Making a Killing

So I just finished touring with a show, MAKING A KILLING. Another laugh-filled musical comedy from the San Francisco Mime Troupe -- this time about government propaganda, self-censoring reporters, the ongoing scam that has always been the rebuilding of Iraq, cancer in epidemic proportions caused by our uranium tipped bombs and bullets, and the general fucked-uped-ness of having a gaggle of soulless plutocrats put corporate profits before humanity. Add to that the concept of a frightened and stupefied citizenry who have traded class conscienceness for lottery tickets, civil rights for sham elections, and who have taken any real possibility of overthrowing the freedom crushing Dictatorial Dickheads and exchanged it for some high definition masturbatory iPhone dreams - and you have musical theatre at it's finest!

(Three things: First - If you are one of the Dickheads, and you take offense at my characterizing you as an parasite on Freedom, a maggot feeding off our still breathing body politic, a Capitalist bloodworms sucking away our hard-earned public wealth to fatten your own useless ass, good! At least you're paying attention.

Second - I really want an iPhone. Remember friends- KwanzHanuaChristmaYuleadan is just around the corner!)

Back to my point.

So, we took our show about corporate government and war profiteering all over California...

Now at this point some large browed fellow in a t-shirt that proudly proclaims "I didn't evolve -- God made me like this" usually stabs his hind leg into the air and shouts:

"Aren't you just preaching to the choir?"

Sit down there, Child of the Corn.

Nobody preaches to the choir -- you preach to the congregation! Maybe if you actually went to church instead of just using it as a bat to beat the less fortunate you'd know that.

"But - "

And the congregation is comprised of whoever shows up! Right, Left, or Center, you can only talk to the people who listen. That's why the mime troupe does free theater, to get the broadest possible audience. Give people a good song and dance, and you can tell them stuff they don't want to hear - and you usually can get away before they realize what you were saying and shoot you.

And California is a diverse State! Some parts of this place make Kansas look like Cape Cod. And in some towns there are more Confederate flags than at the 142th Annual Cousin Marrying Convention.

But, again, I digress.

We were doing the show in Chico, California. For those who don't know, Chico is not exactly a hotbed of Leftists. Not even a lukewarm bed. But last year we did a show about the dangers of impending Theocratic Fascism, and it went over very well. (Though the plot dealt with the threat of dogma on both the Left and Right one of my favorite lines was the oft repeated "God can kiss my Black heiney!" Hilarious!) Anyway, GODFELLAS was a big hit in Chico. We even got this very nice review from a truckers magazine - take that stereotypers!

So we decided to come back with our newest show. But this year the audience was smaller than we expected. We were used to playing for big crowds, even in places like Fresno and Sacramento, so this was a surprise when we had such a small showing.

Was this a sign that, perhaps, our show was not, to use a colloquialism of my people "all that?" Were we suddenly less than "jiggy?" Was our message of wrestling our Democratic Republic back from our would-be feudal overlords, hounding them screaming naked into the night, while righteously putting the terror of an angry Citizenry into the withered hearts of our fecally-minded elected employees...was this not as "bootylishess" as we had thought?

Nope. Turns out it was just Fear.

Not the fear you may be thinking of right now. Two differences:

A: Mine was Capitalized!

B: You may be thinking I'm going to say something pompous like fear of the truth - as if I would do that! Sure, I wrote the show, but If there's one thing I am, it's modest. That's what everyone, in one of what I'm sure are numerous meetings behind my back about my many wonderful traits, puts at the top of a long, long, long list.

No, this Fear was very specific. Turned out people were not afraid to see the show... they were afraid to be seen at the show.

Several people who saw the show last year had told us they couldn't be seen at this year's production out of Fear that it would impact their businesses, and their opportunities. "Saw you at that show that said the vice president doesn't really care about the troops... so I'll be picketing your t-shirt store!" "I'd hire you, but you hate America!"

Sad, isn't it? This is what our citizens have been reduced to. Afraid to be seen at a show that questions this administration and the corporatocracy, fearful the people they know will turn against them for being exposed to something besides Fox News, scared their neighbors will see them as traitors for watching a play about governmental corruption.

This is the real effect of six years of the Patriot Act, and seven years of paranoid ineptitude at the highest levels. Fear of your fellow citizen. Fear of being identified as less than mindlessly loyal, fear of being identified by your friends as an Enemy of the State, a traitor, because you question authority. By even listening to someone point out the lies and transgressions of those who are undermining the very Constitution they swore to uphold you are somehow the renegade, and have changed from one of "us" to one of "them."

Centuries of struggling for civil rights, and we live in a country where people are scared to see a mime troupe.

Ladies and gentlemen, the terrorists have won.

Comments

[Esprit]

Michael and the San Francisco Mime Troup are one of the few theater groups in the country who consistently provide a watermark for vigilence. The time has come once again for all Americans who really care about preserving the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, to get off their couches and get in the streets to let this corrupt regime know that they will no longer patronize their corporate puppet masters, their wars-for-profit, and their deconstruction of our country; and that come election time, their puppets, on both sides of the aisle, shall feel the will of the people and not that of the lobby. Barring that, at the very least, we must do whatever we can to preserve and secure the right of the Mime Troup, and any other of their integrity and forthrightness---and indeed righteousness, to continue on the path of enlightening the general voting public, and making them laugh along the way with extraordinary talent. Keep up the good good work, Michaelet al. Fight the Orwellians wherever the emerge!

[omyword]

"Sit down there, Child of the Corn."

Brilliant. I laughed until I was bootylishess no more.

I love you Michael Gene. Just remember that.

[FogBelter]

Mr Sullivan, it is a tragedy what has become of our country. Have we returned to the days of the Salem Witch Trials? We slink in the shadows and log our neighbor's actions for future persecution? Aren't their any Americans living in the United States anymore?

Fearful of alternative ideas in the land of the free and the home of the brave? What a tremendous betrayal to all of the previous generations of Americans who sacrificed, toiled and died for what this current ignorant crop of Americans are so enthusatically throwing away.

Thank you, Mr. Sullivan, and also the San Francisco Mime Troupe for trying to keep the Spirits of those who understand our Nation's plight up, and for continuing to throw a life preserver of humorous, musical enlightenment to the redeemable American Patriots who may otherwise drown.

[Deidroni]

What a sad state of affairs!!!

If people are scared in "blue" California, people must be scared into total obedience in the Bible Belt.

Keep up the good work with your theater company. Our country needs artists like you more than ever, especially when Bush is joking about WWWIII.

[OhgReaTone]

The evidence is in. War profiteering is overwhelming our budget - our ability to pay for it. And worse - some of the profiteers are thugs and murderers - like Blackwater. Who are these guys - that company was going bankrupt five years ago - now they are seeking entry into the Fortune 500
Ohg
http://thefireside.wordpress.com/2007/10/02/blackwater-responsible-killers/

[hopeless277]

By 'terrorists' I assume you mean the Republicans?

[MichaelGeneSullivan]

As much as I'd like to just say the Republicans, I can't. Yes, I think that organization stands for all the corruption, greed, and vindictiveness that hyper Capitalism and free market piracy requires, but in my recent travels I've met a few Republicans who hate this administration, too. I think they are Republicans for the free ties.

No, it's more than one Party. It's the Democrats who voted for oppression so they wouldn't look weak on terror. It's the corporations that stoke the fires of Fear while sitting back to reap the profits. It's the media whipping people into a terrified frenzy for ratings, and at the behest of their owners. And it is the Citizenry who, when they actually vote, choose fear-mongering corporate buttboys who then stampede us into an Orwellian nightmare so they can get a bigger post-public office paycheck.

But I'm not hopeless. For every Chico there's a Fresno - another Conservative bastion, but where the crowd was large, and seemed to drink in the show like water in the desert. They left ready to take on the bastards. And hopefully the people in Chico did get to see the sky not fall in when we did the show.

We have to beat them because we have no choice. The only question is: what are we willing to do to win?