Jefe's House

Take that, commerce.  I love a theatre company that practices what it preaches, and the wonderful folks at The Collective have done it again.  I first became aware of this creative, inventive, smart, political, funny, driven, earnest bundle of talent a few years ago when I met member Lisa Kicielinski at Naked Angels’ tuesdays@nine reading series; since that time they’ve done two in-house readings of my works-in-progress UFOs Over Brooklyn and The Great Age as a personal favor to help me out in my creative process, and allowed my award-winning short film Lady in a Box to ride their coattails into the Global Awareness Project’s Strand Film Festival shown on the IMAX screen in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Their stage productions  usually have brief runs at this point, like bright bottle rockets going off in New York’s ocean of indie theatre while they continue to get their sea legs. If you’re having trouble navigating that vast sea, the Collective are a terrific port in the storm.

They often write and produce their own works in film and theatre, and sometimes produce modern classics by others like this Frank MGuiness play up there on the left.  There will only be 12 performances of this play, scattered throughout the summer, but here’s the truly unorthodox part that brings a tear to my jaundiced eye:  half of the tickets for each show will be given away. 

 ”In a struggling economy, art is both undervalued and underfunded,” said Collective member Kevin Kane.  “We want to make quality professional theater available to all. We want to have no empty seats.  To the struggling student, to the theater lover who has been priced out and to the first timer who can’t afford to fall in love, we say that we would rather perform for you for free than to have one empty seat in the house.”

Playwright McGuiness has allowed the group a special arrangement to produce his play. You can take part in the campaign by

• BUYING an $18.00 ticket and seeing the show. Simple enough.  Go here to purchase:  Smartixx

and/or

• SENDING A DESERVING STRANGER to see the show by DONATING a tax deductible $18.00. Follow the instructions for how to donate here: NO EMPTY SEATS

or

• SEEING IT FOR FREE WITHOUT BUYING ANYTHING if you cannot afford a ticket.  The work in this play has merit, this play’s message is relevant, resonant and important.  Don’t miss it. Order a free ticket and pay nothing for it.  Smartixx

This is high level theater at low level prices.  The play opens one week from today, next Thursday, June 17th.

Help them kick it off the right way by buying one ticket for yourself and one ticket for a stranger.

BP Buys Google and Yahoo Search Words to Keep People Away From Real News on Gulf Oil Spill Disaster
by Maryann Tobin, reposted from examiner.com

“In their most tenacious effort to control the ‘spin’ on the worst oil spill disaster in the history, BP has purchased top internet search engine words so they can re-direct people away from real news on the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

“BP spokesman Toby Odone confirmed to ABC News that the oil giant had in fact bought internet search terms. So now when someone searches the words ‘oil spill’,  on the internet, the top link will re-direct  them to BP’s official company website.”   CONT’D

[In fairness that examiner.com headline does seem a little alarmist to me.  It's indeed a lame and desperate move from BP but the BP link is clearly marked on Google as a Sponsored Link in a different colored field to offset it, the same as when I google "riding crop" or "cotton candy machine" and tons of sponsored links pop up before the real links.]

[Turns out the same thing happens on Yahoo, too.   The BP-sponsored links are clearly marked as Sponsored Results in a separate shaded area. In fact one of the main stories right now from the AP on Yahoo's front page is about how BP's been lying about the amount of oil leakage, so if BP's paying Yahoo to spin the news then it should demand a refund because Yahoo's not delivering the goods.  In fact, this whole Examiner piece turns out to be a silly load of crap, a non-story.  How embarrassing. I can't believe I took the bait. I guess examiner.com took a page from Fox News' playbook.

Sorry to have wasted your time, readers.]