For a while my biggest concern, after paying for Ben's college and funding retirement accounts, was just getting through Austin's tangle of traffic to arrive on time for dress rehearsal photo sessions over at the theater. I'm sure other things bothered me but nothing seemed existential and none rose to the level of.... worry.
Now we have a mentally damaged, wannabe dictator trying to take over our country, and we also have the pandemic of a generation. Oh, and our infrastructure is falling apart... and we're in the middle of a profound recession. Did I miss anything?
As recently as last year we could distract ourselves from the horror of the politics with joyful and renewing episodes of live theater, live music, good dinners with family and friends, fun travel and a general sense that the machinations of the far right in Washington would be like a pendulum and voters would swing back toward the middle. Or maybe just a bit more to the left than middle (progress.). We were still shopping, celebrating life's milestones and enjoying our cultural lives.
Now the theaters are shuttered. Restaurants are a faint nostalgic nod to the richness of dining in the past, and our friends join us at a distance in lawn chairs set in warm and humid backyards where we and they are relentlessly attacked by mosquitos. And, in the suburbs, the relentless roar of leaf blowers wielded compulsively and relentlessly by worried fathers now "working" from home.
Most of my wealthier friends are already back at work. There's zero unemployment among millionaires. No, that burden (unemployment) falls to the least wealthy and those who are the least reinforced against disaster. Some families take their private planes to vacation in Aspen and Telluride while others pack into ancient minivans to wait in line and pick up groceries at the food banks.
The simple things that made life less mean seem to have vanished. I'm working on producing video for a fundraiser but I've started to wonder about the morality of putting off, potentially, the ultimate demise of entertainment non-profits, which return uneven dividends to the community as a whole. versus putting that time and money to use for projects that deliver more directly and to the most needy.
Yes, a popular live theater provides work for artists, dancers, lighting engineers, sound designers, costumers and make-up people. A ballet provides work for dancers, teachers, and other niche professionals. But with single ticket prices for shows averaging close to $75 who in our community benefits from all these efforts other than those wealthy enough to afford $250-$500 date nights?
The artists certainly aren't doing much more than running in place, financially. Most have been furloughed or laid off weeks or months ago. The fundraising work now seems to be aimed at sustaining just a core suite of above the line employees with the goal of outlasting the viral pandemic and the conjoined great (new) recession. Even if it lasts years...
Would all the work be better leveraged doing more direct projects aimed at helping the neediest? It's a hard
question.
On our shoots we're taking pains to pretend (other than wearing face masks) that everything is fine, no corners need be cut, and everything will work out great if we just produce good art. But... are we already beyond the point where a dogged hold on what we did in the past, and what worked in the past, is doing anyone any good? Are we working for a brighter future or just putting off the inevitable closures and waiting to see how theater, art, dance, etc. will be re-invented in a different time and different economic space?
I don't have any of the answers. I can't predict the future. I like to remember what a writer in one of the old, established quasi-intellectual magazines wrote just after the current president's surprising and very suspicious election. He said (and I paraphrase): This is not the successful ascendency of a mean, nasty and selfish new order, rather it is the last gasp and the last hurrah of certain groups of old, rich men clawing to the bitter end to hold on to their power. The future belongs to a new and far more inclusive generation. One that, we hope, will disengage money from political influence and try to do right by everyone instead of a selfish and evil few. A new generation which will outlast the oligarchies of the past and shine brightly in the future.
I know that few here like it when I write about politics but it's hard not to right now. It's hard to be keenly interested in the latest cameras and lights when a cursory walk through town shows the reality of hundreds or thousands more homeless.
I was surprised and depressed when I drove to a job in far north Austin a couple weeks ago. We exited the main highway and drove on the access road, heading to the wide boulevard where our client headquarters. Usually, as in most keenly affluent societies, the roads are free of litter, clutter and trash and there is the appearance of order and purpose. At a stop light I looked over to the underpass and was shocked to see a large tent city of homeless people. A city garbage truck was making a stop to empty their dumpster --- which was a clue that this assemblage of desperate people had been there for weeks, not days.
As I drove home in the evening I noticed more and more small clusters of poverty along the route. The next morning, when I drove to the theater I went by the main park in the center of town and saw a tent in the middle of the big soccer fields. With clutter and trash around it. When I came back by an hour or two later the tent was gone but the city had erected a temporary fence around the plot of land, complete with caution tape outlining the area. Ostensibly to prevent the transmission of disease...
These are things I have NEVER seen in Austin before. Not in the decades I've lived here. To settle in at the desk and write about the wonders of yet another tripod or the almost magical qualities of some new computer peripheral seems inappropriate for our time; especially if by studied exclusion I omit my own feelings about the current pain and mental suffering people are living with. It seems disingenuous to pretend that both political parties are equally responsible when the evidence is so obvious. It seems the height of sociopathy to rationalize away the damage being done to us, to our culture and to our fellow citizens, with the idea that since we are protected by wealth or circumstances so we get a pass. Or because we appreciate and support opera that we're doing our part...
Photography sucks right now because everyone is trying so hard to pretend that everything is fine. Just get that cute model to take off her face mask and smile and we'll keep posting to Instagram.
It's beginning to sink in, at least to me, that this is an unnatural and dangerous time for our society and it won't be fixed by getting the lights back on in the venues that mostly serve only wealthy patrons. Not when most of the people providing the entertainment can hardly keep the lights on. In fact, I'm a bit ashamed to have been buying gear instead of sending the same money to front line charities.
Just a few thoughts this morning. Sorry if they don't match whatever alternate reality you've created for your own consciousness. Just go ahead and unfollow if this pisses you off.
Or, donate to charities that directly help families and children survive.
There will be brighter days ahead but bring your rough weather gear because we may have to get through a vicious storm or two to get there.
