New York – HystericallyBored

2025-03-202025-03-23

Cuomo’s Franken-sense

With Eric Adams on the outs Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York State, has stepped in to run in a primary against Adams for mayor of New York City.

Adams is on the outs because he sucked up to Donald Trump in an obvious attempt to extract a shutdown of the investigation into charges of bribery against him which almost certainly would have resulted in conviction, according to insiders at the Attorney-General’s office of New York.

Well, a lot of people have stepped up to demand that Cuomo extract himself from the primary because, well, everybody knows he’s a sexual abuser.

Do they?

Here’s a summary of the claims made against Cuomo:

- Lindsay Boylan: described several years of “uncomfortable interactions”. He once “forcibly” kissed her and even compared her to a former girlfriend. Yes, that’s it. Cuomo’s former aide Melissa DeRosa claims Boylan never complained about it while working for Cuomo.
- Charlotte Bennett: Cuomo once asked her about her sex life.
- Anna Ruch: Cuomo placed a hand on her back and once asked if he could kiss her. Yes, that’s it.
- Ana Liss: Cuomo once called her “sweetheart” and kissed her hand. (I’m not making this up: this is Liss’ complaint. Check it out.)
- Karen Hinton: Cuomo once hugged her. “Unethically”. That’s it.
- Brittany Commisso: Cuomo once groped her breast. She told Cuomo that his actions might get them into trouble. Did she mean the two of them or the two of them. Either way, this is probably most serious charge levelled against Cuomo, if it is true.
- Kaitlin (mystery accuser): Cuomo made her feel uncomfortable, more than once.
- Jessica Bakeman: Cuomo went crazy here– he touched her arms, shoulders, back, and waist and once held her hand for some time. Again, I am not making this up.
- Alyssa McGrath: Cuomo “ogled” staff and commented on their appearance.
- Someone else said that Cuomo, noting a diet drink on the employee’s desk, asked if her goal was to look like a Playboy Bunny.

All of the allegations are evidence of a distasteful personality, immaturity, and poor judgment. They shouldn’t be dismissed, entirely, as complaints, but, at most, they deserve a very stern letter to the administrator.

None of these are serious. None of them really rise to the level of “sexual harassment”. None of these are sufficient to demand the resignation of the governor of a state. But most prominent Democrats– terrified, I think, of offending the feminist wing of the party– immediately piled on. Biden, Harris, Schumer, Pelosi, and dozens more. The party must be purified!

All the righteous denunciation of Cuomo by Democratic Party leaders and staffers for these minor offenses plays right into the hands of voters who kind of mostly shrug at this kind of behavior in the real world and don’t respect hard-core feminists for what they perceive to be hyper-sensitivity to minor issues. It’s plays into the hands of conservatives who describe liberal feminists as snowflakes for presenting themselves as suffering victims of slight offenses.

All of the allegations are in that fuzzy area of “inappropriate” and “uncomfortable”. None of them are really serious enough to justify the “cancellation” of Cuomo, though they do reveal that he was a compulsive flirt who obviously did hit on women in his orbit. He was probing, obviously, for a favorable response, to see if one of them might like to go further. Some of them (who aren’t part of the cabal) might have.

Why is he the target?

Because the Democrats have a habit of forming circular firing squads. They know they can’t take down the long list of womanizers in the Trump Administration so how do you rally the troops and proclaim your own virtue when the enemy won’t willingly capitulate? You attack someone in your own party, like Al Franken, or Eliot Spitzer, or Andrew Cuomo, who actually, on the whole, are on your side, but might also be standing in the way of an ambitious woman (like Kathy Hochul) who could use a leg up.

When Cuomo resigned, Kathy Hochul, as Lieutenant Governor, became Governor of New York. She barely won re-election in 2022. She has flip-flopped on some major issues (like a congestion tax for Manhattan) and seems afraid to commit to a position on others.

2011-11-122022-05-01

Godspell

Apparently, Godspell is being revived on Broadway this year. The title “Godspell”, by the way, is not meant to suggest some kind of spiritual magic: “Godspell” comes from the old English words for “good word”, which also evolved into the more familiar “gospel”.

There was “Jesus Christ Superstar” and there was “Godspell”. Superstar was incredibly polished, elaborate, and ambitious. It was sophisticated and complex. It was an opera. Godspell was like the country bumpkin cousin, all jocularity and clowning, but, underneath it all, as conventional and conformist as the church in the wild dell. Astonishingly, Christians still objected to it, because the cast looked like hippies, and because, after all, Jesus was portrayed as a clown.

Here’s an oddity. John-Michael Tebelak, a student at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote the musical while he was still in college, as a masters thesis. He died of a heart attack April 2, 1985 (age 35).

Jeffrey Mylett, cast member, died May 7th, 1986 (AIDS).

Lamar Alford, died April 4, 1991, age 47, cause of death not disclosed.

David Haskell, died of brain cancer, age 52, August 30th, 2000.

Lynne Thigpen, cast member: cerebral hemorrhage, age 54, March 12th, 2003.

Merrell Jackson (one of the apostles), February 23, 1991, age 39. His cause of death is conspicuously unmentioned anywhere on the web. He could sing, he could act, he could dance: let me guess.

[Sonia Manzano, another cast member, clearly implies it was AIDS.]

Two members of the celebrated Toronto production (May 1972-August 1973), also died young: Gerry Salsberg, June 22, 2010, in a car accident, and Nancy Dolman, natural causes, August 21, 2010. She was married to Martin Short.

Victor Garber, who played Jesus in Toronto, performed the same role in the movie.

Tebelak was both a believer and a hippie, and Godspell shows it. I’d always regarded it as charming at some level, but sloppy and unfocussed, which is another way of saying it shows its roots as an improvised piece that was taken in different directions at different stages of development. The deciding factor of its success seems to have been the involvement of Stephen Schwartz, though some seem to think the original score by Duane Bolick was more authentic, more rock’n’roll. We’ll never know– I’ve never heard of it being available anywhere. On the internet? Duane Bolick doesn’t seem to exist. He’s probably dead.

Here’s another oddity. The original, with the music by Duane Bolick, was a smash success among the small crowds that saw it at Carnegie Mellon, and when it first went to New York. So, if you have a smash success, you want to throw out the music, right, and rewrite it? I don’t know what to make of that. The template for this kind of makeover is Hollywood, which almost always cuts the heart and soul out of a story before castrating it into innocuous vehicle for Leonardo Di Caprio. But there was a more immediate template: James Rado and Gerome Ragni’s Hair. Hair (1968), like Godspell, seems to be about the rock’n’roll generation, and outwardly acknowledges rock music, but it is structurally, heart and soul, a Broadway musical. It should be: the composer, Canadian Galt MacDermot, had never encountered hippies before being contacted by Rado and Ragni to write the musical.

Many people, including cast members who played in both versions, concede that Stephen Schwartz is a genius, and that he made it sound more clever and polished and sophisticated. Like Barry Manilow and Bette Midler?

And here’s another oddity: Stephen Schwartz also came from Carnegie Mellon University. And yet another oddity: many of the original cast members, and the director, who happened to be John Michael Tebelak, made it all the way to the Broadway version. Tebelak was even involved in the movie script. Surely someone has written a Hollywood movie about this plot: sincere, visionary hippie writes a musical that rocks the world, transport him and his cast to Broadway, and wins a Tony.

Of course they didn’t really win a Tony, but Hollywood doesn’t care if it really happened or not. It understands perfectly that movie audiences want to be spoon fed harmless illusions.

The movie version of Godspell is set on the streets of New York, including an extraordinary sequence with cast members dancing and singing on window washer platforms and on the roof of the unfinished World Trade Center. It’s all a bit precious in some ways, but it’s also a courageous attempt to take the gospel out of the sterile Mayberry of Andy vintage, and it’s own quiet irrelevance, into a vital, crackling, youthful urban setting: God speaks to the twin towers! It remains startling in concept, which is outrageous considering that it is 2012, but it’s even more outrageous that Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann campaign for president as if it were the 1950’s, devout and puritanical, and ragingly hypocritical. God rules everything when it comes to prayer in schools and abstinence training, but his authority is severely limited when it comes to stewardship of the environment: drill baby, drill.

Tebelak’s Jesus, by the way, is a bit sanctimonious. When John the Baptist/Judas almost uses his name in vain, he slaps him, and the rest of the troupe are aghast when Judas almost slaps him back. It’s a weird scene. This is not a new age Jesus, sheep-like, tolerant, inclusive. It’s a strong moment in the play and I am amazed that the considerable forces of homogenization and pleasant superficial conformity didn’t filter it out.

At one point in Godspell, in the movie version, the cast is dancing on top of the roof of the unfinished World Trade Center. The shot was taken from a helicopter. It is remarkable.

Anything like that (along with other scenes on roofs and windows washer platforms) shot today would have been green screened, so enjoy it while you can. It’s pretty amazing.

The Original Cast album, the first recorded version of Godspell, was recorded in one day, and sounds like it.

There are copies of the original theatrical trailer for Godspell online. You will be shocked. The trailer seems to illuminate aspects of the movie. The cuts are several seconds long. There are no helicopters, explosions, or naked women. The purpose actually seems to be to give you some kind of idea of what kind of movie Godspell is.

Locking up Mr. Bojangles

We spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours and all our strength and energy to tell ourselves that we are good, we are kind, we are decent human beings. That’s television. That’s “I am Sam” or “It Could Happen to You” or “The Terminal”.

But the men and women who run for public office know they are more likely to be elected if we think they are heartless. Can he be tough enough? Can he make tough decisions? Can he protect American interests?

When is the last time you heard a candidate talk about compassion? When is the last time an elected official said we need to do more to help the disadvantaged?

Oh yes, we are kind and compassionate and forgiving– on the latest episode of “Friends” and at the Jerry Lewis Telethon. In real life, we take people like Darius McCollum and lock them up.

Darius McCollum, without a doubt, is a problem. He likes trains– subway trains. He likes public transit. He has a strange “thing” for public transit.

He has occasionally disguised himself as an employee of Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He has taken city buses for joy rides. He has tripped the emergency brakes on subway trains, and then arrived on the scene in uniform to handle the “emergency”. He’s kind of a strange guy.

Where would our society be if we allowed men like Darius McCollum to wander around undeterred? Well, probably about where we are. But no, you can’t have strange people joy-riding around in public transit buses and trains. So he was caught. He was sentenced, recently, to three and a half years in jail. He was released. He was on parole. He violated the parole by impersonating an MTA official again.

A psychiatrist has diagnosed Mr. McCollum as having what is called Asperger’s disease, sometimes known as “little professor’s disease”. The New York Times says it’s like autism. But the judge didn’t think much of the psychiatrist and sentenced Mr. McCollum to the three and a half years in jail. This is an American jail. This is hell on earth, especially for a man with a disability.

Believe it or not, Mr. McCollum is married. He met his wife in a subway station. She married him while he was serving his prison sentence. [added 2011-02] I can only imagine.