his annual event, when he went into an imaginary rant about family members, calling one of them (Jesse) “the illiterate faggot.” And they wondered why the pledges from West Hollywood came to a screeching halt.

 

Obviously, the comment sparked a frenzy amongst the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD), whose president, Neil Giuliano, called Jerry’s use of the term “simply unacceptable,” adding, “it also feeds a climate of hatred and intolerance that contributes to putting our community in  harm’s way.” Lighten up, Neil, Jerry’s a comedian – well, according to the French – besides, the man
apologized and said that he was directing the comment to a member of his production team. Atta boy, Jerry. Nothing like throwing your prejudice off on some poor sap behind the camera so that you look good. (FYI, the cameraman should’ve used a soft focus lens over the past few years to make Jerry look good.)

 

In Jerry’s defense, he’s made MDA the most famous long-running nationwide telethon to date, ever since its debut in 1966, and has served as chairman of the MDA since its inception in 1950, raising a record $65 billion dollars to date. Hey, that’s almost as much as the Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra, raked in after founding Reprise Records… Or was that how much he raked in after offing members of the mob? Ah, who cares. They’re all dead. Same as the memories of the annual MDA Labor Day Telethon from ‘Back in the day.’

 

Growing up in the ‘70’s, I couldn’t wait to send away for my Ronald McDonald Carnival Kit to raise money for the MDA in my own backyard. I was proud to send in the measly $100 I raised on some cheesy ring toss game and pick-up-ducks. (For the record, I DID send in the money.) Then, afterwards, I’d stay up all night to watch the celebrities of yesteryear who performed on Jerry’s show, which was as thrilling as being the poster boy seated in the wheelchair next to Jerry! (God forbid.)  But now…  Well, that $100 seems like a drop in a hat compared to the 6-to-7 figure pledges that kids and fireman raise today, keeping in mind there was no internet or youth organizations like there are today. And gone are the celebrities of yesteryear, like Steve & Eydie, Shields & Yarnell, Captain & Tennille, or Charo, Jack Jones and Maureen McGovern… Okay, so the latter three, like the Ever Ready Bunny, keep on going, and going, just like Jerry has… until now. However, Jerry has stated that he would continue to serve as the national MDA chairman, even after his departure, which leaves behind the burning question: Who will replace him as host? … Why does the name Ryan Seacrest come to mind?

BIN LADEN: THE MUSICAL!

In wake of what’s happened over the past few days, with the killing of Bin Laden, I thought it only appropriate to kill my post I had written about Lindsay Lohan… Well, sort of. Now, I know I said I wouldn’t give Lilo any more attention, but I couldn’t resist myself when it was reported that Lindsay would be teaching acting classes to homeless women as part of her 360 hours of community service. Right. Like those women are going to go out and land the role of a lifetime after that. Then again, with the right monologue… No, I promised myself not to focus on Lindsay. Although… It would be interesting to see her direct an adaptation of the movie To Catch A Thief as an all-female play. That, or The House Without A Christmas Tree, only I’d call it The Empty Amana Refrigerator Box Without Heat or Running Water.

Speaking of plays, the Tony Awards announced their nominations yesterday (How’s that for a segue?), with ‘two very daring musicals’ leading the pack: “The Book of Mormon” and “The Scottsboro Boys.” In brief, “Mormon” depends on potty humor, with diarrhea jokes and songs about body parts, to get laughs, while “Scottsboro” – based on the real story of 9 black teenagers wrongly put on death row in the 1930’s for allegedly raping two white girls – pushed the envelope of traditional Broadway by framing the story as a minstrel show, using a racist storytelling device of whites in black face, and then challenging it by having an all-black cast. (This may explain why the latter closed abruptly in December of 2010 after only 49 performances.) Rounding out the best new musical nominees were “Sister Act” and “Catch Me If You Can,” both adaptations of movies.

So, what happened to “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark?” Well, unless you’ve been living under the Verrazano Bridge, the $65 million dollar (and counting) production has been struggling to spin a web on critics and audiences alike since 4-months of troubled reviews, while giving the boot to its creator/director, Julie Taymor. Poor Julie… If she only had another a couple more million dollars, a few more months, and a few more actors willing to risk their lives and drop like flies into the audience due to technical glitches, she might’ve been able to do something really special— She has! She’s created the biggest BOMB in Broadway history! But in all fairness, Ms. Taymor isn’t entirely at fault. In order to construct the bomb, one needs money, and that comes from the producers who were banking on a “sure thing.” After all, Ms. Taymor had become the first woman to win a Tony Award for directing the musical, “The Lion King.” Yet, even though there were clear indications that “Spider-Man” was struggling during its creative process, the producers continued to pour exuberant amounts of monies into what was suspected, a doomed production, keeping in mind that they embarked on the ill-fated journey in 2005. (FYI, it might’ve been an omen when legendary producer, Tony Adams, of “Pink Panther” fame, suffered a stroke in 2005 and died 2 days later while working on the initial contracts.)

Now, as someone who’s written several plays and musicals, I know how hard it is to have something produced for the stage and, fortunately, I’m one of the lucky ones who’s actually been produced by someone other than myself. I’d written an interactive play that parodied the talk shows called “Tell Veronica!,” which ran off-Broadway at The Grove Street Playhouse (and later premiered on the West Coast at The Hudson Theatre). Granted, we’re not talking ‘The Great White Way’— But at the time? It was WAY better. After years of showcasing my work in dinky, little black-box theatres along 8^th Avenue, someone actual found ‘worth’ in something I wrote, and was willing to give my work a pulse. Me. The Unknown Writer. Little by little, the show gathered steam, thanks to some favorable reviews in the NY theatre papers, but after nearly a year’s run, the show saw its last light of day, or, in this case, the last lights on-stage. But that was okay with me, because I had other plays lined up, and a musical (“Gina’s Parole”) that was getting recognition in various ‘New Play & Musical Festivals,’ including a biggie at the time called The Peekaboo Festival, which was held at The Mark Goodson Theater in New York. With this amount of work, it was just a matter of time before a BIGGER producer would discover my work and take a chance on… something.

That was nearly… Dare I say it? 15 years ago. Why? Because bigger producers would rather invest their monies into “a sure thing,” like an adaptation of “Spider-Man” instead of taking a chance on something original by an unknown. Still, every now and again, I get the urge to return to my theatre roots and write something for the stage, so recently, I started throwing around ideas for a new interactive piece called, “Bin Laden: The Musical!” Think about it, everyone in the audience is handed a paintball gun and they get to shoot at the actor playing Bin Laden as he sings the ballad “Don’t Cry For Me Al Jazeera.” I’m telling you, with the right director, this show could be ‘the bomb!’ Hmmm… I wonder what Julie Taymor’s up to?