Thursday, August 20, 2009

 

That's Entertainment...

I grew up in Chicago. My father worked for the old Chicago Daily News, which was bought by the Chicago Sun-Times. He had job security, and worked for both newspapers selling advertising space. All employees got a free paper. My father brought home the Daily News and Sun-Times every day. I learned to read by reading the newspaper. My first job was delivering newspapers. One could say I have printer's ink in my veins.

In the late 70s I began working in theater, and my first good job was working on The Goodman Theater's first production of "A Christmas Carol." Del Close was the ghost of Christmas present. We hit it off and he invited me to participate in his workshop at The Second City, and I was eventually hired by The Second City, first as a bartender.

Not long after my hiring my bosses learned that I had stage management experience and had a good feel for improvisation, and I was promoted to being tour manager of the National Touring Company of The Second City. Not long after that, The Second City opened the back room theater, The Second City e.t.c., and I became the stage manager of the founding resident company of the e.t.c. space. We wrote original shows, satirizing current events and pop culture. I began to read four newspapers per day, constantly searching for items that we could make fun of.

Chicago politics is notorious. I thought things couldn't get any better, being paid to read the newspaper and make fun of people and events in the paper. National news outlets constantly say Chicago politics is the dirtiest in the country, and no city or state could outdo our local politicos. Not true.

I have been in New York City for nine years now, and I have come to believe that New York politics is at least as dirty and pathetic as Chicago politics. This year has been a goldmine of stuff to make fun of. My chief difficulty in coming up with fodder for a daily piece is choosing what to write about. There's no lack of material.

Today the mayoral race has caught my attention. It seems that William Thompson, currently the city's comptroller and a mayoral candidate, has hired a pretty large number of people to manage the city's various pension funds. It seems that these funds have not been performing all that well. Other cities' pension funds are dong much better, with a smaller number of paid money managers involved. Mayor Bloomberg pointed this out, along with the previous stated fact that Mr. Thompson has hired a number of people to do this for him, and that they are being paid quite well.

I'm not exactly going out on a limb when I state that New York City is one of the financial centers of the world. It would follow that it shouldn't be too difficult to find someone skilled at money managing who could oversee the pension funds and see to it that they grow. I believe that such a money manager would be the city's comptroller. OH YEAH! William Thompson IS the city's comptroller! And so it appears that Mr. Thompson has hired a number of people to do his job, and that they pretty much suck at it.

Mr. Thompson defended himself by stating that Mayor Bloomberg suggested hiring most of these people, and that if the pensions are underperforming, Mr. Bloomberg is as much at fault, if not more, than he (Mr. Thompson) is.

Let me put this in plain English. Mr. Thompson has basically said "If I suck, it's because I took your advice!"

It won't be long before the Mayoral debates take place. A few more weeks of this penetrating high level discourse will likely degenerate to "I know you are but what am I?" Along with some exchanges that begin "I'm rubber, you're glue..."

Election day is still more than two months away. There's plenty of time for things to get worse, funnier and more pathetic. I can't wait.
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