Blurbex

The murder of Matthew Shepard has yielded all manner of memorials, the most effective being Moisés Kaufman’s play The Laramie Project (see Mark Leib’s four-star review of the production currently playing Sarasota’s Backlot Theatre). But the most lasting memorial of all may come from, of all places, the U.S. Senate. According to Equality Florida, the Senate may vote as early as today on the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. EQFL is encouraging supporters of the bill to contact Senators Martinez and Nelson ASAP. Here’s a link to a suggested email.

For those who want to track the Senate bill’s progress (it is currently in the Judiciary Committee), here is the Thomas.gov link.

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In this week’s Creative Loafing, Dawn Morgan covers the impending royalty increase for webcasters. She contacted singer/ songwriter Jonatha Brooke for her take on the controversy, because Brooke had testified before the Copyright Royalty Board in favor of artists’ rights for fair payment. We didn’t get Brooke’s reply in time to include it with the story, but thought it added some important points to the argument — so here it is:

Hi Dawn,
This might be a bit longwinded, but I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be heard. I’ve gotten some nasty, ill-informed rants from some “fans” so I’d love to set the record straight. I’ve gone over some of the figures and facts with my manager to make sure I’m being accurate.

I think the fundamental issue here is that artists, creators, be fairly compensated for their work, and for the value that their work represents to a third party who is using that work to build a business. It’s like the guy who opens a corner store. He’s probably going to want to sell milk. So to do that, he has to go to the farmer or distributor and negotiate what he’ll pay for the milk. Simple as that. He can’t just open the store, take the milk, and decide at his whim later on, what, or even if, he pays for it. Or decide to pay the farmer only if his store succeeds.

As you know the current interim rates expired in 2006, and the Broadcasters requested a new CRB hearing to argue for lower rates. The Broadcast industry spent millions of dollars preparing and presenting their case, big and small, NPR, Commercial and Non-Commercial, they all had their day in court and hired economists and big shots to plead their case. The CRB announced their findings in March indicating an increase from the old interim rates. Of course the Broadcasters are totally up in arms as they were fighting for a very substantial roll back from what the old rates were. But the CRB came up with what they thought was fair. What, in this world costs less today than it did 5 years ago?

Again, here’s what is at the root of the issue. I think music has become totally undervalued. It is one of maybe 5 things people consistently say they can’t live without. But somehow there’s a disconnect when it comes to PAYING for it. All of these entrepreneurs want to build businesses where music is the essential element, but they don’t really want to have to compensate the people who create that element, or if they are forced to, they only want to pay what THEY want to pay. They say their business plan won’t work if they have to pay. Well maybe they need a better business plan.

And who are “they”? Take a second and go to this link on the Digital Media Association site. This is a list of who belongs to DIMA. DIMA is the trade organization that is funding and sponsoring the “savenetradio.com” campaign. 90% of all internet radio is controlled by multi-billion dollar corporations, and/or venture capitalists who are investing hundreds of millions of dollars so that they can make hundreds or even billions more. They are using scare tactics and trying to turn fans against artists, like me, who are willing to stand up for our rights. As a result I’ve gotten some incredibly nasty e-mails from people saying they’ll never buy my records again, and that I’m going to be responsible for putting internet radio out of business. Please!!

It’s hard to create and sustain a business, I know it first hand, but no one’s offering me the things I need for my business for free. I have certainly paid my way. Some businesses succeed, some don’t, simple as that.

If you really put it into context, it’s hard to believe the uproar. Using the proposed 2007 rates, and using the average listener formula that the “Broadcasters” themselves use (1 listener, listening to 15 songs per hour, 40 hours a week), the cost for that listener would be $0.66. Does anybody really think that is going to put AOL or Yahoo out of business? If Sirius can pay over 1/2 billion dollars for Howard Stern do people really think paying $0.66 a week for 40 hours of non-stop music is the thing that will put them out of business?

Of course there are the “small web-casters” (mom and pop, commercial and non-commercial), and NPR. And perhaps some of those entities still need more time and help to establish whether their business can survive. FYI, these entities represent less than 10% of the internet broadcasting business. But they have been offered substantial exceptions to allow them to continue to find their way. They can get a blanket license for $500 per year. That’s NOTHING! If their listener-ship exceeded a certain level they would have to pay higher rates, but one has to assume that at that point they have a business that is working. OK, some ventures might go out of business, probably will, but that happens in every enterprise. Not everyone will survive. 90 per cent of the artists at my level are struggling to survive.

I think internet radio is great, ESPECIALLY the small webcasters, commercial and non-commercial, NPR etc., but I also support fair compensation for the use of music. And, I think I would rather support and trust an impartial group of judges, the CRB, given all the relevant facts, to determine what “fair” should be, rather than relying on DIMA, Yahoo, AOL, XM or Sirius to decide what I should get paid. Isn’t that a little like asking the fox if there needs to be a guard on the chicken coop?

Jonatha

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In Tuesday’s NY Times: the dumbest piece of music writing ever. David Brooks, the booby who gave us Bobos In Paradise, is all adither about three of the summer’s biggest pop songs — Pink’s “U + Ur Hand,” Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend,” and  (gasp!) Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” — because, essentially, the sisters are doing it for themselves. Righteous anthems by women who don’t take shit and don’t care who knows it? Nah. The characters in the songs, muses Mr. Brooks, are “obviously a product of the cold-eyed age of divorce and hookups.” He pines for the days when “young people came a-calling as part of courtship” (yep, he really says that) and pities the singers for “posing” as “angry young women.” Here’s hoping all three of these “hard-boiled, foul-mouthed, fed-up” floozies get a gander at this fatuous column - then you’ll see some angry, Dave.

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Anyone else notice the ad in Sunday’s St. Petersburg Times from Ron Sanders, pastor of Largo’s Lighthouse Baptist Church? Don’t know how you could have missed it, especially if you were reading the coverage of the St. Pete Pride parade. In the Tampa edition, the ad ran on the story’s jump page; in St. Pete, directly across from it. The good reverend suggested in his missive that God sent Katrina to New Orleans to punish the city’s tolerance for gays, and that St. Pete is in for a similar disaster. Further, he suggested that gays are courting destruction: “There will come a day when they will answer to God for this… PAYDAY, SOMEDAY!” I have to assume that, if the Klan were to submit a racist threat to run on the same page as coverage of the next MLK parade, the Times would reject the submission. So can someone explain why this ad is any more acceptable?

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When something’s billed as an evening of “erotic poetry,” you’re pretty much assured it’s going to be either excruciating or a whole lot of fun. The third installment in Studio @620’s eroto-poetry series on Friday night proved to be the latter, big-time. The vibe among the sizable 30something-and-up crowd was sublimely convivial, as in “We’re up for anything but not taking this too seriously” — a mood fostered by suave master of ceremonies Peter Kagemaya, the St. Pete marketing whiz (and Creative Tampa Bay board president) who crafted the eclectic lineup, and by the benignly randy presence of 620 guru Bob Devin-Jones.
It’s hard to pick favorites among the performers; it’s also hard to avoid using words like “hard” without dipping into double-entendre territory, an inevitable destination for many who took the stage. Still, snickery lasciviousness was at a minimum, and, with a few exceptions, embarrassment was avoided (OK, maybe better not to combine bondage and spoken word unless your bondage assistants are really adept at the rope thing). Lots of the material was very funny and some of it was — whaddya know — actually erotic. Which was pretty impressive, considering the fact that several of the performers were putatively respectable civic types — a non-profit administrator here, a city official there.
Among the highlights:

• A TV-cooking-show parody (above) in which Devin-Jones and Katee Tully provided droll advice on how to serve “the perfect penis”
• The Ditch Flowers (recent CL cover boys) singing the lament “Kind, Kind, Kind,” which seemed to be about the difficulty of finding a woman who’s not going to want to beat you up
• The improvisatory wailings of Jeffrey James, who has the debauched-angel thing down pat (and the gorgeous falsetto to match), and partner-in-rhyme Pedro Jarquin
• Tampa Downtown Partnership’s Kimberly Finn exploring a housewifely fantasy (complete with imagined yellow dishwashing gloves) with sinuous Michelle Malott
• Mahaffey Theater Marketing Director Sabrina Anico (left) describing her boyfriend’s charms very convincingly
• A truly hilarious reading from The Big Book of Filth by Nicole Landry, whose sexy-professor persona was the perfect counterpart to the book’s encyclopedic litany of sexual slang
• A mesmerizing take on a Tori Amos song by Teresa Greenlees (whose way with a microphone would be wondrous even if you didn’t know her day job’s at Raymond James)
• The always entertaining Paul Wilborn (Tampa’s creative industries manager) and wife/ singing partner Eugenie Bondurant, who closed the show with some racy Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, a takeout from his recent gig at the Palladium. Wilborn introduced his part of the program with an invitation to the audience to imagine themselves at some fabulous ’20s penthouse party in NYC where interesting folks were doing naughty things in the corners and singing witty songs at the piano — which seemed, on reflection, to be a pretty good description of the party we’d been at all evening.

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Looking for an all-purpose hater? Get Reverend Fred! Notorious for trotting out his trademark “God Hates Fags” placards at gay funerals and military funerals, he’s now found a new target.

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Unfortunate  juxtaposition of the week:

Last night’s 11 p.m. ABC Action News led with a report on Florida wildfires, and — oh, no, they din’t — a piece on “Real Estate Hot Spots.”

Buy now - the values are smokin’!

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The consensus among the general public — at least among the general public in our office — is  that Spiderman 3, all $300 million of it, sucks. Two and a half hours of simpering Tobey, sniveling Kirsten, one good villain  and unremarkable FX. So what we want to know, if you agree with us or even if you don’t: How else could that $300 million have been spent? Feeding the hungry? Eradicating disease? Making 30 better movies than Spiderman 3? Your suggestions, please.

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Stonewall Democrats of Pinellas County is sponsoring a “Transgender Issues 101” panel discussion tonight – Monday, April 30 — at the Largo Public Library, in Jenkins Room B, 120 Central Park Drive, Largo, Florida, from 7-8:30 pm. Creative Loafing editor David Warner will moderate; his interview with the transgender former city manager of Largo, Steve Stanton, ran on CL’s cover Mar. 7.
The forum is designed to provide a better understanding of transgender issues. Panelists include Kathleen Farrell, Ph.D., a gender therapist who has served the trans community in the Tampa Bay area since 1985; Garth R. Goodman, Esq., a St. Petersburg-based lawyer whose practice concentrates on family and domestic relations; Daniel Greenwald, MD, founder of Bayshore Plastic Surgery; Rev. Abhi Janamanchi, senior minister of the Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater; and Ricki Liff, a transgender woman who, as outreach supervisor within the COPE program at WestCare, works on behalf of the transgender community.

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Ah, to be in Ybor again – I mean the fabled Ybor of crazy art parties and percolating creative ferment and much drinking and inspired carryings-on. That’s at least how I imagine it was – I came here too late to experience all that. Our offices used to be in the thick of it – also before my time – but I kind of think that after certain legendary parties the staffers who sometimes stayed very, very late at the office might have awoken to something like the vision that was walking down El Pasaje Thursday night: a giant head with white foam-rubber ringlets and a come-hither maw, beckoning, or rather bullhorning to a chorus line of six inflatable cigars. Gumby-esque phallic symbols moving in a quasi-unison fashion that was part Rockettes, part Keystone Kops, the cigars wiggled and wobbled their way to the giant smoker head and then stopped, dropped and rolled at her command — until six comely cigar girls wriggled free from their cigar-ments and sashayed off. It was all the work of seriously silly performance artist Pat Oleszsko, here for opening night of the 5th annual Ybor Festival of the Moving Image, the brainchild of the past (and present) master of Ybor fun and games, David Audet. It was both treat and bittersweet to have just seen Oleszko in Victoria Jorgensen’s film A Moving Feast, which recounted the days when such free-wheeling fantasias were a matter of course at the USF-spawned Chinsegut Film/Video Conference. Artists from that coterie, like Oleszko, were in the film and in the audience, recalling a time when artistic possibilities seemed limitless. Tonight, for a while, the whole scene made you wonder: Could it happen in Ybor again?

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Tampa activist Mel Underbakke, a longtime chronicler of the Sami Al-Arian case, sent this report about a recent little-noticed event in Washington, D.C. in observation of a sad milestone:
A diverse group of over 100 people gathered in front of the Justice Department in Washington on Friday April 13 — the day on which Dr. Sami Al-Arian should have been released — to demand justice. The press conference and rally was organized by the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, and led by its executive director, Imam Mahdi Bray. Speakers included Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition; Nativo Lopez, national president of the Mexican-American Political Association; Rev. Graylan Hagler of Plymouth United Church of Christ; and Sister Asma Hanif of the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations.
Lois Price spoke for Friends of Human Rights, a group that originated in Tampa and supported Al-Arian from the time he was arrested. She said that she had always been told that Washington was the heart of justice, but in the past four years she had seen so much injustice toward Sami Al-Arian that she no longer believed that it was true.
Nahla Al-Arian spoke about her two youngest children, whom she had left in Tampa with unanswered questions. She said they had asked her, “Why isn’t our government releasing our father? Is he going to stay in jail forever? Are we ever going to be able to be with him or is this an endless nightmare?”
Meanwhile, Dr. Al-Arian was in a jail in Alexandria, Virginia, with no release date in sight.
You may write to Sami Al-Arian at the following address: Dr. Sami Al-Arian, Alexandria Detention Center, 2001 Mill Road, Alexandria, VA 22314

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Can you compete with Casey Walsh? She’s an entrant in Creative Loafing’s Less-Is-More Swimsuit Competition. The contest is open to all — girl, boy, young, old and everything in between. Whether you wear bikini or board shorts, wetsuit or bathing bloomers, send your photo, with name and contact info, to swimsuit@creativeloafing.com. You’ll be featured in Creative Loafing’s Summer Guide on May 9, eligible to win Valuable Prizes — and you could be named The Best Bod on the Beach. Give Casey some competition!

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Are you one of those lucky people who can slip out to Adventure Island on a weekday afternoon? If so, join Creative Loafing staffers on Wed., April 25 at 1 p.m. for our Water Park Olympics. There’ll be lots of fun and games and friendly competition (water slide races, cannonball competitions, etc.) You can compete, judge, work the stopwatch, whatever you like. The Water Park Olympics will be part of Summer Guide 2007: The Summer Games issue, coming out May 9. We�